2011 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship - Race Report

For this report I'm going to jump straight in to the race coverage and leave out my usual efforts at providing peripheral detail.  You can find all that stuff in my report of the 2010 race.

The Day Before

For anyone not following my history of racing, I should mention that the 2010 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship was my first long distance triathlon. Despite having completed the 2010 race as well as two other 70.3s (Singapore and Taiwan) and a full IM in between (France), I was just as nervous as the year before. I kept telling myself that it was irrational nervousness since (1) I know the course, (2) I've had a solid year of racing and (3) my preparatory training was very solid. Unfortunately, I think that "irrational nervousness," despite it's semblance to some chapter that one might expect to find in a sport psychology journal, doesn't exist. I was nervous thus there must be a cause. Two guys sitting at a bar having a beer. One guy asks the other, "Why do you think I was so nervous?" the other guy replies, "Dude, cuz you're a pussy.". I'm always fascinated by American use female genitalia as an adjective to describe weakness when in fact it is one of the most powerful things on earth. Seriously, ask yourself, which had more impact on the history of mankind, the vagina or the gun? To further the digression I'll add here that in Italian, a negative connotation of the female genitalia does not exist. Oddly I think the Italians understand that you don't mess around with the Figa. Anyway, so I was nervous and after some thought I considered nervousness to be a good thing. I think it mainly came from the fact that mentally I was prepared to race on the edge and push the limits of my ability. No matter what your preparation is, knowing that you are deeply committed to inflict considerable pain upon yourself will make you nervous.

Registration and check-in at transition were simple and straightforward. This event is extremely well organized so you can basically shut off the part of your brain that would normally worry about logistics and administration. I went for a short 30 minute run at a relaxed pace with a few sprints to wake up my legs and remind them that they were about to get tested. I also took a very short dip in the sea just to say hello to the liquid that I'd be fighting to push behind me the next day. I also spent quite a bit of time and money with the bike mechanics making sure that my machine was perfectly tuned.

After the official carbo loading pasta dinner, I was back in my hotel room at 7:30pm and in bed by 8. It took me at least an hour to fall asleep. Damn nerves.

Race Morning

At 4:00am my alarm went off and I went straight for coffee. As usual, no breakfast other than two cups of coffee. Emptied the bowels, downed a liter of Nuun enhanced water and then by 5:00 I was leaving my room for the short walk to transition.

As I was going through body marking they made an announcement on the loudspeakers that compression calf sleeves were not permitted during the swim.  No sense in trying to argue so I took my calf sleeves off and stuffed them into my run bag.  They are a pain to get on and I knew that most likely I would not take the time to fight that battle in T2 but figured I may as well toss them in the run bag in case after the bike I felt that my calves were on the verge of having cramping issues.

It had rained all night so my bike was drenched.  I came prepared with a rag to wipe it down.  Fortunately I didn't leave my shoes on the bike overnight and was happily snapping them in the pedals next to a bunch of bikes with soggy dripping shoes attached.  I cleaned up my bike, tested the gears and brakes, added my nutrition and fluids and then headed off to the swim start.

The Swim - Andaman Sea (1.3K)

After a brief 10 minute warm-up swim I joined the queue for  the start.  I had hoped to be closer to the front (not because I am fast but because this would allow me to get quicker access to my preferred line to the first buoy) but in the end I found myself stuck smack in the middle of all male competitors ages 18 to 39.  I worked my way to the left-most side and waited for the gun.  Having tried and failed going out hard and fast a month earlier at Ironman 70.3 Taiwan, I'd decided to stay smooth and consistent this time.  I planned to avoid the melee at the start by swimming to the outside of the pack and then move up the field once the breast strokers were dropped.

At the start I shuffled among the crowd down to the water and out toward the shallow breakers.  I didn't dolphin dive this time as it was fairly crowded and instead decided to stay on my feet and keep working toward finding an angle on some open swim space.  By about waist deep I dove in and quickly found a good rhythm without too much kicking and punching.

Halfway to the first turn buoy I came up for a 3-stroke sight and saw that I had plenty of room to veer toward the inside line without putting myself into chaos so I did just that.  Shortly after I was on a beeline for the buoy and feeling good.  There isn't much to report for the remainder of this swim leg.  I stayed on my best pace and had no issues with breathing or clashes with other swimmers.

I hit the shore and climbed out of the water feeling much more in control than the year before.  Instead of gasping for breath as I ran over the sand mound toward the lagoon I was running comfortably and looking forward to rinsing off the salt in the murky pond.




The Swim - Freshwater Lagoon (600m)

Learning my lesson last year, I stayed to the left side after entering the lagoon and was able to jog out into the water a very long way before diving in to swim.  As I was jogging I focused on taking deep breaths to get my heart rate and general composure under control.

Although I could definitely feel the difference in buoyancy, I was able to stay on form since, contrary to last year, I had done the bulk of my swim training in the pool.

As with the sea leg, there isn't much to report here other than to say I kept a straight line to the exit and managed to stay consistent in my strokes throughout the swim.

2011 Swim Time: 41:11

2010 Swim Time: 43:43

T1 

I wasted no time in transition since I had everything I needed already waiting for me on the bike.  I stopped by my bike bag on the rack briefly but only to toss in my swim cap and goggles and then was on my bike and pedaling shortly after.

2011 T1 Time: 2:29

2010 T1 Time: 2:16



Bike (90K)

I set out on the bike feeling weaker than expected.  My respiration and heart rate were in check but my legs felt tired.  Nevertheless, I knuckled down and worked into an average speed of 32kph for the first 20 kilometers.  I figured that I just needed to get the blood flowing in my legs again and then I'd feel better after a while.  Luckily I guessed right and was feeling much stronger after about 20 minutes.  For kilometers 21 to 40 I managed to pick up the pace to 35kph.

I managed the first short climb at the 42K mark without without any issue.  As before, a good percentage of the riders around me dismounted to walk their bikes up the hill.

Kilometers 41 to 60 were a notch slower at 28kph due to the rolling hills and the start of a torrential downpour.  I started to see numerous crashes along the course and had to be extremely conservative cornering in order to stay upright.  My plan was to embrace the rain and try to enjoy its cooling effect rather than let it ruin my race.  I took the corners and descents ridiculously slow but dug down deep on straight sections.  Despite my enhanced caution I think there was about 5 or six times where I was fractions of a second away from losing control of the bike.  I recall one long straight downhill that opened up into an exposed valley after emerging from the trees.  As soon as I left the protective cover of the treeline, I was getting blasted by heavy rain and cross-winds while going over to 50kph.  One particular gust of wind knocked me sideways and my counter-weight-shifting caused a bit of fishtailing with both the front and back wheels.  Once balanced out I jumped on the brakes and cut my speed in half while my heart rate practically doubled at the same time.

At 72K I reached the final climb.  I was feeling slightly beat up after being pummeled by rain and questioned whether I had the juice to power up the last and most difficult climb of the bike leg.  I debated with myself whether to walk the hill or not until the just a few meters before the base of the hill.  Call it ego I guess but I just didn't want to dismount and have to deal with myself the next day.  The road was essentially a waterfall.  It was a steady downhill stream of rainwater about 2cm deep.  I saw a couple of riders next to me lose traction  and go down.  I knew I had to focus.  Fortunately I had some experience climbing similarly steep but much longer climbs during typhoon storms in Hong Kong.  I knew that staying upright required extreme attention to detail.  Shifting the body weight too much over the front end reduced the rear wheel's traction and can result in spinning in place which then leads to toppling over sideways.  As I climbed I was carefully examining every inch of road in front of my and steering toward any pronounced granulation I could see.  The picture below is not of the Phuket climb (and only probably half as steep) but more or less illustrates what I'm talking about.  The green dots show the line I would take in order to avoid spinning out.

