Post 203 - Kona day 9 - Race day: bike

Day 9 - Saturday 12th October 2019 - The bike

I started the bike after an hour and 9 minutes. One minute ahead of schedule. I was glad to be out of the water. The road around the mount line was barriered, narrow, twisty and carpeted. There were a lot of athletes in close proximity. I had my bike shoes already on, and I had smaller 600ml rear mounted bottles of electrolyte drink (the larger 750ml or 1000ml bottles mean it’s difficult to throw your leg over the saddle because they stick up too high).

So I was able to jump on and clip into the pedals without too much drama – plenty of people were getting in each other’s way and weaving all over the place, trying to get their feet into their pre-clipped bike shoes. I knew the course fairly well. A very short but steep uphill, partway up Palani road, then a left hander and a loop round and up to the Queen K highway, then back down the steep Palani descent to “hot corner”, where a lot of spectators gather as they can see three passes of their athletes in quick succession. Then left on Hualalai for a few miles, around a turning point, back to hot corner, up Palani, onto the Queen K, and then it’s over 50 miles to the turning point at Hawi, and 50 miles back.

Much of the bike course looks like this. The sun is strong. 

The black lava absorbs the heat. The winds are intense.

It was difficult to predict what time I would do. I’ve never raced in such heat before, on such smooth roads. I had done 100 miles in 3:58 a few years back. I thought at best, I might scrape under 5 hours, maybe 4:55. But I thought this unlikely. I planned to be reasonably conservative on the bike as the hot marathon required that I conserve some energy on the bike. I thought 5:10 – 5:15 likely. Surely no worse than 5:30. (I had done 5:30 one year at Ironman UK on a tough, hilly bike course with poor roads – albeit with hindsight I had biked too hard that day).

Regardless, it was less about chasing a time and more about keeping within my heart rate and power output numbers. I was looking at around 210 watts for 5 hours or more, and 140bpm. I had held 200 watts for well over 6 hours at Ironman UK earlier this year (in cooler temperatures and with plenty of freewheeling on downhill sections) and still had good legs left to run, so I thought that with being around an hour quicker, I could aim for a slightly higher wattage in Hawaii. I hoped that a heart rate of around 140bpm would allow me to sustain this power output. Hitting 150bpm would be too high.

It might be windy, it would certainly be hot, it would be dehydrating, and so targeting a time was less important than keeping to my numbers. If 210 watts and 140bpm got be round in 4:55, great. If it got me round in 5:25, then so be it. That’s what it would be. Most of all, I would ride my own race and ignore everyone else. I was well prepared to be up against some seriously good cyclists, and also well prepared for most people to start their bikes very aggressively – with the mentality of “I’m in Hawaii, it’s the world championships, I’m fresh, I’m well tapered, I’m doing the first 10 miles through great crowds in and around Kona town, I’m going for it!” I’d take it easy and enjoy my first 10 miles, and continue to take it easy on the bike, letting the day and the race come to me and conserving strength.

I’m sure prior knowledge and experience of racing this iconic, tough, harsh course helps a lot. I had none of that. But I had my plan, and I had to stick to it, otherwise my final couple of hours would turn into the world’s biggest misery parade. I didn’t want that.

So I put the bike into first gear (34-28: very low!) and spun up Palani, then on the loop round to the Queen K I sat up and made sure my top was nice and aero, smoothed out the wrinkles, checked to make sure the gels were well shoved down into my pockets and wouldn’t fall out, made sure my shoes were optimally tightened, adjusted my helmet, got comfortable. People were blasting past like they were fired from a cannon. Some maybe were that good, some would pay for it later. This section was quite open and wide and so it was all fine. At this point I saw the others. I hadn’t expected to see them where they were, but had enough time to give them a wave.

Supporters-in-waiting

All too soon it was down the steep Palani hill towards "hot corner", where the course passes several times in fairly quick succession, and where masses of spectators congregate. People were going insanely fast down this hill, into a big stop at the bottom. I saved my legs and freewheeled. On the Hualalai section out to the turning point, the road was quite narrow, with quite a few spectators. It was a gentle incline up to the turn, and a gentle downhill back. Athletes were flying back on the opposite side of the road. On both sides there was quite a bit of agro – shouts and whistling as people tried to overtake at speed in very close proximity. It was a bit crazy. The race wouldn’t be won in the first few miles, but it could certainly be broken with a crash. I kept well in to the side out of trouble, and maintained the “take it easy” approach. None other than Dave Scott (6-time world champion) had told me that the bike doesn’t really start until you are past the airport, which is about 20 miles into the route.

