By Steven Moody
Qualifying for Vegas had always been a secret goal of mine for 2012 – even though, it was with a sense of surprise and shock that I looked at the fabled registration letter in my hand post Antwerp 70.3 back in July. My attempt at qualification had ironically almost failed on the run leg in Belgium as I had melted in the heat and I lost 7 mins from my target time and a large number of AG placings.
However, as always the optimist I had decided to drag my long suffering bird (or Yvonne as her family like to call her) to the awards ceremony in the town hall in Antwerp. Thanks to a very generous roll down – I ended up with a place for World champs in Vegas. This also involved a 500 metre sprint across the town square to get and return with the requisite €280 registration fee before losing out to another hungry Age Grouper if I took longer than 5 mins.
Feeling very relieved and being one for lessons learnt – I openly swore to myself that I would never run slower than 90 mins for a half ironman run split again… I was to regret this promise in the near future.
So after the dust settled, I pondered on my reward for my 7 months of hard training – damn it more training and a much tougher race in a very harsh environment. After some long discussions with my coach – we came up with a plan for prepping me for the hot and hilly conditions in Vegas as best we could.
Part of this training involved the dreaded “sweat box” – where I had to set up my turbo in the spare room with heating full on, flanked by two electric heaters with me adorned in my full winter gear. My Jesus – these nights were tough. One such session resulted in a dramatic ending as the TV on which I was watching a DVD of the Incredibles (an excellent Plixar flick – highly recommended) went on fire from the heat…. I kid you not! This did not help my nerves in the lead up to Vegas….
Happily enough, I did manage to complete the remainder of my Vegas prep work without burning my house to the ground.
With work commitments, the earliest myself and Yvonne were able to fly out to Vegas was the Thursday before the race. Ideally, I would have liked another couple of days to acclimatise but this would have to do.
We had specifically decided to stay on the strip rather than the recommended race hotel by Ironman, mainly to save Yvonne from being bored to death by Ironman/triathlon chat. In fact, it was Yvonne who highlighted the change in my personality when I come in contact with any random Age Grouper – where my testosterone visibly rises and I cannot hold a conversation for more than 2 mins without asking where/when and what time they qualified …. she calls it “Peacocking”….
So with my ego kept in check as much as possible – we went about the wide array of driving around/dropping bags in various locations in prep for the big day. Having Yvonne around was invaluable as not only was she the best driver ever but she kept me grounded – calling me on when I became too “pro triathlete” for my own good. Notably when I threw my goggles/swim cap at her after the practice swim and demanded my towel…. she made me walk a long way to the car after that diva moment…. I could not have felt more distant to Crowie at that point…
The day of the race could not come soon enough as with all the training done, the only thing I was able to do was sit by the pool in the sweltering heat thinking – Jesus this race is ruining a great holiday…..
So to the race itself, taking every chance to minimise the heat – the pros were due to start at 6:30 which meant fumbling around in transition in the dark for myself and the other Age Groupers before we were ejected by 6:00am. Dealing with this early morning start meant that the fact that I was still jetlagged became a distinct advantage.
Once I had racked and rechecked Falcon (my name for my race bike) a number of times – including taking some invaluable advice from my rack neighbour to reduce the tire pressure I would normally use by 10 psi – I filed out to the blue matt leading to the lake.
Local time: 7:10
Estimated temp: 25 c/77 F
It was here that myself and the other wave 11 members patiently waited until called into the water for our ten min warm up before our non wetsuit swim start.
The normal good humoured banter was clearly missing as everyone fancied their chances despite a lot of “Oh I am only here to finish”, “No, not racing in
this heat” …. You could tell they were all full of sh*t and as such, I was in excellent company.
The cannon sounds and within seconds, I am alone as all of the orange hats in my wave shoot off in the distance. The water is warm and murky with mud. The only other chump in the water is to my right and I take a little solace from this. I begin to race Todd (as I have christened him in my head) but even this does not last long as he remembers how to swim and starts to increase his pace. I try to draft as best as I can in an unapologetic annoying fashion as I my poor technique sees me regularly bash his feet.