Once the final hill was behind me I cranked the speed back up to around 32kph and rode steadily on through to the finish.  It turns out that my average heart rate over 90K was only 128bpm (77% of max HR).

2011 Bike Time: 2:56:51

2010 Bike Time: 3:07:42


T2 

After passing off my bike to a volunteer I ran to the bag racks grabbed my run bag and ducked inside of the changing tent.  After dumping out all of my run gear a volunteer inside helped me stuff my bike helmet and shades back in the bag. Nice!  I greased my toes in Vaseline, put on my shoes, visor and run belt and then headed out to run.


2011 T2 Time: 2:17
2010 T2 Time: 2:42


Run (21.1K)

Throughout the day I never once hit the button on my watch that would show me cumulative time elapsed.  I figured that I would definitely beat last year's time and that was good enough for me.  So when it came down to the run, I only had one goal: sub 2 hours.  Previous 70.3 times: 2:05, 2:12, 2:22.  Best stand-alone half marathon time: 1:43.  I was super determined to have a solid run.

So what did I do?  I came out of transition running like a bat out of hell.  The odd part is that in my head I was keeping the pace nice and steady to save myself for the second 10K lap.  But after the first kilometer I realized I was running a sub-5 minute pace.  I think I said "whoa" out loud and dialed it down aiming for 5:30/k pace.  The next split was 5:08, then a 5:14, then 5:19.  Finally I managed to get on a 5:30 pace after 5K of running.  That first 5K felt too easy and despite knowing better I ended up running it too fast.

To make a long story short, I ran the first 10K in 55 minutes and the second in 1:01.  Tack on the final kilometer then damn, over 2 hours again.  I'm generally happy with my effort on the run since I think I pushed myself quite hard; however, I didn't at all run as smart as I should have.

2011 Run Time: 2:03:11

2010 Run Time: 2:05:45

2011 Overall Time: 5:45:56

2010 Overall Time: 6:02:08

2011 Ironman 70.3 Taiwan - Race Report

Introduction

This year was the second running of the Taiwan 70.3.  Before getting into the nuts and bolts of the the race, I'd like to highlight some key points: 

• Race Organizers:  Taiwan Ironman Triathlon Co., Ltd. did a brilliant job of putting this race together.  Every detail was looked after and this resulted in a very smooth experience for the athletes.

• The Venue:  Kenting, Taiwan.  I have been to Taipei more times than I can count on my fingers and toes and only now finally ventured to the south side of the island for this race. I seriously wish that I discovered this place earlier!  Its a gorgeous beach town with lots of nature, small local shops / restaurants and crystal clear sea water.  For anyone looking for a weekend getaway alternative don't forget southern Taiwan!  Two thumbs up.

• The Locals:  Surreal is the only word I can think of to describe what it was like to experience such an abundance of genuine friendliness.  The Kenting locals will infect you with their smiles and warmth.  

I took a 9:00am flight out of Hong Kong on Friday morning and arrived in Kaohsiung just over an hour later.  From there I loaded my bike and bags in a van that I had arranged in advance and rode for an an hour and forty five minutes down to Kenting.  My hotel, Yoyo Resort B&B, was directly across from transition.  For anyone looking to do this race next year I highly recommend this hotel.  Its a tiny boutique spot but the rooms are spacious and clean and most importantly its super convenient on race morning. 
By the time I finished checking into the hotel it was about 12:30.  I had roughly 6 hours remaining to assemble my bike, journey 20 kilometers to registration at the official race hotel (YOHO Resort), check in my bike at transition and have a short trial swim.  It was a busy day but I managed to get it all done.
After a nice dinner near the beach I hung out for a while on my hotel's open rooftop and watched the buzz in transition as other athletes were making their final preparations.

At 9:30pm I switched off the lights and hit the sack.





Race Morning

4:00am my alarm went off and I headed straight to the kettle to boil water for coffee.  I took the coffee up to the rooftop to relax and watch the volunteers arriving to prepare transition for opening at 5:00.  Sitting there on the rooftop I started to think about how unprepared I was for this race.  Heavy work commitments in the month of October resulted in numerous missed training days.  I felt that my swim and bike were fairly sharp but I lacked decent long runs.  After a brief moaning session with myself I decided to start thinking positively about the day ahead.  I figured at T2 I'd remind myself to stay relaxed and aim for 5:30/k splits to put me under a 2 hour half marathon.  Relax, smile and get it done.

Photo by: Darryl Carey

At around 5:15 I grabbed my gear and headed over to transition to add  nutrition to the bike, make final checks and then have a warmup swim.  Just before 6:30 they called us out of the water to clear the way for the pros to start.  The pros were to go off at 6:30 and then over a thousand age groupers would start all at once after the pros completed their first lap of the course.  I decided to test myself this time and instead of lining up conservatively toward the outside, I stood right at the front with the most direct line to the buoy.  In order to avoid getting buried by other swimmers I would have to go relatively hard from the start and then ease into a more reasonable pace once the breastrokers were at least 50m behind me.  As I was going over this plan in my head I looked to my right and saw Chris McCormack "Macca" standing a few meters away. Awesome!  I didn't hear any buzz in advance that he would be racing and it was an nice surprise to see him on the start line and be in the same race as the two-time Kona champ.  If I would have paid more attention to twitter I see now that he did give some hints that he'd be there.

The gun goes off for the pros and we watch them swim off into the distance.  As expected, Macca is first to pop his head out of the water after the first lap.  He puts on a bit of a show by stopping, turning around and walking back toward the second place swimmer.  Just as I'm thinking WTF it all suddenly makes sense as he latches on to an incoming wave and body surfs most of the remaining distance to shore.  Once all the pros had come around it was time for the age group madness to begin.

Swim - 1.9K

I ran into the water trying to stay as close to the front as possible and once I was about knee deep I switched to dolphin diving until I was at a decent depth.  Unfortunately my plan didn't work out too well.  My swim speed just isn't fast enough yet to hold onto the front pack and it wasn't long until I stuck in a body blender.  I had the buoy rope line to my right shoulder  and bodies to the front, left, back, bottom and top.  There was so much chop that I wasn't getting any air and had to stop and tread water for a few seconds to regain control of myself.  I felt the onset of panic and knew that I had a short window to calm myself down before it destroyed any chance of having a decent swim.  I took a couple of deep breaths and looked for the nearest sliver of open space so I could ease back into swimming again.  Then it suddenly dawned on me that there was plenty of space to swim on the right side of the buoy line.  There was no regulation that required us to stay on the left.  I think most people stayed to the left simply because there was a rope and it had the feeling of being somewhat of a swim course barrier.  I swam under the rope, resurfaced and set off swimming practically alone in open water.  I didn't have to do any sighting at all since I had this rope next to my shoulder that would take me straight on a beeline to the buoy.  The only disadvantage to this approach was that I had nobody in front of me to draft behind.  The remainder of the swim was mostly uneventful.  I found a steady rhythm and just kept turning the arms over on through to the finish.  I should add that the visibility was amazing and allowed me to see other swimmers as far as 20 meters away.  The sea floor was nothing but white sand and there wasn't the slightest hint of marine life.  I couldn't help wonder if the nearby nuclear power plant had something to do with the absence of sea life.

