Flying from Bristol to Geneva on 16 May. Not taking bike - instead paying £150 for 2 weeks bike hire on site. Seemed a lot more attractive than paying over the odds for excess baggage, and there's also the risk of damage.

Roth is 13th July - should be quite a party.]]>
As before, I will be keeping very quiet about my preparations and training in the lead up to the event. Seems to work better that way - pressure off and all that. Daz is making plans for 2009 training already, and I'm off to France again in May for mountain climbing on the bike.

Targets already set - but you'll have to wait until next year to find out ! ]]>
Tuesday 9 July

This trip really felt like an expedition. Just to prove it here is a photo of my kit just before it disappeared into Vulcan’s boot. Daz’s bike and kit were yet to come !



The drive down to London was easy enough until the M25, which was shut next to the A21 in Kent. I spent a slow hour winding round the side roads, as did everyone else which made it all the slower. Arrived at Bromley just after 6 pm Wednesday. I reckon we spent 2 hours loading the car and balancing everything up, certainly no space left.



Wednesday 9 July Boulogne - Frankfurt

We both got around 3 hours sleep – had to leave for Dover at 5 am, with Daz getting the first driving stint. The ferry was delayed and we didn’t get to Boulogne until 10 am local time. The highlight of the day was Daz’s new satnav system, which was in general excellent although she (all the voices on it were female) did try and send us down a blocked road just after we left the ferry.

Driving in shifts we avoided tolls and city centres. Lille, Charleroi, Namur, Liege were just gantry signs on a busy motorway. After the German border at Aachen we hit heavy traffic and average speed slowed considerably – but the Germans love to speed when the road is clear and we both found ourselves doing 90 mph and struggling to keep up with the traffic flow !

Food stop and driver change ‘somewhere in Germany’



By now we were both very tired and stopped every hour, eventually getting to Frankfurt at 6 pm having only had 3 hours sleep out of 48. The satnav system really came into its own here, we were able to drive there directly without looking at the map. Daz had booked the hotel and it turned out to be a 4 star beauty. Nothing like comfy hotel beds when you are tired, and the breakfast afterwards was even better.


Thursday 10th July

Feeling a lot better we started at 9am towards Nuremburg. The A3 road was marked as motorway on the map, but we hit repeated delays – the road was being widened along its whole length, and the Germans also have a liking for motorway hedge trimming during peak hours, with lanes shut for miles !

Just after lunch we had an uh-oh moment with the car. Daz was driving and the auto gearbox shifted out of overdrive going up a short hill and refused to change back up at the top. Oo-er. Then it started hunting between gears. I did recall a warning in the manual about this when towing a trailer and needing to switch off the overdrive system, but this didn’t seem quite the same. Daz reduced speed and after a few minutes the problem disappeared. I guess that was that. The road conditions improved after Nuremburg and we made good time to the Austrian border at Salzburg, although predictably another traffic jam there slowed us by 30 minutes.

Austria was completely different to Germany. Virtually empty roads, polite drivers sticking to the speed limits. We stopped just south of Berchtesgaden (former home of the most infamous Austrian of all) to change drivers for the last time and arrived at our hotel in Velden (west of Klagenfurt) at 645 pm.


Friday – Saturday 11-12 July

Registered on the Friday, then checked in the bikes on Saturday. Quite hard saying goodbye to your bike, always a temptation to make just one more adjustment.

The temperature in these pictures was over 90oF. The car radiator header tank doesn’t get refilled in the UK from one month to the next but in these conditions it needs a top up every 48 hours !



Yes I know Daz has a nicer bike than me



Sunday 13 July – Race Day

The night before the race I searched around my DVD collection for something suitably mindless to settle pre race nerves. Chose ‘Magnum Force’, the second Dirty Harry film. You know the form :

This is a point 44 Magnum - the most powerful handgun in the world - and it would blow your head clean off . . . .

History justified the vigilantes – we’re no different . . . .


At 5:10 am local time we started towards Klagenfurt, thinking that we should be able to get a parking space by being nice and early. Wrong – all the car parks were already full and we just managed to squeeze in half a mile away. Everything was taking longer than we thought – just getting into transition took 15 minutes, but we had allowed more than enough time to do everything and at 6:45 me and Daz stood on the beach along with 2400 other people waiting for zero hour.

