Race Report: IM Copenhagen

By Paddy Quirke

“If God invented marathons to keep people from doing anything more stupid, Ironman must have taken him completely by surprise.”

For the first time all day, satisfaction, relief and an overwhelming sense of utter joy bubbled to the surface as I finally made my way to that so called magic carpet. As the finish line came into view, like an oasis in the desert, I waited in anticipation to hear those famous words…‘You are an Ironman’.

The final 200m must have been the quickest all day. The glow of the illuminated blue and white Ironman signs surrounding the finish line informed me the sun had already set. It felt like much longer than just a single day had passed since I watched the sun rise over Copenhagen fourteen hours earlier. Paradoxically, the day had actually flown by. It was hard to believe it was all over, I never imagined it would pass so quickly…but what a day!

December 2013 – August 2014
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of.”
Training for an Ironman was a new and unusual experience for me. Having done some research and drafted a plan it all looked relatively straight forward as long as I was prepared to sacrifice my social life as I knew it!

Having yet to complete my first triathlon, breaking down an Ironman into its fundamental components is both a frightening and daunting experience. The numbers are scary. Even if you divide them by two, three or four, they are bloody intimidating. A few years back I did the Dublin marathon and had always done a bit of swimming so it was the 180km bike ride that really made me fret. I bought my first road bike last year. I had managed a few 80km/90km spins over summer 2013 and thought that was tough. I quickly acclimatised to that ‘way out of my depth’ feeling. I made a commitment to myself that I would give it a good honest effort for nine months. I felt that if I made it to the start line injury free, in the absence of serious mechanical issues I would make it to the finish line.

At the beginning of February I joined Piranha and the journey really began. Initially I found it tough to choose between training and a social life. After work, sleep and training there was very little time left. However, once I embraced my training plan and started to make progress, momentum gathered and I really started to enjoy it. As the year progressed, the tables turned and I began to find it more difficult to sacrifice training for the few social events that I felt obliged to attend.

As part of the training I signed up to a good few sportives throughout the spring/early summer and rocked up to a few open water swims from May onwards. There was a number of key events in my diary; Lough Cutra half iron distance triathlon (late May), a 160km stage of the Tour of Kerry (early June) and a 4km swim in Killiney (mid June). I felt the timing of these events facilitated a good balance of allowing me to complete sufficient training beforehand and sufficient time to subsequently incorporate ‘lessons learned’ during the remainder of my training leading up to the IM at the end of August.

Overall the training went very well and miraculously I made it to Copenhagen without yielding to any injuries. However, despite investing a great deal of effort in planning and organising my Copenhagen trip I came incredibly close to not starting the race at all. Issues with the bike (damaged hanger and derailleur), a couple of hours before check-in closed, almost restricted me to a spectator. If it wasn’t for the incredible support and determination of the guys from Endurance Sport (Denmark’s leading triathlon store and IM partner in Copenhagen) my IM Copenhagen race report would end here! Those guys were absolute legends, they really bailed me out.

Race day: 24/08/2014, Copenhagen

The swim was located three miles south east of the city centre at Amager Strand, a 4.6 km blue flag beach backed by gentle dunes and marram grass. The course consisted of one loop around the perimeter of the adjacent lagoon in relatively shallow, calm and clear waters.

The first wave, the pros, got the event underway entering the water at (exactly!) 06:55 and another wave followed every 10 minutes. With my 30th birthday still ahead of me (although a lot closer than I care to admit) I was banished with the rest of the youngsters to the final wave starting at 08:05. The pros were back long before that, with the fastest getting ashore in around 45 minutes.

I am not a big fan of the first 10 minutes of an open water swim, especially when it’s a beach start, so I was glad to fit in a good warm up before the start. I was back out of the water, lined up ready to go 10 minutes before the off. Usually before the start I tend to be a little apprehensive but in a departure from convention, I was quite settled and looking forward to getting into the crisp clear waters and making a start.

My strategy was simple; keep out of trouble and within 20 minutes have found my rhythm on the legs of a slightly faster swimmer. Bang on time, 08:05, the start gun cracked and 300 or so eager soon to be ironmen sprung, like men possessed, from a settled stance to pure chaos.

“In a mad world, only the mad are sane…”
Despite the numerous warnings and my strong intent I was relatively unsuccessful in avoiding the fabled carnage of an Ironman swim start. While the intention was to keep towards the rear and left side of the main pack (so I wouldn’t get squashed on the first right hand turn about 200m in) I was swept by the momentum. It was quite thrilling at first. Bangs on the back of the head were only outdone by swinging feet to the face. I began to survey my surroundings for an escape route but the borders from the nut house were well and truly manned, there was no way out, not until the hard right around the first buoy had been conquered anyway. After a number of failed break-out attempts and then being swam over I concluded that resistance was futile, and with a ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ mantra I embraced the lunacy and just focused on propelling forward.

After the first hard right, personal space was no longer at such a premium and I very quickly began to really enjoy the swim. I was moving nicely and had fallen in with a good group allowing me to progress at my race pace but only requiring 80% of the associated effort. The only objective was to maintain this for the next 50 minutes.

The course could be described as ‘built for spectators’ with no fewer than three bridges crossing the logoon allowing the supporters six opportunities to cheer and encourage each of the lunatics down below.

In terms of open water swimming, sighting isn’t my forte. Despite plenty of practicing with those yellow buoys in Seapoint, it still doesn’t come very naturally. Thankfully on the day, with the calm waters and the simple, well marked, course such a skill wasn’t a deal breaker.

