BlogMay 31, 2009 Honu 70.3 Ironman wrapup I'm writing to everybody Sunday after the Saturday race in Kona, the Honu 70.3 Ironman! It was an incredible day and I'm very much looking forward to coming back and competing in this event again. It was great to catch up with so many friends and make some new ones over here, it's also a blast spending time on the Big Island! This year's race had an incredibly competitive field and my confidence was a little low coming in as my training had been quite stalled due to the Wildflower cut-foot injury. I had planned to come race, so I figured I'd compete if I was physically able, and I was! The swim went out hard, I swam in 4th place until just before the first buoy where I backed it off a little and got on the back of our group of 10-12. Unfortunately the guy in front of me opened a gap at this point, and I didn't even see it until later. We swam together for a while until Benjamin Sanson and who I believe to be Chris Hauth joined our group and we all exited the beautiful Hapuna Bay a somewhat fragmented group. Ahead I heard a split of about a minute to Mckenzie, Lieto, Alexander, and Marr. This was within reach but I knew it would take some work to ge up there! Onto the bike, I felt ok, not stellar... At the first turnaround I saw Chris Lieto all ready storming out to a big lead and then a group of six chasing him. This was only five miles into the bike and luckily I wasn't too far back! I made the turn and continued my chase for about 10 miles until I was starting to catch a couple guys falling off the lead "pack". On the way to Hawi I passed my Brazillian friend Caue Suplicy and I asked him who the guys right up ahead were. He yelled,"Luke, Crowie, Marr". This is what I wanted to hear as it was 2-time IM champ Luke Mckenzie, current IM World Champ Craig Alexander, and local star Tim Marr. As I caught them I decided I would try to keep pushing as Chris Lieto was still ahead. I went by the three and surged a little, I saw a white jersey in the distance. I pursued the white jersey for about five minutes and as it got closer it looked less and less like Lieto. At this point I asked Jimmy on the motorbike if that was Lieto and he said,"no". I looked back, my gap on the three was maybe 20 seconds, my chase was in vain... The guy was open water super-swimmer Jon Flanigan, he lead out of Kona last year and lead out of this race too! The five of us joined up and made the turn in Hawi seeing Lieto flying back the other way with a solid lead by now. Our fivesome rode the final 25 miles together, trying to stay "legal" which is always a challenge. We kept hearing the gap to Lieto increasing, the last I heard was something like six minutes. I enjoyed riding with Alexander, it's not every day one gets to study the IM World Champ for an hour and a half... As we reached the end of the bike, it was starting to get hot, and humid! The five of us came off the bikes with at least a 7 minute deficit to Chris. Later I realized when talking about my race second best bike split that I'd lost something like 6-7 minutes to Chris, that stopped me talking... We began the run after a fast transition, both my quads cramped stuffing my feet into my shoes. I wondered how I would run the distance but I was here to race so I took off fifth out of the five of us entering transition together. I quickly passed Flanigan and Marr and watched Alexander and Mckenzie just in front of me. I was running hard, but comfortably. Again, watching Alexander was fun but somewhere around 3 miles i started to fade heavily and he ran out of sight. Around mile 5 Luke Mckenzie was out of sight, around mile 7 Tim Marr passed me with the quote of the year,"Startin' to get a little bit tired"... Somewhere around there I went into survival-mode and just tried to finish the race. It was so hot, and my run training had been so weak the past month! I tried to just put one foot in front of the other and put lots of ice in my jersey and pants! I made it, finished 8th, only a couple of minutes out of 4th, and amazingly enough Alexander ran down a super-strong Lieto to win the race with a 1:17 run split. In those conditions, amazing. I'm feeling pretty good about this race, I faded heavily in the middle of the run but in some ways expected to. I'm ahead of where I thought I was on the swim and bike and so hopefully now a little run focus and I'll be ready to rock in the upcoming California races. Back from Kona on Wednesday morning, wish I could stay a little longer. Cheers, Lewis « Back to Blogs |
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