My lead up to IMA was pretty good, even though work got in the way on a number of occasions, I made it through this time, without injury (knocking on wood so as to not jinx myself for IMC) and I had a good mindset. Indications were looking like I'd have a good go this time around and traveling down and staying with the people I'd trained with was good. We all had similar routines, etc. which was another bonus. Light training, check out the venues, eat, sleep, repeat was the typical day. We checked in on Thursday and as soon as you get that check in wristband, you're switched on as it means you've paid, you've trained and you're there and ready to go.
Race morning started at 4am, where I got up, had my breakfast and was feeling good...goodish. You usually have the pre-race trip to the toilet, however in the span of 2 hours I made that visit, not once, but 4 times!! I guess that means I was taking it serious ;-). As I put on my wettie, you reflect on the leadup. I was prepared, and I was ready to take it to the start line. We walked down to the boat launch area, said our good lucks, crossed the timing mat (so they know who goes in the water) and seeded ourselves for the cannon. As we were in the water, the announcer calls out to us to waves and say thank you to the supporters. Then there was a deafening roar from the some 3,000-4,000 people who lined the shores. This was an amazing moment. There we were, some 1,200 people treading water, the video helicopter hovering overhead and then BOOM, our day had officially started.
My objective of the swim, consistent swimming, find some toes and go. Based on the time before I wanted to take a bucket load of time off, so doing it in just under 1:28 last time, every time I popped my head up to readjust my swim line, I would say to myself, get that head in the water and get moving. Amongst the thrashing arms and feet I had a sense of calm in the water. The changes in my program seemed to be paying off, 3-4km sets of pull and paddles were worth the dead arms in those sessions. The first lap went fairly well, except for a few directionally challenged swimmers who kept running into me. I was on plan, swimming at a steady pace, and on toes. When the set in front of me slowed down, I'd go by them and find another set to follow. Hell, I even had a number of people on my toes, which was a very weird experience for this swimmer. A few of them though, got a rude reminder, that if you're going to follow toes, don't keep hitting them! It's amazing that once you go and do some crazy kicking, the toe tapping stops. Being pretty much at high tide, the current in the water was limited to that of the river, so fairly slow. The first lap was good, and I was somewhat surprised when I'd made it to the top of the loop. Heading back towards the start, a right hand turn and back into the main portion of the course. It seemed to me at about this point, my fitness was good as I was constantly changing the toes I was following. I'd even speculate that for the second lap, I was swimming faster, possibly due to less traffic. Up to the turn around, I was feeling good, calm and fresh. The closer I got to the boat launch, the louder the music got, which was a great motivator. I kept my head down and didn't stand up till my fingers touched the bottom. I stood up, looked at the clock and and I had gone 1:19. This was a 9 minute PB on my previous swim. Better yet, and I've heard this from people who trained on the same program as me, they could have turned around and swam the course again, well that's how I felt too.
Into T1, my plan was to be efficient and be quicker than last time. I grabbed my bike bag off the rack, found an empty chair where I was quickly greeted by one of the volunteers. My hat goes off to these people. They put up with allot, and I was conscience of this and made sure to thank them. He layed out my kit in front of me and on the chair beside me, asked which pocket I wanted my gels in and where I'd want certain things. A quick towel off, put on my cycling jersey another thank you and I was off. On the way to the bike racks I grabbed two sports drinks, downed them and went to my trusty steed. And you know what? This time around, there was quite a number of bikes still in transition. This may not seem like much to the average person, but for me, seeing that many bikes on racks, meant I had moved up into the average swimmer range for time. (as I found out at the awards dinner, I was 3 minutes off the average swim time so my assumption was right.) Put on the bike helmet, sunnies and off I went, out to the mount line and quickly into the areo bars.
Ah, Port Macquarie, how I love thee. BUT, I hate your freeking roads. Throw some good wind on it and this challenging course was even more 'challenging'. Oh ya, I forgot to tell you about the beautiful winds. They were in the high 20's and increased into the mid to high 30's kms/hr and there was no reprieve from them. Now throw in the fact that a big portion of the road surface was recently chip sealed, it was deader than dead. Hell, I've seen more life in a cemetery than these buggers. (as an aside, there was talk with some of the legends of the race, people who have done 10+ races, and they were commenting that this course was the hardest they had ever seen). For those who don't know what chip seal is, take a nice asphalt road, take away the fines and some of the bitumen and you have chip seal road, one step up from a gravel road....okay maybe two steps.
