Race Report: Ironman Lanzarote

By Paul Mooney. 

BIB No. 464. 
Age Bracket 30-34
Club: Piranha Tri

History:
I suppose everybody has a story behind why they joined Triathlon, so I suppose I’ll start with my own. In May 2012 I finished playing Football with Dundrum FC. I had become tired of football given I had played since I was 4 years old and needed something new and challenging. At the time I had a bit of stress from work and life in general. My colleague (Joe Turley) had just returned from Lanzarote where he completed his first Ironman. I must be honest I had no inclination to what this was as I wasn’t very familiar with the Triathlon scene. Joe’s story about his 16 hour battle on the sun soaked, mountainous windy terrain would have scared the ba-jaysus out of most, but I was intrigued. I spent that afternoon and evening watching YouTube clips and familiarising myself with the triathlon world. The next day I came into work and applied for the bike to work scheme and bought myself a Planet X RT 57 full carbon bike, not cheap at the time, so I meant business J

It dawned on me that triathlon incorporated 3 sports, so I went to the pool with a friend, where I discovered I could barely swim 1 length without being exhausted. The road ahead seemed challenging to say the least. The next 3 months I spent at least 45 mins 3 times per week in the pool and slowly but surely became comfortable with the water. I entered my first sprint Tri in August and I swam so far off to the right, the pictures look like I was swimming in a different direction. I was second last out of the water. But my bike was decent and my run was always strong so I made up few hundred places which I must admit was satisfying, and encouraging.

I joined Piranha, and spent the next year attending training on a rear occasion, once a month at most, due only to my work taking me out of Dublin. I loved the forum and the training plans were very beneficial.

The next year, May 2013, Joe returned from Lanzarote again, and it was on this day after a cup of coffee that he convinced me to sign up to it. So I went back to the office and emptied €450 out of my bank account, I was registered for Ironman Lanzarote 2014.

At this point I must remind you I had only done one disastrous sprint triathlon. So in September 2013 I signed up to my first Olympic Tri in Spike Island, Cork, and completed it in 2hrs 55 mins, extremely happy considering it took me 46 mins to do the swim, and I think the current did a lot of the work. It was from this point I followed a 4 week training plan for the rest of the year. 18 hours per week for 3 weeks and 8 hours for 1 week then repeat.

I attended a training camp with Joe Beer in Feb 2014 in Club la Santa, where 40 of us with mixed levels trained for the week. This was very beneficial and I had familiarised myself with the course. Absolutely loved this week away and would highly recommend it. I really got into the swim training with Piranha when I got back and this brought my swim to a new level.

Lanzarote: Race Day

So, as I mentioned, prior to triathlon I was experiencing a lot of stress but the training and the people I met along the way really boosted both morale, energy levels and my overall happiness and stress dissipated. Come race day morning I was freaking out, “what am I doing here, I have completed two triathlons ever” repeated itself over and over!!

Swim: 1:19

2 laps of 1.9km

With the bike all set, bags all prepped, I entered the water at 6:45 am and flooded the wetsuit to ensure my arms were not restricted and the suit fitted well, a tip I got in the camp. I saw the signs for expected swim times and I positioned myself behind the 80 Mins + section to the left as i faced the water. The claxon sounded and I would estimate it was 60 seconds before I got to the water. The first 160 m were manic, with people pulling and pushing, but I resisted fighting or lifting my head and tried to stay calm. After the first buoy I expected it to space out, but I found myself passing a lot of swimmers who must have positioned themselves too far up and this created a problem for me as the course ropes were no more than 5 meters to my left for the entire first lap. At one point I got too close to the rope and it went across my left shoulder and dragged me down. I suspect swimmers were pushing down on the rope a lot. I say I suspect but at one point a swimmer to my left was pulling himself along underneath. Amusing but my brain was screaming “cheeeeeeat”!!

I had bundles of energy on the second lap and I began to sight a little bit more and I was able to pick out little slots in the pack to swim through. The last 836 m of the second lap I may have lost a bit of time, as the rope was no longer to my left and I think I may have zigzagged my way to the finish. When my feet touched ground for the second lap my watch read 1:19 and 4000m swam. I had a quick glance back to the water and there were still hundreds swimming, nice little motivator.

I was very happy with this given my swim was the weakest of the 3 disciplines.

Transition 1: 11:19

Transition 1 is extremely long in Lanzarote, but I’m usually very organised and this is the section I hoped to make up some time. Unfortunately on arriving at my bike I discovered I had a puncture. I experienced 1 puncture before, which happened the day before. I had the tyre off and the mechanics came to my aid. Not a great start.

Bike: 6:55

The course leaves Puerto Del Carmen heads northwest and northeast for 115km into a strong northerly wind.

