Callum Millward’s balanced excellence edged Tim Don and Alicia Kaye blew away the women’s field on the bike to win the pro titles at Ironman 70.3 Boulder.

Men

New Zealander Millward combined a 4th-best 24:19 swim in glassy calm Boulder Reservoir, a 2nd-fastest 2:03:53 bike split and the second-fastest 1:16:30 half marathon to finish in 3:46:47 with a 1:24 margin on Tim Don of Great Britain and 1:47 on 3rd-place finisher Mark Bowstead of New Zealand, who led much of the day with a race-best 2:01:23 bike split.

“My last Ironman 70.3 win was a sprint finish at Boise in 2012,” said Millward. “They say you’re only as good as your last race, so I’m very happy to get another win. This race had some world champs in the field who train here. So you might say this is a big race in a little bubble called Boulder.”

Like last year, the men’s race had a bit of strategy aimed at neutralizing Tim Don’s fearsome run.

“The only times Tim has been beaten is when you can come off the bike in front of him,” said Millward. “Last year Joe Gambles did it here and won. This year I just wanted to give myself a chance. I don’t have quite the leg speed Tim has. But this time Mark Bowstead, Greg Bennett and I were in the lead early on the bike and I knew Tim was at the front of the group behind us so he had to do a fair bit of work, which was good because the three of us were all split up and weren't working together.”

Bowstead, like Millward, is still looking for breakthrough races, and stirred the drink on the bike leg after a balky swim.

“I had a bit of a trouble in the swim,” said Bowstead. “My wetsuit was a bit tight and I kind of panicked. But I got it together about 15k on the bike when I caught the lead group and I just sat in a bit. I don’t like sitting in, so at 30k I just went for it and took the lead.”

After a race-best 2:01:23 bike split, Bowstead had a 1:58 lead on Millward, 2:27 on Davide Giardini, 3:11 on Richie Cunningham, 3:21 on Tim Don, 3:34 on Greg Bennett and 3:40 on Ben Hoffman.

Despite an injured foot and a less fearsome run résumé, Bowstead held on longer than expected.

“I thought they would catch me sooner,” said Bowstead. “I had a wee mishap three weeks ago at Wildflower where I had a serious blister and it split on the bottom of my foot. I couldn’t run or ride for 9 days, so I thought it might bother me today. Luckily it didn’t.”

Millward took the lead from Bowstead about 13k on the run. “Mark still looked pretty good,” said Millward. “But I was more worried about Tim Don coming from behind.”

Happily for Millward, the pressure exerted on Don during the bike leg had its desired effect. Don hammered with everything he had, but could not come close to his 1:11:49 run split last year (perhaps partly due to a rerouted run course). After a 1:16:25 run split, Don looked thrashed at the finish, cooling off with cold water on his head and stuck with another runner-up finish.

Millward’s 1:16:30 run split held off Don and Bowstead’s 1:20:07 half marathon earned him 3rd.

Women

While Alicia Kaye’s winning margin might seem to preclude any drama, her relative inexperience at the distance presented challenges she fought hard to overcome.

After her 25:10 swim, Kaye was 4 seconds behind defending Boulder 70.3 champion Jodie Swallow, 1 second behind Camille Donat of France and 3 seconds ahead of Katy Blakemore of the U.S.

After Kaye’s dazzling, race-best 2:15:40 bike split – 4:32 better than Swallow’s next-best mark – Kaye started the run with a 4:44 advantage on Swallow, 6:46 on Jeanni Seymour of South Africa, and 7:07 on Blakemore.

“With the Life Time Fitness series going away, it became necessary to race the 70.3 distance to continue making a living at the sport,” said Kaye. “To be honest, I thought it would come easier. I found it is 90k of hard riding. These girls are legit, legit, legit. And my coach Joel Filliol had me working really hard to adapt.”

With all this in mind, Kaye had some worries as she started her run.

“I had destroyed myself on the bike and wondered, ‘Oh Alicia, what have you done?’ When I started the run, my legs were shot. Luckily, my legs came around after 5k and they felt good for the middle 10k. Then the last 5k was a death march. So it was a challenging day all the way around.”

Kaye laid some of the blame on some missed nutrition – for which she and her coach will formulate a plan for her next race.

Her 1:29:53 run remains 5 to 8 minutes slower than she will need to contend for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship podium, but it was good enough to hold off runner-up Blakemore’s 1:28:17 split and Lesley Smith’s women's-best 1:25:40 run for 3rd.

And, to illustrate that this is a cruelly unpredictable sport, 2014 Ironman 70.3 World Championship runner-up Jodie Swallow ran into physical issues and suffered through a survival slog 1:38:00 run to finish 5th.

Ironman 70.3 Boulder
Boulder, Colorado
June 13, 2015
S 1.2 mi. / B 56 mi. / R 13.1 mi.

Results

Men

1. Callum Millward (NZL) 3:46:47
2. Tim Don (GBR) 3:48:11
3. Mark Bowstead (NZL) 3:48:34
4. Richie Cunningham (AUS) 3:50:57
5. Ben Hoffman (USA) 3:53:23
6. Matt Russell (USA) 3:53:55
7. Paul Ambrose (AUS) 3:55:34
8. Davide Giardini (ITA) 3:57:29
9. Kennett Peterson (USA) 3:58:57
10. Rudy Kahsar (USA) 3:59:24 * M25-29

Women

1. Alicia Kaye (USA) 4:13:10
2. Katy Blakemore (USA) 4:18:33
3. Lesley Smith (USA) 4:20:47
4. Danielle Mack (USA) 4:23:58
5. Jodie Swallow (GBR) 4:25:53
6. Jeanni Seymour (RSA) 4:28:30
7. Uli Bromme (USA) 4:36:11
8. Camille Donat (FRA) 4:36:26
9. Colleen De Reuck (USA) 4:37:53 * F50-54
10. Katy Cargiulo (USA) 4:39:32