In my opinion; not necessarily

Maybe Lance blew up "on purpose" to test the limits of a hard bike ride.

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Mike

Don't ever do Buffalo Springs then. Lubbock makes Galveston look like a paradise.

You can have a good venue for a race, but without it being visually appealing.

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-Andrew

Our race coverage is on the home page

http://www.slowtwitch.com/...a_in_Texas_2670.html

Oh my Monty...don't you know that in today's Internet etiquette, if you say anything remotely positive you're just an unmitigated fanboy? What the hell do you know about this sport anyway? ( sarcasm /off)

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Hey Monty....a few points watching Lance while sitting on the trainer

• His passes through the aid stations seemed be be kind of bad...almost amateur in the sense he was really sitting up and slowing down a lot
• He also seemed to be taking tons of bottles of plain water. (so it seemed). I thought it was not that hot? Was he diluting his electrolytes for no good reason?
• His transition seemed slow. If it he was racing ITU, there would be a 100m gap out of transition

It just seemed weird that he was taking that much plain water. Seems unneccessary at that pace....would gatorade/perform not be better in providing both hydration and calories....if he was walking, then he either emptied the calorie tank or the electrolyte tank and plain water is going to help neither problem. I could be wrong, but it seemed like he was taking plain water on the bike.

Dev

• His passes through the aid stations seemed be be kind of bad...almost amateur in the sense he was really sitting up and slowing down a lot
• He also seemed to be taking tons of bottles of plain water. (so it seemed). I thought it was not that hot? Was he diluting his electrolytes for no good reason?
• His transition seemed slow. It he was racing ITU, there would be a 100m gap out of transition

You are not wrong in your observations. Even though many of us remember lance a triathlete of the old days, he really is like a newbie in many respects. Very few of us payed attention to detail back in the day, which was ok with me, but those days are gone. To be competitive, you have to prepare everything, and then execute properly. Even with all that, you can and will have bad days, but you cannot afford to ruin a good day not paying attention to stuff you can control. I also saw him drinking a lot of just water, perhaps some straight coke would have been better. I think it was near 80 by the end of the run, so not what i would call cool by any means. These kind of days creep up on folks that are sensitive to heat, you start out while it is cool in the morning, pace accordingly, and low and behold, it is hot and you have not adjusted your pace to account.

IT is kind of like he is starting all over again,, and he is destined to make many of the rookie mistakes that most get over with before they are fighting for podium spots. But given everything equal, i would rather be in his spot having to learn easy things, than having to try and get front pack swim speed, or 400 or so watts on the bike for a couple hours. And i know texas is his home state and all, but this really was a bad pick race for him and his abilities. I said it earlier, oceanside would have been a ton better for him, and i'm sure he would have been fighting for the win with a few miles to go, instead of chicks running by him like he was standing still. Here again i think he has this misplaced notion of doing hot races to get ready for kona. A couple are fine, and training there a lot like he does is great. But you need to have those great races under your belt and in your mind too. I would love to see lance do wildflower, a race where he could dominate. But right now he appears to be locked into a WTC schedule, so Nice will have to be his big coming out on a really hard course i guess..

Kienle really is stepping up, now he needs to get his swim up a bit and he is there. Basically as he said in his post race interview. He actually recently won a straight up running event.

Kienle really showed who the bike boss is. I'd imagine that Kienle and Ralaert benefited from each other's presence (time of Ralaert flat was almost perfect).

Monty, thanks for the observations. Lance is also going to have an easier time in Nice because Crowie and Cam softened up Fredrick Van Lierde in Melbourne.

Dev

Ya it is funny Herbert, all the threads that have popped up over the years about how unimportant the swim is. And in one weekend you have andy potts winning with his swim, and this guy losing because of it. Seems to me like the swim is a lot more important than the brain trust here on ST give it. Don't want to start another swim doesn't matter thread, it has been settled in my mind since 1981. Just nice to see that it still plays out that you almost have to be lead group to win races in 4 hours and less..

It's always fun to watch how people rationalize others failures.

Or maybe he just gave his best, and ended up with a solid top 10 and another sub 4h half Ironman, which is an excellent
result, EVEN for Lance...

I'm sure you meant to say:

"which is an excellent result, EXCEPT for Lance.

I mean the fanboys expect perfection and when he doesn't deliver they make excuses.

Still I wish I had a couple of HIM's under 4:00 to my name.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I'd take a 3:59:59 any day.

In all seriousness, how much longer does Lance have to be this competitive? He is 40, I'm 41 and see my abilities beginning to wane. I give him another year, maybe two. I think he has the interest and he certainly has the drive, but he isn't getting any younger.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

By definition, wouldn't fanboys be happy with any result? It's the haters that jump all over every little detail.

