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Outlaw 2012 race reports
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A Golden Shower with a Drip!
We couldn't stay long Lee as we had about a 6 hour journey home and an appointment in Milton Keynes on the way - shame really I would have liked to have caught up with a few people
There was also sadly the fact of having to be in work bright and early Tuesday unfortunately!
Will deffo catch up at some point
Report? I'm having real problems doing one (not like me!) but the WAISTers have been bugging me too so I promised that I'd try and do one today if I get left in peace at work
Tee hee! Well, sorry for being so irritating, but it did take my mind off how boring the swimming was. I think I only mostly drafted off you on the way out; on the way back, every stroke, my hand seemed to come down on someone's arse, so it could have been worse!!
Absolutely Brilliant report GB. You will have a storming race next time you come back to it. I finally wrote my Austria report. I know it doesn't belong here but I'm posting it here anyway so I hope you'll forgive me. It's stupidly long at over 5600 workds so you have been warned.
“Oh, you mean there’ll be about 30 members of Limerick Tri Club going to Ironman Austria in 2012? That sounds like it will be great craic. I must sign up for that”. So with the help of a girl from Cork Tri Club who secured my race entry with the 100 Euro deposit the day after the 2011 IM Austria race, I had entered my third Ironman race before I had even completed my second. My second Ironman surpassed my wildest dreams in terms of my finishing time so I was facing my third Ironman with no strong motivating factor. I didn’t feel like going much faster was on the cards, I was already an “Ironman” and the only reason I was going, was to join in on the club group IM sessions and for the craic. Unfortunately, not too many of these group training sessions actually materialized with small groups doing their own thing among themselves and the few that did happen towards the end were at odds with my own training in the final weeks so my primary reason for signing up never really materialized and I frequently regretted my decision not to join the Pirates in Outlaw as they were the ones I still turned to for support and advice. My enthusiasm for the event further waned quite early on when many of the club booked in to the Hotel Plannenwirt by the transition area. Fabulous location but the hotel insisted that you book in for a minimum stay of a week and as I was travelling alone and found the others had already paired up to share room cost, it was going to cost me a minimum of 735 Euro for their cheapest single room. I was planning on traveling out Thursday and back Tuesday so a minimum stay of a week was not going to work for me. So after some panicking over accommodation I eventually secured a room in a hostel for 38 Euro per night with half a dozen others thanks to a club mate's German skills. The hurdle to cross now was how to get to Klagenfurt. I didn’t have to worry about the bike as there were about 28 bikes travelling by road from Limerick so I only had to worry about getting me there. The choices were flying from Dublin to Vienna, with a 4 hour train journey on the Austrian side, flying to Klagenfurt via Stansted, flying to Munich from Cork with a 6 hour train journey. I could have rented a car but I am nervous driving on the right and I figured I was more likely to make a mistake travelling alone so I wanted to avoid this if at all possible. I eventually went with Munich from Cork and figured I could get the train down which appeared to be about 70 Euro at the time I booked the flight which was the difference between flying into Munich and flying into Vienna. However it was too early to book my train ticket so I pretty much forgot about it until about a week beforehand. Bad idea, the German & Austrian railway system seems to go by the Ryanair model and after spending a solid three hours faffing around and trying different combinations to get a cheaper price, I eventually gave in and forked out 140 Euro for my return ticket from Munich to Klagenfurt. In hindsight it might have been just as well as the more expensive ticket allowed me to get on any train while the cheaper one would have confined me to the train I had booked. However Aer Lingus managed to make it to Munich a little early which meant I could catch the 3.05pm train rather than 5.44pm train which was the one I booked getting me in to Klagenfurt over two hours earlier than expected so it all worked out.
