The "locals" showed up Sunday at IRONMAN Boulder and put on a show on what ended up being a hot, windy and all around very challenging day on a normally fast course. The men’s race had a small split in the swim that had Joe Gambles, Kevin Collington, and Justin Metzler with a gap on a chase group consisting of Peterson, Shearon, Long, and Chris Leiferman. By the rides end the heat, big winds, and fast riding of Chris Leiferman blew up the race and most riders ended up coming in one by one behind the leader Leiferman. Once onto the run course Leiferman was able to find his rhythm with only Gambles in the same zip code and eventually finishing minutes behind our champion. Patrick McKeon stormed the run course with the fastest run of the day to finish off the podium placings.
The women's race had Dede Griesbauer setting the pace early out of the swim and onto the bike and never letting go. Angela Naeth worked her way up to Dede’s shoulder out of T2, but the effort was short lived and Griesbauer went straight back to the front of the race. There was no hiding from the fleet-footed Kirsty Jahn today, though and the Canadian took control of the race while cruising to the front and clocking the fastest split of the day. Katy Evans snuck by Dede for second, and finished just 3 minutes off the winner Jahn. Griesbauer held strong to find the last podium position in her hometown race after what was a long hard fight.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Leiferman, Chris USA 8:07:55
2 Gambles, Joe AUS 8:13:16
3 McKeon, Patrick USA 8:20:48
4 Collington, Kevin USA 8:26:16
5 Long, Sam USA 8:29:56
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Jahn, Kirsty CAN 9:16:12
2 Evans, Katy USA 9:19:20
3 Griesbauer, Dede USA 9:36:55
4 Green, Erin USA 9:49:18
5 Goodell, Kimberly USA 9:52:51