Is it just me or are there no tracking update for AG'ers?

Sounds about right, Francois. He seems clearly working mentally to figure out how to put the three together. He seemed today to hold back several times on the bike, using overt tactics like sitting up, coasting through aid stations, etc. seems to me he's tryin to work out how to fit his bike strength (superiority?) into the triathlon discipline in order to produce the kind of run he's looking for. I don't think he'll be satisfied with his race today. Can he get it figured out by the time Kona rolls around? The learning curve is pretty steep on that timeline. But regardless, it was a solid result against a solid field.

One thing that former protour cyclists have mentioned in the past (ex: Huddemark, Jalabert and even Larsen) is that they never TT for much longer than an hour.

The course at Panama offered opportunities to sit up and get out of the saddle. The course at Galveston is a "bolted to the aerbars course". Several times on the way back, Lance was either sitting up or getting out of the saddle to mix it up a bit...stuff that most age groupers do, but most of the pros triathletes are able to stay bolted down. The course at IM France will suit Lance's riding style. Galveston was not great for that. Although Kona has 4000 feet of climbing it is largely an aerobar course and he'll need to figure out how to stay bolted down, get his big lead and also take in 300-400 cals per hours while in the aero. I bet you that Ronnie Schildnecht and Kienle barely moved out of the aerobars through the ride at least when they showed Kienle, he had his nose buried in between his aerobar extensions.

Anyway....what a class field

Van Hoenacker, Schildnecht, Kienle all sub 8 hour IM guys and then you have Ralaert, a 70.3 world champion and O'Donnel who was last year's Kona points leader coming into Kona!!! While Lance got smacked in that field, that's a pretty decent field to get smacked by when you are having a bit of a "not awesome day".

Although it will be cool to see Lance at IM France, I'd rather see him in a more stacked field in Frankfurt as that is a P4000 race and even if he slides back he's going to net more points than winning France.

dude, in my time here I haven't seen very many posters actually say Lance was going to come in and dominate. A few trolls have sure. Kind of seems like you are creating a straw man in this thread. I haven't seen many "fanboys" that were as irrational as you seem to be indicating. I think he has competed at a higher level than even most fans of his expected. I guess I don't see what you are seeing, but maybe I don't spend as much time looking for Lance threads.

Dev, to answer your question about the heat...
It was much hotter and windier than forecasted. Heat index was about 90. very humid today.

The bike course was also 57 miles. Odd since it is thE same bike course year after year. Tim O'Donnell made a joking comment about Lance being tough enough to beat on the bike that they didn't need to make it longer.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

yes

Talk about an over-reaction.
It's a legitimate question. He didn't say Lance was a weak runner, he said 'relative', which is correct compared to the top guys. It's his weakness - even he would say that.

I predict that if Armstrong races Hawaii, his time losses on the run to the top guys will be more than double his time losses over a half. Lack of running background over the past 20 years will be amplified over a longer distance, not reduced.

Well then, that would make it even more disappointing for Lance considering he did not have the fastest bike split.

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Adrian in Vancouver

I've got to say I am in awe over the caliber of the running in 70.3 and IM today by some of the pros. Not only are their times fast, but they look damn good when they are running. Kelly Williamson, Craig Alexander, Bevan Docherty, Mirinda Carfrae to name a few. Amazing to watch. I wish my form looked that good even over 400m.

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Adrian in Vancouver

hilarious. truly. Kienle kicked ass but please, "bike boss". That's classic comedy.

Now back to theory of LA stomach issues. I have learned hard way what hammering/ease up/hammering does to a digestive system in triathlon. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that what Kienle got right was constant/consistent pace and power whereas LA (I watched the whole bike leg) toyed with the race hammering to go into lead then realized no head wind so eased up, then hammered again when head win came into play. My opinion from experience is, you can't go hard/easy/hard as the blood leaves digestive system for legs, comes back, leaves again while I pumped gel into said stomach = disaster. He'll get it right and no mistake watching Panama and this race, LA means business and more and more I think he's chances in Kona are very, very real (note: I originally stated on ST Crowie and co. would crush him on run.....I am now thinking........hmmmmmmmmmmm....this is going to very interesting. Will know more after IMFrance...)

Lesson for LA that he will take back when he looks at power and Hr profile is: less peaks valley more constant curve = consistent level of ability to digest.

Also I will say it was clear to me LA was toying on the bike. We expect that yes, but I didn't think it would THAT easy to ride through the group of such quality.

off thread topic, I want to thank WTC - the online coverage was great up until local provider crashed shortly after Kelly won. The actual content and layout worked.

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@rhyspencer

I'm sure I missed it somewhere, but why no Freak for LA?