Swim Time: 43:16 (new 70.3 PR)

T1

After coming out of the water we had 500m to cover before reaching the bikes. I stripped my wetsuit down to my waist immediately after coming out of the sea and then removed it completely just after reaching the showers located half the distance to the bikes. We had to run up a couple sets of stairs as well but this wasn't too bad.

T1 Time: 3:43

Bike - 90K

The course consisted of two 45K laps. According to my internet research on the route I heard it was slightly hilly and apparently extremely windy. As a precaution, the race organizers banned the use of disc wheels. This wasn't a problem for me since I don't own a disc but the fact that they banned them made me worry a bit about my near-disc F9Rs. I was hoping not to have too much trouble with cross winds as this can lead to nasty high-speed crashes.

I jumped on the gas from the beginning and started passing people one after another. I had never ridden the course before so I set my effort level at my usual 100K pace and figured I would just adapt to the course dynamically as I discovered it. I'd go hard when I felt good and ease off a bit if I sensed my legs were in trouble. On the first lap I think I was slightly over ambitious and was getting hooked on passing others. In my mind I was hearing the click of a computer mouse moving me higher on the final result spreadsheet: tick, tick, tick, tick. It became addictive but at the same time harder to maintain. At around 43K I had a wake up call that put things in perspective. I heard police sirens behind me and glanced over my shoulder and saw Macca coming up behind me. For a fraction of a second I thought of picking up the pace to avoid getting passed but then my better judgement prevailed and I held my speed of 35kph (according to my Garmin) while he cruised by at what must have been around 43kph? The disgusting part was that he looked almost asleep at the wheel. Here I was dancing around threshold and he's dominating the race at apparent ease. It was nice to be able to experience first hand just HOW GOOD Macca is at his job.

I didn't have much trouble at all with the hills or wind on this course.  The hills definitely bit into my speed but they were mild gradients and easy to manage.  The wind was a little tricky on the down hills and I swerved just a bit adapting to a couple of gusts.  All in all I'd say it wasn't difficult to deal with.  In a post rate tweet, Macca exaggerates a tad by saying: "Nice race win here at Ironman70.3 Taiwan. If u think Hawaii is hot and windy, you should come here. Crazy hot & crazy windy. Glad to be done." 

On the second lap I had planned to ease off just a hair and ride a bit more conservatively in order to save juice in the legs for the run. But, something happened that changed my plans. I got pissed off. I started to see a ridiculous amount of drafting going on. I mean blatant in-your-face pace lines. Whenever I found one of these I tried initially to ignore them and keep my distance but then usually they became a mass in front of me that was causing me to slow my speed to maintain the legal gap. After a few seconds of slowing down my brain would start to boil and then I'd drop a gear or two and fly past the group weaklings and open a gap in front of them. Most of the time I never saw the group again but there was one occasion that really sent me over the top.  Just following a long downhill where I'd made up some major ground at 62kph I caught up to a pace line of about 8 riders.  Judging by their attire and bike selection I'd say that most of them were Taiwanese locals but sitting in the middle of the bunch was a western guy in Hong Kong kit (not sure which club or squad as I haven't seen this kit before).  Anyhow, long story short, I blew past them and opened up a massive gap and then dropped down to a steady pace.  I thought I'd never see them again but then about 10K later the group caught up to me and as the western guy passed he said, "Nice burst of speed mate" in a sarcastic tone.  Its like he was telling me that I was an idiot for expending that much energy since his team of cheating f*#%s would eventually catch me.  I reach down and wrapped my hand around the full water bottle on my down tube but then paused there for just enough time to come to my senses.  That guy is lucky I managed to control my road rage as he was damn close to being struck by my water bottle missile.

Soap Box Rant:  Seriously people.  Why intentionally draft in a non-draft-legal race?  If drafting is your thing then sign up for an ITU or other draft-legal race and have a blast.  I'm curious if these cheats also take the same approach to the swim and the run. Would you sneak on a pair of swim fins? Take a short cut to save a few Ks on the run?  Probably not right?  So why blatantly take the piss on the bike?  The answer is simple: because it is easy to get away with.  In the end it comes down to the character of the athlete.  If you aren't there to truly test yourself against the distance and simply want to get from point A to B by whatever means possible then I suppose cheating doesn't really matter to you.  If that's the case than I honestly cannot understand why you signed up for the race in the first place.  Do you want impress your friends with the t-shirt, finisher medal and photos?  Hmmmm I might be onto something here.  I think I should start organizing super ultra mega distance triathlons around the world. 10K swim, 500K bike and 80K run.  The catch is you don't actually have to swim bike or run more than a few meters.  In my events we will take your photo in the water, on the bike and on the run.  We will even dump buckets of sweat from real athletes over your head for effect.  Then we will give you a t-shirt and finisher medal than you can wear around town with pride.  Based on the number of cheats I've seen I think this idea would make me a fortune. Entry fees will be similar to WTC events in order to maintain socioeconomic prestige.  End rant.

After the drama was over I looked down and saw that I only had 20K left to ride so I eased up a bit and started to minimize fluid and nutrition intake so as to ensure a relatively empty gut at the start of the run.  Soon-after I was cruising into to transition with my feet out of the shoes and then jogging to rack my bike and get ready for the run.

Bike time: 2:44:19 (Average speed 32.86kph)

T2

I was quite happy with this transition. Rack the bike, shoes on, helmet off, visor on, go.  No dilly-dally whatsoever.  I was anxious to see whether my lack of run training would be a problem or not.

T2 time: 2:43

Run - 21K

I set off running uphill.  What I didn't know at the time was that I would be running uphill pretty much non-stop for the next 8 kilometers.  My first two kilometers ticked off right on scheduled pace--even 5:30s. Then I started to feel hot and weak.  My next split was in the low 6s and then I ended up stuck there.  I was over heating and simply out of gas.  At 7K I passed a fellow Dragon that was having dizzy spells and unfortunately wasn't able to finish.  By the 8K aid station I resorted to taking walk breaks.  The aid stations appeared every two kilometers and I was grabbing every ice sponge I could get my hands on to cool myself down.

The excessive indulgence in sponges created another problem.  My shoes were completely soaked and by the halfway point I developed painful blisters on both feet.  Then somewhere in the the latter part of the half marathon I caught up to another Dragon that was also taking a walk break.  I made the pass but then turned and saw that he was trying to run again and so I slowed to let him catch up so we could run together.  The two of us kept each other going on through to the finish by walking the aid stations (and a couple hundred meters after each) and running as fast as we could in between.  I'm still quite irritated with my performance on the run that day.  In the end I suppose its reflective of my training to a degree but I also made some poor choices on the bike and with sponges on the run that also played a factor in my result.  Live and learn.  I have another 70.3 in Phuket coming up in less than a month so I intend to seek full run redemption!

Run time: 2:22:13

Overall Time: 5:56:14

I'll end by saying that even though I'm not happy with my performance, the experience was fantastic.  The course is challenging and scenic and if my schedule permits I will definitely be back in 2012 to have another crack at this.

2012 Ironman Entry Options

I put together  a quick table to get a better idea of what my options are for doing another full IM in 2012 (Current as of the date of this post).  China, Korea and Japan no longer host IM races so this leaves me with very tough (and expensive) choices considering that I'm based in Hong Kong.

I'm thinking Texas or Switzerland.  This coming year the family decides my racing plan so let's see what they decide!

Ironman 70.3 Taiwan

Game time again. 小心台灣，神經病的老外馬上到啦!

