I would use an early season race to try out the following: draft the swim no matter how slow it is, sit in the bike pack for 100 miles then hit T2 like her hair's on fire and see how it goes.

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"They know f_ck-all over at Slowtwitch"
- Lionel Sanders

It’s always surprises me how alone she is out there. The top women are finishing in the men’s pro field, isn’t there anyone she can latch onto? (god how I wish they could competently televise this race)

Who knows, if Lauren Brandon hadn’t had a mechanical early, maybe she has a different race. F

The answer, of course, though is that she gave up 15 minutes on the run. You can’t give up 15 minutes on the run and win.

I have this instinct to think of her failure to break through with three straight runner up finishes as some tragic tale. It’s not. She’s 26. Chrissie Wellington won her first at 30. Daniela at 28. She’s so far ahead of the game. It’s hard to win the way she’s racing, but she’s the only one in the world who can do it.

 

Lauren Brandon can swim with her!

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Speed kills unless you have speed skills!!!

Yes she needs to team up with Lauren Brandon. It is in both the interest of Lauren and Lucy to share the load even if it means, Lucy has to dial it back a little bit. Going it alone is incredibly taxing mentally.

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Most of Lucy's wins have been wire to wire so unlikely she'll see as a useful thing to do since she has done several times and won.

she's always talling about how she likes being up front so unlikely she'll do any type "team dynamics" specially with Lauren who isn't at the same biking level just my .02

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Speed kills unless you have speed skills!!!

Improve her marathon time until then she needs to bury the field as much as possible. If Annie Haug had a bad day Lucy wins the thing. In a non drafting event what advantage is there to being in a pack.

tough one. I think she needs to do as frodo does and work with the top riders, and use that saved energy to blast the back end of the bike and run. The trick is the Haug who won it this year by crushing the run... you need to be confident in your run to keep her at bay.

Unfortunately for Lucy, because of her unique gifts she only does one race per year.

It’s hard to get better at strategy when you only race once.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

It's not that difficult to figure out. Lucy went too hard on the bike. She just needs to dial it back a bit and save some energy for the run.

If she went 4 minutes slower on the bike, that's an entire bike ride of fueling and hydrating better for the run and also taking the edge off the bike damage to her running legs. Then she'd run about 8 minutes faster, putting her at the finish line about the same time as Haug.

A good rule of thumb is if you're smashing people on the swim or bike at Kona, you're going to get passed on the run. Sure, she can do it at some regular ironmans, but the competition is too good and there's too many people showboating to risk that at Worlds.

yeah she said on IG she rolled the dice (rode hard) and lost. She didn't really have much choice with some much stronger runners in the field. I think that plan can pay off, but she needs to find some slower male pros to ride with.

She still loses to Anne Haug by 2.5’ in your scenario...

Brandon followed her feet the entire swim.

Then still came out of there water wobblier, missed her bag, etc. I was hoping, but Brandon seemed off even after following the feet.

Duh. Run faster

Once ? I make it 3 IM and 3 70.3 this year

You think Lucy has only raced once this year? Really?

Do the multiple 70.3's not count (including Nice)? Or being 1st this year at Ironman South Africa and Roth?

They don’t count.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Maybe some of these front pack ITU swimmers will move up after Tokyo, Zafares, Coldwell, Duffy, Learmonth, if they can't keep up with her in the swim they'll catch her on the bike.

She comes out of the water between the men, maybe she can go Sanders style and pay a guy to bike behind for a good part :D

It's really a shame that being such a good swimmer can be a disadvantage

Analysing the womens race over the years it usually hasn't been an advantage to be in the main pack - they ride like maniacs trying to put the hurt on. Xena shared power data once and it was crazy for the first two hours.

The winners, as a generalisation, for the last decade have ridden their own race behind or ahead of the pack and thus been a lot more consistent in their pacing.
LCB just needs to work out the effort level on the bike that keeps her ahead of the pack without cooking herself and to keep improving her bike and run. She needn't panic.

And next years race dynamic will be different, which may aid her.

And by Sanders you mean Patrick Lange?

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What's your CdA?

I reckon Lucy was racing the ghost of last year's Daniela. If someone had told her Daniela's not in contention she would have been more conservative. I love the way both of them race. How can you not respect athletes that put it all out there. Both prepared to blow up to get the win. How lucky are we to watch this stuff.

So what does count

Learmonth could be interesting in IM - very good swimmer and a powerful bike rider. Not a strong runner unfortunately, so she could end up being Lucy's domestique...