{"id":118,"date":"2022-10-06T12:05:04","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T11:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/?p=118"},"modified":"2023-08-16T09:31:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T08:31:00","slug":"blog-why-is-the-kona-ironman-world-champs-so-hard-for-the-pros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/2022\/10\/06\/blog-why-is-the-kona-ironman-world-champs-so-hard-for-the-pros\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog: Why is the Kona IronMan World Champs so hard for the pros?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"341\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/files\/2022\/10\/IRONMAN-PIC.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-119\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/files\/2022\/10\/IRONMAN-PIC.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/files\/2022\/10\/IRONMAN-PIC-300x100.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/files\/2022\/10\/IRONMAN-PIC-768x256.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Hawaii is the birth place of the IronMan triathlon where in 1978 Judy and John Collins challenged individuals to swim bike and run 140.6 miles and joked they would call the winner an \u201cIron man\u201d. The event now sees 1000s of athletes test themselves in IronMan races all over the globe, including myself. But Kona, home to the Ironman World Championships which begins today (6<sup>th<\/sup> October 2022), holds something special for all triathletes. The history of the race is full of epic tails of survival (see the story of Julie Moss or Sian Welsh &amp; Wendy Ingraham) and infamous battles such as the Iron War (between Dave Scott and Mark Allen). The weather is generally consistent and therefore predictable in Kona in October: sunny, windy and humid. However, while the air temperatures are generally around 30 <sup>o<\/sup>C which are not necessarily remarkable, it is the humidity \u201cswamp-like\u201d conditions that really challenge athlete\u2019s thermoregulatory capacity when competing in the Ironman World Championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/blog-why-is-the-kona-ironman-world-champs-so-hard-for-the-pros\/\">So why is Kona so hard? Read more here &#8230;&#8230;..<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Written by Owen Jeffries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hawaii is the birth place of the IronMan triathlon where in 1978 Judy and John Collins challenged individuals to swim bike and run 140.6 miles and joked they would call the winner an \u201cIron man\u201d. The event now sees 1000s of athletes test themselves in IronMan races all over the globe, including myself. But Kona, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/2022\/10\/06\/blog-why-is-the-kona-ironman-world-champs-so-hard-for-the-pros\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Blog: Why is the Kona IronMan World Champs so hard for the pros?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7674,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7674"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/extremeenvironments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}