<\/p>
The last time Ruth Astle came to the Big Island she left on top of the world. This time a top five would represent ample return.<\/strong><\/p>\n Having won the overall age-group title in Hawaii in 2019, the Leeds-based triathlete has evolved from world champion Ironman age-grouper to challenge in the professional ranks.<\/p>\n Astle made a successful transition to life as pro, winning Ironmans in Mallorca and South Africa at the end of last year, and the 33-year-old also finished an impressive fifth-place in the first Ironman World Championship of 2022 in St George<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n 220<\/em> caught up ahead with her to find out how she was feeling ahead of racing on Thursday.<\/p>\n Ruth Astle: I\u2019m quite nervous now. All the training is done and I have more time to think about the race. Plus the hype is building up. But I\u2019m also super excited.<\/p>\n RA: It\u2019s a little bit different, but not chalk and cheese.<\/p>\n Yesterday I spent a few hours going out to get photos for sponsors, but triathlon is one of those sports where a lot of things you have to do as a pro are the same as you have to do as an age-grouper: register, rack your bike \u2013 and I was drug tested when I was here as an age-grouper, too.<\/p>\n I\u2019m no longer in the Zwift house, though. I tried really hard to wrangle my way back in and asked if they had any spare rooms, but unfortunately not.<\/p>\n RA: It\u2019s always horrible to see and a reminder of how vulnerable we are. From having seen her build-up and how much she\u2019s put in to now not be able to race, I\u2019m super gutted for Kat.<\/p>\n Plus, I wanted to race her. But seeing how well she\u2019s recovering day-on-day and being more chirpy and back to herself is encouraging.<\/p>\n I was able to get three weeks of really good training with Kat, and we had [two-time Ironman world champion]\u00a0Patrick <\/strong>[Lange<\/strong>]<\/a> around as well. It\u2019s always useful seeing how the other top pros approach things.<\/p>\n RA: One of the most helpful things has been his approach to building relationships with sponsors. For example, how to pitch yourself to them. Patrick doesn\u2019t have an agent, which I found quite surprising.<\/p>\n RA: We\u2019ve got the Kona wheelset from Hunt. You can\u2019t run a disc out here, so it\u2019s good having a different option and they are super fast but stable.<\/p>\n Gear-wise I\u2019ve put a slightly bigger front chainring on, so I\u2019ve gone for a 54 and I\u2019ll have a 10-33 on the back for a bit of range [for the hills] of Hawi and Palani.<\/p>\n Other than running a disc wheel in Dallas, it\u2019s the same set up as I had for the PTO US Open<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n RA: It\u2019s always a tough question. If I have the race I\u2019m capable of \u2013 a good swim, being controlled on the bike, and running a well-paced marathon \u2013 that should hopefully get me another top five.<\/p>\n But you don\u2019t know what everyone else is going to do. We\u2019ve not seen Lucy [Charles-Barclay]<\/strong><\/a> race an Ironman for three years, although she\u2019s had some really great racing coming back from injury and Daniela [Ryf]<\/strong><\/a> looks on form.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want Anne [Haug]<\/strong><\/a> with me on the bike and I\u2019d put Laura [Philipp]<\/strong><\/a> in the same bracket. And Chelsea [Sodaro]<\/strong><\/a> is a great runner. But there are loads of other great athletes too\u2026<\/p>\n Ruth will be riding the Hunt 7387 Aerodynamicist wheelset on Thursday. Hunt<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s North American brand manager Ken Rodriguez-Clisham explains how they have been specially designed for the Kona course.<\/p>\n Ken says: \u201cWe developed these over the last 2.5 years and they debuted in Ironman St George in May, where Ruth rode a TT disc rear.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve modified the set-up for Kona, spending a lot of time analysing wind data from Hawaii and adjusting our modelling in the wind tunnel specifically for this race.<\/p>\n \u201cThe crosswinds, especially when heading into Hawi, can get intense, and although realistically you\u2019re only riding in the extreme wind angle 10% of the time, we wanted to make sure that the wheelset was more controlled and manageable when it gusts.\u201d<\/p>\n Top image credit:<\/strong> Nigel Roddis\/Getty Images for Ironman<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Tim Heming Published: Tuesday, 04 October 2022 at 12:00 am The last time Ruth Astle came to the Big Island she left on top of the world. This time a top five would represent ample return. Having won the overall age-group title in Hawaii in 2019, the Leeds-based triathlete has evolved from world champion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":17947,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/10\/ruth-astle-aiming-for-five-star-kona-performance-scaled.jpg",2560,1826,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/10\/ruth-astle-aiming-for-five-star-kona-performance-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/10\/ruth-astle-aiming-for-five-star-kona-performance-300x214.jpg",300,214,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/10\/ruth-astle-aiming-for-five-star-kona-performance-768x548.jpg",768,548,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/10\/ruth-astle-aiming-for-five-star-kona-performance-1024x731.jpg",800,571,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/10\/ruth-astle-aiming-for-five-star-kona-performance-1536x1096.jpg",1536,1096,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/10\/ruth-astle-aiming-for-five-star-kona-performance-2048x1461.jpg",2048,1461,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Tim Heming Published: Tuesday, 04 October 2022 at 12:00 am The last time Ruth Astle came to the Big Island she left on top of the world. This time a top five would represent ample return. Having won the overall age-group title in Hawaii in 2019, the Leeds-based triathlete has evolved from world champion…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/17946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}220: With three days to go, how do you feel?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
220: How different is the experience from your last visit here as a triumphant age-grouper with the Zwift Triathlon Academy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
220: Have you been affected at all by the crash to Kat Matthews<\/a> [Astle\u2019s training partner] in the Woodlands in Texas last week?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
220: So, what have been the lessons from Lange?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
220: What equipment changes have you made for the race?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
220: What would success look like on Thursday?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What wheelset will Ruth Astle be riding?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"