Ironman World Championship

Here's my guess on the final result in Kona this year:

Men:
1. Andreas Raelert
2. Craig Alexander
3. Marino Vanhoenacker
4. Faris Al-Sultan

Raelert has last year's result eating away at him for 12 months.  He will not compromise anything this year.  I figure he will follow shortly behind Craig as he eats away minutes from Lieto and Vanhoenacker and then take the lead to finish in the last 6K.  Faris isn't gunning to win (even though he should be) and will place high just from the lack of pressure and general enjoyment of racing fast.

Women:
1. Mirinda Carfrae
2. Caroline Steffen
3. Chrissie Wellington
4. Julie Dibbens

Chrissie is a IM god but I don't think it is meant to be her year in Kona.  That recent crash will slow her down on the bike and run just enough to open the door for Mirinda to smash through to the finish with a sub-2:40 run.  Caroline will finish just seconds in front of a suffering Chrissie.


Ok, so all of the above is generally a load of crap because anything could happen on race day.  I'll be glued to ironmanlive.com and would really like to see Faris and Granger step it up and take the top of the podium (although I can't pick them as winners due to their recent interview statements indicating they are a bit laaa deee daaa this year.)

Will be a good show.

Good luck to all racing.  Smash it.

Hong Kong Triathlon Challenge Race (Sprint)

Race Morning
The starting point of this race is roughly 12 kilometers from my front door so I didn't do much in the way of preparation for this one.  The alarm went off at 4:30 and after a few cups of coffee and lounging around I was out the door an hour later to meet JoggerJoel en route to the start line.

Equipment Checklist
-Cervelo P3 (same gearing as for IM France but removed the Speedfill and bento box)
-Hydration: Xlab cage on aero bars
-Wheels: FFWD F9R
-Running Shoes: Zoot Ultra Kalani
-Goggles: Zoggs Predator Flex
-Mavic Tri Race bike shoes 
-Race Belt w/ number


For a sprint distance race I saw no need to go overboard on gear, bling or nutrition.  

Weather
23°C
Overcast
Slight chance of showers (didn't happen)
Significant chop and swells in the Tolo Harbour

Swim - 750m

I didn't manage to get in much of a warm up swim since the kayak volunteers kicked me out after a few strokes.  Apparently they didn't have resources to ensure the safety of warm-up swimmers in addition to those that were already on the course for earlier waves.  It's a deep water start and the melee had already begun before the gun went off.  Everyone was struggling to stay afloat in the choppy water and we managed to kick the hell out of one another's shins for a minute or two while waiting for the count to reach 1.

Credit: Janice Mei-Yei Lai

I decided to experiment with going out hard to the first buoy in the hopes that I could get close to the front pack and avoid getting trapped in breast-stroke land.  Had I been in decent swim shape the plan might have worked.  Instead I was out of breath halfway to the buoy and quickly getting swallowed up in white water and arms and legs.  I had to slow down (or at least reduce effort) drastically in order to bring my breathing and form back under control.  I think for the 200 meters or so that I went hard it took me another 200 to recover.  Eventually I found a pocket to swim in and swam steadily to the exit.  This was definitely a poor swim performance.

Official Swim Time: 15:37 (2:04/100m pace)
Garmin Time: 15:31 (2:04/100m pace)
The 6 second discrepancy is probably due to the jog up the stairs between water exit and the timing mat.

This is a pretty disappointing result as I'm probably in shape to swim around 13:30.

T1
Uneventful.  Jogged out of the water to the bike, tossed my cap and goggles down, race belt on, helmet on and go.

Official Time:  Unknown.  The official results lumped transition times into the bike or run or a bit of both--I can't be sure.
Garmin Time: 3:35

Bike - 20K

This was my strongest section of the day and I managed to rip through at an average speed of 35 kph.  Drafting was legal so I took advantage of every opportunity that came along. I was able to link on to a very fast group for 4 out of the 5 laps on the course.  The hairpin turns are a bit tricky and staying on the tail of a draft was always a challenge.  I had to basically sprint 300 meters at full tilt at every turn around to stay with the pack.  The effort paid off though because once I was in the slipstream I could ease off and let my legs recover for 2 kilometers until the next turn.  During the bike section i took down about half a bottle of water.  This turned out to be a big mistake that I would only realize on the run.  In the future for such a short distance race I don't intend to take any gel or fluid at all.

Official Time: 37:28 (32kph)
Garmin Time: 34:37 (34.6kph)


T2
Again--uneventful.  I racked my bike, spun my race belt around, ditched my helmet, put on my running shoes and off I went.

Official Time:  Unknown
Garmin Time: 0:51

Run - 5K
This was a two lap course.  My first lap was miserable with a side stitch on my ride side.  I tried to keep my legs turning over quickly while jamming my fingers into the stitch to try to release the cramp.  I adjusted my inhalation patter to match a different foot strike (this sometimes works to clear a stitch) but that wasn't helping either.  I guessed that I had about a minute and a half lead on JoggerJoel because I had seen him coming in off the bike as I was heading out on the run.  With this pinch in my side I wasn't able to stick to my plan of sprinting the first few kilometers at a low 4:00 pace.  I figured if I was able to run the first 2 kilometers between 4:05 - 4:15/k he would be disheartened when seeing me at the turnaround and think to himself that his perceived fast pace wasn't eating into my lead.  Well none of that played out at all.  I did a 4:45 for the first kilometer but then dropped to 5:05 for the next.  That was all JoggerJoel needed to make the pass.  He blew by me at a 4:15 pace and I contemplated going with him but just let him go.  If I could go back and do this race again I would have gone with him.  It would have only cost me 12 or 13 minutes of intense suffering but I would have been much happier with myself at the end for digging down and going for it.  Another race another lesson.  I won't let that happen again.

Official Time: 22:19
Garmin Time: 20:47


Results
I'm going to go ahead and post this report now without my times.  The results haven't been released.  Once they are I will revise the post to include them.  According to my Garmin data comparison of this race and last year's, I was a minute faster on the bike and about 4 minutes faster on the run.  I couldn't accurately compare the swim times because this year's course was extended by 250m.

Final Official Time: 1:15:24
Final Garmin Time: 1:15:30


This landed me in the top 29.41% of the 35-39 age group. (25th place out of 85 old farts).  Not satisfied with this but that's good as it keeps me hungry.

2011 Ironman France - Race Report

This report is long overdue but I'm finally getting off my butt to get it out there. I think the main reason for the delay is that I am still trying to figure out for myself exactly what happened that day. The photos and race results tell me that I swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles and ran a marathon in 13 hours and 46 minutes. I do of course recall much about the day but there are countless things that don't seem to add up. My training was a fraction of the volume that numerous "experts" say is essential for the "just aiming to finish" lot and I didn't have a single physical issue (cramping, bonking, nausea, gastronomic-intestinal issues, over-heating, etc.) come up the whole race other than the basic stress of swimming, biking and running.  I'm just saying yo...WTF!!?  I'm half disappointed that 10 years from now I can't say, "On my first Ironman I lost a finger to a shark, crashed my bike into an old lady in a wheelchair and crawled to finish the marathon with poo stained legs."--ROCK STAR!  My mental picture of what it would take to finish an Ironman was built on numerous bits and pieces but all stemmed from something amazing I saw on television when I was 16: Mark Allen and Dave Scott's historic race in Kona Hawaii.

 
I know this is a bit corny since that race also spawned more than half of the triathletes on the planet not to mention I didn't exactly run out to by Speedos back then.  A seed was planted nevertheless and then last year I finally got around to giving it a try.  I'm getting away from the point.  What I'm trying to express here is the mental concept I had of this challenge leading into the race.  

