I couldn't see what swim pack he made....

There was a good interview he did before the race where he says if he consistently makes the second pack he will go back to training for full IM.

It looked like he caught the lead pack on the bike after first lap and then hung on.

Took the lead early in the run and didn't look back.

Seems like his tactics are improving.

He swam 27:19, on a non-wetsuit, fresh water swim. I wonder how that translates to a wetsuit lega, saltwater swim (his next race is Oceanside I believe). Is he in the 25:XX range?

This is another awesome race.

His fiance Erin on fb said it was no wetsuit and he was 3 min off the pace. But the leaders were not guys like Josh Amberger or Frodo or Gomez or Potts. I will be curious to see how far he is back from the real top guys he is after the swim. At Oceanside wetsuit in salt water, I would expect him to make the second pack based on pool times.

He seems to have made big improvements in the pool, but in the pool you can make decent improvements (like 1-2 seconds per 25M just with better turns and push off and streamline, so that gains you say 4-6 second per 100m, that may have zero transfer to open water. I really hope his actual swim times are better (not just the stuff at the wall in the pool).

In any case, a win is a win is a win and he had a great run.

I am surprised he bothered to run that fast with the race sealed up. I would have asked him to collect the paycheque, save his run legs and not burn too many matches for the entire season and also not put all his cards on the table. If his rivals think he is running slower, then may not attack as hard on the bike to make a larger cushion. The way it stands he could just ride up to the group eventually in any 70.3 minus a championship and then just sit in and then on the run just toy around with guys for 15K and then all he has to do is put in one solid 400m surge, snap the bungee chord and then go back to running at the same pace as the chasers and take the win with less effort. I agree with him racing a lot because these paycheques are basically a guarantee for him. He gets to see the world and knows he will get a payday.that more than cover the cost of the trip.

But it's hard to be racing fast in November and then Jan, then Feb/Mar and plan to be fast again in Sep. Notice who Kienle kind of sucks all spring every year and then starting in the summer for the mid summer IM he rev's it up and goes from there. I hope Lionel saves some so he is fast in September....or maybe 1:13 is saving the legs...who knows.

The guy is always fun to watch. Congrats to Lionel!

It looks like he lost less than 2 minutes to Llanos and Ben Hoffman, who had 8 minutes on him in Kona. Also...biked 1:59, Amorelli was only a couple minutes slower and they came off the bike together.

All in all, I think that was a pretty dang good swim, looking forward to hearing from the lad. I see this as a pretty good step forward for sure.

Brent

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

I did not realize that he only lost 2 minutes to Hoffman. That sounds like a very solid swim in fresh water no wetsuit. If he can limit the Kona gap to those guys to 4 minutes, then that's solid. My guess is that if he keeps the gap to the guys he needs to be "near" close enough, he will be tempted to go to Kona even though publicly its "no Kona". The guy is the Mdot series IM distance record holder too so it's not like he can't go from "only 70.3" training to revving things up for a few weeks to get "specific" for IM.

By the looks of it he swam on Mario De Elias feet. I know that doesn't mean much to you, but as one of my own barometers, and knowing Mario is from down there, that is a good sign. With that being said, I was thinking about something in the pool today. I think we are on the cusp of fragmenting the swim groups again in Kona. I think we could have a serious pack of say 7 great swimmers, with a bunch of normal FOP guys leading what would essential be one monster 2nd pack which would combine the guys down a bit in the FOP and then the second pack. This could really work to Lionel's advantage.

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I see what you did there!

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

It will be really interesting what Oceanside and then St. George bring. He will have a very good indication of where he stands in the water, and may be tempted as you say. That said - if he is nice and close he REALLY wants that 70.3 title - so that would be even more enticing I would think. But...Kona... :)

Brent

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

I like his approach that until he can guarantee that he can be in the second swim pack, he won't attempt Kona. Having said that, it sounds like he will focus on 70.3 worlds first, and then when he focuses on Kona, he will have a proper build for Kona which he will not have this year focusing on 70.3 worlds.
It will be interesting to see what sort of swim time he can come away with in Oceanside with the salt water and wetsuit swim.
His season is off to a good start, looking forward to reading what he had to say about his race in Buenos Aires!!!

Does anybody know if he ever goes to a swim lab to have his stroke analyzed? And how often he goes back for more? I've saw long ago some setups with underwater cameras and drag strings where they can find exactly what's slowing you down and speed you up. As fit as he is, there should be some low-hanging fruit in his form to eliminate a couple seconds per 100/m.

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That swim lab sounds like a good idea, Lionel seems much more open to input and advice, maybe we can flip him a message on FB? If he can get a few more seconds out of this analysis, that would be awesome!!!

Brett,

Am curious but what would this tell us that a coach on deck at masters swims, regular video footage and at least quarterly full blown underwater video analysis wouldn't?

Regards,

David

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David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com

The issue with this - as with gait analysis and similar pseudo-objective tools - is that it doesn't actually give any useful insight about *HOW* to change things. I did this - the-camera-and-string-thing with *THE* guy for this stuff - Dr. G - http://www.teamunify.com/...0919&team=iscats

It told me a bunch of stuff that I already knew from 1) simple intuition and 2) what coaches on deck had seen. Basically, the most "profound" conclusion was that I don't (didn't) finish my stroke all that well, and that it's worse on the right hand side. Wow! Thanks for that. "You should really change that." I never thought of that...

There are two huge problems with this sort of analysis. The first, more applicable to advanced athletes, is that it's often unclear what idiosyncrasies are essential to someone's stroke/stride/etc. Think Cadel Evans rocking all over the place on his seat or Geb's asymmetrical arm carriage or Paula Radcliffe's head-bobbing. Typically, these "movement specialists" want people to do things symmetrically or to follow some self-idealized template of "correct." But the best practitioners rarely have such pure technique.

The second issue, as I mentioned above, is that knowing WHAT to change is not really all that useful. It's knowing HOW to change it. That's what you need a good coach for. And, in my experience, it's exceedingly rare that if you have a good coach who has ideas about HOW to change things that they also don't have a very good idea about WHAT to change.

If you go to a properly measured pool with a functioning pace clock when you swim, you are in the only "swim lab" you'll ever need...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Well said, Sir.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."