Major, Jackson win Leadman 125
Jozsef Major of Hungary and Christina Jackson of Oceanside, California won the men’s and women’s overall titles at the Leadman Tri Life Time Epic 125 in Tempe, Arizona.
Men
Major overcame a sub-par swim with a 3rd-best 2:47:08 split for the 109.5 kilometer bike leg and a 3rd-fastest 51:27 split for the 13-kilometer run to finish in 4:18:58.
Rob Lea led the 2.5 kilometer swim with a 31:47 split while the rest of the overall contenders were well out of the top 10. Lea then added a 2:50:26 bike split and led the overall contenders into transition 2:46 up on Major, 11:44 ahead of Brian Folts of Phoenix, Arizona, and 11:52 ahead of Jesse Vondracek of Tucson.
But Jozsef Major won the race with a 3rd-best 51:27 run which brought him to the line with a 3:12 winning margin on runner-up Lea (57:28 run), 8:44 over 3rd-place Folts (51:19 run), 9:28 over fast closing 4th-place finisher Josh Terwoord of Flagstaff, Arizona (48:58 run) and 10:33 over 5th-place Vondracek (53:09 run).
Major, who has 9 Ironman distance wins to his credit, recently finished 3rd at Ironman Los Cabos.
Women
Jackson combined a 3rd-fastest 36:16 2.5-kilometer swim, a 2nd-fastest 3:09:26 bike split and a race-best 59:37 split for the 13 kilometer run to finish in 4:48:30 with a 2:50 margin of victory over runner-up Hillary Biscay of Tucson, Arizona and 3:48 over 3rd-place Mara Abbott of Boulder, Colorado, who raced as an amateur in a later wave and whose elapsed time progress was not in immediate competition with the pro wave.
Kerri Hiley of Tucson posted the fastest women’s swim with a 35:12 clocking, followed by Biscay (36:06), Jackson (36:16) Maurin Scheetz (38:03), Cathy Yndestad (38:06) and Canadian Donna Phelan (38:10.).
By the end of the bike, Boulder, Colorado’s Mara Abbott posted a race-best 2:55:26 split riding in a separate amateur wave which gave her a 4:48 elapsed time lead on Jackson (3:09:26 bike split), 7:19 on Biscay (3:11:54 bike split), 9:08 on Yndestad (3:12:32 bike split) and 10:19 on Phelan (3:13:02 bike split).
On the run, Jackson’s race-fastest 59:37 split brought her to a comfortable overall and professional victory, trailed by runner-up Biscay (2nd-best 59:41 run). Abbott, with a 1:07:27 run, fell back to 3rd place overall and first overall amateur woman, 1:59 ahead of 4th place overall and 3rd place professional Phelan (59:59 run) and 2:41 ahead of 5th-place Cathy Yndestad (1:01:45 run).
Jackson, who recently turned pro, finished 3rd in the women’s 30-34 age group at Kona last October in a time of 9:57:45 and finished 2nd at the Hy-Vee 5150 women’s 30-34 age group in September.
Leadman Tri Life Time Epic 125
Tempe, Arizona
April 14, 2013
S 2.5k / B 109.5k / R 13k
Results
Overall Men
1. Jozsef Major (HUN) 4:18:58
2. Rob Lea (USA) 4:22:10
3. Brian Folts (USA) 4:27:43
4. Josh Terwoord (USA) 4:28:27
5. Jesse Vondracek (USA) 4:29:31
Overall Women
1. Christina Jackson (USA) 4:48:30
2. Hillary Biscay (USA) 4:51:21
3. Mara Abbott (USA) 4:52:18 * First amateur woman, competed in separate wave from the pros.
4. Donna Phelan (CAN) 4:54:17
5. Cathy Yndestad (USA) 4:55:00