The NBC Sports 2010 Ironman World Championship Special (in particular the opening segment) was deeply stuck in my head.  Imagine not being able to get the following sentence out of your thoughts for months: "Ironman is, the single toughest event you will put your body through, in your life."  I had all of these images of bike crashes, collapses and ambulances in my head and I think it took me quite a while to overcome all of that and find a way to believe in the possibility of the achievement.

Training

Here's a glance at my average weekly training (in hours and minutes) over the 30 weeks prior to race day (excluding the final taper week):

Swimming (Pool): 0:58

Swimming (Open Water): 0:44

The bulk of my pool swims tended to consist of 100m repeats focused on technique. Open water swims were targeted at improving confidence and endurance.

Golden Beach, Hong Kong

Bike (Indoor): 0:57

Bike (Road): 2:27

Trainer work was usually a 50/50 mix of big gear mashing intervals and zone 2 100rpm spinning. Road cycling was a 50/50 mix of zone 2 spinning and  3 - 4K climbs at 10%+ gradient.

Running: 2:03

Most of my running was on moderate rolling terrain but occasionally I would head up into the mountains to break up the routine and build a bit of leg strength.

Average hours per week training: 7:09

Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong

Some other possibly relevant stats (30 weeks prior to race):

Resting Heart Rate: 46

Sleep: 35 hours / week

Work: 45 hours / week

Commute: 10 hours / week

Longest Run: 2 hours 19 minutes

Longest Swim: 3,800 meters

Longest Bike: 5 hours 17 minutes

Nutrition: Non-existent. I ate and drank whatever I felt like eating and drinking. In the end this turned out to be a 50/50 mix of relatively healthy home-cooked Chinese food (always with steamed fish) and lamb kebabs, pizza, burgers, fries, beer, wine, etc.)

Now, put this history in front of anyone that knows anything about triathlon and they will tell you that it looks like a dreamer preparing for an olympic or maybe half Ironman distance race. Fortunately for me, there is more to Ironman than swim bike run. I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching the race course and preparing myself mentally for the challenge. I read almost every blog/race report I could find, downloaded and studied the Garmin GPS data for the bike course from athletes similar to myself (weight, build, previous race times), generated and meticulously studied an elevation profile with gradient detail I created in Google Earth, reviewed hours of course footage on YouTube, spent who-knows-how-many-hours visualizing swim start/T1/T2/broken goggles/pain management/flat tires/.../.../..., and sought out and picked the brains of experienced mentors.  Don't get me wrong though. I stand behind the possibly famous quote of unknown origin "You cannot will your way to the finish line."  Within that tiny 7 hours of weekly training I put in a lot of quality work and there were numerous sessions where I practically buried myself.

I think my general approach to Ironman training can best be summarized as flexible and focused. I trained as much as could within the hours of free time available and always attacked my weaknesses.  I only decide what my morning workout will be the night before.  I'll usually first define what I need to work on most and then plan the duration and intensity. Whether its swim, bike or run, I always set my gear out before hitting the sack.  Its harder to talk your self out of a workout when your stuff is there looking you in the eye (this is of course assuming that I even make it to the point of having open eyes).

Schizophrenia 

I'd say there are 3 distinct voices in my head that are in constant dialogue throughout long training days or races:

-"Mike Tyson": This is the animal that wants to sprint all-out all the time, vomit, and then do it again.

-"R2D2": this is my body's CPU that gives me serious feedback concerning injury, fatigue, energy, temperature, etc.

-"Henry (as in Kissinger)": This *$#@er is a master negotiator and chameleon.  He starts smooth talking before the race start and doesn't give up until I finish or DNF.  His primary mission is to convince me that modifying my objectives--pacing, strategy, nutrition--is the wise thing to do. 

Fortunately, not one of these voices holds controlling shares in ME, Inc.  I have to live with these dudes from time to time but I hold the steering wheel.  My first Ironman was, I think, without crisis significantly due to my successful extraction of meaningful information from these three amigos and simultaneous dismissal of their bullshit (Yes even R2D2 is full of crap occasionally).

Off to Europe

The family and I left Hong Kong for the UK nearly 2 weeks in advance of race day.  This was part of a complex arrangement that I had reached with my wife in order to integrate vacation and racing.  Traveling with a bike, a 2 year old and the early symptoms of the flu is of course challenging so I'll leave out the details and just summarize it as 15 hours of suck.  By the time we finally reached Nottingham it was clear that I did in fact have the flu.  I wasn't overly concerned though as I had nearly 2 weeks to recover and I figured as long as I  kept my lungs clear of snot (thereby avoiding a secondary respiratory infection) I would be in good shape come race day.  The flu and the cold rainy English weather were perhaps blessings in disguise as they forced me to rest, get plenty of sleep and recover from jet lag.  After a week in the UK it was time to head to France and I was feeling much better.

Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France

Ahhhh the French Riviera in June.  The weather was just how I like it for racing, hot and not too humid.  This was my second time in France but first trip to Nice.  As this is a race report and not a holiday story I will leave out detail on the sights, smells and wonders of southern France.  Suffice it to say though that I absolutely love the place, loathe most of the service/help but would definitely go back again and again if my bank account would give me permission.

We checked into a small Service apartment about 2 kilometers away from the swim start called HiPark Residences.  The room was a "studio" and only had a pull-out sofa bed.  It wasn't the most comfortable for sleeping but otherwise the place was great and full of triathletes (as I suspect most hotels in Nice were at the time).  We had an outdoor balcony which I quickly converted into a bike maintenance zone.  We arrived late on Wednesday night and so we hit the pillow as quickly as possible.

JoggerJoel and I worked out a schedule for the days prior to the race so that we could ensure a healthy balance of family/training time.  Actually the only training we really intended to do was a recon of the first climb on the bike course, a bit of easy swimming and a short run.  By the looks of the schedule below it would appear that we were try to kill ourselves in training before the race but it was more less just blocked-off time where we could get away from the family for a bit and focus our minds on the race. (In case either of our wives read this [they won't], please note that this blocked-off pre-race time is important!!)

(Click to Expand)

We roughly followed the schedule.  Here is a short summary of the key points:

-Registration:  Smooth and well organized process.  Hats off to Triangle Events for their meticulous attention to detail!

-Bike course recon:  We went a bit longer than planned and ended up cycling for around 3 hours and 40 minutes on Thursday morning.  We kept it VERY light though and were cycling like grandpas. In hindsight I think we should have cut this half.  This is the same thing I said about my pre-70.3 Singapore ride.  It seems I don't learn.

-Easy swim:  First attempt was cut short after JoggerJoel and I saw bright yellowish greenish jellyfish about 400m out from shore.  We chickenshitted it back to shore and went for a bite to eat.  I went back for a swim by myself the day before the race and managed to get in a relaxed 1,000 meters without any jellyfish problems.  I knew I needed a confidence building swim so, at that point, even if I saw jellyfish I was going to swim on through.  Lucky I didn't find one.

-Short run:  JoggerJoel and I went out for a 5K run on the promenade and, as expected whenever not running alone, went unnecessarily fast. We ran a 24:49 5K (a minute per kilometer faster than our target marathon pace).  Oh well.  We felt good and went our separate ways for family time.

-Official Carbo-Loading Dinner:  I managed to fill up on pasta quite quickly as we were among the first in line. After about 15 minutes from the start of the dinner the queue was a few hundred meters long and I'm guessing the wait for refills was around 40 minutes. The food was so-so but I wasn't really expecting fantastic pasta when it was being prepared in bulk for over 2,000 hungry triathletes.