My plan was to stay in the small ring until the golf course, about 10-15kms out of transition, to ride through the rollers and get my legs under me. I followed through with this and then it was into the flat portion of the course. This was exactly what I did and phase one of my bike plan was complete. Now then, heading into the winds, it was tough to hold a solid speed and for the most part, it was tough to hold above 26-27 kms/hr. There were portions too, where the winds would be funneled through a small opening in the road and you were blasted by it, like someone was pushing you backwards. Throw in some cross winds for shits and giggles, you have the makings of a fun ride. Heading out, I knew I had to stay as aero as possible to reduce the amount of effort I'd have to exert. When I made the turn around, I thought, great, here we go, use the wind to my advantage and try and make up some time. WRONG! I was heading back and even though I was sitting for the most part in the low to mid 40kms/hr, I knew this was not the right way to ride. I back off a bit and tried to get into a groove. The only problem was the new drafting rule that they now use here in OZ.
It's a 12 meter drafting rule and it states that you have 25 seconds to get through this zone and once you start your pass, you must complete it. Failure to do so in the time allotment, results in a 4 minute penalty (3 strikes rule for the race). The other kicker was once you were passed by someone, it was your responsibility to drop back the full 12 meters before trying to pass. Same thing, failure to back off in the 25 seconds, a 4 minute penalty. So you can see my issue. While I respect the rules, when you have so many people on the course at once, throw in the 70.3 racers too, and you have a ton of people on the course. It turned the bike ride into a series of efforts, rather than a consistent ride, which in hindsight, was not part of the plan. Have a look at this picture, you tell me how it was possible to ride to the true spirit of the rule.
As I made it back into town, I was feeling okay, it was just a matter of one more lap on the bike. I grabbed one of my sandwiches and ate it before settling into the bars again. This time it was more a battle of trying to keep a steady pace, and try and not get busted for drafting. Unfortunately, the winds had picked up and I knew if I tried to push through them, I'd be stuffed coming off the bike. I put my head down, got as aero as I could and pushed on.
I was now into a bit of a zone, and using the full drafting time frame (and a bit more) as I made my way through more of the IM people and the 70.3 racers. As I made it to the top end of the bike, I was very relieved to not be directly into the wind. I also knew that I would soon be off the bike and onto the run. I kept to my nutrition plan and other than the odd very sweet gatorade bottle I picked up I had consumed my gels and food as planned. As I made it back into town, I used the last 10-15 minutes to use a smaller gear so my cadence would increase, to get the legs ready for the run ahead. In through town and into T2 I'd done my bike to plan.
I was very fortunate to make it through the bike leg without a flat, unlike some of my training mates. Heck, the winning female pro, had 3 punctures on the day, that's how shit the roads were. Even in her acceptance speech at the awards dinner, she told what she thought of the road course, enough so, apparently she was found by the bike course director to find out more. Here's hoping in future years the road course gets better. Hell, it can't get worse, that's for sure. Even though I didn't flat, the 2 new tubulars I had put on before the race, are now thrashed, with some very large cuts in them and they will not race again.
As I made it through the arches into T2, a nice volunteer, took my trusty steed and parked it back into the racks for me. As I made it to the change tent, I picked up my run bag and another very nice volunteer met me, and helped me pack my bike stuff into my run bag. My kit was placed orderly in front of me, and my change into run attire was swift. A quick pee and out onto the run.
By this point in the race, I'd swam a PB, rode a PB and stick to my plan of quicker transitions. It's true that once you've gotten through the bike, you know that you'll finish the race, but what would be the overall time. Just a mere 42.2kms between me and finishing chute.
The new run course was a much improved version to the old one as they'd taken out the two big hills you had to climb 3 times and replaced it with a much smaller rise that you now had to tackle 4 times.
As I headed out onto the run, my plan was to stick to my training routine of run 15 walk 1, which would time well with my drinking every 15 and taking a gel every 30. 2/3rds through the first lap, I had to readjust to 10 & 1's as 15 minutes of running was not going to well. This is what you need to do during a race, stick to you plan, but when the plan is crumbling, adjust accordingly. As I made it through the first lap, something was off, but I wanted to run, it was a mental battle that I would have to keep fighting. As I went through the second lap, I'd slowed down a bit, but the drive to run was still there. I tried to take another gel/water but my stomach was full. Too full.
In fact, my stomach was sloshing around. I was sticking to my nutrition plan, so what's going on? I did some longer walks but was still moving through. Near the end of the 2nd lap, I was not doing well. As I went by the squad tent, I ditched my fuel belt and it felt good to drop it. Brad Jones, one of the squad members down cheering us all on, said, Rich, switch to coke, now. So just past him was the special needs bag, which had a smaller bottle of coke in it. I took a small amount in and it wasn't good. No belching, the stomach full. I had a drive to run, so that's what I tried to do. I kept running as long as I could and would then walk till the feeling passed. Off I went again fighting the stomach until it told me I'd pushed too far. I stuck to the coke and going through the aid stations, I would grab some ice. This was good to chew on.
