Notebook From Boulder 70.3

Taylor Knibb and Sam Long crushed their respective categories en route to victories at IRONMAN 70.3 Boulder.

Their path to respective victories was different. Knibb shared the swim lead with Lauren Brandon and fell back slightly in transition while putting on socks. That was the last time she would cede the front of the race, coming around Brandon by mile 2 of the bike and disappearing up the road for the remainder of the day. Knibb's 8:05 margin of victory over Holly Lawrence is the largest gap in a 70.3 we've covered this year.

Long, meanwhile, found himself in his customary position of having to chase from behind out of the water. That said, Long held the deficit to the front trio of Braxton Bokos, Sam Appleton, and Matthew Sharpe to a mere 2:21. Once on the bike, Long stormed through the field with an eye-watering 1:53:11 split, and then a third-fastest run split of 1:11:50 allowed him to cruise to victory, nearly five minutes ahead of the sprint finishing Lionel Sanders and Chris Leiferman.

Women's Results

1. Taylor Knibb 3:56:34
2. Holly Lawrence 4:04:39
3. Jeanni Metzler 4:05:26
4. Lesley Smith 4:12:57
5. Batya Beard 4:15:20
6. Nicole Falcaro 4:15:44
7. Samantha Kingsford 4:16:19
8. Lauren Brandon 4:18:20

Men's Results

1. Sam Long 3:33:23
2. Lionel Sanders 3:38:13
3. Chris Leiferman 3:38:14
4. Tomas Rodriguez Hernandez 3:39:23
5. Matthew Sharpe 3:39:35
6. Robbie Deckard 3:42:52
7. Jason Pohl 3:43:12
8. Marty Andrei 3:43:43

News and Notes

The Women's Field is Stepping Up: Over the last few years we have continued to see the men's field get faster, and faster, and faster; when I started covering triathlon it was unheard of for a male to finish in under four hours. Now we're consistently seeing top women's times under the magical four hour mark, with athletes like Knibb, Paula Findlay, Lucy Charles-Barclay, and more creeping under that barrier. In this field, a 4:12:57 missed the podium. It wasn't that long ago that that would win.

The women are very, very fast.

The Taylor Knibb Show: Making her season debut, Knibb reminded the world that she's the defending 70.3 World Champion. When Knibb toes a starting line healthy, she appears to be unstoppable. She swims front pack, then rockets away from the field on the bike. Happen to still be with her in T2? No problem, she's only going to drop one of the fastest runs in the field on your head. Assuming she's healthy, she has to be the head and shoulders favorite heading into championship season.

IRONMAN Announces Safety Changes Post-Hamburg: During the pre-race segment of the broadcast, IRONMAN CEO Andrew Messick announced some changes to motorcycles around the professional field following the crash that killed a motorcyclist last weekend in Hamburg. Notably, access to the professional field would be limited to media associated directly with IRONMAN, such as the live broadcast team.

This is a solution we advocated for during our conversation with Ben Kanute. It's not perfect, by any means; namely, it reduces ability for us to provide different images around the bike course than those provided by the pool photographers. It'll require some additional creative solutioning on both us as media, and IRONMAN as the keeper of the course and the leader of the media pool, to solve for. But it's a step in the right direction.

Those Changes Don't Solve Everything, Though: The blessing of triathlon is that the average athlete gets to share the same course as the professional field on the same day. That is also a curse, as Long nearly found out at one point during the bike, being forced very wide while passing some age group competitors.

Looped courses and courses with out-and-backs are a current part of the equation. They are part of the review process that Messick cited during our podcast conversation, but for now, are a reality.

Don't Try to Sprint Lionel Sanders: It has been nearly a full calendar year since Sanders last won a race (70.3 Mont Tremblant last June). Yet Sanders still finds new ways to turn himself inside out during the closing miles of a run. This week's victim: Chris Leiferman. Leiferman and Sanders had played a game of cat-and-mouse throughout the run; Sanders led early, Leiferman closed back up, Sanders gapped again, Leiferman closed up, and then they ran together until nearly the finish. And, well, Sanders found yet another gear to make sure he finished second. A good performance from Leiferman, and another leave-it-all-out-there effort from Sanders.

Maybe Sanders will treat himself to two Whoppers.

Learn This Name: Tomas Rodriguez Hernandez: This might be the next uber runner in the sport. His slowest half marathon time in the last twelve months is a 1:13:13, which he used to earn second place at the notoriously difficult 70.3 Mont Tremblant run. His three run splits this year are all within two minutes of today's fastest male run of 1:09:26. His deficit comes on the bike — ceding almost ten minutes to Sam Long today — but if TRH can bring that down by even just two to three minutes, look out.

Outside Watch Grade: B-: Unlike others, I did not wind up trapped in an endless loop of Outside Watch ads or IRONMAN infomercials. However, I did wind up having to restart the stream multiple times due to freezing. Most of this occurred on the run portion; not sure if that's because more viewers tuned in at this point or if there was something else afoot. It mostly working and there being solid audio throughout the day leads to today's final grade.

Photos: IRONMAN

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