Simon Ward, a regular contributor to Tri247 and an experienced triathlon coach, took some time out from soaking up the rays and drinking cocktails around the swimming pool to catch up with the highly successful British women's team at the Ford Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Florida.

In the last four weeks I have had the privilege to be in both Kona and Clearwater to witness some truly remarkable racing from the British females. Two top ten positions in Hawaii; Chrissie Wellington and Leanda Cave, and then four in the top ten in Clearwater; Leanda again, Julie Dibens, Catriona Morrison and Michelle Lee. And, let's not forget Abigail Bayley who finished 14th. In addition to this, Julie Dibens won by over eight minutes at the XTERRA World Championships, Catriona Morrison won the ITU Long Distance Duathlon World Championships and Leanda won the ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships. All this at a time when the Women’s Elite performance squad, which receives the Sport England Lottery funding, looks very weak.

After the event last weekend, I managed to catch up with Leanda, Julie and Catriona to ask them first about their race and then why 2007 has been a breakthrough year for GB women in non-drafting racing.

First, Leanda Cave and Cat Morrison.

SW You were 3rd and 5th today, with Julie that’s three Brits in the top 5!

CM Fantastic, this was my longest race ever.

SW Where did you qualify?

CM St Croix, so I guess that actually must have been my longest race (ha,ha)! I had a really strong bike today. My Planet X is fantastic and they have been a wonderful sponsor for me this year. I also had a very strong run, I think I was catching someone at the end but I didn’t realise it was Julie.

SW How about you Leanda?

LC I had one of my strongest swim and bikes of the year. I also felt I was running really well especially in the first half. My legs started to tie up a bit in the last few miles but I guess that would have been the hangover from Kona. It was a close finish though. In the last three miles the lead change three times. I was trying for top ten maybe top five. I’m on the podium so I have got to be happy with that.

SW How was your race, so soon after Kona?

LC I was quite surprised about how well I felt. I learned how to pace last year, before I used to just try and go as hard as I could. I tried to hold back this year on the bike, so I could have a better run. I didn’t go too hard. As my top end is suffering a bit and with Kona so close I didn’t have much time to alter my training.

SW Today we had four British girls in the top ten. This looks like the culmination of a great year. What do you think has brought about this sea change?

CM We’ve got something to prove!!

LC The 70.3 series and the US non-drafting events (LifeTime Fitness and the now-defunct 101 series) is real racing, not just a running race, so we can use strengths that we have developed over the last few years. We may not have any funding, but we are having a lot more fun.

CM There are races that you want to do but with funding you may not get the choice. For me, now, it's not about racing ITU World Cup events, it’s about enjoyment. If it was a normal job you wouldn’t go to work every day if you didn’t enjoy what you did.

LC I changed mainly because it was a personal choice. It has made a huge difference to me as a person and a competitor. I had lost the enjoyment of racing but now I feel like I did when I was seventeen years old. With everyone going so well at the moment it would be nice if we could get a girls team together.

SW How much difference has the 70.3 series made to your careers?

LC When there was only the World Cup series or Ironman we were in no-mans land for a while because it takes so long to recover from an Ironman.

CM Now we have a lot of races to choose from and you can do more of them. When you are self-funded it is pretty hard to get by sometimes, so it is good to be able to make some money for a change.

SW What about changes to your training programmes now you seem to be focussing on longer events?

LC For Ironman there’s definitely a lot more volume and less intensity - although some of this stays with you from ITU racing. The training is similar for this type of race. I’ve noticed that my speed has dropped off considerably, especially when I raced at Salford.

CM I think that 70.3 races are much easier to move up to, if you come from an ITU style background. The Ironman girls seem to perform a bit better in the 2nd half of the race.

At this point, both girls agreed that they absolutely loved the training and racing, particularly Leanda who felt that she can stay injury free because of the lower intensity training.

SW So Leanda, can you go back to ITU racing?

LC I see some of the girls that I used to beat doing really well and sometimes I think I’d like to race at the London Olympics, but I would really like to win Hawaii. Chrissie beat me to it this year. She has so much potential. I think she would go really well at on the World Cup circuit. I can still be the first British woman to win both the Ironman and the ITU Worlds in a career.

A little later, I got to tallk to Julie Dibens.

Julie’s plan was to lead out from the front. With a one minute lead from the swim and a seven minute lead at T2 it appeared the plan was working. She maintained a healthy lead until the second half of the run when, “the wheels started to come off”. The combined effects of the XTERRA World Championships three weeks before and a summer of running, which was focused more towards the shorter distance LifeTime Fitness events, finally took its toll.

“I just tried to keep going but first Mirinda and then Sam (McGlone) passed me and finally Leanda caught me. I’m pretty happy with fourth, but this is the first time I haven’t finished on the podium this year and it would have to be the World Championships!”

“Overall though, I have had a great year; two 70.3 wins, both with bike course records, two XTERRA wins plus the XTERRA World Championships, British Champion and now fourth in the 70.3 World Championships. It’s not a bad year, is it?”

“Looking back on my training, I probably didn’t do enough long running in the middle of the year. I spent a lot of time training for the LifeTime Fitness series (where she came second overall) and probably should have done some longer running during that period. So that, combined with recovering from XTERRA, is what caught up with me today. I think a lot of the guys who raced XTERRA or Hawaii had similar legs!”

This has been an article about the British female long distance triathletes, but we mustn’t forget the magnificent third place for Andrew Johns and, perhaps more importantly for the future, a top ten finish for Fraser Cartmell. After a breakthrough win at IMUK 70.3 in June, this was an even more unexpected result for everyone, apart from Fraser that is.

With British Triathlon focussing their lottery money on athletes with genuine Olympic medal hopes, we can expect to see more athletes on the periphery of this group, but still with enormous talent, moving up to the 70.3 distance and attempting to match the performances of Chrissie, Julie, Leanda and Cat.

Roll on 2008. Here come the Brits.