Some experiences and lessons learned throughout my Ironman career:
After 10 attempts, a lot of very tough lessons, and some terrible circumstances, I finally qualified for Kona at IMUK last year. Kona was brilliant and it was absolutely worth it. I made quite a few changes in 2019, all of which I think helped.
Palani hill, Ironman day, 2019. Just gone 08:00. Smiling!
Ali'i Drive. Ironman day 2019. 14:37. It was worth it.
Who'd have thought the little cheap Kitvision camera would
take such good photos?! You can even read the time on my watch!
I knew Ironman UK would suit me – been there, done that, know it all well. A benign warm lake swim would suit me. A cold, choppy sea swim wouldn’t (6ft1 and 62-63kg means I don’t like the cold!). For these same reasons I tend to go well on the hills, and the Ironman UK 2019 bike course was nothing if not hilly.
I don’t travel all that well and was keen to minimise the “occasion” and the “excitement” so wanted my A-race to be UK based, but I did think long and hard about South Africa, having had a great time there at the half worlds in 2018. In the end I thought it was too far away, not hilly enough, too early in the season, and with a sea swim.
Previous seasons started in January and by May/June I was burned out and frazzled, so by the time July/race day came around I was long past my peak, hanging on. In 2019, I trusted that I could start specific training in April with a 3-month build up (admittedly off a good level of base fitness – I’m a much better short-distance athlete). The idea was to arrive at IMUK fresh and sharp. This worked well.
I trained specifically for Ironman UK. I cycled on hills all the time. All my long runs were hilly. I structured my training differently. Previous years I’d have had Monday off, Tuesday bike intervals followed by a short run, Wednesday run intervals, Thursday tempo bike followed by a run, Friday swim intervals and single leg bike drills, Saturday long bike and short run, Sunday swim and long run.
In 2019, I decided that being fresh was more important that piling on the volume. So my weeks looked like this: Monday rest, Tuesday bike intervals, Wednesday tempo run or run intervals, Thursday easy bike, Friday swim, Saturday long bike occasionally followed by a short run, and Sunday long run. The hard sessions were hard, but I was ready for them because I had more recovery.
I followed a “2 hard weeks and 1 easy week” structure and this worked well, helping to keep me fresh. I was absolutely ruthless with everything else in life. For 3 months I had the mentality of “if it doesn’t help the Ironman, don’t do it.” This included giving up on cycling to work, because it was unnecessary time and effort for pretty much no gain.
I worked a lot on my core strength and flexibility. Reducing my swim/bike/run training hours meant I had more time to devote to core work and strength etc. This definitely helped in the later stages of the bike and run. My body felt strong.
I invested in regular sports massages and podiatrist appointments. At the start of each easy week, I had a sports massage. I didn’t feel any niggles when I was training. I trained exactly as I planned. I had no issues with callouses, blisters or sore feet as I’ve had in the past in long runs. This was money well spent.
I made sure immediately after training I took on hydration and recovery nutrition, and that I got over 8 hours of sleep per night. I trained in the evening which meant when I was fatigued and my immune system compromised, I could sleep it off rather than having to sit in an office. I started using Tailwind nutrition on the bike and it was really good.
In previous years, I think my taper was too easy, which always left me feeling funny. My taper wasn’t as easy in 2019, which meant I felt better in the few days before the race and during the race.
In previous years I stayed in a hotel during race weekend. This time I rented a house, and had peace and quiet and access to a kitchen where I could continue to eat my normal diet at my normal times. This was really helpful. In previous years, the day before race day would have been a “rest” day. This year I did an hour on the bike early on Saturday morning, with a few intervals, to get the legs firing. This definitely helped.
For the race, I pared back the weight on the bike. I removed the aero tool box, only carried one spare tube and one CO2 canister, no pump, removed one of the saddle bottle cages (so instead of carrying 2 x 1 litre bottles behind the saddle, i.e. 2kg) I carried 600ml of concentrated Tailwind drink, which I took with my front-mounted water bottle.