I reached the turn and headed back to hot corner. People were absolutely powering back. I took it easy. I was enjoying not being in the swim. Trying to enjoy the lap of Kona. Enjoying the support. It would get pretty bleak and quiet later. I got back to hot corner and ascended up Palani in my low gear. People were monstering up the hill, I’d say easily doing 500-600 watts. I kept it under control at 200. That would do. And would hopefully pay dividends later.

Nice and easy

I saw the others up ahead. I thought I’d see them going up Palani. They were hard to miss in the distinctive green Hawaiian shirts and team Ireland gear. I moved over to their side of the road. It’s a long day for them. A few fleeting glimpses. It’s difficult for them to know how it’s going. So I gave them a huge smile and a high five. Everything was good. My neck felt OK. My foot was fine. I was in the game.

I continued to ease up Palani. One guy overtook me, but at a much slower rate than everyone else. He was obviously being sensible too. He looked at me and smiled and said “that’s how to ride up Palani!” Absolutely. It’s not a long hill, probably less than a mile, and I was soon turning left onto the Queen K highway. This was where my speed would increase. Things were good. It was about 8:30am. The sun wasn’t really fully up yet. It was calm.

I had a slug of water and I tucked down into the aero position. 200 watts would be OK for the first hour or two, then hopefully it would increase up to 210. The speed was good. 22-23mph. I knew that 22.5mph would give a 5 hour bike time. For me, that would be a most acceptable time. My average crept up and up. The road was nice and smooth. It was great. People were still overtaking me, but in my own race, for me, this pace and this power was great.

The "money shot" - full aero position, big ring, side on, lava fields, ocean, blue sky. The pic everyone wants!

Aid stations were fairly regular. I didn’t need to worry about the first one as I had a front bottle full of water. I would eat a gel or a bar or a few energy sweets every 25-30 minutes. I passed the airport on the left. A milestone. The next milestone would be the scenic point I’d cycled out to earlier in the week. After that it would be “unknown roads”, with a descent down into Kawaihae and then a long drag of a climb up to the turn at Hawi.

I got to the scenic point, maybe 30 miles into the ride. I rode past a competitor in a recumbent bike. He had no legs. I'd heard about him. He must have blitzed his swim, faster than me. I figured he was in for a tough run with two prosthetic legs and no knee joints. I gave him a thumbs up.

For me, at the point, everything was going well. I had figured out how best to approach the aid stations. You had to be alert to them, because well beforehand, I’d take my half-empty (or two-thirds empty) front bottle, take one final drink, then spray the rest over my neck, back and arm coolers to wet them. This all took time, so had to be done in advance of the aid station. Then I’d drop the empty bottle in the litter zone, slow down, and grab a fresh bottle. I’d try to grab from one of the front volunteers which meant if I missed the grab there were still volunteers to come to grab another. This strategy served me well as when I grabbed one bottle, the impact of the grab forced the lid to explode right off the bottle, which was no good to me as the bottle would have emptied itself when it was in my bottle cage. So I was able to grab another one.

Some people were happy to grab at 25mph but this isn’t easy and a lot of bottles went flying, which meant you could hit a bottle with your front wheel, which would likely cause you to crash. Plus, often you were riding with only one hand on the handlebars in the aid stations, so you had to be really alert as to who was around you, and whether there were bottles rolling around in the road in your path. The bottles were chilled. I don’t know how they kept all the liquids in the aid stations so cold all day. The ice bill must be huge.

The bottles weren’t cycling bottles, they were just ordinary plastic bottles. They didn’t fit perfectly in my bottle cage. I was worried they’d fall out but eventually realised that with the way my aero bars were, even if the bottle was rattling around, it couldn’t fall out.

I passed a few athletes standing at the side of the road, with flat tyres. Some looked like they knew what they were doing, as they furiously tried to fix them. Others looks helpless, angry, beaten. One had a cartridge of sealing foam which you attach to the inner tube valve and which (in theory) blasts into the tube, expands, seals the puncture hole, and re-inflates the tyre. I'm always a bit dubious about these, and this guy's cartridge hadn't discharged into the tyre, it had discharged all over the place. A mess of white foam everywhere. He probably didn't have a back-up plan. He was stranded. Until the motorbike mechanics arrived - in 5 minutes, or in an hour, who knew how long it would take, or even if they would be able to help...? I had two CO2 cartridges, one CO2 cartridge adapter, one spare tube, tyre levers, and patches, and I had practice using them. But I still didn't want to have to use them in anger - they aren't the easiest of things to use, the tyres are not the easiest things to mount and dismount on the tubeless-compatible rims, the valve extenders make things even more difficult, so I was crossing my fingers not to have any flat tyres...

