Pre Race
Thursday the 30th of June, I watched with concern as our flight taxied away with at least 12 bike boxes left sitting on the tarmac. It was a huge relief to see my bike box to be one of the first to appear at the other end. Two of my club mates weren’t so lucky and had to wait until the evening before the race to get their bikes! I was stopping at a holiday village about thirty minutes from the race site, which worked really well. I have to say my travel operator Nirvana Europe was excellent and I would highly recommend their service.
I managed to fit in a couple of swims, one at the race site, a thirty minute run on the course and a short ride over the next couple of days. Everything seemed to be in order. Saturday evening, after completing my usual rituals, I got into bed and dropped off to sleep before 8pm. I did however forget part of my pre race ritual and forgot to switch off my mobile and was woken by a good luck text message at 9:30. After this it was the usual broken sleep I get before a big race.
Race day
Race morning, up at 3:30am and I headed down to the restaurant for breakfast at 4am. Coffee, coco-pops, banana dipped in honey and jam, more coffee. I left breakfast with enough time to give me 30mins before the transfer to transition to chill out in my room. At transition I sorted out my nutrition, walked through both T1 & T2 and checked the pressure in my tires before heading down to the swim start. I went straight over to the warm up area and had five minutes swimming with some short efforts to lift my HR. I was shocked at how few athletes were choosing to warm up in the water and opted to stand on the spot staring out into the lake for fifteen minutes before the start. Five minutes before the start and I positioned myself on the left hand side at the front. As the last minute before the start ticked away to “Europe’s- The Final Count Down’’ blasting over the speakers I felt very different to my previous five other Ironman starts. Rather than the usual last thoughts of, “shit, shit… shit.” I felt calm, confident and focused. Before the massive hit of adrenaline kicked in as the cannon went off, a wide grin took over my face – “I own this race!”
Swim- 59:50
The 1500m to the first turn were a joy I had plenty of space and managed to settle into a group, which towed me along nicely. At the turn wanting to stay out of trouble I decided to go a little wide. I lost my way and sense of direction a little after this and was following the splashes in front rather than being focused on a single point. This was the same at the second turn and the low sun made it very difficult to sight into the entrance to the canal. I did still feel pretty comfortable and didn’t really get into any bother. This remained the case all the way down the 900m of the canal to the swim exit. As I exited a quick glance at my watch gave me a 59min swim. I was hoping to see 57 something but was still happy to break the hour for the first time. T2 was smooth and relatively quick.
Bike 4:50
Not having a power meter to race with meant it all had to be done on feel. Having trained with a power tap for nearly 6 months my target power of 215-220w was pretty well dialed in. My general rule for the first 20 miles of any Ironman bike leg is that if others are not passing me, I’m probably going too quick. Sure enough plenty of bikes whizzed by. It’s quite easy to spot the guys that you’ll be seeing again and those you won’t. I settled into my now well-established nutrition plan of drinking High 5 super carbs every 15mins c.500-700ml/hr (from concentrate, which I carried on my bike and mixed with water from the course). Every half hour I alternated between half a Powerbar and a gel. After about an hour of riding things spread out a little. I thought I was riding alone only to glance behind and see a pack of about 10 riders, which included the 2nd and 3rd place pro women, blatantly forming a group and making no attempt to pass. My shouting expletives in English at them seemed to have little effect. The referee pulling up alongside shortly after and handing out penalties seemed to work much better at splitting things up! My goal for the first lap was to get round feeling as fresh as possible, big tick in that box. On to the 2nd lap and I found myself amongst a good pacing line which got broken at the only real big climb at about 80/90miles after this I was pretty much on my own all the way into T2. I think I arrived here in the top 80ish. It was a great coming into a near empty transition and being followed by the cameraman off the bike and into the change tent.
Run 3:11
Heading out onto the run course was a real buzz! The first K was lined with supporters 3-4 deep making a huge amount of noise this may have contributed to my first K being way too quick under 4min :-/ it took me another 2-3k to get my pace down to a sensible 4:40/k I did let this creep up a little but made sure that my HR didn’t exceed 155bpm. Heading out on the first 10k loop the leading men were coming back in the opposite direction. The run course was still quite empty at this point and things got a bit lonely for the next 30minutes or so. My target for the run was to get to the halfway point as fresh as possible and pick things up from that point. Taking a gel and water every 5k worked well and I got to the halfway point feeling good. From here I switched to the coke and ignored my HR and focused on keeping my pace <4:40. The conditions were perfect the sun stayed covered by cloud for most of the first 30k. The marathon seemed to be flying by and before I knew it I was at 30k. From here I turned off my watch and just went for it. My pace certainly increased and the K’s were ticking away nicely with less than 4k to go I was passed by two guys which I knew were in my age group, they passed pretty quick and straight away I decided not to chase them, once they had about 50m on me though they slowed to a similar pace to mine. Looking back I’m annoyed that I didn’t go with these guys, after all, for all I knew at that point they could have been battling out the last Kona spot. I’ve got a lot to learn about actually ‘racing’ an Ironman. As I headed down to the finish shoot I was excited to see what the clock was going to say. As I’d turned off my watch I was guessing at what time I was going to see. “I’ve nailed this, its got to be close to 9:15?” was my best guess. I turned the corner and my jaw hit the floor 9:08!
Post Race
My time placed me 21st in my age group the quality of the field combined with the perfect racing conditions meant not even a sub 9 would have qualified me outright for a Kona spot. The plan all year has been to lay down a good time in Austria and have a crack at Kona qualification at Ironman Wales in September. I did go to the roll down just to experience what goes on. I have to be honest and say I was excited when it came to my age group, I did have the money in my hand should there be a freak roll down to 21st place! The excitement was very short lived and the 5 Kona places in my age group quickly got snapped up only rolling down once to 6th place, disappointed? I’d be lying if I said no.
Now it’s time to shift my focus. Wales is on the 11th September and I need to recover well and get in a good couple of training blocks. The course in Wales is going to be tough. If I can get things right there’s more than a good chance I could bag myself a ticket to the big dance.
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