-Race Expo:  I made a couple of trips to the Expo and was pleased to see that it was much bigger than those at 70.3s I'd been to in the past.  I stocked up on a bit of IM bling and CO₂ cartridges (mine were confiscated at the Hong Kong airport). I entered a contest at the Compressport booth where I would win free compression gear if I most closely guessed my finish time.  Somewhere they have a photo of me standing there with an iPad showing 12:45 (I was being optimistic). The bike mechanics were also there and I had them re-install my front tubular as I noticed it was a millimeter or so off-center.

Equipment Inventory

Street-Wear Bag:

-Flip Flops

-Shorts

-T-Shirt

-Mobile Phone

-Bottle of Water

-€50 (post-race beer money)

Bike Bag:

-Sleeveless Dragon's jersey

(In the jersey pockets: 8 Gu Chomps, 8 Gu Roctanes, Mini bike pump)

-Moeben sleeves (to stay cool and avoid sunburn)

-Gloves

-Helmet

-Sunscreen

-Sunglasses

-Race Belt w/ number

-Small bottle of water

Run Bag:

-Running Shoes: Zoot Ultra Kalani

-Visor

-Sunscreen

-Spibelt loaded with: 2 Gu Chomps, Ibuprofen, Salt tabs

Bike Set-up:

-Cervelo P3

-Hydration: Speedfill + Xlab cage on aero bars

-Gearing: SRAM Red 172.5/50-34/26

-Wheels: FFWD F9R

-Bento box: Multi tool, valve wrench, CO₂ valve, salt tabs, tire levers, tubular tape, Nuun Tablets.

-Spare tire strapped on seat-post under seat

-Mavic Tri Race shoes clipped in and suspended with rubber bands

Swim Set-up:

-Goggles: Zoggs Predator Flex (Love these!!)

-Wetsuit: Orca Alpha (Super flexible fast suit)

-Covered all exposed skin in BodyGlide (to avoid rash and jelly fish)

-2XU Tri Shorts underneath a Champion System one-piece tri-suit. (My club tri-suit has zero bike padding so I went with a bit extra)

Day Before The Race:

Although the plan was to do little if anything I ended up spending quite a bit of time on feet shopping and touring around town with my family.  Bike check-in was a breeze and extremely well organized.  I immediately strapped my time chip to my ankle so as not to forget the next day.  Race Number marking the day before the race was a bit silly as it washed off in the shower that night.  Am I to extrapolate that showering is not a standard French practice?

In the end it was very chilled out day.  I got in a relaxed swim at the beach and had an scrumptious albeit risky dinner: mushroom risotto, raw oysters and beer.  I would not recommend eating raw anything the day before an Ironman but I chose to be stupid and got lucky.  I was in bed and passed out by 9:30pm.

Race Morning:

My Alarm went off at 3:45.  I am sure of this because I was wide awake looking at my phone when it went off.  I was only up for a few minutes before the alarm however and was happy to have had a solid sleep.  I had two cups of coffee, 500ml of Nuun enhanced water, dropped weight in the bathroom, kissed my wife and daughter and then headed out the door for the 2K stroll to the start line.

I remember being fairly relaxed and loose during the walk to the beach and probably had a smile tattooed on my face.  I was taking things slowly and trying not to think too much about the specifics of the upcoming swim and instead focus more on how cool it was that I was there in Nice and about to have an awesome day of triathlon in gorgeous terrain.  As I came closer toward the promenade I saw that there were several night clubs still in operation and their drunken patrons were wandering all over the place.

I reached the transition area at 5:15 and ran through my final gear checks.  With a borrowed pump I inflated my tires to 145psi, added Nuun tablets to my water bottles, connected my Garmin 310XT to the bike and turned it on (I decided not to take it on the swim since I would have a clear idea of my swim time from the official clock after exiting the water) and gave the bike a general bounce and shake test to make sure everything was firm and in place.  I stopped by and had a chat with JoggerJoel as he was making his final preparations and then headed off to drop off my street wear bag at the collection point.  At that point I couldn't help but to think more about the upcoming swim because I was done with all of the morning preparation and standing there in my bare feet with nothing but wetsuit, goggles and swim cap.  Breath in, breathe out, stretch the neck, stretch the arms.  Time check: 5:45.  I headed down to the water for a warm up swim.

As I was warming up I remember being surprised at how relaxed I was. Most of the other competitors had steely expressions or appeared to be forcing themselves into calm.  I was just having a blast and loving the perfect weather with a cheesy grin on my face.

After 10 minutes of easy swimming I headed back to shore so that I could get a decent starting spot.  On the way I ran into JoggerJoel again and he was looking just as excited as I was.  All the work and wait was behind us and now were finally there and about to see for ourselves what all this Ironman business is about.

They organized different zones based on expected finish times as a means to ease congestion.  Hoping to avoid the washing machine I lined up on the left side in the 1:18-ish crowd.  The announcer was screaming into the microphone half in French and half in English and doing a pretty good job of getting everyone excited.  I remember the last 5 minutes before the start vanishing in a flash.

3, 2, 1 . . .

 Swim-Mediterranean Sea (3.8K)

Photo By: Bene Altshul

The swim course consisted of two loops.  The first loop clockwise at 2.4K, then a short land exit and reentry for the final counter-clockwise loop of 1.4K.

Contrary to rumors I heard about extremely physical swims in European Ironman racing, I found this one to be the most peaceful of any swim start I'd ever done (not many of course).  Perhaps the painful stones we had to walk over had everyone moving slowly and easily into the water.  I remember reading about the stones from other race reports and thinking to myself that these guys were just moaning wimps.  I take it all back.  Those damn stones hurt like hell to walk on.  They are smooth and mostly flat so its not a problem of jagged edges but they protrude in every which way and its impossible to find a comfortable angle for any step.  Another reason why I think this was a calm start is probably because I am comparing it to shorter races that have a higher percentage of novices in the field.  I think kicking and flailing increases exponentially when you have newbies all over the place.

Photo By: Bene Altshul

Once I was out on in the water I had no problems quickly getting into a rhythm. I jumped on the feet of a guy in front of me and stuck with him to the first buoy.  I had swimmers to my left and right and our little group seemed to be passing a good number of others.  I remember smiling quite a bit during the first kilometer or so because it was such a gorgeous swim.  I'd rotate to breathe and see the sun rising over the mountains set against a cloudless blue sky and then turn back into into insanely clear water where I could see bodies swimming all around me.  The buoys were spaced out quite far from each other so sighting was a challenge.  I managed to get lucky on the first lap and held a reasonably straight line.

Exiting the water after 2.4K I was feeling really strong and dove in for the final lap.  The short shuffle out of the water spiked my heart rate a bit but I managed to get it back to what I'm guessing was the upper end of zone 2 after 100m or so of slower pace. I had much more trouble on the 2nd lap with sighting and I ended up following a pack that veered off course on the way back to shore.  I think what happened is I got into a hypnotic state where I was just thinking about swimming technique and breathing without paying too much attention to my direction.  Once I realized I was off course I adjusted my line and noticed that I was also near the front of a huge chase pack and could swim more or less alone if I could get myself over and in front of it.  This pumped me up a bit and I dug in and swam hard toward the swim finish.  With 300 meters to go I increased my kick to get the blood flowing in my legs in preparation for the bike.

I climbed out of the water and before I had even thought to unzip my wetsuit, the swimmer behind me yanked my strap down and then jogged in front of me saying something in French.  I assumed he was asking me to return the favor so I obliged. Nice!  I stripped the top of my wetsuit down to the waist and jogged into transition.

