Well after racing Lanzarote Ironman and having such a good experience of the Island I spoke to Kenneth the organizer and he asked if I wanted to do the Ocean Lava race. It is a half ironman in the same place as the ironman but the bike course goes up the infamous Femes. (The steep side)… So thought it would be a good crack.
I decided after that I was going to do Ironman Florida as my last race of the season and so the ocean lava was going to me my sharpener and last big session before. The weather had been scorching leading into the race hovering around 35deg in the shade and my body was loving it. My body seems to adapt pretty quickly to the heat now and my sessions leading into the race went really well.
Race day and I knew I had prepared well when I was up early and down by transition before it even opened! That’s definitely a first for me! But again this seemed to pay off looking at my swim splits. I was caught just of the back of the second group but only by about 10metres, so I fought to get on the back. At the half way mark I had just got onto the group and we exited and entered again and I found myself 10metres back… I fought the whole of the second lap and just as we exited again I was on their feet. This high tempo swim I thought might have cost me as I was swimming so hard but once out on the bike I was able to recover quickly and push on. I had come out the water with some of the pros who I would have been 1-2mins down on out the swim, so I was happy to be in the group… We worked pretty well until about 20k to go and I felt like I had more to give. A little voice in my head said as I rode straight to the front…’what are you doing you idiot… they’ll just sit on your wheel!’, but it was worth a go. I pushed pretty hard without looking back for about 10mins then then had a sneaky peak. They were out of sight, and I had biked away… What a great feeling and I was buzzing as I came into transition. Now there were 4 others up the road and I thought I’d back my run speed to catch them or get close so I set off hard and fast. Ironically my swim and bike had been great but my run was pretty average! I just could get on top of the leg speed and the 35deg heat started to sap the spring in my step. I moved into 3rd and then got overtaken in the last 3k which put me in 4th.
A strange race because I swam and biked well but the normally storming run wasn’t present. So very promising for Florida IM but I’m going to make sure that the swim bike and run are all playing their ‘A’ game on race day…
Joel Jameson
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