Heather Jackson was in a league of her own in her dominant course record win at IRONMAN Lake Placid.
Alicia Kaye (CAN) was first to emerge from the water of Mirror Lake after pulling away from South Africa’s Annah Watkinson by over five minutes and putting close to six minutes on the race favorite Heather Jackson (USA). The remainder of the field was well over six minutes behind as they headed towards T1.
Once the two race wheels hit the pavement the lead trio pulled further away from the field. Initially, Kaye showed the way while Jackson slowly worked at reducing her deficit to the front of the race. Watkinson was content to hang out in third, hoping to keep the lead pair close until the race reached the run.
At 50 miles, Jackson put the hammer down and flew into the lead. In the following 56 miles, Jackson managed to annihilate all her competition as she carried what appeared to be an insurmountable +22:11 advantage on Kaye and +23:34 on Watkinson. Jackson’s bike split was the fastest of the day at +23:41 faster than her closet rival.
As if Jackson wasn’t in a different zip code already, she proceeded to lay down the fastest run on the day to claim IRONMAN Lake Placid women’s championship race by a winning margin of 35:18 on Watkinson who ran her way into second and Kaye hung on to finish the podium off.
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Jackson, Heather USA 9:09:42
2 Watkinson, Annah ZAF 9:45:00
3 Kaye, Alicia CAN 9:53:31
4 Shutt, Beth USA 10:17:00
5 Valentine, Nicole USA 10:33:44