The train journey was quite pleasant with approximately 20 minutes between trains in both Munich’s Ostbahn and the Salzberg which gave me plenty of time to locate some food and water before settling back on the train and the countryside we passed particularly when we crossed over the Austrian border was spectacular. I caught a taxi from Klagenfurt station and given that I knew the hostel was only about 2km away, I thought the fare of 7 Euro a little pricey and with about 6km from our accommodation to the transition area, it was to be the first of a number of expensive taxis that weekend. The room in the hostel was fine. The one disadvantage was the there was no wi-fi (well there was in the theory but it didn’t work) so I clocked up a fairly impressive mobile phone bill over the few days) It wasn’t really a hostel as we would know them in Ireland, it was more like student accommodation and the rooms were designed for dual occupancy but I had a single room. This was great in some ways as I only had to focus on me but on the previous two IM I’ve had a non-competing companion in the room with me and the support that was provided unstintingly from my husband in Switzerland in 2009 and Penny (Trogs) in Regensburg in 2011 was sorely missed.
Friday morning I built my bike (thankfully without incident) and headed off to locate transition and the hotel where the majority of the Limerick tri group were staying. We had a nice 40 minute bike and easy run and I felt good. I always liken doing an Ironman to sitting the Leaving Certificate (final exam from school for non-Irish readers, the results of which will dictate whether or not you get your chosen course at university) you never feel like you have enough done. I knew I was swimming well and I had had a very good race at the Double Olympic race in Athy at the start of June where I improved last years’ time by about 15 minutes but I felt I could have done a bit more of the long stuff. While I thought I was in great shape for a ½ IM, I felt I needed a few more long sessions to be at peak condition for the full distance but as I said already, no matter what I had done, I’m sure I would have felt that way about it. I had gone 12.14 in Regensburg in 2011 and although Austria is considered a fast course, I didn’t feel like I had enough done for sub 12, but felt I would be happy with between 12 & 13 hours. There was a lot of concern about the heat which was scheduled to be between 35 and 37C on race day. This was certainly a concern but I figured it wouldn’t matter in the water, presumably we would generate our own breeze on the bike so it was only going to be the run where the heat made life really difficult and I had decided, I would go by heart rate and go at whatever speed my heart rate dictated. There were a few nervous comments about whether or not it was likely to be a non-wetsuit swim but it was a really big lake and Austria had never been a non-wetsuit swim so I wasn’t especially concerned. Besides, in so much as I have a strong point in triathlon, the swim is it and while I might not have felt my training had gone fantastically, I knew my swimming was at least as strong as last year.
Some of the others were relaxing in the sun after registration but I headed back to hostel as I wanted to stay out of the sun and make sure I stayed hydrated. I drank Isomax until midafternoon and would switch to Isoactive after that as the Isomax has caffeine as I remembered trying to figure out why I was wide awake on Thursday night when I was exhausted after the journey. One of the best things about where I stayed was that they gave me the key to the kitchen so I was able to cook my own food. Friday was the day last year I had found the most stressful. I was actually OK this year and found listening to music a great way to calm me down if I found the nerves were starting to build. On Saturday I cycled down to the lake with the 4 others from Limerick Tri staying in the hostel and joined the tri club for a stretch and run session given by Chris deLooze which was excellent before we headed to the briefing. The briefing was the usual stuff, they kept tantalizingly talking about the swim and then instead of giving the lake temperature and putting the many terrified athletes out of their misery they’d say they’d come back to it later. I was certain that the lake temperature would be below 24.5C which is the cut off for wetsuits as I figured there was no way they would be so cruel to the 40% first timers (not to mention the other nervous 60%) to drag it out so much if the news was to be bad. Eventually they finally spoke about how they had gone out in a boat to the middle of the lake and put the thermometer in the deepest part and the water temperature was …………… 24.8C. No wetsuits. There was a stunned silence in the hall. Then pandemonium broke out. Fit and fast athletes sank into seats with their head in their hands, terrified newbies cried out that there was no way they would be able to complete the swim without the added buoyancy of the wetsuit, questions were shouted from all sides. It was bedlam. It took them several minutes to get the briefing back under control before they could continue but I’m not sure how much of the rest of the briefing was absorbed. To me, it didn’t make too much difference. I like swimming, I had swam very little open water this year and consequently wasn’t used to swimming in a wetsuit and I knew I was swimming well so I estimated that no wetsuit would probably add about five minutes to my time of 1.05 in Regensburg the year before. The only difference it made to me was that I changed my plan from racing in my club top and pirate shorts to a one piece tri suit as I wasn’t sure what swimming in a two piece would be like in the water.
