As if winning your first race of the season isn’t brilliant enough, doing it at the opening round of the brand new T100 Triathlon World Tour must tick all the right boxes.
For India Lee waking up on this morning, the magnitude of what she achieved yesterday in Miami has probably still not quite sunk in.
Ranked PTO World #15 going into this race, the 35-year-old pulled off a huge upset to take the biggest win of her career and simply described it as “absolutely mad”.
“It feels like I am watching myself from a different entity”
Breaking down in tears when she crossed the finish line, it was clear to everyone watching just how much this win meant to Lee, who still seemed as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had done in her post race interview.
“It feels like I am watching myself from a different entity at the moment, it is absolutely mad.”
Making the decisive move with 12km to go on the run, the Brit said she just went for it, passing long time leader Lucy Charles-Barclay and never looking back.
“On the run, I had my coaches voice in the back of my head, saying ‘don’t go out too hard’, as it’s better to be steady and consistent than try and go for it.
“When I went past Lucy, I thought I can’t just settle down again, so I did 100 steps with a bit more force and then settled in again.
“Pretty much my whole triathlon career I have always been frustrated with how my run has turned out, because it has been average to be honest, but I knew I had it in me to run well so in my head it was just a matter of time to put it all together. Today was the first time that I have had a run that I can be proud of.”
Now leading the series, Lee shared her plans for the rest of the race calendar, with Singapore in April next up for the champion.
“I think I am going to do the majority of the races, apart from perhaps San Francisco, just because of the travel that’s involved being based in Europe. I am off to Singapore next, then a bit of a break, before cracking on with the next of the year.”
“I am pretty chuffed with that”
The reigning IRONMAN World Champion, Charles-Barclay came into this race as the favourite, but fell just short of winning her first 100km title.
However, despite finishing second, the Londoner was still optimistic about the rest of the season and credited the strength in depth of the British women on the start line.
“I haven’t had a massive block of training leading into this after Hawaii, so I am pretty chuffed with that and I can definitely build on that now. I really wanted to get through it in one piece and I had a great battle out there with India and the rest of the Brits.
“We have some really badass women in the UK and we just showed that the Brits will always put up a battle and it’s really amazing what we can do. I think throughout this series you are just going to see the Brits dominating.
“I think if I can stay healthy and do a good training block, then I would like to be at all the races. That gives you the best chance to get the world title at the end, because if you have a bad race there is always a good one to replace it with.”
“I think I raced smart and controlled and it paid off”
For 2016 IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion Holly Lawrence, her performance was one that everyone knew she was capable of, but has taken some time to achieve over the past few years.
Admitting that she is perhaps not always the most tactically astute racer, the US based Brit was full of pride after executing a complete performance in Miami.
“I think I raced smart and controlled and it paid off, I am not often described as a smart racer so I am just really proud of myself.
“I definitely lost some feet of the fastest swimmers and that was my fault. I managed to lead the group, which is my safe space and it was more of the swim I should be doing compared with the ones I have been doing over the past couple of years.”
Asked what has been different in her preparation for this year compared with seasons gone by, Lawrence said that consistency was key.
“Honestly, I have just had a super consistent winter and I haven’t had that in a while. I was definitely undercooked coming into this and was super unsure of myself, because I haven’t done any threshold training yet and I am fresh out of winter training really. It’s a very good place to start the season from.”
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