Saturday, October 1, 2016

Post 143 - An Ironman UK blog by Chris

My Ironman UK 2016 was a bit of a disaster, but my friend Chris was also competing, and he put in a strong showing at his first Ironman. I asked/coerced him into writing a few words about his day. Something to look back on in years to come...
Chris writes below:

This is really not something I like doing, but here is my experience of this years Ironman UK in my own words. John refused to pass on some excellent race photo's taken by his father Brian until I wrote him something and when faced with outrageous bribary and outstanding photography, I capitulated. Seriously, the sight of Brian crouched down low with his camera point upwards as I ran by made me laugh to myself!
Firstly, I'm not a triathlete like John. I'd never really swam much further than a few lengths until about 18months ago and cycling was just something that allowed me to commute to work and avoid the tube in London. My sporting background was based around football and lifting weights until I started running four years ago when I got a place in the London marathon (that I forgot I applied for!). Fast forward to today and I've pretty much taught myself to swim from scratch and started cycling properly since March of this year, however with a few years of running behind me, that was always going to be my strong suit. With that in mind, I approached this race with the logic of, if I can get through the swim and the bike, I'm confident I can get to the end.
Ahead of this race I hadn't swam outdoors in over a year and only worn a wetsuit once to practice the fit. All of my swimming was in a local 50m lido which opens for lane swimming between 6pm and 8pm on weekdays. As I finish work at 6pm, my longest swim sessions consisted of racing to the pool straight from work and getting straight in and swimming as many lengths as I could before they lifeguards kicked me out at 8pm. On a particularly efficient day I managed about 3200m (2 miles) in just over an hour in the pool. On this day, I was getting kicked out but confident I could've carried on for another 12 lengths to make it up to 3800m on race day.




Race day arrived and I decided to be cautious throughout the day, even though I was confident of swimming the 2.4 miles quicker than 1hr30, I decided to start in the 1hr30 start pen just so I was tempted to swim off like a rocket and pay the price on the second lap. It's quite disconcerting swimming in murky water at 6am when you're not used to it. In the pool you follow the lines on the pool floor until you hit a wall and then turn around, in the lake you can barely make out your hands in front of your face. This proved irritating when swimmers slightly ahead decided to change to breaststroke without warning to check their position and I slammed into the back of them and took a few agressive kicks to the face. I swore at most of them, I  have a temper and competition brings out the worst of it. 
The irony is of course I swim blind most of the time too, I dont sight well and I rely heavily on being able to see another swimmer to the side of me when turning to breathe and assumed if I was with other swimmers, we were going the right way. Safety in numbers. The first 1.2 mile lap seemed to go quite slowly, it took a while to get into a rhythm due to all the stop-starting but the the second lap seemed to go quickly, the field had thinned out noticably and there was plenty of water ahead to swim into without hitting anybody. Some of that water found itself into my mouth, which in a desperate attempt to burp it out, I vomitted back into the lake. John had scared me with horror stories about algae so I didn't take any chances. Sorry to anybody behind me that had to deal with that, unless you're one of those breaststrokers that kicked me! 2.4 miles in 1hour27, including the little run bit inbetween laps and zig zagging across the lake as I dont look where I'm swimming.
I came out of the water really happy, the swim was easily the toughest obstacle of the day for me and it was over with and I felt like it was comfortable. In a peverse way I remember approaching the swim exit and thinking, "I've got this, this wasn't so bad, I could probably do a 5km open water swim one day!". Running along to T1 I saw another competitor just ahead struggling with his wetsuit zip so I unfastened it for him and made a joke before running off into the tent, I was in a good mood at this point! 

