It was one of the breakthrough performances of the season and we sat down with Kieran Lindars to look at how he turned his season around – and claimed a “dream” Kona spot – with his second place against one of the biggest and strongest fields of 2024 so far.
More than 80 male pros were on the start list for the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt in August as the top elites chased not just Kona spots but also valuable points in the new IRONMAN Pro Series.
Top of the list was one Kristian Blummenfelt, who has won pretty much everything there is to win in the sport. Another former IRONMAN World Champion in Patrick Lange was also looking to impress on home roads while the likes of Sam Long and Matt Hanson were flying the US flag.
Very much under the radar meanwhile was Britain’s Lindars. His only pro win had come in 2022 at Challenge Almere and his best result since then had been second in the same race 12 months later, when his exhausted struggle to the finish line was painful to watch and would have an impact on his performances in the following months as we’ll find out later.
It all meant he started this campaign with a 16th, a DNF and then a fifth place in a nearly all-British affair at Challenge Wales.
No wonder he was so emotional after what really could be a career-changing display…
Pressing the reset button
Looking back to the closing stages of Challenge Almere last season, Kieran told us that moment proved far more significant than he realised at the time, admitting: “I thought I’d got away relatively unscathed. I’d gone through the recovery process and it was only when I started getting back into training and just couldn’t train properly that I realised what I experienced there was something different.
“In the past where I would start to hit the wall or bonk, whatever technical term you’d like to use, I would usually start to feel hungry, then a bit thirsty. Whereas post that experience, I crash very quickly. So I don’t know if it’s potentially kind of changed me a little bit.
“That continued through the start of this season, I just wasn’t tolerating training very well. I could do a couple of weeks well and then I’d need to rest or I just couldn’t hold it.
“So it’s been about getting a better carb intake and understanding a little bit better about fuelling and when to fuel. That meant I was then able to start training a lot better and more consistently.”
Make or break for Kona?
But while an important part, that was just one piece of the jigsaw and things didn’t just suddenly slot into place.
He explains: “The big goal for this year was to qualify for Kona next year. And my early results just really hadn’t gone to plan at all.
I was going to races and not even breaking even, it was really getting to the point where I thought ahead of Frankfurt, this could potentially be it.
“I’m living at home, with my parents, I’m 27 going on 28. And I hadn’t really had a result at the start of the year. I work part time to fund this, so I was thinking should I just get a [full-time] job?
“I wasn’t looking at the races in America because I didn’t have the money. So I was kind of taking it race by race to get through again. And that doesn’t take away from the support I’ve had because it’s been immense. But I’ve worked to keep this dream alive. I’m trying to make this a career, not because I’m money-orientated, but because I would like to be able to have no compromise when it comes to going to a race and producing a performance.
“So I had an eight week gap to Frankfurt and I sat down with the team and we said IRONMAN Frankfurt seems like a really good idea. It gives me enough time where I can prepare properly for it, but also have something in the near future that I can tell everyone that’s what I’m aiming for.”
The 30 watts project
This stage had begun earlier in the year, but it was only at Frankfurt where it really started to pay dividends.
With support from his sponsors – which Lindars terms “life-changing” – he looked at making improvements to every aspect of his kit and performance. Effectively lots of marginal gains which add up to a hugely significant step forward.
First of all, he optimised his swim efficiency; then he focussed on his BornBound tri suit, followed by his Rudy Project Wingdream helmet and finally, his bike and wheel choice for Frankfurt.
Lindars left no stone unturned when it came to finding aero improvements. [Photo: BornBound]
The aim on the bike was to make 30 watts difference which, depending on speed, could make a difference of close to five minutes in a full-distance race, not to mention feeling far less fatigued starting the run.
He explained: “The question for me was, how can I get as aero as possible? I think the partners and the team around me, helped me save about 30 watts on the bike, which, if you’re riding at 300 watts is a huge percentage gain.
“If you look at my 2022 results, I was being dropped on the bike, but running well and catching up. And then last year’s results, I was staying with the group but then couldn’t run well after that effort.
“Whereas in Frankfurt I got to the run a lot more efficiently and was then able to run like I did in 2022. That’s where the big jump in improvement has come, from that work by everyone more so than just me getting stronger.”
But in real terms can he put numbers on how they got to the 30 watts saving?
“So my skin suit saves me 14 watts over the next best competitor and that’s tested quite a lot.
“My bike setup is about five to ten watts faster, which is including both frame and wheels.
“And then my last change is my helmet. So the new Wingdream, because it’s bigger, it pushes the air more around my shoulders, which makes it a lot quicker. So in total, that adds up to about 30 watts.
“The one that’s definitely verified is the suit and then it was a little bit hard to tell if it was purely bike or purely helmet, but that’s roughly how much when we were swapping bits in and out. So as a package, it comes to about 30 watts.”