I got a new aero helmet because my old one pinched on my ears and gave me a headache. I used bike gloves to help to minimise the road vibration. I read up on tyre psi and ran a lower psi. I used tri shoes rather than road shoes, to allow my feet to breathe and any pee soaked up by my socks to dry quickly.
I was lucky on race day that the weather was good. I’ve had terrible weather in previous races. IMUK 2019’s weather just clicked for me. Dry, calm, warm(ish) and overcast.
In the swim, my mentality was to do the swim and come out feeling as if I had done pretty much nothing. Nice and easy and smooth. I could probably have pushed and swam 54-55 minutes. I was happy with 59 and trusted in the plan. I’ve started Ironman bikes in previous years at 170bpm and from there it is very difficult to get the heart rate down to a sustainable level. A lower heart rate coming out of the swim meant transition was nice and smooth as well.
I took my time in transition. I had a small bottle of flat Coke in my transition bag. I swilled a mouthful and spat it out, then drank a couple of mouthfuls. It helped to clean my mouth out after the lake swim, and gave me a bit of an energy boost. I made sure my feet were dry. I put on socks and bike shoes so my feet weren’t picking up dirt and grit on the way to the bike mount line. Yes I could have been faster in transition, but I wanted to be comfortable. It’s a long day.
In previous years, my marathon usually fell apart – port-a-loos, vomiting, walking, collapse etc. The literature tells you that you do your 20-minute FTP test, multiply by 0.95 to get your FTP, and then ride to 70-75% of that for an Ironman. I learned the hard way that I can’t maintain that sustainably in an Ironman bike, and my run suffers. This time, I rode to a lower percentage of my FTP, made sure to cap the power on the hills, and as a result, despite my slowest ever Ironman bike (admittedly due in no small part to the difficulty of the course), I had my best ever Ironman marathon.
In the South Africa half ironman worlds I got about 60% of the way through the bike and I was starting to struggle with my pace, when I had an issue with my front brake – I had to stop at the mechanic station for 8 minutes to deal with it. I was in a terrible mood at this point. The enforced break meant I had some recovery and I flew back on the bike and had a much stronger run than I thought. So I said to myself, why not apply that to a full Ironman and freewheel on the bike as much as possible…?
So I did this. IMUK doesn’t really lend itself to powering down hills anyway, but I was happy to freewheel, stand up, stretch, relax etc on all the downhills, and take the recovery and lower the heart rate. The lower the heart rate, the better I can tolerate my nutrition and hydration, and the better off I will be on the run. I really do highly recommend Tailwind nutrition/hydration, it worked a treat for me at IMUK and in Kona. I probably could have biked a bit faster, but at what cost on the run? In previous years I was biking at 150+bpm. This year I tried to keep it under 140.
Also, I knew that bike course inside out. It was a tough (10,000 feet of climb), and some said dangerous bike course. I made a trip there earlier in the year and drove and rode the course. Someone posted a YouTube video of the course. I watched this a lot, and noted all the tricky points – descents, braking areas etc. Then I re-watched and re-watched all the tricky parts. So I knew which descents and corners I could take fast, and which ones needed caution.
I tried to enjoy the support on the bike – it’s a long day for supporters too (been there as a supporter) and it helped to pass the miles.
Again in T2 I took my time – dried my feet, changed my socks, put Vaseline on, got comfortable. It could be said that a marathon is long and boring, and when I am bored I tend to want to eat, and to feel I am hungrier than I actually am. In 2019, I told myself on the run that I would consume what I needed and not what I felt I wanted. I carried a bottle of Tailwind which got me to halfway along with aid station water and gels every 25-30 minutes. Kona is made or broken in the second half of the run and I wanted to get to the second half of the run in good shape to give me a chance.
I was strong on the hills and my body was ready for them as I had trained on them. I remember the exact point where, in previous years, it would have fallen apart – exiting Queen’s park on the third lap after the steep uphill, going through the mist spray at the park gates. I got back on the main road and my pace came back and I knew then I could be strong and maintain pace until the end. That was such a boost. I also knew at this point I was sixth and the top guy had already qualified and that there would be four or five slots…
I had a full gait analysis done earlier in the year by an expert (hadn’t had a gait analysis for years) and he recommended Asics Dynaflyte, and they felt great.