Mind the gaps? No drafting? 6 bike lengths between you and the bike in front?

Then the wind got up. The infamous Hawaiian winds. So strong and unpredictable. So much so that disc wheels are banned, as the wind would catch them and blow your bike right off the road. Occasionally, the Ironman world championship has a calm day. I’d have loved a calm day, as it would mean I’d do a better time. But perversely, I’d feel like I had missed something if it was calm.

The sun was getting higher in the sky. The black lava landscape was heating up. Air was moving. Looking ahead, riders were weaving across the road as the gusts caught them. The air funnels between the two volcanoes off to the east – Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, and the wind comes blasting across from the east. In anticipation, I had a medium-depth front wheel. Plenty of people had deep front wheels, which were more prone to catching the wind. Every year, you hear of people literally being blown off their bikes.

Mostly it was OK, just a bit windy. But in parts, there were ferocious, unpredictable blasts. It was tough. The first hour on the bike had been fine. Speed, power and heart rate right where I wanted. Between hour one and hour two, when the wind started getting up,  my heart rate was creeping a bit high for the power I was producing. Then my heart rate monitor decided to stop working. Bah. Garmin heart rate monitors are not great products, I’ve had quite a bit of bother over the years. So now I had only power to go on, and the fact that my heart rate had been rising. I had that in mind, that I couldn’t look to increase my power too much.

The big fast bikers were able to power through the wind. The lighter you are (and I was probably one of the lightest and tallest males competing), the more the wind affects you. The descent down to Kawaihae was very fast, hitting 40mph and hanging on for dear life. It was a bit bumpy at the bottom, then the climb to Hawi started. It was like a long, 10-15 mile false flat. It was still windy, but not as ferocious as the earlier part, so it was a bit easier to take hands off handlebars to feed myself and drink. Every year you hear stories of people who couldn’t eat or drink for fear of taking hands off their handlebars because of the wind.

At about this time I started to feel that my shoes were too tight, so it was a bit of a job to get them loosened, trying to anticipate where there wouldn’t be gusts and where I could freewheel to reach down and loosen the strap.

My nutrition and hydration was going well. I was peeing on the bike, which is good. Not getting dehydrated. Taking my rear-mounted electrolyte drinks. My gels. My energy sweets. My bars. The average speed inevitably dropped on the climb to Hawi. 

Another milestone on the bike would be seeing the leaders zooming down the descent on their way back from Hawi. There was a group of three. Jan Frodeno, Alistair Brownlee and someone else I didn’t recognise. They were accompanied by the official motorbikes and helicopters. Alistair was going for it. Jan knew what he was doing. Alistair was in uncharted territory. The fact that he was in the lead group at this stage indicted to me he was thinking win or bust.

Getting up to Hawi dragged and dragged. As the altitude increased, the black lava gave way to more lush, green landscapes. They say there are 12 microclimates up at Hawi and they can experience all 12 in a day. Often it’s raining. There were mile markers along the road and I was counting time between each one to help pass the time. Finally I got to Hawi. Finally I saw spectators again. There hadn’t been many on the Queen K. I was surprised to drop down a short descent before the turning cone.

I made a mess of the turn as I didn’t look ahead and anticipate it well enough and was in the middle of trying to eat a gel when it came upon me. Not an elegant turn. But I got round. It was like half-time. Re-set. Prepare for the descent. My strategy at Ironman UK of freewheeling all the descents to recover and help save my legs for the run wasn’t really applicable here. There weren’t many descents and this main descent from Hawi wasn’t steep enough to freewheel – you’d lose far too much time.

I passed a penalty box in Hawi and there were a few people serving penalties. I had seen a few motorbike referees, but there had been far more in South Africa at the half Ironman worlds last year. I had seen quite a bit of drafting going on. Some of it was probably unintentional, but unfortunately, some of it was probably intentional. Like doping, it’s a shame that people make these conscious decisions to cheat.

It was a prolonged high-speed section coming down from Hawi. My bike computer tells me how fast I have done every 5-mile section and I hit my fastest ever 5-mile section here, in just over 9 minutes (32mph average speed, which felt faster than it sounds, particularly in the wind). A halfway turning point often induces changes in the race, and I found that I was starting to pass a few people. I’d passed very few in the first half, but now I was starting to pass people who had maybe gone a bit too hard in the first section. I hoped that my relative caution in the first half would allow me to have a stronger second half. It was tough to do anything other than focus on the road ahead, but there was a steady stream of athletes still ascending on the opposite side of the road.

