Where shall I start? Let us rewind the clock back to the 1985-1990 period (showing my age!). At that time I was living and studying in Nice in the South of France. I had a passion for cycling and the quiet roads in the back-country behind Nice offered the most fantastic playground imaginable. During the school holidays, I loved to cycle through all the remote villages meeting eccentric locals and tourists. There was not a day without ten stories to tell at the dinner table, embellished by a vivid imagination and the occasional sun stroke.
Every year, Nice hosted the International Long Distance Triathlon (about 2/3 of an Ironman). At that time I had one idol that I loved watching climbing effortlessly those beautiful roads: Mark Allen . Triathlon was still a new sport and I entered a few short distance races with the assurance of finishing in the top 10 as there was so few competitors and even fewer spectators. My dream was to tackle the long distances. Then I moved up North to study, work, and later moved to London. Cycling was not so easy so running became my main sport and newly found passion. But, the images of Mark Allen were firmly anchored at the back of my mind.
Let us fast forward to December 08, this is supposed to be a race report not an autobiography.!
Freshly arrived in Singapore, I discovered the joys of running around Mac Ritchie reservoir and met a few MR25 members: Mika, Christina Ledig, JJ, Michael Craig to name but a few. Mika and Christina were just coming back from Ironman Western Australia. Listening to their stories, it took me about 15 seconds to decide that Ironman Western Australia would be the ideal way to enter the fascinating world of Ironman and achieve my long term dream. They introduced me to MR25, ANZA Cycling, JoyRiders and I met many friends which made my training much easier. Getting back into road cycling after all those years was tough. Struggling at the back of the bunch is never a good feeling. The first few rides finished alone were incredibly frustrating and humiliating and my vintage 1987 Peugeot did not help matters.
I felt like a total beginner. So I swapped for a Bianchi model, trained harder spending many hours doing the “Kranji loop” and “Changi loop” with my friends from JR and ANZA. After a few months of training and a few mid-distance races, I felt ready. I should rather say “readier”. Or as ready as I could.
Time to travel to Busselton, about 200 km South of Perth for the event. After 2 days of light training, carbo loading, checking bike, registration, re-checking bike, and other joys of pre-racing, came the D day.
Saturday 5th December 2009 was a very special day indeed. Needless to say, I was incredibly nervous. More than for any other race. I had breakfast at 4 a.m. with Kim, a very friendly South African chap I met at the B&B. When he started calling his wife “Richard” and called me “Rodney”, I realised that I was not the only nervous one. This made me feel slightly better. Actually, I think the 1500 competitors or so were incredibly nervous. So many hours of training. One of my old bosses kept saying before any customer presentation “there is no room for failure today”. This sentence was stuck in my mind today.
So how did that go?:
At 6:15 a.m. precisely, the starting horn was given and took me by surprise. I knew it was imminent, but it went off a good minute or two before I expected. A quick tap to start the stopwatch and off I went.
The 3.8 km swim is nice: you swim out along the West side of Busselton Jetty, which extends 1800m into the sea, back along the East side and then parallel to the shore for a short while to get to the swim exit. I decided to swim a bit wider, staying well cleared of the jetty, to avoid being knocked around too much. I hate these triathlons starts with 1500 swimmers in an area hardly bigger than an Olympic size swimming pool. The leg out was quite fast and I really enjoyed looking the sea bottom (and spotted a few jelly fishes). There's a definite feeling that you're out in the open ocean at the turnaround, with quite a bit of swell and the land an awfully long way away. Coming back I started to really relax breathing every 4 strokes, sometimes every 3. The field was thinning and I decided to move closer to the jetty. Later I realise it was a mistake as the most direct route was heading slightly away from the jetty. Well, no big deal, maybe I lost a couple of minutes there but I had plenty of space to enjoy.
I completed the swim course in 1h06 which was OK without feeling too tired. Wetsuit off, bike jersey on, smeared with sunscreen by a helpful volunteer and off I went for 180 km on the bike.
