There are only 10 days left in 2011 so I guess it is appropriate to look at the year in reflection. When 2011 started I decided to get into triathlon and focus my training efforts on Ironman Cozumel in November. My reasoning was that training for an Ironman is the best way to build the engine after not much in terms of endurance sport for more than 15 years.
I like to have goals to keep me motivated. When I joined coach Russ he asked me a couple of questions, and these included my goals for 2011. Looking back this is what I said:
Main goal - Go sub 11 hours in Cozumel
Break 5 hours in a half Ironman race
Go under 2h15 for an Olympic distance tri.
All goals have been achieve with some margin to spare so I think 2011 can be ticked off as a successful year. The ultimate goal was to get consistently stronger and fitter as I would like to become a competitive age group athlete over the coming years. In hindsight I am probably about a year away from being where I want to be with Ironman racing but the signs are certainly looking positive.
The highlights of this year were as follows:
Cotswolds half Ironman 4:35 and 17th overall with a 1:31 run.
London Tri - Breaking 39 Minutes on the run.
New Forest half - 2nd in Age group and 8th overall with the 2nd fastest run in the top 10.
Cozumel - Achieving target + having a decent swim.
Ironman Cozumel
The training for Ironman Cozumel went really well until just before the New Forest Half. The race was extremely tough as it was windy and the run was super hilly and mostly off road. I gave everything on the run to run from 22nd up to 6th in the main heat of the day. Recovery took more than two full weeks and a couple of badly timed running races made the recovery process much harder than it should have been. I jumped straight back into training and probably ignored the warning signs as I tweaked a quad muscle + started to get really uncomfortable on the bike due to tight glutes and hamstrings.
About a week before our departure to Cozumel I knew something had to be done and I purchased my (first!) foam roller. On the advice of Conan I went to a physio just before the trip to Mexico and had some dry needling done on the ITB and Quads to try and get me through the race.
The trip to the race was much longer than it could have been, and we arrived very tired. I caught a bug after being healthy and illness free most of 2011, this was quite disappointing to get sick in the week leading up to the race! So between the injuries and sickness I was doing my best to prioritise eating well and rest before the big day. I saw a couple of athletes from London before the race for some rides and advice. It was really cool to finally be on the island and experience my first Ironman buildup. The power of positive thinking helped a lot and got me to race morning feeling better, although a couple of extra days would have helped.
A few of my friends from London arrived two days before the race and they had a very big scare with bikes going missing. The last one arrived the night before the race, but at least they got their trusty steeds in time!
The Race
Bikes were racked, nutrition and gear prepared and we were ready to roll. I had my newly acquired TYR swimskin on and the morning of the race we headed down to the Chankanaab park for the race start. I have never seen so many athletes at a triathlon start! We inflated our tires and had to fight off a fair few athletes that were trying to use the floor pump before we did. Thanks Nino for bringing it, it is still hidden in the trees at T1!
I was feeling positive as my swim training has been going really well in the couple of weeks leading up to the race. I had a gel about 30 minutes before we started and enjoyed walking down the pier and waved to our superstar supporters who also took some amazing photographs throughout the day.After a dolphin show that we didn't see the gun went off. I started about four rows from the front and immediately remembered why swim starts are scary. After a couple of hundred meters things calmed down and the rest of the swim went really well. I am still not sure where the currents were strongest but we were basically swimming with and against it for equal amounts of time. There were lots of little jellyfish that stung me in the face, on the arms and on the legs. I also did my trademark veering off course to the right a couple of times, but it was better with the clear waters. The jellyfish helped to keet the focus up, and when I got to the finish I was really happy with my time. The most memorable things were the clear water and the ability to see the diving camera crew on the ocean floor as we swam along.
Goal time 1h05
real Time 1h03
T1 took about 6 minutes, I was struggling with my calf guards and arm coolers and was a little under prepared. I will definitely not race with calf guards again. Proper planning should take care of longer triathlon transitions in future.
The Bike
Once on the bike I settled into a good rhythm and started overtaking bunches of faster swimmers. It became apparent that this race would have loads of drafting going on and it was quite hard to keep riding past the packs as they swallowed you up. The bike leg starts with the riders being fairly protected from the winds. After about 15km you arrive at the far end of the Island where some crazy head and cross winds relentlessly hit you for what feels like an eternity. The bike consists of three laps, after lap one I knew it was going to be a tough day. My aim was to bike fairly close to 5h20, that meant keeping close to 34km/h whilst controlling efforts to stay close to keep the heart rate in the 125-130bpm range. Laps one and two saw me working a little harder than planned to keep the speed up and a shot at hitting my target time.
The winds really picked up on lap three. Combine that with the pack riders, cramps and sever foot pain my day was becoming a real struggle. Nutrition on the bike worked ok. I took Gatorade and water from the course, and had 16 gels in four bottles in my singlet. I took a couple of ibuprofen caps on lap three to try and get rid of the pain underneath my feet. I later worked out that my calf guards might be to blame. I stopped completely to take them off and continued with my feet better almost immediately. Sore feet got replaced with cramps, especially in the areas where I have been having problems in the weeks leading up to the race, hip flexors, quads and hamstrings. The hamstrings were probably cramping because of the excessive work due to the conditions.
The bike course turned out to be a bit longer than expected and I rolled into t2 standing up and out of the saddle for the last 2km stretching and basically getting some relief from being aero for so long.
Goal time 5h20
Real time 5h21
The Marathon
As soon as I started running it felt like I was in a sauna. I do not deal well with heat, so I just tried to concentrate on my running form and settling into a rhythm. It felt so good to be running that I was soon running faster than 4min/km. I slowed right down to about 4:40min/km and maintained that pace up to about 5km where I started to cramp really badly in the hamstrings. This made me walk the aid stations and I made sure that I used ice and water to really cool down the muscles before setting off again. Of course this slowed me quite a bit. I was not even thinking about a time, but rather making it to the finish line. Poor decision making had me taking a number of different kind of gels on the run and this resulted into stomach cramps. I had to stop taking gels and started using aqua and pepsi at every aid station. Between km's 5 and 15 I was running at about 6min/km.
I saw a number of familiar faces on the course. These included Edo, Nino, Johan, Conan, Laura, Stu, and James. It was really cool knowing more or less where on the course they would be on each of the 3 out and back loops. I used these encounters as motivators to keep going. Somewhere towards the end of the first half it started raining extremely hard. The monsoon style storm cooled us down and I managed to pick up the pace again to where I was comfortably running 5min/km only to be stopped by some more cramps. I passed through half way in just under two hours. At this point I started to calculate that at a stretch it might be possible to go under 10h30.
On each of the three laps I passed my wife and a bunch of friends on the run. It is strange what a big difference this makes, and I really enjoyed running past them. They were positioned right at the end of the lap and you can tell by the photos that each lap became a lot harder.
I needed to run the last 10km in 60 minutes to break 10h30. I found the strength to push through the pain and still walked every aid station. I also drank some pepsi to keep the sugar levels up. The rain stopped and apart from the 30m river you had to run through on every lap I had no other excuses except for the occasional cramp. I felt brave and skipped the last aid station to finish strong and crossed the line in 10h27.
run goal - 3h20
time - 3h52
Crossing the line was emotional and fantastic. I felt a great sense of achievement and was really happy to finish my first Ironman in one piece. It was a lot harder than I thought and the experience will definitely come in handy in future.
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