The others from the hostel had brought almost empty transition bags with them with a view to handing them in like that and accessing them to put whatever they wanted but I wanted to have my bags almost completely packed with just some nutrition to add the morning of the race so I opted out of the club cycle and returned to the hostel to prepare my bags. I cycled back down, left my precious bike in transition. It was the first time I’d ever done a race where I actually felt it might be necessary to deflate the tires (apparently in very hot conditions, a tire can burst in the heat, I first saw people deflating their tires in Switzerland and had no idea what it was about!). I’m not sure if it was but I did it anyway. I hung up my run and bike backs before leaving transition and walked back to the IM village. It was here I had the highlight of my weekend. I am a huge Chrissie Wellington and she was to be at one of the stands between 2pm and 3pm so I did the star stuck groupie thing and got an autograph and a picture. I asked if there was any chance of her handing out the finishers medals the next day, something she has done at every single IM race she’s ever done and she said it would depend on how her boyfriend, Tom Lowe went the next day and whether or not he was in the mood for partying afterwards. That was one of the absolute highest points of the weekend for me and I felt that regardless of how the race went, it was worth the trip and all the associated hassles to have met and exchanged a few words with one of the greatest female triathletes who ever lived. Then it was back to the hostel to cook more pasta and put the feet up. The alarm went off just before 4am and I headed to the kitchen to make my porridge with strawberries and protein powder. I had planned to have eggs as well but my stomach barely managed the porridge and even the end of the bowl proved too much. I wasn’t overly concerned though, as I knew I had eaten plenty of good food in the previous couple of days.
At 5.15am, I caught the taxi down to transition. It was a gorgeous morning though the clear blue skies and pleasant 5.30am temperatures gave fair warning of the heat that was to come. I was delighted the race morning was finally here. I don’t like the couple of days before hand and I figured, come what may now, it was all going to be over in 17 hours and I wouldn’t have to spend another weekend figuring out when I would fit my 6 hour cycle or my three hour run in. I put the bottles for my fuel belt which I had filled with gels and frozen the night before into my run bag. I pumped my tires, filled my aero bottle, put my 4 bottles of gels with a total of 14 gels in my two bento boxes and had my bottle of frozen Isomax in my bike special needs bag. I then made sure my back and shoulders were absolutely plastered in P20 thanks to another Irish girl, Kate who was doing her first IM. The queues for the port-a-loos were finally dying down as the athletes headed for transition so I queued up. But here is where I had learned some lessons from previous IM. After the hideous experience that was the loo nearest transition in Switzerland, and with the added ingredient of heat in the mix here, I took a Kleenex Balsam tissue and put it across my nose while doing what had to be done in the port-a-loo. Definitely something I will do again! Transition was getting quiet now as I headed down towards the lake only to find the special needs truck was pulling away. I was still holding my special needs bags but thankfully the truck was turning and passing by us again so I stood in the middle of the road, waving him down to give him my bags.
