2008 Deca IRON Triathlon: Day 11 post 1

Hello to all:

Sorry for the delay

I have only limited access to one computer to add to this blog.

The day so far has been productive for 2 more athletes.

Hilberto Villa of Mexico finished today looking great in a time of 241:07:23

at 11:24 this morning.

Slowing down to a crawl to await his crew to bring him his country flag to cross in a celebratory way.

Greeted by all and his crew he was very happy to finish.

After finishing it is becoming a familiar site to now have all the athletes bandages removed upon completing the Deca. This can be a very disturbing site

We also had Neil Kapoor from England with a finishing time of 242:24:30 a 6th place finish was accompanied by his girlfriend Clare Read. While approaching the finish line waving the British Flag, I arranged to play a tune for him as he was coming up th e final stretch. I was told that he is a Metallica fan, so it was appropriate to crank the stereo and play Ride The Lightning as he approached the finish ,which I here will be something he will long remember helped complete a great celebration on his 2008 Deca Iron finish.

Neil was also greeted by his friend and crew member Paul Castaldo from England.

In other news it is becoming a familiar site to see athletes in the Medical tent having very painful looking blisters and sores attended to.

Examples of this are Kari Martens of Sweden and 2008 Deca winner Marcel Heinig of Germany were both be taken care of today. Pictures will follow on next blog.

One huge piece of news at H.Q. is that some of us arranged to have P I Z Z A delivered for a change from RICE RICE RICE and more rice.

Ben what great at organizing it to make it a great change for those who participated.

And yes I believe it was delivered by motorcycle with and metal oven on the rear.

NOTE:

For some of the fans it is a rude awakening to watch the later ends of an Deca athletes finishing laps .

There is no comparioson to an Ironman,Double etc.

With no disrespect to the athletes is has been compared to the cliche´watching paint dry during the run portion.42 km is a long ways and is impossible to run constantky through this part of the event. These athletes are giving out every last bit of energy to enable them to put 1 foot in front of the other, while fighting terrific pain due to blisters, swealing .Most athletes are pushing their performances to 17 hours a day and in most cases 1 to 2 hours of sleep then back at it for 3-4 hours or more.

The determination of all while being present at my first Deca Ironman is certainly an eye opener, and to witness first hand the dertermination of all athletes.

Todays temperature was the hottest so far. I believe we reached a high of 28 degrees.

Till tomorrow

Alan Barry

On Behalf of Steve Kirby.

Marcel Heinig winner of this years 2008 Deca

Ironman , Monterrey Mexico, 206:29:02

Kari Martens 2nd place finisher with a time of 212:06:04 with wife Petra and son Oliuer. after completion of Deca . Note wrapped feet in nice comfortable sandals.

I must say I had a look at Kari's feet and they looked damn sore.