Tuesday 7th April - IRONMAN RACE REPORT

9:19 and I'm taking Third in the 30-34 Age group! Automatic Kona Qualification!

As much as for my Kona prep as well as letting everyone know what really happened on Race Day, this is a report from The Ironman on Sunday.

Pre Race
The dinner the night before (Chicken and Rice) agreed with me as planned and I settled into Bed around 8:30. I found it hard to sleep and was up and down with around 4 hours of good sleep towards the end of the night.

I woke up around 4am and had an hour and a half to get to the race start. Had a long shower to help wake up and got dressed into my race clothes, thongs and jacket over the top. Had a Berrocca, some of my vitamins and a breakfast of 4 pikelets with Jam and an Up and Go! I started pumping the fluids in around this time too, filled my race nutrition bottles and headed down to race start.

The weather whilst not raining has to have been some of the toughest conditions ever. It was so muddy at transition from more overnight rain that I could not wear my thongs and it made for a difficult start to the day being covered in crap literally. The race organisers need to set things up better seriously! We later found out that there had been a circus at the same place only weeks earlier and you could smell it as everything got churned up! As Pete the Pancake Fogale pointed out, there would have been at least 10,000,000 worth of bike gear in transition. Why cant it be covered, Why cant the area were all the gear bags are be covered? My bike bag was waiting for me on race morning - Full of water, great!

After pumping tyres and dropping gear at the bike which was later stolen - (thanks you cheap bastards!) Jo and I got the wetsuit on with some assistance from the aqua shop guys, although I though we had time it was still a rush and I went into the water past the gathering mass of "Team Vlad".

Swim

Water was cool, and visibility was zero thanks to all the rain and Mud. Short swim warmup and than got into the frontline! I swam hard at the start and didnt get swamped so I got that right. I did have a leak in my new goggles but didnt want to stop, so I swam for almost an hour with one lens half full of water and the muddy water stinging my eye! I had a few knocks only by some wayward swimmers but all in all it was pretty good.

Positives
The time - Under 57 minutes
Negatives - Mostly pretty Good - could have gone a bit harder but didn't want to burn myself out! - Bring on more squad training and no wetsuit advantage at Kona - I cant wait.

Bike
T1 was fast and apart from having to change in water and Mud, i got out of the tent quickly, loosing around a minute as I almost forgot my sports nutrition! With that all sorted I headed out onto the course.
Lap 1 - Rode 90% solo until I caught a pack of around 15 (This later grew to 60 or more at times). I lapped at 1:40 which is on target for a 5 hour bike split and I got heaps of fantastic support from the crew as I headed out of town again. Mark told me to slow down at this point which frustrated me a little at that stage as I felt as though I was doing it comfortably anyway. As I slowed the pack caught me.
Lap 2 - Well the pack was useless, I was riding slower with them than I was solo, but not wanting to burn myself I put the 4 bike gap between me and the next competitor. Because the knobs from behind kept jumping in the gap even with me shouting at them, I had to keep dropping back and pretty much stayed there. This was the lap of rain and this also caused us to slow down more. I lapped around 1:44.
Lap 3 - More of the same, frustrating, although I was glad to have 3 guys drafting off me busted for drafting. I felt good and comfortable. Had a few jumping issues with jumping gears but the nutrition worked well on the bike - Its possible on no solids. The worst thing about Lap 3 though was that because the bunch in front of me was all cheating the officials decided to stop everyone on the course, so once again I got caught up as they let 1 person go at a time! I lapped around 1:45!
Positives - Gear, setup and nutrition (NO FLATS - Heaps of Team Vlad Support)
Negatives - I felt it was too slow. It was just under 5:11 of ride time, but in wet conditions this was ok I guess. This was all about qualifying so we had to see how the body would hold out.
Also I found this so exhausting, I wanted to do the right thing, bu had useless guys riding slow around me and drafting off me, with 2-3 more minutes gap from the bike I could find myself in a better position next time. This was the worst part of the race because it annoyed me how stupid people are. Maybe Ill just run more marathons!
Lost time 3 minutes - wetness, packs

The Run
Felt good off the bike, but in the mud there was some confusion between myself and volunteers meaning I grabbed the wrong bag. Marc went back and got it for me but i lost around 1 minute here I reckon. In the confusion I also forgot my race number which I had to grab part way through lap 1.More mud and slipping over.
Out onto the course I felt good, I probably did start a bit too hard but it didn't feel hard so I pegged back the pace to around 4:10-4:15 minute km's by around the 5km mark. I even had one fellow competitor tell me to take it easy, I remember thinking at the time who is he to tell me how I should run. I was feeling ok though for a short time but the hill on the first lap was hard. I had broken the run down into 6 sections in my head, and was working through that. "Team Vlad" was awesome during this leg and was helping me get home. Honestly it wasn't until the first lap of the run that I had any idea where I was in my age group. When Pete and Jodes told me I was in 6th it was one of the best feelings ever!
By the second lap though I was hurting, I decided I was not going to wait until Lap 3 to get my special needs run bag, so when I got to settlement point I grabbed it, had the redbull and took a gel and a flask or Redbull and popped it in the fuel belt. This did the trick and once again I started to feel ok. I guess I never ran that slow but here was the first point i did loose around 30 seconds as I walked to drink the Redbull.
By the start of the third lap I was hanging to go to the toilet, I didnt even want to wait for the portaloo at the aid station on the way out to settlement point, I got there and went to the toilet, hanging onto a wire fence - I had a massive surge of dizziness here and felt really unwell even wondering how I was going to continue. I grabbed a mouth full of jelly beans and washed it down with Coke - This was to be the tactic to get me home, and it worked.
During the final lap I had my ups and downs, but kept my pace going! I had lost a bit more time due to needing the coke and Jelly beans but new I was getting closer to the finish. Team Vlad was really helping me home and almost taking away the pain of it all and my knee which was starting to give me some grief. Running down the hill for the last time on the way home was the best feeling, I hit the 40km marker and just put my head down. When I hit that chute it was the best feeling ever!
Positives - Luna racer's, Jo getting me the race number and everyone from "Team Vlad" the support was so awesome! The pace would have got me a 3 hr marathon, but I waited a bit too long to get extra sugar in.
Negatives - Need to sort knee and nutrition. Have a 3hr off the bike in me too!

In summary I was so satisfied. Its a strange feeling when you do exactly what you had worked towards for so many months. I had hit all the splits pretty much exactly on, and had qualified. On one hand your so happy you got it on the other you also know there is a bit more there you can give and the key will be letting it all go at Kona.

I lost around 6 minutes I reckon just with small mistakes and If i ride stronger by coming out of the water sooner I reckon i could do close to 9 hours so thats my new target for Kona.

I cannot say thanks enough to everyone for their fantastic support, Jo organised everything so well - Team Vlad was awesome really guys it was so memorable and helpful. It will be something Ill never ever forget! I remember thinking at stages as I drifted in and out of delirium that you looked like a pack of blue migrating penguins hunting in a pack, moving throughout the run leg supporting me.