Somehow I managed to locate some of the Limerick tri folk at the swim start. The swim start was incredibly wide and once again I had no idea where to seed myself. The start was a bit of a damp squib, but we were finally off. One thing I hadn’t considered was that as I’ve never done an open water tri where I wasn’t wearing a wetsuit and as many of you know, even when wearing a wetsuit, I don’t like the sensation of arms and legs crawling all over me. Turns out this is amplified when only wearing a tri suit and I began to feel very unhappy and claustrophobic about having all of these bodies in very close proximity to me. Next thing I took a breath wrong and ended up with a lung full of water and I started coughing, unable to get my breath. I could feel myself on the very edge of an asthma attack which was about the only thing that was likely to happen that could take out of the swim and I knew then I had to get out of here. So I swam wide. Really wide. I just had to get away from all the hands crawling up my legs and get a chance to get my breathing under control. I did this and felt like I was swimming well although wide. I glanced at my watch as we were entering the canal for the last 800. An hour had past. What the f??? I knew I swam wide but I still felt I was swimming well. What the hell had happened??? I was WAY off target. I had heard great things about the canal, it was fast, there was fabulous support, it was the best part of the swim, blah, blah, blah. I hated it! It was narrow, it was crowded, I was hemmed in behind swimmers who were much slower than me but because it was wall to wall bodies, there was nowhere to overtake them and I was stuck. In addition to that, I don’t know if it was as a result of 2700 bodies churning up the mud at the bottom but it was filthy. I swam in my Limerick Tri suit which is white and blue on top. Coming out of the water, it was grey and blue and the “white” sports bra I wore, is likely to never recover! The 800m seemed to go on forever. It wasn’t helped by the fact I had thought the end was where the big “Ironman” banner was across the canal but it was a couple of hundred meters further on. We finally reached the end and were yanked out of the water by a volunteer. I was pretty horrified to read 1.20.52 on the clock. This was a good ten minutes slower than I had anticipated although I found afterwards that a lot of people including the pros had slow swims and one of the girls from Cork tri club had clocked it at 4.2km. I felt a bit better when I discovered these things afterwards but at the time all I could do was shake my head and wonder how on earth it had gone so badly. I obviously swam even wider than I had realized! I jogged into transition with a guy from the UK when a speedy looking European guy elbowed us out of the way in his hurry to get to the bike park. We just looked at each other and shrugged, “Someone’s in a hurry!” Into the transition tent and it was on with socks, shoes, aero helmet and sunglasses and onto the bike. T1 : 6m02s.
. I had been looking forward to the bike. Almost all of my long bikes at home had been at the very best, chilly and I was anticipating enjoying a nice warm ride. Oh boy, did I get what I bargained for. It all started well, I got my heart rate under control almost immediately and I really enjoyed the first lap of the bike. The ascents were a bit sharp but fairly short and the descents were fast and non-technical. I could definitely have done with having worked on my hill climbing a bit more but it was OK, the support was great and the scenery was beautiful. If I had a bit more biking, particularly climbing done, I think it’s a course that would have really suited me. There was a brilliant crowd as you come back into the transition area and I nearly put myself off the bike high fiving all the Limerick supporters and hitting a curb. How on earth I managed to regain control of the bike before I splattered myself all over the road I do not know but I’m very grateful to the powers above that I didn’t as it really would have been the most embarrassing place on the course to have come a cropper. A couple of kms into the second lap was the special needs station. I have frozen 1.5 litres of Isomax the night before had melted and was blissfully cool as I poured it into my water bottle. Unfortunately the heat was really starting to pick up at this stage and while you did have the benefit of generating a breeze on the bike, it was a bit like a hair dryer blowing full force into your face. Aid stations were about 25 to 30kms apart and you’d grab a bottle from one and five minutes later it would be warm. This made it pretty difficult to take on all the nutrition and hydration but I forced myself to take on a gel every half an hour and to constantly sip sports drink and water. I also took the occasional mint tic-tac to freshen my palate from the gels and that was great, it’s definitely something I would do again. My stomach was not good on the bike which is unusual. Any gastro issues I usually have make themselves felt on the run. I stopped a couple of times to go to the bathroom as I felt like my gastro issues would be resolved there but it didn’t happen for me. I was very warm and was grateful that at least my aero helmet had vents but it was still warm. It turns out that it was over 40 degrees on the bike course. No Irish person should have to exercise in that heat! After one toilet break I took off my helmet and had a marshal soak my head with a cold hose, it felt wonderful. Coming in on the last 20km on the bike I was suffering. I had taken my nutrition religiously even though I really didn’t want it on many occasions but my stomach felt dodgy though not to the point where I was reaching for the immodium or motilium I had in my bike box, my legs were shaky, I was a bit dizzy and I felt like I couldn’t run across the road, let alone run a marathon. I was wondering whether or not I would DNF. But then I gave myself a mental kick in the ass, reminding myself that I had missed my husband’s birthday (which had been the day before) to do this race, if I had to crawl through the run, I was not going to DNF. I remembered they had promised sponges and ice on the run and used this thought as a bribe to get me through the rest of the bike. On the plus side, I definitely felt I was only suffering because of the heat, whereas the previous year I would have given my bike away in transition and could barely stand coming in off the bike, I didn’t feel like that this year and I think if the conditions had been a little cooler, I would have had a stronger bike than Regensburg. As it was, I was happy enough to come in on 6H35M18S with the heat that was there.