Swim time:  1:27:15

T1

I reminded myself here to take it easy and that my goal for the race was to finish and gain experience at the distance.  I stripped the wetsuit off, put on my bike jersey, sunscreen, arm sleeves, gloves, sun glasses, helmet and then jogged over to my bike.  Heading out of transition I saw my wife and daughter on the other side of the fence and they were shouting, "go dada go!"  I was soooo happy that they managed to find me amidst the endless stream of competitors and also pleased that the swim time forecast I gave to them was almost spot-on.  After blowing kisses I was on my way to a very long day in the saddle.

T1 Time: 0:06:42

Bike - Alpes-Côte d'Azur (180K)

"The bike circuit of the IRONMAN France - Nice will cross 17 towns and villages of the inland area of Nice, including Gordon, the ‘most beautiful village‘ of France."-ironmanfrance.com

Check out mapmyride.com's 3D tour of the course:

Following some advice I picked up in a few books and forums I only sipped small amounts of water for the first 20 minutes on the bike.  After that my nutrition plan was as follows:

• alternate taking Gu gel and Gu chomps every 20 minutes
• follow gels/chomps with a couple of mouthfuls of either Nuun enhanced water or pure water (I had my Speedfil full with 1.2 liters of Nuun water and fresh water in a standard bottle mounted to the aero bars--target was to maintain intake of 65 - 70% Nuun water for electrolytes and 30 - 35% pure water.  The Speedfil was easily refilled with water and Nuun tablets at aid stations and the bottle on my aero bars was chucked into the collection zone and replaced with a full one.)
• Aside from always drinking something following nutrition intake I planned on sipping small amounts of fluids whenever I felt like it.
• I wanted my last solid nutrition to be taken with no less than 30 minutes to go before reaching T2 and I would also significantly decrease (but not cut out) fluid intake--the goal being to minimize the content in my gut that would swish around on the run and cause cramping.

I'll jump the gun here and say that I stuck to the above plan and it worked exactly as I had hoped.  I only deviated once and grabbed what I thought was water but turned out to be coke.  The sugar was a nice surprise and didn't give me any trouble.

The first 20 kilometers of the bike went by in a blur.  Had I presence of mind I might have glanced around at the scenery along the Promenade des Anglais but instead I was entirely focused on settling down after the swim and finding a comfortable rhythm on the bike.  I was also forcing myself to take my effort level down a notch or two as this would be a ride taking me into "uncharted" length/duration and I wanted to have plenty of oomph in reserve in case it was needed.

Around the 20K mark I started the first and steepest of all the day’s climbs up the Côte de la Condamine.  Fortunately the steepest section was only 500m in duration so I managed to power through it rather quickly and then revert to previous average speed of around 28kph.  On through to about the 50K mark was a gentle ascent through the Côte de Gattières and gradual departure from the urban city. 

Then came the monster climb of over 20 kilometers up the Col de L’Ecre to a summit elevation of 1,120m above the sea that I had climbed out of not so long before.  Not far into the climb JoggerJoel came flying up from behind.  I figured I had a 10-minute lead on him coming out of the swim and was shocked that he had managed to devour that well before the halfway point.  I knew that he would catch and pass me but didn’t expect it so soon.  We chatted a bit about the swim and then he carried on up the climb at a pace I couldn’t hang with.  Part of me wanted to dig down and go with him and I probably could have, at that reasonably moderate gradient (ranging from 2 – 7%), managed to stick with him to the top; however, I would have been risking my entire race by nearly destroying my legs in the process.  Once again I was reminding myself to adhere to my own plan and carefully spend my energy in a way that I felt would get me to the finish line.  The sun was starting to make its presence known as I kept hammering up the mountain at around 10kph.  Glancing down I saw that my kit was heavily salt stained and this served as a good reminder to stay on top of my salt and electrolyte intake. Up, up, up, up, up--seemingly endless climbing.  I recall at one point another rider said while passing me, "Enough of this shit already!"  I couldn't have agreed more.  My feet were starting to go numb but it was probably more of a general nuisance than pain.  Later during the bike ride the numbness increased to the point where I couldn't feel much from my feet at all.  I kept my legs turning over but couldn't help to wonder if I would see black and blue stumps where my feet used to be come the end of the bike leg.

At last I reached to the top of Col de L'Ecre and was ready to start recovering position against the countless riders that passed me on the way up.  Over the next 40 or so kilometers I cranked it up to an average speed of 32kph.  I had no HR monitor but I would guess I was probably in high zone 2 or low zone 3.  I remember questioning whether I should ease off the pace and be conservative but decided that it was basically "free speed" since my legs were feeling great at +/- 100rpm. In the end this was the section of the bike that I enjoyed the most.  I was down in my aero bars flying past numerous competitors at nearly double their speed and at the same time not really pushing myself very hard.  From this point until the end of the bike leg it was rare that anyone passed me.  It seemed that most people were using the relative flats at the top as recovery from the climb as were I had gas in the tank and was dying to get back to speed.  This all comes down to body weight.  A competitive climber typically weighs no more than their height in inches x2.  Applied to myself I would need to weigh 144lbs (65Kg) in order to be optimally competitive at climbing--yeah right!!  2010 Ironman World Champion Chris (Macca) McCormack had a few things to say about Ironman Nice in his book "I'm Here to Win" that made me feel a lot better about having stepped up to the challenge and how I fared against the Alps:

"I also know which races to avoid because I'm just not suited to them.  For example, the French guys are phenomenal climbers and very strong bikers.  So I have to look at courses and be selective.  Take Ironman Nice . . . please.  They'd have to pay me a hell of a lot of money to go there because I just can't climb with these little guys.  It's just physics.  I weigh 170 pounds.  These guys are 130 pounds.  They get on the bike and bounce up these fifteen-mile climbs.  They put minutes into you and you're just trying to survive."

A quote from USAT Tri Coach Lorie Tucker who raced 2011 IM France (13 hours 44 minutes--beat me by a nose!): 

" In this race, with the monstrous French Alps climbs, I was passed by probably 2,000 cyclists.  However, when you get passed by people named Pierre, Konstantine, Thierry and Marcel it's almost amusing."

Cheers Lorie.  I wholeheartedly agree that it was ALMOST amusing. 

 After 100 kilometers I started into the last of the significant climbs up the Côte de Saint Pons.  It is a 7 kilometer climb and while it was not pleasant to be going up again, psychologically it was easier than the big climb since I had ripping descents to look forward to shortly after the summit.  Somewhere more than halfway through the bike course (possibly after the second big climb but I can't remember exactly) there was a fire station crew that brought out their hoses to cool off dying riders.  As I approached they were gesturing thumbs up or thumbs down (as in spray or no spray) and I launched my fat thumb high in the air.  Seconds later I was drenched head to toe in cool water--niiiiiiiice!  On to the descents. 