The swim – 00:59
At the race briefing we had been told that the start would be in the water, behind a flag. Just before 7am we all swam gently out to await the start. Problem was, the marshals didn’t hold the leaders up in time for the flag – so they decided to let us all carry on. The first I knew about this was the nice friendly swim turned into a violent scrum in a few seconds. I hate this sort of thing and swam wide to avoid it. It took the first kilometre to get anything like clear water – this was a high class field and no quarter was being given by anyone. The last kilometre of the swim goes up a canal and this was quite an experience, I was in a small group, all evenly matched and all going for it. Each time one of us went ahead there was cheer from the thousands of spectators lining both sides of the canal.


The bike 5:14
I took my time in T1, making sure of everything before starting on the bike. As a result my transition was slow – 6 minutes. I looked across to where Daz’s bike should have been on the way out of the bike park, he was already gone. I found out later he had drafted me for much of the swim – he said it was easy enough, just find the swimmer on the edge of the scrum staying out of trouble.

The bike loop was twice round a 90k course. The first half of each loop was fast and flat, I had deliberately removed all electronics from the bike beforehand – no computer or even a watch so all I could do was race rather than worry about statistics. I held back just slightly, to save my legs for the run. Nutrition went well, a Go bar every 30 minutes or so then just energy drink from the aid stations for the last hour to give my digestion a chance to recover.

Austria might be a fast course but flat it is not ! Towards the end of each loop there was a steep climb, and around the corner, another steep climb just to make your morale sink a little lower. On both loops the press helicopter was hovering at the summit, presumably filming the area of maximum suffering is good for ratings.

The descents on the other hand were relentlessly fast, and as I came into T2 I had a hunch things had gone well. I stole a look at the swim exit clock as I started the run, it said 6:27. Good I thought – do a four hour marathon and I’ll get under 10:30 !


The run – 4:08
It’s strange but I always know in a race whether it will go well or badly well before the finish. A few hundred metres into the run and I knew it would be a good day. For the first 21 km I ran through the aid stations as the weather closed in and turned the run course into a river. This was no bad thing though – the previous few days has seen temperatures of 90 degrees and above, running in that would not have been much fun.

The pain level on the run increased steadily after the first lap and with 15 km to go I was really suffering but there was no sharp pain, I knew at this point that I could get to the finish ok, but did take the sensible precaution of walking the aid stations to get gels on board. At the second half of the last lap I looked at the clock again – 9:35, with only 10 km to go ! It was only at 5 km to go that I realised that at last, I was going to do an ironman in a decent time. As I rounded the bend past the Ironman dome with 1 km to go Daz shouted at me from the side of the course, that last 1000 metres seemed to go on forever but I finally saw the finish clock reading 10:35:25 and pushed on to record 10:35:43.


The aftermath
I didn’t feel very good afterwards and must have looked bad – one of the marshals guided me to the food tent, where I had quite a few pizza helpings. But overall, it wasn’t as bad as Lanzarote – hard yes, but not stupidly so. I was able to run throughout the marathon and finish in good form. Daz was waiting outside the food tent. I had a good day, but he had a flier – 9:20 including a marathon time of 3:11.

Very few know this, but he has been coaching me for the last 9 months. My results – and his – speak for themselves.


Postscript A letdown - or perhaps not ?
After thinking about it we decided to register for the 2009 race early Tuesday 15th July. Too late - it had sold out at 5 am. From my point of view I was cross at first but I reckon I'll do Roth instead and save myself 100 Euros plus 2 days of travel and hotel bills, since I can do the journey in a day rather than two. It's also a fast course and should be another PB following a winter of careful preparation.

On principle I reckon I should decide which races to enter after I get home. If a race sells out in my absence then too bad - I don't do it. There are other races out there happy to take entries and give me time to think beforehand.]]>
10:35 overall - pretty good for me. :) :) :)

Daz of course did 9:20, a fantastic achievement although he didn't quite make the hawaii rolldown, it is only a matter of time I think.]]>
The Little Woody is a half IM distance race that has a very hilly bike course around the Forest of Dean. The run is on forest trails and is hilly too - not what you would call good hunting for me.

Swim

Very muddy water, not much fun. At least there wasn't a bunfight at the start ! I was a minute down on the leader at swim end, but didn't really care. Triathlon is all about the bike, and nowhere is that more true than the Forest of Dean.

Bike

61 miles of hills. No flat bits at all, so many climbs I lost count. I had upped my calorie consumption to 500 cal/hour, a mixture of jelly babies and wine gums. Worked a treat and I reckoned I was going not much slower than Olympic triathlon pace. Mike Jubb overtook me but that was it, a real change from normal when I do ok in the swim but lose places continuously for the rest of the race !

Run

The worrying part. I have never done a decent triathlon run - ever. This changed big time on this race because on the bike I wasn't having to go nuts. I was racing within myself and in control of things for once. Nowhere did I feel really stressed and despite the hills was able to work steadily. Finish came soon enough, and I reckoned it had been a good day.