I racked my bike and headed to pick up my run bag. I don’t know if they were just wilting in the heat or what but the marshals largely just stood around watching us which was very different to last year where you had a marshal help you the whole way through your transition. From tossing water over myself on the bike, my socks were wet so I decided to change them in transition. I had bought new runners in June but they were black so I had opted to wear last year’s runners. I was glad of this decision. My gels which I had so carefully frozen the night before were still hot. I guess if I hadn’t frozen them they’d probably have been like tea. I almost left them in transition but then I said no, just take them anyway. I poured so much water over myself on the run that the gels actually ended up cool enough as I took them. T2 7M45S I ran out of transition with my planned 9/1 Run/Walk strategy which had worked so well for me the year before. The first aid station felt like it was miles away. It was so hot!!! But finally the aid station appears and I could grab sponges. I stuck one in each cup of my bra (like I need the padding!) another one under each of the shoulder strap of my tri suit and one under my hat. I had some trouble with the shoulder and hat sponges. I only managed to grab ice at one aid station but I refreshed my sponges regularly and took water at every station. There were loads of spectators on the course and many of them had hoses and sprinklers for the athletes to run through. I embraced every one of these and my only goal on the run was to try to stay cool. I pretty much ignored my watch and heart rate except for checking when it was time to take a walk break as my run wasn’t fast enough to push my HR over my limits but I couldn’t seem to push it much harder. Within the first 5kms my socks and shoes were soaked so I resigned myself to the fact I would probably have horrendous blisters but staying cool was the main objective so I didn’t care but the 1000 Mile Tri socks were brilliant and I miraculously remained completely blister free. I had been dreading the run but I actually enjoyed it. Well enjoyed it as much as possible in those conditions. I didn’t care about time. I knew that just finishing in those conditions was going to be an achievement. I used a distraction technique of looking at the names of the athletes coming against me and trying to offer some encouragement to any of the English speaking countries I saw. Some of the names did give me cause to smile though as a guy called “Pornzy” ran passed me. I hope for his sake he never moves to an English speaking country. As we passed through Klagenfurt town itself for the last time, passing all the diners enjoying their wine, beer and food in the great outdoors, I was keeping a casual eye on the clock and realized if I didn’t let the pace drop too much on the last few km, I should just about dip in under the 13H. However to give myself any bit of a cushion my 1 minute walking breaks were going to need to go by the wayside. I was hurting in those last kms and then I finally came to the 22km mark for the first lap. As you will recall, I mentioned that the markers for the 2nd lap were BEFORE the markers for the 1st lap so I thought when I saw the 22km mark but hadn’t seen the 42km mark before it that they just weren’t bothering with a 42km marker as you were so close to the finish line. However I couldn’t see the finish line. Surely it should be just 200m away, right? I had time to get in under 13 hours but where was the finish line. Had a missed a turn? I must have ran another 500m and I was starting to panic at this stage as it looked like I would miss 13H, and there it was, the 42km mark. You Lying Toads, that was easily 1.5km!!! If you want to make one of