The 180 km bike course is three laps of an absolutely pan flat course with a section following the coast followed by a section shaped like an inverted “T”. Having experienced three long rides (170km+) in the 2 months preceding the race (you may have heard of the “Double Changi Banana Prata” loop) I knew that 31kmh was my cruising speed. I got carried away a bit in the first lap. Going onto lap two the wind was starting to pick up and, Murphy’s law predicts, most sections of the road were exposed to either head wind or cross wind, rarely tail wind. I tried to follow the advice of eating very regularly (at least twice an hour): bananas, cookies, etc. The powergels did not agree with my stomach very well (which I knew before) and after the third one it was time to use my secret weapon. I briefly stopped at a water station to collect my “special needs” bag that I prepared the night before: grapes and nuts for starter, ham, salami and cheese sandwiches for my main course and a chocolate and muesli bar for pudding. Served with plenty of 100Plus. Not exactly your typical Ironman nutrition plan but I enjoyed a proper lunch and you know how important that is to a Frenchman! I did miss however my banana prata that was the highlight of training in Singapore.
However, I did a major mistake. I did not feel hungry in the third lap and stopped eating. I was actually feeling quite well in the third lap but by now the wind was slowing everybody down. Finished the bike course in 5h54.
Short stop to pick-up my lunch bag half-way through the bike course!
I reached the transition area and decided to take a bit more time (10 minutes exactly) to get ready for the final run (42 km). Changed top, socks, covered myself in Vaseline and suncream as the temperature was soon going to reach 37 degrees, put my running race belt on, cleaned my sunnies, etc.
Mentally I was getting geared for a 4h Marathon. It took me 3 or 4 km to admit that my objective was unrealistic and even 4h30 target would be hard to achieve. I had to segment the remaining 39 km in many different parts to keep some motivation. 39 km seems a long way to go but 3 times 13 km sounds much easier! Especially with a water station every 2 km with plenty of ice, water, Hi5, oranges, water melons and Powergel. Did I say gel? No Thanks, not my cup of tea. I walked through every water station and forced myself to run (slowly though) in between stations. The second of the three laps was one of my hardest running moments ever (as you can see from the increasing minutes/ km pace below). I had no more energy left, a real scorcher afternoon (37 degrees), my legs were starting to cramp, and I just wanted to walk. I thought that things could only get worse but surprisingly after sucking more oranges, and cooling myself down with ice cubes, I started the last lap with more energy and a renewed motivation. The torture was going to end soon! I kept dreaming about a nice bath, a fresh beer, ice cream and then coming from nowhere a guy shouted in my ears “Keep going we are under 12”. He introduced himself as Tony from San Francisco. I kept looking anxiously at my Garmin watch doing some mental calculations (very hard thing to do at that stage) and I replied “Keep going Tony we are gonna make it under 12!”.
Then came the finish line. Every single race I did in the past 20 years, I would sprint the last 200 or 300 meters. So I started to sprint but I couldn’t. I was cramped up. I finished the 42km in a slow 4h35 bringing the total time to 11h54. Thanks for the lift Tony!
After the race, I caught up with my two B&B mates from Sydney for a full race debrief over a tomato juice (lack of planning or superstition: forgot to stack-up the fridge with beer) . The spirits were high!
Then on my way back to Perth, some more cramps reminded me of the dangers of Ironman. Terrible cramps in my cheeks due to excess smiling! After the highs came the post-Ironman race lows and a strange feeling. No 4.15 a.m. wake-up this week, no Kranji loops or track work. Plenty of time to thing about Xmas shopping and the 2010 season.
I signed up for Ironman Nice (27th June 2010) and I am debating whether or not I should enter Langkawi. “Pocket Rocket” Mika and other seasoned triathletes warned me: Ironman can be addictive...
So what did I learn from this day?:
- When things are bad, they can get better. I had two low points half-way through the bike and run courses but things eventually got better.
- Nutrition: everybody warned me that a good nutrition plan was key to success. I would love to find a nutrition plan not involving gels! Not eating enough during the last 5 hours was a mistake.
- Swim: A straight line between two points is always the shortest route!
- Cycling: maybe after all I should invest in this expensive set of wheels! I somehow felt undergeared. Having said that, a disc wheel does not look pretty being riden at 25 or even 30 kmh!
- Running: I had unrealistic targets, and did not put enough quality work in the preparation. Running used to be my forte but I relied too much on past performance. More hill work and track work would have helped!
- Mental: it is easier to swallow an elephant in small pieces. The segmentation strategy worked well and my GPS watch was my best friend to set targets every 2 or 3 km on the run. You cannot always rely on Tony from San Francisco!
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The end (or the beginning of a new passion)
Richard