In the final lap, I kept telling myself to make the most of this – everything had been as good as it could have been, keep giving it everything, and I kept it going to the finish. Looking back, there is nothing I could have done better on the day. So whether I qualified or not, I would like to think I would still have thought it a success. I had no stomach issues, no port-a-loo stops, no vomiting or diarrhoea. Which all came from nutrition that agreed with my body, and pacing properly.
For me, stomach and gut issues are caused by over-pacing, and relying on race-day energy drink – you don’t know what concentration they are making it to, it’s not necessarily what you’ve trained with. Water is water, I was happy to pick that up. Gels are gels. But on the bike and in the run, I took my own Tailwind drink at the concentration I had been training with. With 30 minutes to run, I had a slug of Coke to get me through the final stretches.
In the end, I got the third slot and the fourth slot ended up rolling down quite a long way. Again, it just clicked for me, finally. I’ve been on the wrong end of this before – fifth and expecting five slots and there only being four, and no roll-down.
An overall summary:
Less training, a shorter build-up, more focussed training, more recovery, confidence and trust in my experience and that what I was doing would be enough, investing in regular massage and foot care, a more “strenuous” taper than normal (but still a taper!), staying in a house rather than a hotel, getting lucky with the weather, course chosen to suit my strengths, giving up time in the swim to come out feeling as if I had barely exerted myself, reduced bike weight, knowing where my bike limits were and trusting in them, freewheeling/recovering/stretching as much as possible on the bike, knowing the bike course inside out, Tailwind nutrition, discipline with not over-eating or over-drinking on the run, that little bit of luck at the allocation/roll-down.
And then some more discussion below:
One was that I’m not a pro, I can’t train like a pro, and I can’t race like a pro. I am time-limited and don’t have the back-up they do (massage every day, rest, recovery etc). I think a lot of the training programmes out there are written from the point of view of pro training and don’t give much consideration for “real life” being time- and situation-constrained. I also think they are quite generic and don’t take account for “different horses for different courses” – my long-course stuff is much “worse” than my short-course race results and training would indicate that it should be. So I had to find something that worked for me and my circumstances, and finally in 2019 I cracked it.
I'm not sure how true it is to say, “If you aren’t quick at shorter stuff you aren’t going to be quick at longer stuff.” I know a guy who I usually beat by 2 minutes in a 5K. A marathon is 8 times a 5K. 2 minutes multiplied by 8 is 16 minutes. Which means I should be running a marathon in 2:18…! Which, needless to say, I doubt I could... When I was training in winter 2018/19 (mostly for pure running and cross country), it was one kind of training. Ironman running training was very different. The tempo runs were slower. The long runs were longer. And there were more of the intervals (26 hill repeats when “usually” I would do 14, but done at a slower pace).
I can hugely empathise with all the “misery photos” – been there many times. It’s such a tough sport and I really do take my chapeau off to anyone who does it. The highs and lows are intense. But the lows make the good days so much better.
My training was pretty simple. 2 weeks hard, 1 week easier. Massage at the start of each easy week. Monday rest. Tuesday bike intervals/tempo bike, and core/stretching/strength. Wednesday run intervals/tempo run, and core/stretching/strength. Thursday easy bike. Friday single-leg drills on the bike, and a swim (alternated weekly between endurance, speed and drills). Saturday long hilly bike/turbo sometimes followed by a short run, and core/stretching/strength. Sunday long hilly run and core/stretching/strength.
