The most important kickoff race in North America is IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside.
It’s always the first test of the year to see how the winter training is working. And now with the IRONMAN Pro Series in its second year, it was indeed a big deal this past weekend.
As always, speculation about which pros would turn up the volume occupied every conversation in the days leading up to the start. But results are much more lasting and revealing that talk. Here’s a few lessons learned from the first exam of the year.
Paula Findlay: More than one path to better results
Paula Findlay got married last year to long-time partner Eric Lagerstrom. He was her training partner for years. That’s changed this season with Eric stepping away from triathlon to focus more on endurance running and their projects, which has left Paula having to do a lot more training on her own.
Did it work? A win usually says yes, which Paula did on Saturday. And that was on a day where Findlay admitted not exactly feeling her best, which makes it a double yes!
Lesson learned: Maybe solo days build a strength you can’t get any other way. Just because an added layer of mental challenge got introduced into what has worked for years isn’t necessarily a negative. In fact, Paula commented that the turning point that led her to victory was when she got back into the race mentally when she was struggling.
Jackie Hering: 40 is just a number
Jackie Hering owns that number as her age. But clearly, she’s not planning to slow down anytime soon. In fact, she’s convinced us that she’s doing the opposite. Last year she won IRONMAN European Championship Hamburg in 8:19:14, making it her first IRONMAN finish in 9-years! She closed out the season as the runner up in the IRONMAN Pro Series. And this past weekend she continued her show of consistency finishing 2nd behind Findlay by a scant 19 seconds.
Lesson Learned: If you are 40 years old and thinking maybe it’s time to slow down, think again!
Lionel Sanders: Last year was no fluke
Last year Lionel Sanders kicked off his season at Oceanside with a commanding win that he earned with his run. Yes, his run, not his bike. Many forgot about that win as the season rolled on though. It was discovered shortly after that stunning victory that he had a cracked rib. The rib pretty much hampered his entire season, one which ended with a disappointing 32nd place in Kona.
Could he come back to Oceanside and repeat this year? Had he regained his ‘No Limits’? His social posts leading up to it pointed to him being scary fit, and he showed us that is exactly how he came and conquered.
Sanders won against arguably the toughest men’s field this race has ever seen. Bad to the bone, Sanders hunted down everyone ahead of him. And he did it once again on the run.
Sanders’ run form is not classic, but he is blisteringly fast. And if you actually stop and look at what’s going on when he runs, he’s like a super heavy gauge spring that gets loads with an incredible amount of force with each footstep. That concentrated power gets unleashed with ballistic precision with each push off.
You might not agree with me, but oddly enough I think his run is a thing of beauty. There is not one ounce of wasted motion. Check it out the next time you see him race and I think you’ll agree.
Lesson learned: Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.
Kristian Blummenfelt: There’s still an unknown
As the pros got ready for the swim, wetsuits came out and down parkas got packed away. We got out first glimpses of arms and legs and abs. Looking lean and strong is not a guarantee of how an athlete will race, but it is a hint. And the guy who seemed to have made big gains on that level was Kristian Blummenfelt. In my opinion, he looked the fittest I’ve seen him since meeting him.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to put all his winter work and fitness to the real test. A flat tire cost him nearly 15 minutes to fix. His 15th place finish was not the 1st place he was gunning for.
He may have been the fittest guy in the field by a long shot, but a flat tire erased our chance of validating that claim.
He drifted back to 55th place by the time he got the tire fixed and was back riding, a deficit not even a superhero was going to close.
His run split of 1:07:19 was massive though. It was 4:10 minutes faster than the champion Sanders who ran a 1:11:28, which by the way was at least 3-minutes faster than almost all the guys behind him.
Would Blu have been able to run that fast if he hadn’t had that 15-minute break on the bike? We’ll never know…but I do know I would not want to be staring him down at IRONMAN Texas, his next race in a couple of weeks.
Lesson Learned: Blu is still an unknown.
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