Overall

Well, it was a very good day ! The old maxim that your best performances are not your hardest efforts held true here. 10th overall

Swim 29:13 (10)
Bike 3:22:21 (9)
Run 1:22:38 (17)
Overall 5:14:13 (10)

The winner was Mike Jubb in 4:48, and my bike time was only 12 minutes slower than his. Even the run, usually by far my weakest looked good here. The run was 1.5 miles short, but that still gives a 1:35 half marathon pace.

Next year, it's IM Austria with Daz Carter again !]]>
Met up with Andy over lunch today- he also did the long swim.

We both came to the conclusion that Lanzarote was a solid, but not spectacular performance. But nothing wrong with that for a first IM. Have to admit though, my motivation did fail training wise over the 2 month leadup to the race. I ground out the key sessions but it wasn't much fun. :x

Andy's always done the coach's job par excellence . It's up to me to improve my game to match.

Daz seems to have the right idea with these long cycle tours. Camping is not on but a 4 day long weekend staying at B&B's looks attractive.]]>
And it does feel good. It is amazing how the brain forgets a race. Was I in Lanzarote ? I guess I was, because the sunburnt skin is still peeling !

Meeting up with Andy this morning to celebrate what was a real success. I'm really not sure what to do next though. For next year, Roth IM near Nuremburg looks like a possibility. Not an M-dot race so half price, but just as good. Their website has an intro from the German Chancellor. I'll drive Vulcan there over 2 days each way and make a holiday out of it.

This year <yawn> not sure. Start riding to work next week I think, weather has improved and it's quite a money saver. Then perhaps some local sprints.]]>
One reality I learned yesterday is that an Ironman takes no prisoners. It will expose every little weakness both physically and mentally. Lanzarote isn´t described as the toughest IM on the European calendar for nothing.

Swim

In the preparations leading up to the race I found myself panicking over unimportant things. However much I wanted to deny it, brain wasn´t cooperating. As the klaxon went at 0702, I piled into the water along with 1000 others. The organsers had requested that the slower swimmers stay back, but they didn´t ! For the first 400 metres things were pretty desperate just to stay afloat.

Once I rounded the first turn mark, things improved. I´ve had doubts over my new Ironman wetsuit in training but in the race, it performed flawlessly. I quickly overhauled the group in front and it proved to be the best swim I´ve ever done in a race - overall I was 93rd. Crystal clear blue water and lots of wildlife to watch.


Bike

T1 wasn´t exactly a smooth affair, but I had scoped out the bike position in advance. Lots of others hadn´t. I was out out soon enough, working at a steady 220 watts flat, 270 watts hills - the power plan Andy had constructed for the race. Many of the roads have been resurfaced, and that first half of the race was quite an experience. If you´ve never been down the Fire Mountain road, go see it. It is spectacular. Feeding and nutrition went well, 5 jelly babies every 15 minutes plus a bit of powerbar.

Then a slight problem. The power meter started to give random readings at about 2.5 hours in, so I disconnected it. I had cleaned and sealed the connection the night before, so I´m not sure what was wrong. Then Daz Carter overtook me ! I had no reliable power meter data so I was racing on feel. I let him go, and worked consistently for the second half. The last 20 miles was into a headwind and I started to overtake people on the bike, never done that before. Overall bike time was 6:07, which I thought was about right for the conditions.


Run

I thought I had done ok on the bike - not gone too hard. Cardiovascular system was fine - but I soon found out that leg and back muscles were not. Could not walk, let alone run. Stretched out and got going. Then one side of my brain said :

you´re too tired to finish this. You can´t run and you haven´t done mile 1 yet

However, the other side retorted

You damn well finish this - you didn´t train for 6 months to be denied now´

I found a survival strategy that worked. Run 45 seconds, walk 15. Coke and water at each aid station also helped, along with the wine gums I carried and ate as I went. Forget average pace - just get to the finish. I actually managed to run nonstop for the last half mile, and saw the timer at 11:57 - at this point I knew that I would go under 12 hours.

I lay down on the ground to get off my feet. EMERGANCIA !! someone screamed and half a dozen medics crowded round. I was ok though, just the organisers being commendably over efficient.

Afterwards I found out that the new altered bike course was in fact slower than last year, even though the wind was much less. Only one of the pros broke 9 hours.

How do I feel ? Very tired, rather emotional - and lots of learning points to address. But I did do the job I came to do.

Now off to airport - plane to catch !!]]>