You Lying Toads, that was easily 1.5km!!! If you want to make one of the kms in an Ironman ridiculously long, the LAST km is NOT the place to do it. It wasn’t just me by the way EVERY athlete I spoke to afterwards said that last wretched km was long. So it meant I now had 200m to go. The marshal asked if I needed to go right (i.e. start another lap) and I grinned, shaking my head and pointed left. I was heading to the finish line. I wasn’t sure if I’d missed the 13H but as I started down the finish line I could see 12.58 on the clock. I was going to make it under 13H in the type of conditions no Irish person can acclimatize to while living in Ireland! Run: 4H48M19S. Total Finish Time 12H58M18S. If you’d told me a couple of weeks earlier that would be my finish time, I think I would have been a little disappointed but on the day I was quite happy with it. I gave it all I had and even the winning pro time was 25 minutes slower than last year. I was looking forward to a nice cool shower in the finisher’s area but balked a little to discover that the showers were unisex and readily accepted a clubmate's offer of a shower in her hotel room.
I enjoyed the celebrations with the club the next day but for me, Austria doesn’t hold the special place in my memory that Switzerland and Regensburg do. I think a large part of that was having the pirate support in both of the previous races. I was very relieved when it was over and I recognize that at this stage to be a sign for me that it’s time to step back and take a break. While I’m not saying I will never do another IM race, I don’t feel like I have unfinished business with the Ironman and therefore I MUST do another IM. I can at least guarantee that there will be no IM race for me in the summer of 2013. I think the ½ IM will be as long as I go for a little while but for right now, my career as a professional couch potato beckons!
Sorry for the lengh of it
Right, another epic I'm afraid
I sometimes think that it would be easier to plan a lunar trip than assemble the various items needed for a triathlon plus camping, but after several hours of Friday faffage I was just in time to join in with the popular pastime of 'sitting on a motorway going no-where slowly'. Normally this game only takes place on the M25, but especially for me it appeared that the rules had been relaxed and the M1 had joined in. Arrived at the campsite much later than planned, followed the piratey signs and arrived at pirate central. Foul temper not helped by a distinct lack of food at the watersports centre, but after an emergency pot noodle, a couple of beers and a natter with Pingu normal service was more or less resumed.
Saturday passed in a bit of a blur. Registration was a comparatively painless procedure (how anyone could get so wound up to the point of a DQ is a bit baffling), lots of familiar faces to greet and a large number of new ones to commit to memory. I had the misfortune to attend the 1.00pm briefing which left me more confused about the bike course than when I went in, although I did enjoy the 'aaaarghs' whenever the presenter said the P word. Eventually (dodgy google directions and going down the A52 the wrong way) found the local Morrisons, loaded up on carb heavy salad and then enjoyed a peaceful afternoon reading, relaxing and getting sunburnt. Wisely (from reading the other reports) I ducked out the evening pub visit and spent most of the evening hiding from the rain in Razor and Horses gazebo discussing fuelling strategies and possible race targets, I 'fessed up that my dream goal would be sub-12.
Like most (it seems) I don't sleep particularly well before an event, the fireworks at 11pm were a bit of a low point, but the imaginary PA in T1 which woke me up at midnight seems to have been all my own work. I'd set my alarm for 4:00am, but I'd turned the phone off as I was running low on battery. My previous 'old tech' phone was capable of turning itself on at alarm o'clock and then ringing so I had assumed this new one would do the same. Err, no- so just as well I'd given up lying still in my sleeping bag admiring the tent roof at about 3:50. Being a clever sort of a person I'd put my timing chip on my ankle on Saturday ('one less thing to lose') without really thinking through how I'd manage to get the compression calf guards on under it (happily there was enough slack in the band). It's remarkable how fluid time is on race morning, once breakfasted and toileted I mosied over to T1 and seemed to have only just enough time to prep the bike, stow kit bag and then throw the wettie on. Once in the water, however everything sloooowed down and the last 10 minutes seemed an eternity.
