After a wonderful battle between especially India Lee, Jocelyn McCauley and Skye Moench, it is the latter who has just won Ironman Florida. Moench struck at the right time during the marathon and thus ran to a beautiful and well-deserved victory.
During the swim, it was still her compatriot Lauren Brandon who came out of the water first after 53:32, holding a lead of more than two minutes over India Lee and Rachel Zilinskas, among others. McCauley followed in fourth at 4:20 minutes behind and Moench in 10th at over five minutes.
Still, Lee, McCauley and Moench quickly found each other on the bike, though Brandon also rode with them, creating a lead group of four women. For Brandon, however, the pace proved too fast and after just over a hundred kilometers, she had to let the three others go. Lee, McCauley and Moench then stayed together until T2.
During the marathon, Lee initially took the lead: her lead over Moench grew very slowly to about thirty seconds after fifteen kilometers of running, while McCauley was already more than two minutes behind at that point. However, Moench didn’t let herself get crazy, kept running her own pace and that resulted in her taking over the lead again after 21 kilometers and in turn running away from Lee pretty fast.
From then on, Moench did not see her lead compromised: she won the race in a time of 8:22:29. Lee finished second in 8:31:01 and McCauley third in 8:33:56.