I got to the bottom of the descent, and my average speed was sitting at just over 21mph. I clearly wasn’t going to break 5 hours. 21.3mph would give you 5:15 and that’s what I realistically thought I could do on the bike, and what I had “planned” for when working out the splits needed for a sub-10.

Tougher coming back - must have been a headwind here as I'm on the small ring

Then came a horribly tough and demoralising section. The climb out of Kawaihae. Into a gale force wind. Pushing hard to go absolutely nowhere fast. It was brutal. In the lowest gear, going about 6mph. If I was fresh and if it wasn’t windy I’d have powered up, tearing up the road. But this. This was no good. What made it worse was that a peloton of riders (all drafting) swallowed me up. I could have gone with them and sheltered from the whipping wind at the back of the group, making the climb much easier. But this was my race. I wanted my race to be an honest race. I allowed myself to be spat out the back as the peloton continued on its way up the hill, and I laboured on alone, into the whipping wind.

I'm not convinced that the new wave starts made that big a difference to the drafting situation. For anyone who doesn't cycle, drafting is when you tuck in tight behind someone's rear wheel, and so the effects of air resistance are massively reduced. You get the same speed for much less effort (or you can go faster than you would be capable of by yourself), so you get a better bike time and have used less energy so you can run faster on fresher legs. Everyone in the 18-39 wave start would be at a similar level. Starting the older age groups later wouldn't make a huge difference because generally they'd be a bit slower. Starting the ladies after that again would help them to have a fairer race without being among the men. But for my wave, 18-39, and for the "middle aged" waves starting 5-10 minutes later, who could easily push hard for a short time to "catch up", there wasn't that much of a difference, and drafting did still happen. I'm sure a lot of it was unintentional and temporary, but I also saw some fairly blatant stuff going on. Which begs the question, if people are willing to cheat so brazenly in full view of everyone, what are they prepared to do behind closed doors? Doping? Motors in bikes? It happens... I think Ironman should dope-test everyone who accepts a Kona slot, and randomly dope-test a significant percentage of athletes during race week in Kona. And they should test bikes for motors. And ban anyone who fails any such test.

A couple of interesting articles on doping in sport, and in particular in amateur sport:

http://theconversation.com/amateur-doping-shaping-up-to-be-sports-latest-test-as-cycling-bans-rack-up-53543

http://theconversation.com/doping-among-amateur-athletes-like-crossfitters-is-probably-more-common-than-youd-think-82205

Anyway, I finally got to the top of the hill. At least I'd been honest about the climb, and hadn't drafted up it. There were a few spectators at the top of the hill, and a few flags. The flags showed just how strong the wind was as they were being blown so hard and were so taut that there wasn’t a wrinkle or a ripple on any of them. At the top of the climb, my average speed had dropped to below 21mph. I wasn’t even going to make 5:15 at this rate. I turned right and the headwind became a crosswind. It was hot, but not uncomfortably, debilitatingly so. As long as I kept going with my hydration and nutrition and cooling strategies, I wasn’t going to overheat. My shoulder was aching again from spending so long in the aero position, so I tried to shake it out from time to time.

While I was suffering out on the Queen K, the others later told me they were in the Fish Hopper restaurant, eating fantastic food and drinking cocktails. Apparently the Ironman tracking app was also really good, and they were able to see my progress in real time, which meant they were able to get back out and into position before I arrived back into town... 

Getting into the final quarter of the bike, my power hadn’t increased up to 210 watts as I’d hoped. It was under 200 average, and I had to really push to stop it dropping further. I didn’t finish strongly on the bike, but neither did I fade badly. It just was what it was. A fairly conservative ride, but I didn't feel that being a bit more aggressive would have been clever.

The climb up to the scenic point, which earlier in the week had felt so easy, now felt like it went on forever. Finally I got up. About an hour left to go. I hit another aid station. Maybe it was bad luck, maybe a bit of a lack of concentration on my part, but before I knew it I saw a full bottle of water rolling under my front wheel. I had no time to react. I was going to hit it. I was going to crash. Possibly wreck my front wheel. I felt the bottle hit my wheel. I don’t know how, but I escaped. Whether the bottle sprang away from the force of the impact, or whether the impact forced the flip-top lid open (or indeed forced the whole lid to explode off), which meant the water could all escape and the bottle simply flattened under my wheel, I don’t know. But I was lucky. I hit the bottle exactly perpendicularly which probably was fortunate. I had a stern talk to myself. Bring the bike home in one piece.

