Kona Race Report

Ill take my time writing this as it will help me learn from and prepare for future races whatever they are. Right now all I can say is that the Ironman flame is alive and burning well inside me – its amazing how a failure makes your desire even stronger to do it all again but better, my biggest frustration was that I performed well below par with diaphragm and throwing up issues impacting on me the entire race but getting much worse on the run-similar to how I felt at the Gold Coast marathon in July.
Well I slept pretty well night of the race. 7 hours or so, so it was pretty much spot on 3:50 am start to have enough time for a shower and brekkie before the walk down to the race start. Body marking started early, but because we got directed down a short cut “Cat piss ally” I missed the special needs trucks– first mistake. This meant doing a big loop after body marking which was fine as I had time, but at the time it frustrated me. Into transition everything went well – pumped tyres, got all my gear ready and went to the toilet, a couple of times. I had plenty of time to get ready and I felt pretty good. After the pro start I headed to the swim start which was pretty bumpy with people trying to stay on the front line and not knowing how to tread water without kicking out sideways. Needless to say it was hard to fucus on the start of the race with so much happening around you, everyone was so on edge-still however I held firm on the start line and waited for the cannon!
Off we went and you just had to keep on moving forward, got my goggle leak ,so the salt water came in but there was no way of stopping without risking being dragged under by all the bodies, so I just went with it and headed off. For the first half of the swim I felt ok apart from the fact that the organisors hadn’t (for the first time in history) put a boat at the turnaround. So at water level, you had no idea of when the actual turnaround was coming. As a result the swim became a bit of a gamble of not really knowing when to cut across to the right (Clockwise course) but at the same time not get slowed down too much by all the people who wanted to hug the RHS. I do think this somewhat effected my time but I wasn’t too disappointed with the swim. I excited the water in 1:03.
T1 Was carnage, I was surrounded by so many more people than Port! Better field or useless swim – hard to know? So I blocked it out and went on my way, through the tent where I grabbed some bottles and threw them in my back pocket (This strategy doesn’t work well with the style of clothes I wore-I dropped two bottles as I ran my bike out and lost some time! Anyway back to the tent; Got my nutrition, downed an optimiser blend and got my arm shades (did I mention before how hot today looked), race number and sun block applied. Then I was out over to the bike – In the rush I almost started the bike with the swim skin on my legs.
Onto the bike. It was good to get out there, but I remember thinking, jeez there are a lot of guys in front of me – maybe that was a crap swim. Anyway the first 10km or so are a smallish circuit around town, heaps of drafting and heaps of crowd – good fun. I had an upset stomach though and tried to focus on getting into rhythm. That’s just it, I didn’t have my rhythm, I was riding pretty quick for the first 90km but It was hard and I felt pretty unwell. I put it down to saltwater, I had no inkling of a virus or cold in the lead up, so that wasn’t in my thoughts. On the Queen K, the reality of what you were doing started to sink in. Aid stations, cheering, heat haze and some wind together with flat bitumen as far as you could see confirmed that a the hard ride lay ahead.
The bike was so hard! Well yes physically because I had something wrong with me – That’s the toughest part about this whole thing. I underperformed but mentally I grew a lot out there. Let’s do some simple analysis
Bike first half - 208 power, 34.61, 2;40 – Below Par
Bike second half - 188, 31.45, 2:50 – WTF!!!!!!!!!!
Now that’s pretty pathetic really, I was trained to do so much better than that. I remember wanting to pull out so badly at 90km, people were pulling away from me or gaining ground that on a normal day I’d have the better of. I had done all the hard work, prepared well, rested but it wasn’t happening. I had to hang in there and ride back from that hot hell Havi, rocketing down the descents on the aero bars and getting blown all over the road and back onto the Queen K – The wind was up and the longer I was out there the harder I toiled. I was in no man’s land now, either dropped or in front of others, there were isolated pockets stretched out along the highway getting baked in the heat. My Power meter recorded an ave temp of 33 degrees for the ride so it was warming up. As I pulled into town all I could do was shake my head at my loyal supporters, I had to let Jo know that I wasn’t just not coping with the heat but I was actually unwell. My infamous GC throwing and hard to breathe problem was returning.
I remember sitting in T2 changing, I had lost my spark, the time was still (transition time that is) fast but I didn’t care, how was I going to run? My back was seized and I felt week – My power output on the bike was enough proof for me to know something was up. I put on a brave face and ran out of T2 to the noise of the crowd, I wanted to stay in that tent a little longer but I had to go and face the music. Usually I cannot wait to start running – today it was my weakest leg! (See below)
TOTAL SWIM 2.4 mi. (1:03:55) 1:40/100m 501/70

