Trilogue

Hey, you think you are tough? Nahh...How about Dean Karnazes...he's tough. And a good soul. After checking out that third party description of his exploits, you might enjoy these first person accounts of some of his solo attempts at The Providian Relay to raise awareness for Organ Donation: 1995, 2002, 2003.

Rick Warner makes some insightful comments related to the recent mountain lion attack on mountain bikers in Orange County, CA.

Rant - at IM Florida, 12.5 percent of the field got a penalty. But, fully 20% (20 of 100) of the Hawaii Qualifiers got penalties. That is ridiculous. Firstly you should not be able to claim a slot if you got penalized (especially twice), but shy of that strict standard, 4:00 is obviously not enough of a deterrent. On the off chance it was a bad call, and you are really that fast, you'll qualify somewhere else another time. I'll guarantee you a large number of those 20 cheating qualifiers sucked huge wheel right up until they got nailed, which could have been hours of unfair advantage and tens of minutes of time benefit, then cleaned it up a bit from there to avoid the 8 minute second penalty or a DQ. If you are going to give an inconsequential time penalty for the first call, the second call should be the DQ as has been done at some races including Kona. Alternatively, give 10 minutes for the first call and 20 for the second - that should deter the elite cheaters and isn't really of any consequence for the "just want to finish" group should they get caught out due to lack of knowledge or skill (not cheating skill - riding clean skill). Of course this presumes marshals who know what they are doing, which was true of IMFL but not of IMC where I gather some fundamentally incorrect calls were made due to poorly educated officials, or more properly the lack of vetting of calls by a knowledgeable head ref (maybe exacerbated by the use of a sin bin which logistically prevented evaluation and discard of bad calls).