Approaching the airport, I saw the distinctive triangular shapes sticking out of the water in the distance – no idea what they were, the remnants of a pier or military installation or something. They looked like the Forth Rail Bridge. Then I passed the airport. Some military planes parked up. Hawaii wasn’t really typical of the rest of the USA. The islands were probably taken over by the USA for strategic purposes, due to their location, halfway to Asia from the USA. Many of the people were very much Pacific islanders, no doubt with ancestry from Maori New Zealand, Polynesia etc. Even the native language was unique.

10-12m gap?

I was nearly back to transition. On a short downhill, I freewheeled and stood up for one last pee. The three ahead of me all had the same thoughts, and in a comical synchronisation, we all freewheeled with our legs cocked and sprayed everywhere. I started to see the faster athletes on their run on the opposite side of the Queen K. I turned right off the Queen K and onto the back roads to the pier. I loosened my shoe straps. I was well over 5:20. Not the bike time I had hoped for, but I had ridden sensibly. I could have gone faster, but 10 minutes saved on the bike would probably mean 20-30 minutes lost on the marathon. As ever, it’s a tough balancing act.

 A long bike for me, a long day for the others...

I approached the pier. The road was carpeted. It was nice to see people again. Supporters everywhere. I figured my gang would be on the south section of Ali’i drive so they could see me on the out and back section of the run. Jan Frodeno (the lead male and winner) had nearly been hit by a van coming into transition. My bike was done. I was in one piece. I did 5 hours and 24 minutes. I was a fairly poor 162nd out of 199 in my age group, and 896th out of 2270 overall. The standard of biking was incredibly high. The standard of bikes themselves was also incredibly high. I like to think I have a decent bike, but others have ridiculous bikes - wheels twice as expensive as mine, tubeless set-ups, fully integrated front brakes and stems, fully integrated hydration, ceramic bearings. It all adds up to time saved. I don't have shaved legs. Some say that costs a minute or two per hour. But, it was what it was. It was an honest, sensible bike ride, which would hopefully leave me with reasonable legs with which to run the marathon. No punctures. No mechanical problems. No crashes.

I'd held 199 watts normalised power at about 63kg (3.2W/kg), 20.8mph, nearly 5000 feet of climb (much more than you'd think), 1.03 variability index. I'd held a marginally higher normalised power at Ironman UK (where there was more than twice the climbing), a slightly lower average power, and 48 minutes longer in the saddle. I've no heart rate data from Kona as my strap stopped working at around half distance, but my heart rate had climbed from around 135 to around 145 before it stopped working. In relative terms, I'm not great at long-distance bike rides. I'm much better at short, high-powered blasts. It's the same for my running. I can hold fairly high power for a short time, but it drops off much more than the textbooks say it should in longer distances. Different horses, different courses. That's one reason why it took my so long to qualify. I was biking to a power number that the textbooks said I should be able to hold (based on shorter distance power outputs) and I learned the hard way that the textbooks (or rather, the theory on the internet) isn't always correct for various individuals, so I was always biking too hard and falling apart on the run.

Entering transition, I handed my bike to a gloved volunteer (the bike handlers wear gloves because the bikes are covered in urine) and started to labour around the perimeter of the pier to the transition tent. Again I was in my bike shoes to protect my feet. It’s always “interesting” to see how the legs feel immediately off the bike. But this time, the main feeling was of the heat. Once the cooling effect of riding at 20-30mph disappears, you really feel the heat. Plus it was about 1:30pm now, the hottest part of the day. A long, tough marathon was ahead.

I had no trouble finding my red bike-to-run bag. I went into the changing tent, and did what I had to do. I have fewer memories of this transition compared to the swim to bike transition. I got fully suncreamed again (I was determined that I would not get sunburned), whipped on my socks, and my shoes, then realised I had forgotten to put Vaseline on my toes. My hip flexors were sore and it was tough and painful to bend down to put on socks and shoes, so I made a split-second decision that I would do without the Vaseline. I’d had my feet and toes and nails treated before I travelled to Hawaii, so hopefully I wouldn’t get blisters.

Looking back at photos, I saw that I had put on one of my socks back to front. Given that the socks are anatomically and scientifically designed, and are very expensive, you’d think that I’d have felt this on the run, and that it would have caused problems with wrinkles, blisters etc. But if I hadn’t seen the photos, I wouldn’t have even known. Goes to show that maybe you can indeed easily make do with less-than-optimal gear…

I also put on two sweatbands for my wrists, my running watch, cap, sunglasses, my race number, and grabbed a few “emergency” gels. Unlike Ironman UK, I’d chosen not to carry a bottle of electrolyte drink, because it would be really warm and disgusting – taking on water and gels should be easy at the many, many aid stations.

The clock was ticking. Time to run. So I took off out of the transition tent and started to run…