Last Sunday, Lance Armstrong competed in another Ironman 70.3 event, continuing his quest to qualify for the Ironman World Championship in Kona. Prior to this race, he was too far down the list to be in a qualifying spot (meaning he hadn't earned enough points yet). Well, he ended up winning the Florida 70.3, which gave him a 500 point boost! I tried looking up the current rankings now that this race is in the books, and unfortunately the website was down. Regardless, we'll take a little look at Lance's results and see how his day went.
In the swim, Armstrong was 5th out of the water, and 1:23 down from the leader. Not too bad, and definitely something Lance can make up on the bike. His swim time ended up being 24:52. The bike was where Lance took control. By mile 20, he was in the lead, and was making sure to build himself a huge buffer. He had done well on the bike in his previous 70.3's, but had always seemed to lose a step or two in the end of the run. It seems as if he was trying to build himself a big enough lead that even if he slowed in the run, he'd still be alright. He ended up finishing the 56 mile bike ride in 2:01:13. Holy crap! And on top of that, he had built himself a little more than a 10 minute lead.
Unlike his previous 70.3's, Armstrong had no issues during the run during the Florida race. It seems like maybe all of his nutrition and planning finally came together, and he was able to hold a sub 6:00/mile pace for the entire half marathon. Again, holy crap! He total time for the day was 3:45:38.
It still unknown just how well he will do in a full distance Ironman. I think he'll still be just fine. Lance will be doing at least one full Ironman before he *hopefully* competes in Kona. And you can bet, that when he's racing in Ironman France on June 24th, that I will be racing him! That's right, I'll be going head to head with the one they call Lance. Of course, I'll be racing in IM CdA while he's racing in France. But in my mind, we'll be racing each other. So you better bring it Lance!
