Lance swim 49 for 2.4 miles.. (Page 2)

Good article here about it.

"So exactly how fast does Armstrong hope to run a marathon at the end of an Ironman? According to Salazar, Armstrong has a pretty exact number in mind.

“He’s going into this seriously,” he said. “The way he talked about it, he said, ‘You need to be able to get me to run 2:30 when I’m fresh. If I can do that, I can run 2:50-2:55 [in an Ironman], and if I can do that, I’ll win.’”"

A 2:46 mary with minimal training is pretty awesome.  It'll be cool watching the pre-Kona hype on him build.

He's not training just to train. He's training to race and compete against elite triathletes. He has also joked a couple times about racing at Kona, but I think he was only half-joking.

I can't imagine that he doesn't get into Kona whenever he wants, whether it's this year or next year. He is going to bring a ton of exposure to the sport in general and to Kona specifically. It's not like some other celebrity who would only be going there just to finish. Lance would certainly be competitive and now it's possible that he could even be among the leaders.

As for his running, he has serious potential there. At Competitor Radio, Alberto Salazar said that Lance did almost no training for his 2:46 marathon a few years ago. While Lance publicly stated that he had done long runs of up to 16 miles, Salazar said that Lance told him that his longest run was really only about 10 miles before that marathon. That's probably why he developed the stress fracture.

Now he's doing serious run training, which should improve his run time significantly. Apparently Lance thinks that if he can get his open marathon time down to 2:30, then he can run 2:50-2:55 in an Ironman. And if he does that, Lance thinks he can win. Someone who is "retired" from serious competition wouldn't be asking a former marathon champion about how to get his marathon time down to 2:30 and talk about his plans to win an Ironman race.

Salazar spoke about this just last month. This was after Lance's knee injury that caused him to pull out of the New Zealand triathlon this winter. Sounds like that injury hasn't derailed Lance's ambitious in triathlon.

It's pretty clear that Lance will make a serious run at winning at Kona very soon. While it's hard to say whether he can really be competitive with the very top athletes, it's not wise to count him out completely at this point. In addition, he will be facing one less competitor, at least for this year. Chris McCormack has announced that he will not defend his title at Kona this year. Instead, he is switching his focus to the Olympic distance in an attempt to qualify for the Australian triathlon team. He really wants to win an Olympic medal in London in 2012. So that means Olympic tris for him this year and next year. It's unclear whether he would race at Kona in 2012, but if he's focusing on Olympic tris between now and August 2012, I don't know if he would be able to switch gears and really prepare for the 2012 Kona race.

So that gives Lance one less major competitor to worry about. No matter how it goes, Lance will definitely make Kona even more interesting. And he'll bring in a lot of new spectators.

A seven time Tour winner, who can swim 50ish and run a 2:46 marathon on minimal training and a couple of kilos over race weight,  Hell, he might finish an Ironman and have a top 10 bike split.

THis isn't (IMHO) like a cyclist coming over to tris to try to dominate (like...  who was that?)  Lance has a solid tri background.  I don't think it would diminish anyone's accomplishments.  If anyone thinks it's easy to run 6's off the bike in an IM because "Lance can do it" they're welcome to try 

So have they decided yet? 

I dont know. Cant say Im buying that argument. Yes, everyone knows who Lance Armstrong is, but how many people actually care outside of the few weeks that the TdF is broadcast? Not many.

I think people seem to forget that while he may be a big name in our s/b/r world, hes just not on the radar for the rest of the world. People are going to see a little blurb on espn or sports illustrated and think nothing more of it.

If I read the qualification stuff correctly, he is considered a "pro" because he has a pro cycling license.  That means he has to QUALIFY as a pro and that sounds darn complicated.  I can't imagine he has his sights on Kona this year.  He would have to do at least four races, one of them an IM to even have a CHANCE and if only one is an IM he'd have to place high.

Of course, I think he could do any race as a AG'er and qualify as an AG'er and race as an AG'er.  I think to race as a pro he has to qualify as a pro.  At least he doesn't have to jump through the hoops to BECOME a pro.

and he will only start 10 minutes behind...

u never know

We might be seeing an AG showdown between bryanCD and LA at Kona 2012... 

...And utterly freakish genetic gifts underlying all his training.  I think that gets overlooked in these discussions sometimes, in some sort of misplaced attempt to downgrade Lance's potential in a return to tri.  We talk about "genetics" frequently here and LA is a good example of someone who has been shown over the years in testing to be ridiculously well adapted to endurance racing (as, f'rinstance, here and here)...that absolutely translates beyond the bike.

The same people that think the IM cutoff shouldn't be 17 hours becaue it diminishes their 12 hour finish? 

Oh the drama!

not to burst your bubble but that was exactly what Carmichael said about a year ago

I think it would be more advantageous for lance to race at a place like CDL or St George where the bike course is tougher with milder climate.

Anybody agree?

lol. really?

thats like claiming the pitt pirates wont win the world series

He will push the bike leg, the other pros know that.  Maybe this is what Ironman needed to push their times faster (reference to the "why aren't ironman times getting faster" thread in the iron distance forum)?