Two laps down and I needed to keep going. I wanted to go well. I then walked for a bit with a 17 year legend of IM Australia, this 3-4 minute talk was what I needed. He talked to me about what this race means. It's not about the race itself, it's about the journey to get there. The true hard part was making it to the start line. He told me how through the years of doing this race, no matter what happened, the day was a celebration of what the last hard 20 weeks was about. I thanked him, shook his hand and I started running. I took some sips of my coke, and kept running. I would say, run till the bend in the road and reassess. I felt good, so I kept running. A brief walk, where I'd say, now you can walk to that pylon over there, then, you have to start moving your ass.
I'd found some inner strength and kept at it. I was in a much better state than earlier where some of my mates passed me where I'm sure I looked like hell. Truth is I probably was. I passed through my 3rd lap and was now on my last one. The picture below caught me in one of those deep moments of pushing through the pain.
Run, walk, run walk, I wanted to keep moving. The more I ran, the quicker I'd be done, just keep moving Richard, just keep moving. I kept repeating this to myself, and most likely I said it a few times out loud. The closer I got to the line, you could hear the music. Hearing this is all the motivation one needs. As you get closer, the less the pain is, the more excited you are.
About 400m from the finish line, I got my 4th wristband, the first 3 were black, the last one green. Green was what let you get into the finishing chute. The volunteer shouted out, black or green? Mate, you're giving me a green one! High fives as I passed the squad tent and there it was in front of me, the finishing chute. Few experiences can replicate the finishing chute of an ironman. The sound of the cheering, the music, the lights and the voice of Mike Riley, shouting out 'YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!" A fist pump to finish it off, I'd done it. It's worth the pain, the suffering and everything one endures to experience it. Even after my less than stellar run, I'd taken 20 minutes off my time from 2009, and in tough conditions.
I was happy, but I needed to find out what was going on with my nutrition. But that's later.
I got my medal, had a terrible picture a good massage, picked up my finishers shirt and some bad food. Once through it, I headed back to the squad tent to get some warm clothes on and to congratulate my mates who'd all done very well. We waited till the last of the squad crossed the line and then it was back to the unit to clean up. From here, we walked back into town and pigged out at McDonalds for some great salty, greasy food, anything as far removed from a sports drink/gel. It's crazy how when you eat so many gels and consume so much sports drink, it actually makes your mouth raw. So much so, the first few minutes of eating, actually hurts quite a bit. But the salt you crave gets you through it. A bit of a restless night and the Monday is all about the party.
The Monday is all about celebrating, eating like a pig, and trying to get the bar to serve drinks as soon as they can. First drinks were served up just after 10am and the kept flowing through to well past midnight. The stories, the laughter are all great. At times it hurt so much from all the laughing. Then watching the people compete in the beer mile. These were all people who did the Ironman the day before. The rules were simple, chug a beer, run 400 meters, repeat 4 times. Simple right? Easier said than done. Watching the people do it was great. There were some purest in the mix, chugging beer like a man dying of thirst, then running full tilt. There were a few green looking people out there too.
So, here I am, another IM down, a PB, but what the hell happened? I'm a runner, but I can't run a marathon at the end of an Ironman the way I can/want to. I wasn't asking for much, just a 4:12 marathon, which is a 6min/km average. Well... It's amazing the power of the internet. I've done some serious research and although my training was spot on, my race day nutrition was flawed. From all the symptoms I experienced, I think I figured it out. Not enough salt. But you didn't mention cramping you say. Well, that's what I thought too. I looked into that as well. It seems my Endura gels/drink was good for the increased potasium and and magnesium, which aids in preventing cramping.
Reading what doctors and nutritionists say, during an Ironman, you should be consuming between 400 and 1,000mg of sodium per hour. Being a heavy sweater, I would be in the mid to upper range of that. Looking back at my gels and sports drink, I might have hit 200-250mg per hour. What happens when you don't absorb enough sodium, is your body stops absorbing liquids until the the sodium levels are high enough. Symptom, sloshing stomach/bloating. Yup, that's me. Looking at when I started feeling better on the run it was when I took on something salty.
Case in point, my mates were typically using the power bar gels, which have 250mg of sodium per package. Mine, 38mg. When you consume 17-20 gels in a race, you want to make sure, you've done your homework. Well I'm hoping that now, I might have found my Ironman racing achilies heel and with smart/good training IMC I will run how I can.
A bit more rest before I kick off again. Here's hoping.
A big thank you to my family for putting up with me, and my training mates. I can honestly say, I thoroughly enjoyed this IM campaign and I hope to do another one with you again some time if you'll let me train with you.