I'm not a very experienced descender so I was aiming to stay conservative with my speed in order to avoid going over a cliff but I was pleased to discover that most of the journey down was not very technical and I could could stay close to full speed.  Nevertheless, I started to see wrecks and bails on the hairpin turns.  There were also a few people that appeared to have abandoned the race entirely and were usually flat on their backs under a tree with their discarded bikes somewhere in the vicinity.  As I started to get further into the downhill section my neck and upper spine were beginning to give me trouble.  I felt what I can only describe as electric pulses firing off and it seemed that I had pinched a nerve somehow.  As with my numb feet this wasn't a debilitating issue but caused me a good deal of discomfort.  I tried to stretch it out as much as possible but had to keep my head tilted upward to maximize vision on the road.  With about 40 kilometers left to go my bladder had reached its capacity thus presenting me with a dilemma.  I could either stop and piss and lose about 5 minutes of time or try what I had never succeeded in doing in training rides: "on-bike evacuation."  I went for the latter.  On a mild straight decline I stopped pedaling and tried to relax as much as possible. Finally I unleashed a piss storm from hell at 25kph.  Mid-stream I glanced over my shoulder and saw that there was a guy riding behind me about 100 meters back that had also stopped pedaling.  I figured he saw the trail I was leaving behind and was either attempting to do the same or just giving me a bit of privacy. 5 pounds lighter and feeling good again I refocused my attention on the ride and kept turning the pedals toward Nice.  After about an hour of flying downhill I rejoined the same road we took on the way out and was cruising the flats toward the finish at a comfortable 28kph.

I was trying to maintain a heightened sense of vigilance in the final section of the bike leg.  Apparently this is where a lot of mistakes are made or crashes occur.  After having been in the saddle for over 6 hours its easy to let the fatigue get the better of you and in an instant you can wake up in a ditch wondering what the hell happened.  Its also time to focus on the legs and spend a bit of time stretching the calves and shaking out the aches and pains before the run.  Coming back onto the Promenade des Anglais was awesome.  I was stoked to almost have the bike leg behind me and could not wait to start running.  I removed my arm coolers and gloves on the fly to save time in transition.  Despite my love for cycling I was pretty much sick of my bike at that point.  I slid my feet out of my shoes well before the dismount line and then hopped off the bike to see if my feet were going to cooperate.  

Bike Time: 7:20:21

T2

After a couple of minutes of walking through transition the blood started to return to my toes and I could at last feel my feet again.  I followed the same plan in transition as with T1 and tried to be timely but not rushed.  I ditched the bike helmet and jersey and slid on my running shoes and visor.  I squirted a gob of sunscreen in my hand and started my jog out to the run course.

T2 Time: 0:07:25 

Run (42.2K)

The run course is a 4 lap out and back along the promenade with aid stations located every 1.7 kilometers.  My plan was to walk all of the aid stations.  I was quite specific with the rules I gave myself on this.  I would start my walk only after my foot crossed the first table and then would promptly resume running on the first step after the last table.  I knew that not defining this in advance would lead to all kinds of extended unnecessary walking thanks to the voices in my head mentioned earlier.

I set off aiming for 6:15 kilometer splits but as usual misjudged the first couple and was running around 5:45.  Eventually I settled into the low 6s and started chugging my way along from aid station to aid station.  In the graph below you can see my switch to walking clearly.  The yellow represents cadence (data gathered from a Garmin foot-pod) and the green is running pace (The elevation line is misleading as the variance isn't shown.  It was a pancake flat course):

(Click to Expand)

It was quite warm out (25°C/77°F) as I was starting out the run just before 3pm but I seemed to be handling it well.  After completing the 10 kilometers and not having any cramping issues I knew that I would be in good shape for the whole run and would just have to deal with general fatigue and sore feet.

There isn't much that I can report about the run as it was executed precisely to plan.  At 17K I stopped at a portable toilet and had to wait behind one person for my turn, drained the lizard and then was back out on the run.  On each of the 4 laps I saw JoggerJoel on the other side of the course and we slapped hands on the pass. At first we were trying to calculate the time between us but eventually it became pointless math since he was running strong and holding onto his 30 minute lead.

I'd say there were two main factors that motivated me to keep running throughout the marathon: Crowd support and the ridiculous amount of other competitors that were seemingly walking the entire run leg.  Constantly throughout the run we were cheered by name (printed on our race number).  Allez Daniel! Courage Daniel!  With all of the that support I can't quite grasp how some people chose to lollygag it. Random stat: over 200 competitors had run times in excess of 5 hours 45 minutes.  Granted some of that lot were fighting their way through every step and couldn't have gone faster if their life depended upon it but I bet the majority were just being slackers (if it is even fair to call an Ironman a slacker).

At the turn-around point of the final lap I knew I had it locked down and was feeling in control.  My feet were killing me and I was starting to struggle with holding pace but knowing that I had just one 5K stretch to go until the finish helped keep me charged up.  As I veered into the finishing chute I saw my family on the side cheering me on.  It was here that I made the biggest mistake of the whole race by not picking up my daughter to carry her across the finish. It seems that this is one of those rules that is clearly stated but rarely followed or enforced.  I just didn't want to end up with a DQ after a very long day carving out my first Ironman.  In the future I am definitely taking my daughter across the line--even if it gets me a DQ.

I came through the finish and was slammed with a wave of relief.  Finally I could STOP!  A volunteer placed the finishers medal around my neck and then I followed the flow of others out to collect my street wear bag and the all-important finishers shirt.  

Run Time: 4:45:04

Final Overall Race Time: 13:46:47

Aftermath

I dug out my mobile phone and called my wife and with a bit of creative navigation we found each other in swarm of people near the finish line.  Amazingly we also ran into JoggerJoel and his family and we made arrangements to eat dinner together and would rendezvous at JoggerJoel's hotel later.  I had some time to myself before meeting up with everyone again and went straight a cold beer at a nearby cafe.  After 2 beers, everyone had arrived and was ready for dinner so we ditched the bikes at JoggerJoel's hotel and went to a restaurant at the adjacent hotel. It was at this point when things went a bit crazy.  I remember ordering a rack of lamb and a beer and then excusing myself to go to the restroom.  Then the next minute I am vomiting everything in my stomach (which I guess was only 2 beers).  I returned to the table and excused myself from dinner then walked across the street to the grass covered center divider and collapsed on my back.  I remained there for the entire dinner and at some point JoggerJoel joined me as well.  I was officially destroyed.

After a solid night of sleep I was back on my feet the next day and starting my family time with excursions in and around Nice.  I was surprised at how well I was moving around and remember thinking that the pain was less than that experienced after half Ironman races.

It took quite some time for me to see the full scope of that race's impact on my body.  I am writing this now close to 2 months after the race and have had a difficult time in returning to normal training.  I took 5 days off of training after race day and had a plan of gradually getting back into a speed-oriented routine to prepare for various local sprint races.  To make a long story short, I went too fast too soon and am now paying for it.   I still know next to nothing about Ironman recovery but I learned the following the hard way:

-Suppressed Immune System:  I've come down with every bug in the air from A to Z since the race and I'm guessing that a better approach to post-race nutrition, sleep and training volume would have solved this.

-Tendons and ligaments:  Although muscularly I felt fine to return to relatively high intensity training, I think my tendons and ligaments were on a different program.  Since the race I am dealing with all kinds of injuries that I haven't faced since my novice runner days.  I have a very tight right ITB that is giving me some knee trouble and a swollen left achilles tendon that has put a stop to my running.  I know how to work these issues out and will soon come around them but I think that all of this crap could have been circumvented through a more intelligent approach to race recovery.

Translating the entire experience into grade school marks:

Preparation: C

Execution: A

Recovery: F

Final Grade: C 

So I passed.  That, at the end of the day, was the whole idea.  Yet, honestly I lack catharsis.  I've checked this box in the lifetime accomplishments list but I still have much more to do with Ironman.  I don't think I will be satisfied until I've had a race where I took calculated risks and came through the line on the last fumes of consciousness.  Such a performance may not even land me a Kona spot and I think (I'm not sure yet) I would be okay with that as long as that race on that day was a masterpiece.

See you again soon Ironman.