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You've signed up for an Ironman- Congratulations, are you crazy?
I couldn’t tell you the number of times I have tried to re-live that feeling experienced in the last few moments of the race I have dedicated so much of my life to for six months. There aren’t many words beyond euphoric that explain it. In the space of 20 seconds, I ran down the red carpet, flashing my mind back through memories from the start of my Ironman journey, fast forwarding through the last half year, from my first to last training session and back to the present moment; arms spread wide, high fiving the spectators as they cheered me on and fist pumping in full force. I couldn't have grinned any harder!!
I still get butterflies thinking about it now.
12 hours and 36 minutes earlier I stood at the start line of the 3.8km swim contemplating the day ahead and focusing on staying calm, soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying every moment. David reminded me before I set off, in the words of Daniel Rowland, "the training is the hard part, now it's time to go have fun."
The swim was going to be my first open water mass swim so I placed myself in the 1hr 12min pen (pens started from sub 1hr to 1hr30+) knowing that it would be better to have to overtake others than be swam over the top of. Generally speaking, this paid off but I still managed to get my goggles knocked off twice by other swimmers. All 27 hours of swimming practice was well worth it to feel confident and calm in the sea. There were specific bottle-neck points in the swim, like the end and the turning points that weren’t as enjoyable but I actually fed off the fact that I was there in the Mediterranean Sea amongst 2800 other racers competing in such an iconic race. I managed to make up some time and finish the swim in 1hour 8mins, putting me on schedule for transition 1 (T1).
Going into any race with goals is important for me. I’m a planner by nature so like to have something to work towards. But setting yourself expectations for a race you have never done before isn’t easy. My target was to finish in under 13 hours, which I was honestly worried about not achieving given how nervous I was for the cycle.
T1 - Swim to bike
I had planned and practiced my transitions well so there was little chance of faffing between the three disciples. My HUUB Atana quick release wetsuit whipped off quickly and I put talcum powder in my socks so I wouldn’t have trouble putting my wet feet in. I wore a 2XU trisuitunder my wetsuit so had no other clothing to change into. When the helmet, race belt and shoes were also on, I ran to pick up my bike and set off for the longest part of the day - a 180km cycle into the French Ligurian Alps. I was lucky enough to see both my parents, David and another colleague from work at T1. It’s always a great boost for me having supporters at a race.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I trained the hardest I have ever trained before for this race. It became my way of life, something I put my heart and soul into.
It is worth being honest here and saying that all this training comes at a price. I might paint a pretty picture of training on Instagram, which for the most part, it is, but it has also caused friction back at home. I have led a very selfish way of life to achieve my goals and at times it can get lonely. This added a new level of pressure to the race that I hadn’t experienced before. I needed to prove to myself, and others, that everything I had sacrificed would be worth it. Over the last four years, I have taught myself how to cope with elements of stress and pressure and turn it into positive energy that further fuels my drive to get to the finish. This state of mind was important to control and could have been a deal breaker had I let it get the better of me. No endurance race relies entirely on physical preparation. Training the mind is just as important.
I set off on the cycle expecting to be out for anything between 7 or 8 hours. That would be my longest cycle to date, in both time and distance. My furthest training ride was in the Dolomites - 122km in 6 hours with 2200m of climbing. Mentally, I knew I could cope with the 2000m of climbing in the race, having done many training rides with more climbing in proportion to distance but the idea of being out for much longer and further than I had experienced before was still slightly nerve wracking.
The bike course was beautiful. We cycled through small local villages and up and down long windy roads, often with fantastic views of the valleys below. It was a hot day with temperatures up to 30 degrees C. I was losing a lot of sweat so popping a salt tablet on the hour was a must!!!
About half way into the bike, I was getting bad stomach cramps. Although I had practiced my nutrition on all of my training rides and planned to alternate between gels and bars every half hour, I made the mistake of having a whole bar in one sitting, making it hard for my stomach to digest when the rest of my body was working so hard and needing the blood in other areas. I had another problem, I had needed a wee since the start line and hadn't been able to go in the water as I was so focused on swimming that I simply couldn't do it at the same time! I had considered doing it whilst on the bike (don't judge) but couldn't pluck up the courage and again found it hard to relax enough as I was working hard to maintain a decent speed. I solved the latter problem after finding a porta loo at 70k. The stomach cramps I just had to deal with.
Descending on the bike has to be one of my favourite parts of the race. Gaining some speed after the tough climbs was a real boost. I was hitting 50+km/hr and absolutely loving life!!
Transitioning from the bike to the run felt good. Again I had practiced this a lot and I had now broken the back of the day, leaving it up to just me and my legs to get me to the finish. I also knew I'd be seeing my supporters 8 times as the route was 4 x laps of the promenade.
Unfortunately, my stomach cramps hadn't got any better and the running motion, plus the extra gels I had only made it worse. I had three pit stops on the run so it was only in the last 20km that I really felt like I could get into a rhythm and come into my own. I saw a lot of people getting pulled off into the medical tent before keeling over due to the heat and lack of shade. I probably would have done the same if it weren't for the cold showers at the check points which temporarily lowered my core temperature.
I felt strong for the last 20km. I was passing lots of people walking and my experience in ultra running gave me confidence in knowing that my body was capable of pushing on despite the miles I had already covered.
The whole day went by in a whirlwind. I took a lot of learnings from the race and was so pleased that after so much hard work, I had felt so strong throughout the day and could enjoy myself. I really feel in my element with endurance triathlons now and am excited to continue with what I feel is the start of my Ironman journey. I cannot wait to bring that fish line experience back to life again.
My times for the three disciplines and transitions were:
SWIM 3.8km - 1:08:25 T1 - 00:05:55 CYCLE 180km - 6:51:49 T2 - 00:03:37 RUN 42.2km - 4:16:26
TOTAL - 12:26
I'm proud to say that I was 1 of 8% of females racing and still managed to finish 596th out of 2800. I was 9th in my age category and 35th women overall. I am delighted with my result but know I have the potential for more. Kona is calling. As are the ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Champs...