After crossing under the last bridge it was straight for home. On a quick look up my eye caught that last red buoy and I felt a hint of relief knowing the swim leg was almost completed. I felt good and was optimistic as regards time. I started to go through the T1 plan in my head and visualize the steps necessary to get out of the water and onto the bike. I tried to move the legs a little more to prepare for the transition from horizontal to vertical. My legs do little work during the swim and usually need to be woken up after long swims. After 57 minutes of a thoroughly enjoyable swim, I must confess the hardest part was getting out of the beautiful clear waters. A morning swim in nice calm waters is a real pleasure.

T1 was a disaster – I was all day. While I deliberately didn’t want to rush as I wanted to make sure I had everything sorted for the 180km bike ride, a very embarrassing twenty minutes leaves plenty of room for improvement!

The bike course was 2 loops north of Copenhagen providing a pleasant mix of inner city, refreshing coastline and beautiful countryside with a 500m meter cobbled stretch added in for good measure. The route was almost totally flat and, as forecast, it was quite blustery with a strong head wind for about a third of the route and manageable cross winds for the remainder.

The bike stage went very well. The flat terrain was a very welcome departure from my familiar training ground of the Wicklow Mountains. For the vast majority of the route the road surface was top notch making for a fine smooth 180km ride. Roads were closed in one direction. The aid stations were well manned and pretty evenly spaced. On each lap there was a stretch of c30km with three or so ‘hotspots’ bubbling with spectators and supporters fueling a magical atmosphere throughout the morning and early afternoon.

As the hours passed and T2 approached I felt very good. I had, for the most part, stuck to the nutrition plan and the legs were flying. I was thrilled with the 5:40 split and was looking forward to T2, getting out of the cycling shoes and setting out on the run.

“There is a special mystique about the marathon, for example, because of its length – but that’s just the bit you do at the end of an Ironman”
The run course was four laps around the city centre passing some of Copenhagen’s most famous attractions including the Little Mermaid, Amalienborg Castle and New Harbor.

T2 and the first lap went exactly as planned at 5 min/km. However, soon into the second lap I found the stomach began to unsettle and before long was impeding my pace. In the space of 15 minutes I went from cruising to struggling. A bitter five minute thunder shower persuaded me to step under a tree and embrace the friendly locals. One guy offered me a beer – unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) it wasn’t chilled so I declined and we parted ways! The break and a visit to the loo helped and I got round the remainder of the second lap without too much bother albeit at a reduced pace.

On reflection I reckon that I had eaten a couple of more energy bars than planned during the cycle. During the long training sessions I stopped consuming solids about four hours prior to running but today I had kept nibbling away at the Cliff bars up to two hours before T2. To be honest, I didn’t expect to get off the bike as quickly and as a result didn’t switch to gels soon enough!! ‘To suffer is to learn’ as they say!

“If you’re going through hell…keep going”
After the slow second lap, the afternoon sun broke through the clouds, my form picked up a little and the stomach settled allowing me to put in a reasonable third lap. I was well off the target 5min/km pace but was somewhat content to be progressing towards the finish line.

During the second and third lap, for the first time all day, I noticed a lot of people passing me by. This was both frustrating and disappointing. As I battled the third lap I was becoming more and more jealous of those who passed with the complete series of wristbands on their way to the finish. However, I kept myself entertained trying to remember the various twists and turns of the course. For motivation I visualized writing that ‘I am an Ironman’ text, which was only an hour or so away at this stage! Along with my own right hand man, Ger, who played an absolute blinder all weekend (thanks Kirsty for sending him over for the weekend!!) there were a number of other Irish supporters who had spotted the ‘IRL’ on my Piranha top offering superb and much appreciated encouragement at various corners of the course.

After 4 hours and 32 minutes, I had earned the complete set of multi-colored wristbands. With almost all of the 42.2km behind me, the adrenaline fuelled one last burst. With a weary smile on my face, I gladly followed the marshal’s instruction and turned off for the finishers chute. The cheering crowds along the narrow floodlit final 200m, accompanied by those famous words, gave rise to a fantastic finish…’You are an Ironman’!

Post race reflection

“The journey is the destination”
Finishing an Ironman is something I have wanted to do for years. For many, the finish line brings with it an overwhelming sense of achievement. And rightly so – for most of us it is a significant accomplishment. However, for me that sense of achievement wasn’t all bottled for the moment I crossed the line. It was distributed over the previous six months where I felt each long training session was an accomplishment in itself; all those Sundays peddling up the Sally/Wicklow Gap, the long runs out and back to Howth every Tuesday night, sitting at my desk at 9am on Friday mornings having already invested 90 minutes in the pool.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my Ironman journey. From the January TRX sessions to nearly getting blown off my bike up the Sally Gap, from the early morning WW swim sessions to the more challenging battles in the often choppy and jelly fish filled Seapoint, from broken spokes to leaking goggles, from washing wetsuits to cleaning chains, from booking hotels to writing race reports – it was all fun!

Unlike others I haven’t signed up for another one just yet. Personally I don’t think I can justify committing such a volume of time again so soon. Life is short and other things need to be ticked off the list. For me IM Copenhagen was all about crossing the finish line. Having achieved that I do wonder what it would be like to race an Ironman. What time I could achieve if I did a little more preparation, maybe reducing the T1/T2 times to 5 mins each, stepping up from an entry level road bike (without aero bars!) to a TT machine, embracing proper zone based training and perfecting the nutrition plan. With sufficient focus, balance and determination could my debut 11:40 could be cut by 70 minutes on a similar course – what would I have to do to hit 10:30, how much effort would that take, is it even possible? I guess only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go…