This was a good mix of training, a good balance, tolerable for me, and backed up with massage/podiatrist, excellent nutrition, good sleep, good body strength and flexibility, and apart from having to go to work, absolutely zero social or life engagements for 3 months. All of which meant I stayed healthy and injury-free and so my training consistency was excellent. I didn’t do any racing in the build-up. Racing costs you 2 weeks – you have to taper into a race, and you have to recover from it. I didn’t feel I needed to do a race to "practice" anything as I’ve done it all so many times before. Similarly, going to a wedding or similar costs you a week at best or an illness at worst. If I’m putting in all that effort and time and money, I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise it.
Single-leg drills on the bike were great. Done every week. 30-40 minutes. Built up over weeks/months from 30 seconds per leg to 5 minutes per leg, at a range of cadences. With regular 2-legged pedalling as well to reinforce the drill. I built up from the “clunk” on the deadspot every stroke to being really smooth. The difference it makes on the bike is significant. When you are pedalling along and you think “pedal circles” (as per the single leg drills) you become so much more smooth and you get more power for the same effort, or the same power for less effort. Well worth it. Now when I pedal a bike with flat non/clippy pedals, my foot shoots up off the pedal on every “pull”, it’s quite funny.
New chain and cassette, absolutely. Apologies if this is common knowledge to people – it wasn’t to me until I was told. The chain wears and stretches, quicker than you'd think when you're putting 200 miles a week on it with a mix of intervals, high/low cadences etc. If you let it stretch beyond a certain amount, it wrecks the cassette and chainrings, so when you put a new chain on, the teeth are now too spread out and worn (from the old stretched chain) to intermesh correctly with the new non-stretched chain, and the whole system is messed up, needing new chainrings, cassette and chain. So keep on top of changing the chain regularly and it’ll preserve the more expensive cassettes and chainrings. I always had a new chain put on a couple of weeks before race day.
Also – oiling the chain. It’s not just a case of slopping oil on. The oil has to go into the pins and links of the chain. So you lightly run the tip of the oil container along one edge of the chain to oil it, then lightly along the other edge. Then you take a rag in your hand (a rag that won’t shed fibres into/onto the chain), hold it in the palm of your hand, make a fist around the chain, and vigorously wipe all the excess oil off. All that’s needed is what has gone into the pins/links. Anything else will attract muck and dirt and will foul up the chain in no time. Keep the jockey wheels clean with a brush as well. Makes such a difference. On race morning I’ll re-lube the chain and wipe it down. I used ProLink lube and have been told by an expert that it’s excellent stuff.
I definitely don’t run as well/fast in an Ironman as “conventional wisdom” says I should be able to, given my shorter distance times. Nor can I cycle as fast in an Ironman as “conventional wisdom” says I should be able to, given my numbers in shorter events/time-trials. I ran a 15:22 5k and 32:17 10k in the early part of 2019. I can do a sprint tri 5k in 16 minutes (I won a silver medal in the world sprint tri not long after IMUK19 but I would never ever be anywhere near this in an Ironman). I can do a standard tri 10k in 35. 70.3 half marathon in 83 minutes (which would have been quicker had I been able to train). I could probably do a standalone marathon in 2:30-2:35. But could I break 3 for an Ironman marathon? Not in a million years… but it took me a while to realise this…
I’ve heard it said/written I should be under 3 hours for an Ironman marathon. I’ve done 100 miles on the bike in 3:58 (265 watts) and so I’ve heard it said/written that I should be able to hold much higher power than the 203 watts NP in IMUK2019. So I tried to go with the “textbooks”/"conventional wisdom" etc in previous years, riding 220-240 watts on the bike, fading massively in the final quarter of the bike, starting the marathon at 7 minute mile pace and then ending up walking/collapsed/covered in puke/diarrhoea/in an ambulance at half distance.
So for me IMUK2019 was based on my own learning and experience: 200 watts tops on the bike. I actually aimed for 210. But it was a long, tough bike course and ended up 200. That's what I knew I could tolerate and sustain, from experience. That would enable good digestion of my nutrition. There is a huge difference between 220 watts and 200 watts. In previous years it was easy to be going even 10 watts too hard and saying “but it’s race day, but I’ve tapered, but I’m racing, but look at all these people flying past me” – this year I did my own race to my own numbers and ignored everyone else.
