My Week in Tri: 16 October

Results, 10 Bullets and Kona lead gaps.

Author

Aero MaccaFrodownlee
October 16, 2023

My Week in Triathlon

My triathlon thoughts and learnings over the last week. A wedding, no cellphone signal and almost 35,000 steps between a run and the dancefloor led me to only catch up on the action on Sunday evening… it was a weekend of “Schrodingers Kona” for me not knowing who won!

Ironman WC Kona: Full Results here

|Women: 🏊️Charles-Barclay was solo from the get go finishing the swim with a 90s lead. Knibb was 7th in the chase pack 1:40 behind. A big group was just over 4min behind that contained Langridge, Sodaro, Ryf, Norden and most notably…Haug. 🚴Knibb quickly rode into 2nd place and by 40km was riding 90s behind Charles-Barclay. Half-way into the bike saw Knibb still in 2nd but having lost a little bit of time now at 2:15 behind. Ryf was up into 3rd almost 8min behind Charles-Barclay. Norden, Philipp and McCauley were close behind Ryf. Haug was sitting in 8th but 10min behind, not being able to stick with the “Ryf group”. Charles-Barclay finished the bike having increased her lead to 3:47 over Knibb who was comfortably in 2nd with a 7min buffer on McCauley, Philipp and Norden. Ryf dropped to 6th over 11min behind the lead with Haug a further minute back in 7th and 12:14 behind LCB. Defending champion Sodaro was in 20th finishing the bike 22:15 off the lead. 🏃 Charles-Barclay ran her IM marathon PB to take the win. Haug passed Knibb for 2nd place at the 28km mark and was just shy of 3min behind. Philipp passed Knibb with 2km to go to take 3rd.

Women

🥇 Lucy Charles-Barclay (08:24:31)

🥈 Anne Haug (08:27:33)

🥉 Laura Philipp (08:32:55)

Challenge Peguera Mallorca: Full Results here

| Women: 🏊️ Buckingham led out the swim with a 1:22 gap to Simmonds 🚴 She stayed ahead right up until the last few kilometers when Simmonds and Bendix-Madsen caught her. 🏃 Simmonds took the lead but Buckingham was close by pushing her…until Buckingham pulled out due to illness with about 5km to go. Laura Madsen and Diederiks both passed Bendix Madsen on the last lap to round up the podium. | Men: 🏊️ Keulen finished in a large lead group that included Brownlee, Bogen, Margirier and Hirsch. 🚴 The 5 leaders all rode together and finished the bike around 2min ahead of the chase group led by Funk. 🏃Keulen avoided the side-by-side battle with Brownlee this week and lead from the start of the run. Margirier was comfortably in 2nd but Brownlee had to work hard to beat Hirsch for 3rd.

Women

🥇 Imogen Simmonds (04:21:10)

🥈 Laura Madsen (04:23:51)

🥉 Diede Diederiks (04:24:20)

Men

🥇 Youri Keulen (03:41:12)

🥈 Mathis Margirier (03:44:11)

🥉 Ali Brownlee (03:45:27)

Other Bullets:

  • Injury is a blessing: Lucy spent many months injured leading up to this win. It likely will have given her an opportunity to rebuild herself from the ground up and fix any potential weaknesses. I met someone over the weekend who ran his first 100mile race and wrecked his body having to spend a year doing extensive rehab. He now says he’s stronger and fitter than he’s ever been. Silver linings…

  • Records: Lucy broke Ryf’s course record and Anne Haug broke Marinda Carfrae’s run record.

  • Podium celebration: The 500ml open cup beers that play a part in the podium celebrations really are underwhelming. I was expecting a meme or two but didn’t see any. Have a look at the flurry of meme’s from Triathmemes here.

  • Coach 1, 2: Dan Lorang coaches both Anne Haug and Lucy…oh, and some ex-triathlete from Germany called Jan.

  • Ironman is hard: Just have a look at Taylor Knibb when she crossed the finish line here. No doubt that she’s going to get her time in the sun, but it was almost satisfying to see a “rookie” humbled at the race distance…even if she hasn’t done any specific training for it!

  • Ryf last dance: The Angry Bird mentioned that this would be her last Kona…leaving the gap open to still race Nice next year 😎 

  • Achilles: Lucy’s husband mentioned in the race broadcast that she said her achilles was hurting 2km into the run. I’m hoping she hasn’t run herself into injury while getting the World title.

  • Knibb Stoppable: Knibb raced a very smart race for her debut, not only at Kona, but at the race distances! I saw her stopping: to rinse the salt off after the swim, to get special needs on the bike, in the penalty tent for unintentional littering, twice running out T2 to pick up a dropped gel, at several aid stations on the run, at the porta-loo in the run.

  • Kat DNF: Fan favourite Kat Matthews had a really tough and strange DNF at Kona. Read the Tri247 article here

  • Badmann story: 6 time Kona winner Natascha Badmann was inducted into the Triathlon Hall Of Fame last week. In 2004 I was in the middle of the leading pace-line during a sprint distance draft legal race. It was in the lead up to Ironman South Africa, so Badmann happened to be close by training on her bike. She casually rode up to us on her Cheetah bike and cheered us on…then promptly dropped us. My first introduction to a world class triathlete 🤯 

Data

It has to be about Kona. I thought I’d look at how the top 6 ladies tracked against Lucy. In previous years, it felt the bike was where she needed to try protect her swim lead over her main rivals. This year, she actually used her bike as a weapon to extend her swim lead. No small feat to keep it together on the run. A complete triathlon performance.

That’s it for today.

Yours in low CdA,

Aero MaccaFrodownlee

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