Todd obviously tires of the meta carpel abuse and ups the pace.
Again, I am left in my murky lonely world …. I begin to wonder how long it will be until the stronger swimmers in the next wave come by and as if by magic – some sort of leviathan in a red swim cap tears by. I wonder if I made him appear by sheer thought and start to think of hooters waitresses in tasteful bikinis allowing me to draft off them into t1 to see if I can repeat the feat.
I am brought back to earth with a bump as another (sigh … not a waitress as I hoped) triathlete smacks me in the gob as I am clearly in the wrong place. I do my best of draft off the second wave guys as they fly past but never really can hold the pace.
Despite this – I find myself exiting the water in 40 mins after completing the u-shaped course. I had hoped for better but no point on dwelling on it. Transition itself involved a 500 meter run around the end of the lake and into a hollow where Falcon and some 2000 other bikes waited. I wasted as little time as possible in putting on my helmet/shades and running up the sharp winding hill to the mount line.
Estimated temp: 30 c/86 F
The cycle course starts with a 6 km climb out of T1. I had realised this from my course reccy the few days before and just spun out in a low gear. The heat and stream of ubber bikers passing me were ominous signs. It felt as if I was racing a world of Cassos and Will Owens with the speed they were passing me (Will – is this the quote you were looking for?)
After around 10 mins – I reached the top of the climb and turned onto the main freeway which is partially closed for the race. The surface is fantastic and after a brief straight – there was a genius descent of approx 6 km where I was able to hit 60km for a good period as the turns were not dramatic at all. I overly optimistically thought this was to be how my race would feel for the rest of the day and was enjoying life!
Unfortunately, as that geek Newton proved a while back – what goes down must come up and I soon found myself on the mirror climb of the descent. With the lack of the cooling wind – I could really begin to feel the heat now as the temp continued to climb.
It was energy sapping and took a lot of discipline to force water/gels into me as per my nutrition plan. The scenery itself was amazing for a desert as the road stretched out for miles and you can see eerie rocky outcrops interspersed with cactus all around. However, it was no time for sightseeing as I still had high hopes for a decent time in this race.
The course is literally an up and down affair with long climb followed by steep descents – which results in a wide range of speeds – so I was going from high 50km to 15 km at times. During the descents I was holding my own but for the climbs I was being passed by all manner of cyclists and the only people I was catching on the hills were the elderly and infirm!
Actually I tell a lie – the other athletes I passed where the large numbers of people who had unwisely inflated their tires to anything over 120 psi as with the heat the tubes have a habit of swelling and bursting if anyway close to max pressure. I silently thanked my rack neighbours advice and ploughed on.
Local time at halfway point: 9:35
Estimated temp: 35 c/95 F
At the half way point, I knew that I was already drained by a combination of the heat and the up/down nature of the course and had accepted that today was all about survival. I eased off on the pace to ensure that I had something in the legs for the run but the worrying sense of pre cramps in my calves was not great.
I had a couple of mini battles with some cyclists on the return leg of the course to keep my focus – it being an Ironman event you can read the athletes name and nationality on their race number. Plus the leg marking informs you of what age they are this year. So me being me – I started to target the American females between 25 – 65 (oh come on – some of them age very well!!). This again gave me a further lesson in humility as these girls were much stronger than me and tore off. I think I will retire from Peacocking altogether.
In fact, one “lady” from the US of A gave me some amount of smack talk as I kept overtaking her on the descents while she murdered me on the climbs. I am not sure if it was the heat or blushing from the words she used to me but my cheeks were very red coming into t2.
Local time at T2: 11:42 (3hrs 7 min for cycle)
Estimated temp: 40 c/102 F
After over 3 hours in the Vegas desert – I rolled into t2 and the bike catchers grabbed my bike (delighted at this as was not sure I could have mastered any sort of numbering system). I limped gingerly into the changing tent as my calves were very tender. My requests for salt fell on deaf ears from the volunteers but a kindly athlete threw some at me. Brilliant.
