After a week or so doubting whether I would be able to make it down to South Africa with the “ash cloud” lingering by the Wednesday before the race I’d lost hope of going (even did a really hard ride with Tom on the Monday Hilly 50 in record time!). The flights suddenly opened up so on the Thursday night flew down to Port Elizabeth via Johannesburg, quite a long flight with a few hours sleep. Body felt pretty tired from the flight but had 24 hours before the race on Sunday morning to recover as best I could in the nice hotel.
Race morning woke up nice and early and weather was looking good, sunny and not too hot but walking down to the start seeing the big swell coming in I started to get a little nervous for the swim!
The swim start was interesting including lots of arms and legs kicking and being knocked over by a wave just getting into the water but settled OK for the 3.8km swim and felt fairly comfortable given my lack of sea swimming. Unfortunately towards the end of the first lap of the swim I managed to swim through a load of brown oil so could only see out of one eye to the side ! I thought it was some seaweed which I grabbed with my hand and went on one of my goggles then spent a few strokes trying to clear the goggle realising it was oil messed it up even more! Coming into the beach end of first lap looking at watch was 31 minutes so only a little off target of an hour. I tried to clean the goggles while coming out of the water for the first lap but with oil all over my hands no success with that so headed back into the water for the second 1.9km loop partially blind so not easy to sight the buoys with the rolling waves! I just followed others but second lap was a lot slower coming out of the water around 67 minutes a lot slower than planned I think going off course a bit too much at one point! Tough swim with the waves but I think everyone struggled more than normal (well apart from the top swimmers). 280th after the swim, well over 1000 people behind so not as bad as it felt but not at all to plan!
Pretty long transition to clean up oil that was all over face and hands put me 10 mins behind schedule so not a great start but a long day still ahead! Looking at the watch at start of the bike seeing 1 hour 15mins was rather disappointing as I knew I was starting 20 minutes behind my real opposition (who I knew would have done mid-50 minute swim times). Although it was very tempting to go hard on the bike I know I haven’t really done the base training at this point in the year to go hard and be able to run after as well! So common sense prevailed (mostly) and the bike leg went pretty much as planned (the bike itself was pretty well perfect (Ceepo Katana with some very special bits), no problems and felt sooth and fairly relaxed, kit was great was wearing the new X-Bionic kit rather than a tri suit for a bit more comfort). Although my legs never really felt 100% I stuck to the wattage I knew should be fairly easy for me from testing with Filipe in the lab and on the road in Lanzarote held a fairly consistent 239W average (the aim was around 240W), 37kph pretty much spot, just a little slow mainly from the wind and rough road surface.
The bike was a 3 x 60km circuit, the first lap I went a little harder (around 250W average) partly frustration about the swim but took it steady for the rest of the ride pretty much ticking over waiting for the run and eating and drinking plenty just enjoying flying past lots and lots of people even lapping people mid way through the second lap and all through the third lap! The most frustrating thing was seeing my main opposition each lap (on the out and back section) getting closer to me but still a long way off it seemed (and seeing a big pack of some of the top age groupers ahead all together (not drafting of course…) was a little frustrating as I should really have been up there! All in all a fairly enjoyable bike ride overtaking about 240 riders and nobody overtaking me of course as 16th quickest on the bike (and at least I can say my result was a “pure” bike ride on my own all the way; put me back up to around 40th overall so back closer to where I had planned to be.
So onto the run… a 3 hour marathon would be ideal(!) However for these Ironman events the run is really where the race starts and today just didn’t have the legs at all. I set off at a pace which should have been pretty easy to maintain (around 4:20/km would be just over a 3 hour marathon as planned). That’s all great in theory but straight away the legs just felt dead which is pretty unusual as I’d normally expect to struggle much further into the race bare minimum 10km in. At Ironman Switzerland last year with same wattage on the bike I felt absolutely fresh (perhaps too fresh as I did a 36 minutes first 10km), I had this in mind so didn’t want to go too hard but my legs were giving me no chance of that anyway!
I tried to maintain the 3 hour marathon pace for the first 5km or so but didn’t feel right at all as heart rate was really high as well. I caught a couple of “pros” who were obviously struggling the same way or possibly had gone too hard on the bike. A South African pro and another pro who I “ran” with for the next 10km was great with the SA guy getting loads of cheers but we were running at a much more conservative pace, closer to 5min/km. The cheering from the spectators including an African tribe (it seemed like!) was great and did make a difference to the whole painful experience! The legs just seemed to get heavier and heavier trying all sorts of things picking the pace up a bit, drinking cokes at the aid stations etc nothing seemed to help (not really a nutrition problem I think). So this went on for the next few hours taking sponges to cool down each aid station (every 2km) the odd coke and water but not too much seeing the odd pro running past and the odd age grouper doing well, sometimes overtaking people stuggling even more but more people running past(!). The body felt fine, plenty of energy and heart rate had now come down but legs just didn’t want to move as quickly as I wanted them too! Around 25km in I had a strange tingling sensation over most of my upper body and particularly arms and hands which kept me entertained for most of the rest of the run, throw in a bit of light-headedness and Achilles tendon and knee pain (probably from running so slowly!) added to the interest. In the end although the run felt awful and seemed like walking pace towards the end only lost a dozen places or so over the run finishing in 56th overall (3:43 marathon). After a quick massage then fairly uncontrollable shivering and a hobble to the medical tent for a piece of metal foil and couple of pain killers for the Achilles tendon and some food felt quite a bit better, disappointed generally with the performance but lots of lessons learnt. Probably the highlight of the day is watching people crossing the finish line. (I couldn’t really walk for a while and had an hour before I could get bike out of transition anyway) so sat near the finish watching and you really appreciate the “Ironman” spectacle with the music and cheering etc, crossing the line yourself it doesn’t really sink in what an achievement it is for most of the competitors who have gone through a much longer day and probably more pain! The brain was pretty well in shutdown-mode crossing the line so you don’t appreciate it at the time.
Overall am disappointed with the result as I know I should be 30 mins or so quicker on the run and 10 minutes on the swim would have put me top 10 but that’s easy to say! The lack of proper base training over the winter months and arriving last minute caught up with me especially the legs I think not recovered from the long flight less than 48 hours before (since have read about long haul flights stopping proper blood circulation in the legs, the swim cools down the body and particularly the legs as they’re not used much for swimming Ironman, the bike just kills the legs off a bit more then hit the run and with poor circulation they just don’t want to work!). Also apparently explains feeling really cold even though it was mid-20 degrees C! Anyway glad I went and finished the event as lots of lessons learnt – main one not expecting I can do well off inconsistent (and really pretty negligible) training, poor sleep, last minute flight etc etc. The main lesson though is that I need that large amount of base training to do well at these events and for me that only comes after a couple of summer months “training like a pro”! The last six months with work and other commitments training and just as importantly recovery, has been too inconsistent, so that is the aim for the summer to get back some fitness!
56th overall, 9 hours 50 minutes 3 seconds
Swim: 1 hour 6 minutes 58 seconds
Transition 1: 4 minutes 43 seconds (lots of clearing up oil!)
Bike: 4 hours 52 minutes, 59 seconds
Transition 2: 2 minutes 10 seconds
Run: 3 hours 43 minutes 11 seconds
South Africa in general was great, the trip was too short but managed to drive down the Garden Route to Cape Town and really enjoyed my time there, I’ll definitely be back (whether or not for the Ironman again is to be decided!)
