Me, Myself and Triathlon:
I’ve completed a few triathlons over the years with borrowed wetsuits/bikes and even runners but last year (2015) I finally bought a road bike and had signed up for the Dublin Half Iron and our very own Dublin City Tri (I hadn’t joined Piranha yet). I think the half went so well that I decided then and there that I needed to get a full out of the way; so after doing some research I realized that the Bolton Ironman was the only wetsuit race that suited me date wise. And obviously it’s way more spectacular and has much better weather than the like of Austria, Switzerland or any of the others .
Training:
After taking out a small mortgage and registering I forgot all about the race until November when I found the wonderful club that is Piranha. So I suppose around Christmas was when the real training started. My plan was fairly loose; I tried to make two swims a week, do one long bike, one short one and run a couple times a week too.
As with all great training plans it started disastrously with an Achilles injury so I didn’t run for 6 weeks until the start of March but was able to keep up the bike and swimming and do a little bit of cross training.
My long spins never went much over four hours but I tried to make them a hard hilly four hours. Same for the running it never went above 90-110 minutes. I did a good few of the IMRA races, I figured they’d toughen me up but really I just love running in the mountains.
I only did about four brick sessions, either a long cycle and a very short run or a short cycle and a slightly longer run maybe 40 mins. Open water swimming took a bit of a back seat; I got out for two swims in the weeks leading up to the race.
My aim for the six months or so of training was to try and average 12 hours or so of training a week. I didn’t keep track but discovered the strava website in June (as opposed to just the app) which is great and broke everything down. Turned out I was averaging 7.5 (oh dear) too late though to be worrying.
In terms of warm up races I had signed up to Westport but then may have accidentally booked a holiday for the first two weeks of June which meant no race or training, felt great after though . So I never got a chance for a warm up race but I don’t think that matters too much as there’s plenty of time to warm up during an Ironman.
Race Weekend:
I had a lovely taper and flew over to Bolton on the Friday (said a few Hail Mary’s that the bike would make it on the plane in one piece). Everything went smoothly, so smoothly in fact that I slept in on the Saturday so my plan of going for a cycle and driving the bike course went out the window. But I got registered and setup for each of the transitions and finally had the race briefing. So I was set, tripled checked the alarm was set for 3am and tried to get some sleep around 10 that night.
Race Day:
I thought I would be too nervous to eat but I was actually hungry enough so got a descent breakfast into me and made my way to the start.
Swim: Target: 1h 20m Actual: 1h 7m
It was a beautiful morning, cloudy, calm and warm. The course was two 1.9k laps and there was a great atmosphere at the start. It was a rolling start so we lined up at our predicted finish times. I decided to be ambitious and stood around the 1 hour 15 minute mark thinking these guys would motivate me to swim faster. Turns out it did and I had a great swim, didn’t zig zag too much and even managed to draft off a guy for about 700m beating my previous record by about 680m. The swim training with Piranha had obviously made a world of difference so I couldn’t be happier with my time.
T1: Target: 10m Actual: ~7m
It was a short run up to the changing tent where I went for the full gear change, no tri suit; Bike shorts and a jersey. Grabbed my bike and I was off.
Bike: Target 6-7hours (I had no clue) Actual: 6h 31m
The weather was fairly perfect for the bike, cloudy and the beginning then blue skies and sun. There was a bit of wind but it helped for parts of the course and hindered for others so it worked out fine.
The course itself had 2000m of climbing (400m more than I thought, I think they changed it from the previous year). It started with a 20k point-to-point cycle followed by two 75k loops involving two very healthy hills and finally a 5k or so spin to T2.
I cycled off feeling great and about 30k into the cycle I hit the first hill. Almost straight away I could feel a rubbing from the bike as if the brakes were touching the rims and a short while later (still on the hill) the pedals locked and I stopped dead. I eventually worked out that the back wheel had come off the bike and it was just the chain holding it on. Fully my fault, I hadn’t tightened the quick release enough. For a minute I thought it was race over so I was over the moon when the problem was a simple fix. I’m just glad it was the back wheel and not the front that popped out else I don’t think I’d be writing this report.
For the first 100k I was on target for a 6h bike but then I hit the first of the two hills on the second loop and I think that knocked me down a peg or two. My average speed went down a good bit from around 30 to 26 or 25. I think part of it was a mental game, I’d never been on a bike for that long on my own and it was really difficult to grasp the fact that I had so far to go. The other part of it was fitness; I’d say I didn’t have the mileage in the legs for that pace on those hills.
But I ploughed on and managed to pick it up again for the last 15k or so. I have to say the crowds in Bolton were unreal. There were parts of the bike course that felt like what I can only imagine the Tour De France feels like (people crowding the street so only a bike or two can fit between). It was honestly life saving and I felt like I could go forever.
Nutrition wise I had three cliff bars, two bananas, a good few jellies and about 6 gels. I kept swapping between gels and something solid. For liquid I just mixed isotonic (Tesco’s finest) and water which was grand. I think maybe more solid food if I was to do it again. Even if I felt good I made sure I had something every 20/30 minutes, I think that was key.
T2: Target: 10m, actual: ~6m
I went for the full change again into shorts and a t-shirt and didn’t bother carrying any gels, as there were plenty of aid stations on the course.
Run: Target 3h 30m – 4h (again no clue) Actual: 3h 55m
The sun was out in full force for the run course as were the crowds and relatively speaking I felt great. (I think I was more delighted to be off that bloody saddle more so than to be starting a marathon). The course was a fairly flat 15k point to point run followed by three fairly hilly laps of Bolton.
I probably started too fast but at the time felt grand and don’t own a fancy watch to tell me my pace so ran with blissful ignorance of my pace. The aid stations were about 5k apart and I decided that I’d walk through each one to make sure I took on liquid and either a gel or banana. They had water, isotonic and pepsi to drink and gels, bananas and nachos to eat. I have honestly never seen nachos at a race before and thought to myself who on earth would want a nacho mid marathon.
I ran the first 13 miles at about 3h 30m pace but then the wall came and my god did it take my by surprise and hit me hard. I died, I honestly thought about writing my will. That was it I was walking to the finish. My pace went to about 9 minutes a kilometer for around 4k but during that I hit an aid station and devoured everything in sight including the nachos. Turns out its well played Ironman because those nachos were life saving and I had them at every station between there and the finish. The rest of the run actually went really well, I’m not sure why or how I recovered but my pace got faster and faster as I got towards the finish.
I think the last kilometer was the most amazing I’ve ever felt in any race, it was surreal, the thought of actually finishing and the thousands of people cheering everyone on.
Post race:
I tried to make Bolton sound as appealing as I could but unfortunately I couldn’t convince any friends of family to make the trip. My lovely girlfriend decided backpacking in Colombia was a better option. (I’ll be murdered for that dig) But I was still one happy man after, got myself a massage and food and prayed I’d be in a good enough condition to make my flight the next day.
I definitely don’t regret doing an Ironman but would I do another one……..No, no way (well at least not until my mid life crisis which is a while away). I’d recommend Bolton though, you get unbelievable support mixed with having no idea what the weather will be like and a really, really tough course which I felt lived up to its Ironman name.
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