Onto the bike, 112 miles of hilly Lancashire countryside.  I dont have a fancy time trial bike, I have an aluminium road bike that I use for work with a few aerobars fastened to the front. I was worried about this course and my climbing ability. On a few training rides I'd really struggled up some inclines and some of them were of a similar diffficulty to both SheepHouse Lane and Hunters Hill which I'd have to scale twice. I couldn't understand why I was so terrible at climbing. I wondered if my gearing was different to everybody elses, I wondered if it was a weight issue as at 75kg I don't have a cyclists physique or if I just lacked climbing strength (I only started cycling more than two hours in April). 
As luck would have it, I got my bike serviced three days before the race and my local workshop said the chain was worn out and replaced it. On Friday evening after registration I drove to the steepest part of the 112 mile course, Hunters Hill, to do a recce and see what I was up against. I took the bike out of the back and spun up to the top quite easily. I was confused. It was tough, my heart rate shot up but nothing overly challengeing. I took confidence from the fact I even got up it at all, but I assumed it was because I was fresh and it would be a different prospect 90miles in on race day.
I remembered John's advice for the bike, keep it nice and easy until you get up SheepHouse Lane for the first time which is about 12 miles in. I believe his exact words were "let them go, you'll see them again during the marathon". It seemed a sensible approach as I was also conscious that in a 70.3 race last year I pushed too hard for a bike split of 2:30 which left me in pieces during the run. On a good day I run a fresh half marathon in under 1:20, in my half ironman I finished in over 1hr50 and was a little embarrased with my supposed strongest discipline. 
Twelve miles or so into the bike I could hear lots of noise, I realised that SheepHouse was approaching, the 2.5 miles of hills to the top of Lancashires moors. I spun up the hills, kept spinning, it flattened out a little, then up again, I kept spinnning and spinning. While I was spinning, bikes were falling behind me like a weird 90's arcade racing game, I thought that was odd. Then suddenly I was approaching the summit and steepest part of the hill, I dug in but surprisingly I scaled the whole things without the need to come out of the saddle. I spent a lot of the decline on the other side looking at the bike computer (39mph was the fastest I saw) and wondering what all the fuss was about! 


The same thing happened at Hunters Hill, I remember appraoaching it and pumping myself up to grit my teeth. As I spun up the hill I heard a really distinctive South African accent shout from the side of the road "Excellent cadence Chris!" which I particularly liked. In the narrow climb of Hunters where supporters encrtoach on to the roads I was so quick up the hill that it almost became dangerous as I had to try and overtake in limited space. It's easy to seen hindsight that a really knackered old chain had been holding me back for months and I was actually a pretty decent climber. However, at the time I was genuinely panicking about changing my gears and derailleur on my bike to assist with hills or even the indignity of having to get off and run up the hill like Chris Froome!
It was a windy day, in my head before the race I thought I could cover 112 miles in 6hours30 while taking it very easy and not detonating before the marathon. I could tell very early on that this wasn't going to happen, it was windy, hot and I refused to make the same mistake as last years half ironman and chase a bike split that killed my run. In the end, I finished in 7 hours and ready to run.
For this final 5 miles of the bike I started getting incredible cramps in both feet, I assume this was from them being fixed into one place for 7 hours and/or dodgy cheap cycling cleats. For the final 3 miles of the bike, I took my feet out of the shoes and with just socks on pushed down on the shoes/pedals to try and breathe some life back into my feet...
.. it didnt work. I jumped off the bike at the start of t2 and couldn't walk. This was was supposed to be the second happiest part of the day for me, right from the start I thought this was the moment I told myself that I had to get to. I knew if I got here, with "just a marathon" left, then by hook or by crook, I'm going home an Ironman. Not exaggerating here, I limped with my bike to the bike rack and hobbled into the tent and sat down to change. I didn't know what to do at this point, do I just walk/limp 26.2 miles? 
I knew competitors only have 17 hours to complete an Ironman or you get a non-finish. I remember glancing at my watch as I hobbled into the tent and as I'd only been racing for roughly 8hours30mins, I worked out that I can probable just about walk to the finish if all else fails. I sat on a chair in transition frantically self massaging both feet, (yes both feet had identical problems) to try and force some life in to them. After three of four minutes of this, I put my trainers on and forced myself out of the tent and on to the road. It was a little better, I was running but not comfortably and not gracefully, but it was quicker and easier than my hobble through transition and at least I was making progress.
Running after a bike leg of an Ironman is interesting. As a runner, I often go out for long runs at a very comfortable pace which doesn't really elevate my heart rate but trains my legs to build up muscular endurance. I can quite comfortably run 18-20 miles at 7:00 mile pace and talk to one of my friends next to me in full sentences the whole time. An Ironman marathon is a different sport altogether, I knew this beforehand because John was trying to tell me to start conservatively and not ruin my race. So the first few miles I had my eyes glued to my watch, I was committed to running the first five miles at no quicker than 8:00 mile pace, yet every time I got distracted I would accidentally speed up and be running 7:00 again and have to force myself to slow down by taking smaller steps. 
One of my biggest takeaways from this race (which my running friends found quite amusing) was the bizarre feeling of running what we would consider a very slow pace yet overtaking triathletes one by one almost continusouly for the first five miles. It's just a very strange feeling for a non-triathete to be running what we consider to be ridiculously slowly, yet this pace was overtaking lots of people. After 6 or 7 miles I arrived at "the loop" which in a nutshell, is one road that you take until you reach an end turnaround point, at which point you go back along the same road and into Bolton Town Centre, (straight by the finish line) where you turnaround again. You do this hilly up and down loop four times until you accumulate 26.2 miles.
I spent almost the whole loop scanning the road side looking for John and my supporters. Before the race I'd already made a conscious decision to get information on John's race position and relay it to him just in case it makes a difference to his finishing position. Seeing familiar faces and sharing a 5 second conversation really breaks up the race and is a welcome distraction.  With almost one loop gone and no sign of John or the supporters I looked at my watch and saw the clock said 9:50, I reached the conclusion that this would probably be around John's finish time and that the supporters were probably cheering him across the finish line. 
A few minutes later I saw the supporters and got told I was looking strong and doing really well. I thought it was a joke, I was basically jogging and I made a joke about finishing the marathon in 1hour40 and qualifying for Kona. Then I heard John had dropped out before I ran out of range to hear the end of the conversation. I was confused for the remainder of the loop but focussed on enjoying the crowds in the Town Centre, I was loving the run, it felt easy, I was overtaking people and I was running much better than I thought I would off the bike. It was about mile 14 that the magnitude of the Ironman caught me up and bit me on the backside. 