Earning a bit of luck
A huge part of the thinking behind going to Frankfurt was the fact that there were no fewer than six Kona slots up for grabs.
And even better than that, as race day approached, 18 on the start list had already booked (or just needed to verify) their spots in Hawaii.
“So going into the race, I was hoping that maybe a top-15 or even top-25 place would qualify you for the Worlds,” said Lindars. “And I feel like that should be within my capabilities, and if it’s not, then I don’t really deserve to go anyway. So that was the thought process.
“So after what had finally been probably the best training block that I’ve ever done, I went into the race very confident that I was hitting good values. I guess the only concern in my head was whether or not that would translate to the racing environment.
So I said to people with this form and a little bit of luck, I should be able to get a top-20 performance. Obviously, what ended up happening was very different to the plan!
“I should also say it was the first time that I was able to tolerate taking carbs on the bike. So it meant that when I finished the ride, I hadn’t depleted my stores. And what I found was that I could still go at pace as opposed to being tired and just nowhere near the times. So that was a big difference.
“And the bit of luck came with the weather. I train in the rain a lot of the time and haven’t really done warm weather training camps. The conditions also meant my watch wasn’t working on the run so I was just running purely to feel, which is partly why I went out so fast.
“But I knew there would be some strong runners coming from behind and so I wanted to get a little bit of a margin earlier on into the run, just in case I had any problems or any upsets later into the race.
“I think the interesting thing about the run was I didn’t know where I was in terms of position. It was such a big field and both Kristian and myself thought a few people had broken away on the bike. It was only about 4km in that I realised I was in third because I saw a bike with a flag for that position.
“And then, funnily enough, the initial thought for me was, I can now lose 17 places and still probably qualify for Kona, as opposed to, I’m going to hold on! But then I went with the idea, well, maybe I’ll get a podium here.”
That proved crucial as in the end the Kona slots didn’t go outside the top 10, with Lindars taking a superb second – his 2:37 marathon seeing only Blummenfelt ahead of him.
Kieran Lindars clocked a 2:37 marathon [Photo credit: Getty Images for IRONMAN]
Giving back
No wonder the emotions flowed as he approached the line and then in the interviews afterwards – in the space of seven-and-a-half hours he’d gone from wondering whether he had a future in the sport to achieving a lifetime ambition of racing the IRONMAN World Championships in Kona.
His post-race interview on the live broadcast showed just what it meant and he says now: “I was overwhelmed with it. And I think the reason it probably resonated with people is I train with foundation-level clubs.
“I think a lot of people feel that they need a really high-tech coach or you need to go to these lovely places to train or need to go to altitude.
“And I think my process and my team around me, it’s very grassroots. You know, a lot of my team are volunteers, and without them none of this would be possible. And I think people look at my story and it’s kind of realistic.
“I’m training with age groupers, I’m training with the next generation. And I think also that some people that I trained with didn’t really realise what I did until this result.
“The team around me at the moment are all doing everything they can to get a result. And they do it because they’re just such big fans of the sport and they really want to see how much they can push the boundaries.
Without them, I would have never been even close to what I achieved in Frankfurt.
“I think for the first two, three months of training this year, every running session that I had was in the rain. And just picturing my coach Harry on the side shivering but always there for us and doing it totally for free. And he’s been my coach since 2008. Never, ever missed a race and he’s never asked for a penny and without that, it can’t happen.
“It was so nice to give them back a result, showing them that all of this work you’ve done with someone who just used to run for school has now seen us – as a team – come second at the European Championships. I think it’s really, really special.”
All roads lead to Kona
And asked if it’s life-changing, he has no hesitation: “Yeah, 100%. And it also gave me big chunk of money which, again, was a resource I didn’t think I would have.
“I think if I’d have come 20th, let’s say, and still got a Kona slot I might have thought can I even afford to give it a go? Now it’s all about how I can make the most of this opportunity and make myself really good for Kona.”
We’ll get to that in the second part of this interview but looking back on Frankfurt now, it’s clear it marks a line in the sand for Lindars: “I think this kind of performance shows me on my day what I’m capable of and kind of shows everyone else what I can do.
“And now it’s a question of being consistent. In the past I’ve had a couple of good results but never to this level. And it was always kind of questioned how good the field was and so on. So it’s quite nice to be able to say categorically, look, this is what I can do.
“Now, the big question is what it takes to get that every time. And I think that’s the difference between being a good athlete versus one of the greats, like Kristian Blummenfelt.”
Lindars, Blummenfelt and Gregory Barnaby on the Frankfurt poddium [Photo credit: Getty Images for IRONMAN]
Blummenfelt of course will be one of the big favourites in Hawaii and next time we’ll hear from Kieran just why Kona has always been the race he dreamed of, how the training has been going and what his hopes and expectations are on the Big Island where he and David McNamee are the two athletes flying the flag for Britain.
Source : Tri247