I went backwards for the first hour on the bike. People were blitzing me on the hills. But I was confident in what I was doing, not necessarily that it would good enough to qualify, but that it was what I needed to do to race strongly to the very end, which I always believed would give me a chance of Kona. It was 203NP and 193 average if I remember right, at about 63kg. So a variability index of 1.05, but given the amount of freewheeling I did, this isn’t bad. On a hilly course it’s more about watts per kilo. On a flat course it’s more about the watts you put out for the drag you produce. Which is why the big powerhouse bikers kick my ass on the flat.
In Kona, there were about 200 in my age group. I was around 70th in both the swim and the run, but 160th (160th!!!) on the bike. My first reaction to this was “WTF?! That’s terrible!” But. There was a lot of drafting going on. My bike was honest. It wasn’t like IMUK (proper hills and proper freewheeling which played to my strengths and minimised my weaknesses). And, on reflection, my bike was as good as it could and should have been. I rode to my numbers. I could see my heart rate going up before the sensor packed it in. So because I didn’t want to be walking most of the marathon or suffering along at 10+minute mile pace, the bike was what it was. For me it was about as good as it could and should have been. And I ran 3:27, which I’ll take!
I also disagree with the “swim really hard for the first 200-300m” approach. Maybe this applies for the pros, and for shorter draft-legal triathlons, but for me, what a way to ruin your Ironman in the first few minutes. Swim easy, then take the easiness to another level. So easy. I said to myself I’d come out of the water feeling like I’d barely done anything in 2019, as opposed to previous years when I pushed it and then couldn’t get the heart rate down on the bike. Also, perversely, swimming smoothly and easily is actually quite fast (unlike cycling and running where effort directly correlates with speed), so although an easy swim feels dead slow, it’s actually not…
An Ironman isn't about "leaving it all out there." You have to spread where you leave "it." You leave minimal out there in the swim. You leave minimal out there in the first two-thirds of the bike. Then it will start to feel harder and you start having to leave a little out there to get through the rest of the bike. The first half of the marathon you leave as little as possible. Then you should have a good chunk of "it" left, which you then start leaving equally and consistently spread over the final 10 miles, until there's nothing left and you've got half a mile to go and the adrenaline will get you through and the finish will suck you in.
So, most of "it" is left in the final 10 miles. I'm sure like most, I've done shorter triathlon races, which you do indeed race. In an Ironman, you don't "race" it, you "pace" it. It's so counterintuitive. We are racers. We train to race. We want to race. Racing means going hard (usually!) An Ironman is different. You don't start racing it until 10 miles to go. And even then it's not cardivascularly out-of-breath type conventional "racing", it's just forcing yourself to keep going against the fatigue and not slow down.
Rough roads and fatigue – I bought 5 sets of elbow pads for my bike and replace them every year. I used the same set for a few years initially and they were shot to pieces, with very little cushioning, but again like the noisy transmission, you don’t realise how bad it is until you replace. I love the neoprene idea. I’m sure the new 3D printed full length arm rests make a difference but they are beyond my means. One thing I do when on the bike, and it looks stupid but it works, is every 10-20 minutes I will ride with one hand, and with the free arm I will make a number of massive exaggerated running movements, and the a number of massive exaggerated stretches of the arm up my back, helping in keeping the shoulder and the elbow from seizing up. Obviously I will do this for both arms.
Similarly I will ensure I stand up on the bike every 10-20 minutes to keep the blood flowing “down there”. I didn’t do these things years ago and since I’ve started doing them, fatigue on the bike is minimised, power doesn’t drain away like it used to, and I start the running feeling like I can actually run (it’s a good feeling!)
Also, I got really aero when the going was good. No point in scrunching yourself up into a tight aero position at 16mph and cramping up and stiffening up. At these lower speeds I loosened out my arms as described above, drank, ate, stood out of the saddle, and on stretches over 20mph on the flat (e.g. the Chorley new road) I was turtling like a frightened turtle and shrugging my shoulders tighter than a guilty teenager. Drag is way higher at higher speeds so I did what I could at the higher speeds to reduce it. But I still kept to my power cap. It was such a boost to be passing people on the final 10 miles into T2 in Bolton when I had the flexibility to go super aero, and the legs to maintain my power.
