Good overall race for Lionel considering what has gone on the past couple months. HE can no relax a bit and focus on the hopeful February race. But for those that think his 49 swim was a breakthrough again, it was not. He is still 5 minutes behind the leader, and the course was of course either short, or fast for some reason. Just look at the guys and times between him and the 43 high first swimmer and it is obvious something was up. He has to get that 5 minute gap down to 3 at some point, or he will be relegated to racing for the last podium spot, instead of the first,
I’m waiting for Lionel’s post race video, hopefully Tueday, but in his instagram post, he states that he actually had to turn around and go backwards on the swim otherwise he would have cut the course and could face disqualification, so I think this swim was pretty decent. He stated he had ZERO bike legs and was going to pull out after the bike but decided to run he first loop, and after running the first loop and chatting with a fellow pro about UFC and such, he realized he was making time on the front of the race so he kept pushing all the way to the end. A 2:43 after blowing up on the last 4km is pretty decent, he was on pace for a 2:41 most defeinitely.
I read his recap too. Here I was thinking he was taking a measured approach on the bike which is why he had such a strong run, and he was being smart about managing the race. But actually he just had a bad bike which left him with enough gas in the tank to run after. I wonder if he will look back at this and realize he might be faster if he doesn’t try to smash the bike and conserve energy for a fast run.
Also, I figured out what Lionel’s hitch looks like when he’s running. He looks like he crapped his pants and is trying to rush to the bathroom, but has to go barefoot through a room with lego’s scattered all over the floor to get there. I still don’t understand how he runs so fast like that.
Talbot was talking on the Pro Tri news podcast about them struggling with jetlag this time. I suspect that the two transatlantic trips were hard and I would suspect that could zap the bike legs for sure. In fact - isn’t this a little like Cam’s Italy - Kona races in 2019? Who would have put Cam finishing 5th if he wasn’t first off the bike - but he did. He also said he had no bike legs that day blaming it on the time change more than the IM 3 weeks earlier.
Food for thought. Brilliant lesson in keeping with it when Plan A goes down the drain for sure.
Just an observation, but Lionel is his only race week series video still looked REALLY tired pre-race, so I suspect the transatlantic flight played more of a role in his lack of bike legs than we thought. Given all this, I think it’s encouraging to see the run he had. He got his KQ and now gets to experince Collins Cup.