The 31-year-old triathlete from Britain had a lead of about 5 minutes when her tire went flat near the 90-mile (145-kilometer) mark of the 112-mile (180-kilometer) bicycle ride. Air canisters she carried didn’t work, she said, but Rebekah Keat of Australia came to the rescue.

Keat stopped, gave Wellington another canister, and the defending champion was on her way again. It cost her about 10 minutes and the lead, which she quickly regained and held throughout the marathon run.

“Without it, I wouldn’t have finished or would have finished way back with the age-groupers,” she said.

Her winning time Saturday was 9 hours, 6 minutes, 23 seconds. Yvonne Van Vlerken of Austria was second in 9:21:20.

Craig Alexander of Australia came from behind to win the men’s title in 8:17:45.

The 35-year-old from Sydney was 11th at the end of the bike ride, but ran a strong marathon to take the lead shortly after the (29-kilometer) mark.

He said he drew on the support from former champions Dave Scott, Mark Allen and Scott Tinley, who encouraged him from the sidelines along the way.

“It was a thrill to see those guys out there,” said Alexander, second last year in his first Hawaii Ironman attempt.

The weather was much worse than last year, with the athletes having to deal with choppy seas in the 2.4-mile (3.9-kilometer) ocean swim, gusty crosswind on the bike and heat from the sunduring both the bike and the run.

“It was a hard race,” Alexander said. “But I was prepared for a hard day and had trained for wind.”

Olds woke up this morning, her 28th birthday, to find her specially built, high-performance racing bicycle and bag of gear had been stolen from her car, which was parked in her parents’ driveway in Gilroy. Thieves made off with everything Olds needed to compete in this weekend’s USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships at a velodrome in Southern California.

“This is a huge setback,” said Olds, who lives in Scotts Valley and coaches the college club team at Stanford. “You’ve done everything to prepare for this point, for peaking at this point. The mental training is part of that. Everything in the bag I use every time I go to the track to race.”

After enjoying a birthday dinner with her parents on Monday night, Olds woke up this morning to grind out her last, important training session before the national championships. Instead, she found her bike and gear had been stolen. Olds said she locked her car.

Instead of spending her birthday mentally and physically preparing for her biggest race of the season, the third-year professional cyclist spent hours this morning walking the streets of Gilroy, hoping that perhaps her gear had been left behind. She checked dumpsters and homeless encampments, but came up empty. Olds planned to post signs near the quiet cul-de-sac where her parents live and is offering a reward, no questions asked, for whoever returns her gear.

“I just wanted to find my bag,” Olds said. “I pretty much think the bike is gone.”

Olds, who aspires to compete in the 2012 Olympics in London, still plans on competing in her first race Thursday in the velodrome at Cal State-Dominguez Hills in Carson. Olds is scrambling to find enough parts to put together a decent racing bike to replace the one that was stolen, a bike that was specifically built to accommodate her smaller frame and cost about $3,000.

“I still plan on racing” my tail off, she said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Shelley Olds at proman_18@yahoo.com or (408) 340-8470.

There are all sorts of ways to deal with rising gas prices and public transportation needs, and Montreal is getting in the game with what they’re calling the Public Bike System. Utilizing a central inventory and check-out website, solar-powered docking stations, and high-tech RFID-tagged aluminum bikes, the system is a gadget-maxed project that could be amazing or turn into a complete theft disaster. Each station holds six bikes and six docks, and users can find the nearest available bike on a website and then return the bike to any other dock. Payments can be made via credit, debit, or “member” card. Quick question, though — what if a popular destination has no available docks for a drop-off?

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