Another point of note is I don’t run a bottle attached to either the down tube or the seat tube – I figure (or at least I hope) a lot of science and aerodynamics has gone into making the frame aero, so why ruin it with one or two bottles? Also this encourages carrying more weight than needed. One bottle behind the saddle containing concentrated Tailwind or gels/water or whatever is needed for the whole course, and one water bottle between the aero bars, which can be replaced at aid stations, is enough. I used to carry 5 bottles on my bike. Talk about needless weight and aero disruption… a bit of freewheeling through an aid station doesn't lose that much time, and the recovery you get in doing it pays dividends later on.
A lot has been said about gearing. Apart from Kona and South Africa, I’ve only ever raced hilly UK based courses. I run a compact 50-34 and an 11-28 on the back. I’ve seen so many people labouring up hills at 40rpm, and trashing their legs because they have the wrong gearing and don't have a low enough gear. I’ve seen people snapping chains and walking their bikes up the hills because they have the wrong gears. I spin up the hills nice and easy. There’s a big difference between 220 watts at 50-60rpm (fatiguing) and 220 watts at 90-95 rpm (less fatiguing).
“What if I spin out and haven’t got a high enough gear?” I used to ask myself. I spin the 50/11 out at about 28-30mph. I’m not a pro. I don’t need to push 250 watts at 30+mph. If I spin out my compact, then I take the recovery! That benefits my race time way more than having higher gears and pushing big watts at high speed and consequently labouring up the hills.
I thought long and hard about putting a standard 53/39 on for Kona. In the end I didn’t. I couldn’t justify the money. On the fast descent from Hawi in Kona, I covered 5 miles in 8 or 9 minutes at high speed, in top gear (50/11), at about 150 watts. I maybe lost a minute (or two at worst) to the pros here (i.e. not much!), but the pros were pushing double my power and got no recovery. On the Palani hill at the start of the bike course, (way steeper than I expected) I spun up at 90rpm at 200 watts. Riders were absolutely blitzing it. 300-500 watts I’d say, out of the saddle, low rpm. It was such a compliment when the only other “sensible” rider (i.e. slow spinner! said tongue in cheek of course) said to me “Look at us, now that’s how to ride Palani!” So my point here is, for me, the highest gear on a compact 50/34 and 28-11 is enough and it gives me the low gears not to trash my legs. Plus I imagine a compact is lighter!
I would say for IMUK and IM Wales, if you’re not a pro, then low gearing is the way to go. Yes it’s a pain to buy a new cassette, crankset and possibly a new derailleur, but when you’re labouring up Sheephouse lane or heartbreak hill at 50rpm and you’re absolutely dying and you’ve got yet more hills to come, and then a marathon, you’ll likely be wishing you had made the change…! I run the same on my tri bike and road bike and I’ve never once said “I wish I had higher gears.” But I've always been glad of the lowest gear.
Maybe less directly relevant, but in the last couple of years I have gone mostly vegetarian. I don’t buy or cook any meat for myself. It’s all falafel, tofu vegetarian sausages, and the odd bit of fish. We have a canteen at work and maybe once or twice a week I’d eat meat there, with fish on a Friday. I also used to eat brown pasta almost every day but no matter how much I ate, soon afterwards I would feel hungry again. So I switched to rice and it seems to make me feel fuller for longer and seems to release its energy over a longer time. Anecdotal I know but there you go, it works for me.
All things I have learned the hard way! And all things that worked for me – they may not work for everyone because of “horses for courses”. And I doubt a pro would benefit from doing what I did - they are different beasts. But apart from pros , they all are things that could apply right through the field, not just for Kona aspirants.
https://www.endurance-data.com/en/search/?s=john+lenehan
(A website of performance history.)
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