Ironman Arizona 2015 – Analyzing Results

Race Conditions

As usual IM Arizona was very quick, especially on the bike: A bike adjustment of 20:25 was the main contributor to an overall adjustment of 22:52, the quickest in Arizona so far. Even with the great conditions, the two new bike course records by Andy Starykowicz (4:03:35) and Meredith Kessler (4:42:13) are great performances.

Conditions on the run were a bit different this year: With rain and cold temperatures there were not too many “explosions” but some athletes were shivering and having trouble keeping their temperature up. But the effect on times was quite low, at least for the Pro athletes as they only hit the rain once they were on the run. (Different than in Whistler this year when the rain hit the Pro field at the start of the bike and a lot of athletes struggled with hypothermia.)

Male Race Results

As expected Andy Starykowicz took the lead shortly after T1 and dominated the bike leg with a 4:03:35, improving on Jordan Rapp’s bike record by more than ten minutes. Andy now has the three fastest Ironman bike legs (4:02:17 Florida 13, 4:03 Arizona 15 and 4:04 Florida 12). He had an almost 13 minute lead into T2. He was running well for the first half of the marathon, but Lionel Sanders was eating into his lead. When Andy struggled around mile 17 and had to walk for a bit, Lionel took the lead and won the race with a sub-8 finish time. Brent McMahon had the best marathon of the day and finished in second place, securing his Kona slot for next October. TJ Tollakson took the last spot on the podium, he also managed to overtake Andy shortly before the finish. Jordan Rapp wasn’t fresh enough after Kona a few weeks ago and took fifth place.

Female Race Results

The female race was dominated by three athletes who wanted to end the year on a high note after not so good races in Kona: Meredith Kessler finished but was the last female Pro finisher – in Tempe we saw a different Meredith defend her title from last year. She posted the best swim and bike legs (and a new bike course record), leading by more than ten minutes in T2. She then went on to have a solid second best marathon and won with a new personal best Ironman time of 8:44:00. Second place went to Amanda Stevens who made after an uncharacteristic slow swim had a good bike leg and was the only one running faster than Meredith. Amanda’s 8:52:31 is also an Ironman PR for her and the first time she was able to finish under 9 hours. Julia Gajer had a good swim and bike but then had to work on the run for her third place finish. Darby Roberts had a great tun to finish fourth, and Michelle Vesterby was too tired after Kona to finish better than fifth but is now also safe for Kona 2016.