From mile 14 until around mile 20 I made a conscious decision to copy a lot of my fellow runners and power walk some of the ridiculous up hills and then run the flats and downhills. By mile 20, I was pretty much broken, and also walking through every aid station to get sugars and water topped up.  was now running 8:30 and 9:00 miles. That's right, the pace that was "too easy and I keep accidentally speeding up" from miles 1-6 had suddenly become too much handle. Lots of people were telling me I was doing really well, I'd lost my smile, I knew I wasn't. I remember walking after the aid station one man in the crowd saying "the aid station is over now, get moving again" and instinctively I did - I always seem to respond better to the stick than the carrot!
It sounds coutner intuitive, but in hindsight I know this dramatic loss of run speed was almost certainly down to bike fitness. I knew a few other athletes in the race this year, none of which can match my running performance over almost any distance, but all of which are far superior cyclists, all of which clocked a quicker Ironman marathon time than me. Simply put, riding 112 miles in 7 hours is more taxing on my body than covering the distance 30/60mins quicker is for another competitor. I saw the support again at mile 22, four miles until the finish and I made a joke that my legs no longer work and that I'll see them at the finish in 40 minutes!
Back into Bolton for the final time, a few people noticed the red band on my arm which means all laps had been completed and shouted at me to finish hard. I overtook maybe seven people with red bands in the final 400 metres, it's funny how I suddenly had energy when my legs didn't work five minutes ago.
The finish line. In my imagination I always hoped for an empty red carpet to power down at the end, high fiving the crowd, doing a little dance, savouring the moment before being photographed crossing the famous finishing line. In life you dont always get what you want. I saw two people just ahead that I was quickly closing on and could (and probably should) have overtaken on the red carpet but I as this was my one and only Ironman, I wanted to ensure I got a good photo crossing the line! I slowed down a little to create a gap to the runners ahead which only pushed my back closer to another man right behind me. My plan didn't really work as four people more or less crossed the line within 5 seconds of each other - what are the chances!











Still across the line, a mini celebration of becoming an Ironman and receive the confirmation of a medal. It wasn't pretty, I certainly wasn't bike fit but I got through it and can proudly call myself an Ironman. It'll probably be my last one, it's not something I can really commit time to again. However, even just a few days later there's a gremlin on my shoulder that is telling me that I could do it again so much faster with the knowledge of my weakenesses and the confidence of familiarity. You can smash the hills. You can swim the distance. If you do an easier course you could take two hours off that time. 


Unfortunately, that is my personality summed up very accurately in a few words. Three years ago an Ironman was a ludicrously difficult challenge for the super fit (idiots) like John Lenehan not weight-lifting footballers like me. Two minutes before stepping in the lake at 6am I wasn't 100% convinced I'd be able to complete the challenge. Two days post-race and I'm sat critiquing the mistakes and telling myself it wasn't good enough and I need to do it again and do it better.  I hear Barcelona is nice (and flat) at this time of year! :)

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