As I tried to catch the tablets, I dropped my aero helmet which upon impact – split into two as the glue holding it together had melted in the early morning sun! Jaysus!
Will fix that later – running time…..
Local time exiting t2: 11:46 (4 mins for transition)
Estimated temp: 41 c/105 F
After taking on board the salt tablets – I felt a little more confident starting the run. The course is a 3 loop L shape through a residential area. An added bonus was that this was the first time since the swim course that I saw any sort of spectators, including Yvonne who was positioned close to the run start.
The run started well for me as I held my target pace for about a mile and a half – mainly as I was on one of the downhill elements of the course. It was a worrying precursor that I spotted literally hundreds of punters walking on the course – was this not the world champs??
It was not long before I answered my own question as the adrenalin/downhill benefit wore off and I felt as if the energy was being sucked out of me. My heart rate was climbing at a worrying rate and my pace was dropping dramatically. I forced myself to maintain a sub 5 min km pace for the first half of the course but knew it was a losing battle as I could not move my legs as fast as I wanted.
And then it happened – for the first time in my triathlon career I had to walk during a run section – mainly as I remembered Gav Duffy’s text advice “better to lose 15 secs at an aid station than to lose 15 mins overall”. So I began to employ a run/walk strategy between aid stations and play all sorts of mind games to keep my motivation/strength to finish up.
The heat was relentless and was affecting everyone – I have never seen so many people walking. Those were the lucky ones as I passed people crying/puking and basically lying prone on various parts of the course. At one point, I passed Yvonne who was helping Debs Meghan (Wicklow Tri) having an asthma attack – this really was turning out to be a test of survival.
At each aid station – I took on all sorts of fluid in a vain effort to help me find energy – coke, powerade, water, ice – I was having it all. At one point, based on Gus Barry’s advice from IM Austria – I asked a volunteer to pour ice down my tri suit which provided temporarily relief. I did ask the attractive Vegas female volunteer whether such an approach would affect my chances of ever having children – she just giggled and told me she loved my accent – time to move on.
All joking aside the run was sheer torture and I just wanted this to finish. However, with the heat, my ability to make the end come any faster was completely nullified. This was without a shadow of a doubt the toughest event I have ever had to finish – tougher than my Ironman, tougher than L’etape, tougher than the Himalayan 100 mile race and even my recent aquathon crown – it was a complete battle to persuade myself to break into whatever sorry jog I could muster after each aid station.
My mind resorted to shamelessly lying to my body to get a reaction … “No, I promise this is the last ever Ironman event”, “No more running in this heat EVER”, “Just around the next corner” – but my body was either too smart or buggered to respond (most likely buggered as it is not often any part of me could be described as too smart) and I limped painfully around the last lap.
I had to laugh at one point when I saw 92 mins on my watch and I had another 5 km to go. So much for my Antwerp promise!
In fact, the only time I managed to break into any sort of momentum that could be mistaken for my planned race pace was in the last km on the downhill…. At last, I could turn right down the finish gantry rather than left as I had to do previously on my first two laps. It took a lot but I found myself striding the last 200 metres and raising my arms aloft in a small show of thanks to God for not allowing me to become another death statistic in the state of Nevada.
I promptly collapsed after the finish line….. 
Local time at finish: 12:41 (1 hr 55 mins for run)
Estimated temp: 41 c/105 F
Aftermath
Normally after any race, I look back and beat myself up re where I could have pushed harder and where I lost time. Even a couple of days after, I am not doing that re my Vegas experience as I really was just happy to finish. Nothing could have prepared me for the heat and punishing cycle/run course – even locals suffered terribly from what I gathered from my post race conversations with punters.
To be honest, it was a great experience but an awful race. I will cherish my Vegas medal as one of the hardest earned ones in my collection.
I also know that without my support crew I would not have made it either to the start line or to the finish. So a huge thanks to my coach, my family and friends and especially Yvonne who assisted me very step through this long journey and I cannot thank her enough.
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