The bike start was filled with incidents. A few of us had mounted our bikes, the guy just in front of me had decided to leave his shoes attached to the pedals. Somehow one of the shoes dislodged, he stopped his bike, turned the bike to the right and KABOOM! Another cyclist careered into him. I do not know if they both finished, but they looked in a bad way. It was a close call, but I luckily avoided any harm.

I’m a pretty good cyclist and I can average about 31km/hr over 2 hour bike. But for the life of me, I could not understand how my bike average was around 24km/hr by El Golfo. The roads are beautiful and I would have expected to do well here. Maybe subconsciously I was going easy as I had told myself I would.

My strength in cycling is climbing, and I absolutely flew up Fire Mountain, maybe on reflection I should have not exhausted so much energy here. About 100km in, I suddenly felt a trickle of air over my right calf, it was a puncture. I laughed a little and looked to the sky, thinking why??? feeling like the world was against me. No matter how small a problem, during the race they feel like the biggest problems ever. So I began changing the tyre, without aid, just had the tube changed and tyre back on and the mechanics came along with the pump, and it was this point I told them to pump both up to 110 psi. I think I was a good 25 mins changing my tyre, not good enough really. I know I should have been more familiar with punctures. You spend the year training hard, why not spend a couple of days changing punctures. It was a good place to get a puncture, allowing me to hydrate, and stretch before the long 600 meter climb to Mirador Del Haria. My bike really improved from here, and I was far more confident in the functionality of my bike.

The views from Mirador Del Haria and Mirador Del Rio are amazing, but the decents on the bike are nothing short of awesome. I made a huge mistake on Del Rio, this is the point when you pick up a tail wind back to Puerto Del Carmen. I pedalled hard on the decent instead of becoming more aero-dynamic and conserving energy. I knew there was a climb to Teguise yet I acted like this didn’t exist. Rookie.

There is one small section called Nazereth, a 2km section of possibly the worst road in Lanzarote, and Ireland for that matter. I tried to cycle on the white line which is the smoothest part. This section is manned by numerous mechanics, but there was no helping the guy on the planet x tri-bike whose bike was literally in half. The last 20km is all downhill and quiet fun.

Transition 2 – 5:59

I had planned to take this transition at my leisure and I did just that. My run is the strongest and I planned for a 3hr:30 run. Well achievable the way I was feeling. Took a gel and washed it down with water. Stretched while they applied the sun tan lotion.

Run: 4:42

The run consisted of two 16km loops and one 10km loop. There were about 5 aid stations on the first loop, but strangely there was almost 3km gap at the airport section.

I had joked with my friend Joe, that if he wasn’t 45 mins ahead of me on the run then I would catch him. It was funny when I met I saw him coming the other way 6km’s in and I estimated him to be about 20 min’s ahead of me. I was running comfortably averaging 5:20 per km, knowing I would improve my speed gradually as the distance increased. I was running with a smile on my face and I knew my target time of 12hours was very achievable.

Around the 20km mark I started to get very bad pains in my stomach, something which I hadn’t experienced before.  I neglected to mention on the day the winds were very strong in the mountains, but the heat was 29 degrees which made the run very difficult. By the 24km mark I needed to make a dash to the toilet, and for the next 8km back to Puerto Del Carmen I visited all 4 toilets. As I had now stopped 4 times, my run average had gone out to about 5:40. Worse yet I had 10km to go and my legs had stiffened so much due to my stoppages that it was difficult to move.

There was a new aid station outside Hotel San Antonio, I heard someone say before salt helped with stiffness, so I threw back the liquid soup concoction they were giving out. All I can say is I now had to walk the last 7km to the finish line, because every time I ran, I needed to visit the toilets again. But the last 7km that I walked were the most enjoyable, I knew I was well outside my target time, it mattered little, and I strangely enjoyed watching the Ironman, whilst people ran past me that I had passed earlier. I giggled for a good bit as I knew my friends and family would get a good laugh out of my toilet story. Finally I reached the last 200m and I mustered the courage to attempt to run across the line. All my family were there and I have to admit it was too difficult to hold back a few tears of joy. Every second of torture you endure is worth those few seconds of joy as you step across the threshold to complete an Ironman.

On reflection, this was my third triathlon ever and I had completed it in total time of 13hr 15mins. I absolutely loved it, the training, the hype, the race and the people I met were amazing.

There are loads of things I would do differently, my experience with gels to fuel my body throughout the race wasn’t ideal and I will have to get guidance of fuelling my body because I will be doing Lanzarote again next year. I highly recommend it to anyone.

On a final note, I decided to raise a bit of money for a The Girls Club Cork, a cancer support group who do amazing work. I raised €750.

New Goal for 2016 with the help of Piranha, given my attendance will be more common, is an Ultraman!! Hopefully in my Piranha Tri-suit this time.