FIRST BIKE SEGMENT 5.5 mi. (14:13) 23.21 mph SECOND BIKE SEGMENT 28 mi. (1:03:41) 21.20 mph THIRD BIKE SEGMENT 59 mi. (1:27:44) 21.20 mph FOURTH BIKE SEGMENT 88 mi. (1:23:50) 20.76 mph FINAL BIKE SEGMENT 112 mi. (1:15:06) 19.17 mph TOTAL BIKE 112 mi. (5:24:34) 20.70 mph 482/78

FIRST RUN SEGMENT 5.2 mi. (42:52) 8:14/mile SECOND RUN SEGMENT 10.3 mi. (41:37) 8:09/mile THIRD RUN SEGMENT 17.6 mi. (1:14:33) 10:12/mile FOURTH RUN SEGMENT 25.2 mi. (1:14:51) 9:50/mile FINAL RUN SEGMENT 26.2 mi. (7:24) 7:24/mile TOTAL RUN 26.2 mi. (4:01:17) 9:12/mile 575/92
The actual run course is challenging too. You start with the crowd and along the water. This lasts for around 16km or so and it doesn’t get better. I must say that the volunteers did a great job and in my survival mode where I jogged to an aid station and then walked through it trying to breathe, I got to take in a lot of the friendliness of the locals and supporters. Some stations had rappers, others had people playing instruments or holding hoses for you to run though.
Because I was so unwell on the run I didn’t have any gels. My strategy was simply to alternate between Gatorade and Coke. I also took in water and iced sponges whenever I could as I made my way back out onto the Queen K and energy Lab.
Inspirational messages left by my faithful supporters didn’t go unnoticed either as I ran through to the energy lab and the return. I had lost all concept of pacing and time. I was pretty relieved to get to the end and just wanted to finish. Although it was great crossing the line, id didn’t live up to my expectations due to how far back I placed. After finishing I initially felt I wasn’t in need of medical assistance but that pretty soon changed. 45 minutes and a drip later, I was much better off.
It took a few days for my breathing issues and abdomen issues to start fading away. Even a week after the race it hurt to jog as I felt like I had a rock sitting in my chest. I’ve spent a week or so calling around and seeing a few doctors. It looks like I may be getting to the root cause of it all know and will continue to try and improve a number of issues which seem to have accumulated to cause me these issues.
I spent most of the plane trip home trying to decide what my future plans hold, well in regard to racing. Yeah sure it’s hard and I’m busy, but there are 24 hours in a day right? Just utilise them well and it’s possible to do many things very well, its just about how much fight you have!
Not one to sit back and ponder too much though, I’ve put my hand up to do the Busselton Iron man in 6 weeks. Crazy, maybe but it means I can keep the form I have at the moment without having to start all over again (if I was to consider doing Port-which I won’t). Who knows how I’ll go but that will help me decide on what to focus on come 6th December.
I must say that I thoroughly appreciated everyone’s help in getting me to Kona and the help I got over there. Iron wife Jo deserves most of the credit, but huge thanks to the Kona supporters Jeff, Luke and Roz, Deven and Dave as well as all the other people from home cheering me on. I also forgot to mention that Jetstar smashed my wheel on the way over to Kona and Mark N helped me get a wheel replacement but I did cut it fine getting my bike ready only hours before check in.