Alena Stevens

Ironman Lanzarote – 8^th in PRO field

This race was planned and agreed with my coach as a training one. After racing IM Taiwan the previous month, I wasn’t feeling really fit and fast.

Besides being just a training race, it was also very emotional one for me. Last year this was my only DNF Ironman due to knee injury I caused couple of day’s prior the event, therefore I had an unfinished business to do here on Lanzarote.

The plan was to go hard and fast in the swim, being patient on the bike and run the best I can to get to finish line within 17hrs 🙂 .

The swim went really really well for me, 57:58, which was a 7 minute improvement on Lanzarote swim course from last year for me! Credit to my new Sailfish G-Range wetsuit – which is very fast and gives me full flexibility around the arms – but also credit to my coach Bella Bayliss for all the hard work and sound advice she has given me in the pool in the build up to the race!

 Bike: Ironman Lanzarote is known as one of the hardest out of all Ironman courses due to amount of climbing and the famous winds. I was riding my Colnago K-Zero TT bike with Vision Metron 55 carbon wheels and although the windy weather conditions on the day were tremendous, the bike set-up seemed to be pretty much perfect! Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling very powerful on most of the whole bike segment, however I wasn’t pushing for it either, but coupled with my PowerBar nutrition and being patient on the hills I’d saved enough energy to get the day finished with a solid run. Having lost a couple of places on the bike, I managed to gain 3 places back on the run again and ultimately taking 8^th place on the PRO podium.

I would like to say massive thanks for all the shouts and encouragement on the day, maybe I didn’t react much as I was in the zone, but thank you, that kept me going 🙂 . Also a big thanks to amazing volunteers out there, some of the best!

More importantly, It was amazing to be back from injury and to be back to racing on such an iconic race course … Despite the extreme wind conditions, it was so well organized and with an outcome that I wasn’t expecting, I was happy that the demons of 2014 are now laid to rest!!

There was certainly a few things learnt on the day and, although it’s still early days in my season, Bella and I are continuously working towards getting my full strength and race form back … My 2015 season – in “Global Jet colors” – continues in June. Watch this space!