Swim: I had a very similar swim experience as that of Mr Zuvai. To avoid the need for you all to scroll back- I was in the water early for a warm up, assumed the kayakers were forming the start line, so I hung about some way back from them thinking the fast swimmers would form up in front of me. Kayakers move in and I found myself near the front of pen 2 with an anticipated swim time of 'back of pen 2'. Major biffage ensued, I ended up gasping for air, panicking and sidestroking. I was wondering whether I was going for a rerun of Marshman (my only ever swim DNF). Eventually, judging from the quality of the arm recovery of those around me, I was now in with slightly slower swimmers so I tried crawling again. A couple of minutes of 1 stroke/1 breath seemed to work and I then backed the stroke rate right off and got back to 3 stroke/1 breath normality. Disaster avoided, hurrah. The rest of the swim (first OW of the year) was a bit of a revelation, I remembered that I actually do like doing this and also that my straight line swimming skill (still) needs working on. My neck informed me about half way that I had not put sufficient bodyglide on. I didn't seem to be able to hold onto anyone's toes for any length of time but I did get to see a large variety of kick techniques. The chop increased on the way back, but no great traumas. Out of the water in 1:18:16 which is about bang on what I would have expected had I not blown up, so a bit of a result. Minor panic when I couldn't pull my earplugs out, but eventually managed to do so.
T1: Seemed to be pirate central. Lube up, cycling kit on and away 5:56. Cheered onto the bike by FB and Petal who were at the end of transition, plus various other 'Pirate' shouts from those on the grass banks overlooking transition.
Bike: I had no idea what to expect, time wise on this leg. Focus on the process, not on the outcome (this became a bit of a mantra later). Parameters were roughly 90rpm minimum (bar hills), 100 rpm change up, keep effort to a little bit easier/about the same as long turbo session effort, but avoid the beeps of shame (HR alarm going off when HR dips below target). Nutrition wise, the plan was something every 30 minutes, mostly small Nakd bars (variety of flavours and more importantly I can fit a whole one in my mouth), a couple of SIS burner gels and then switch to regular gels for the last hour or so. One 750ml bottle of iso every two hours.
I spent most of the ride swapping places with Gladys and Mr Zuvai, but also managed to overtake Flatfooted several times. Despite a long pee at the end of the swim I needed to stop again at the first aid station for another one. At one point Gladys suggested a 6:30 might be on the cards, I told him I deliberately wasn't looking at distance. Pirate feed station was fab and Lee minded my bike while I had another pee. Towards the end of the southern loop I came across what I think must have been Spongecake, he confirmed all was not well and could I relay a message to get someone to pick him up. I scooted off and then spent what felt like forever waiting for one of the road control marshals to get off the phone to confirm whether he had any contact with race control. Eventually one of the other marshalls took pity on me and interrupted him- message delivered so off I headed again. I had noticed Cougie had gone through while I was stationary and I breifly entertained a vague plan to try and catch him up before realising this would be impossible. Somehow in stopping for the marshal I had knocked my cadence sensor out of line with the magnet, so another stop was required (thanks Gladys for stopping to check on me). The rain hit us towards the end of the bike and seemed to drain most of the spark out of those biking around me. In the unlikely event that I get put in charge of Hell, I will reserve a particularly nasty level for those people who move into an overtaking position and then bloody freewheel. I do think I rather surprised him when I charged past. Survived the potholes and speedbumps of the end section and was happy to see the campsite hove into view.
Time: 6:24:24 av. 17.5 mph which was in line with my fastest training average so very content
T2: 5:03, lost a few seconds reapplying bodyglide to sore undercarriage, but otherwise unremarkable. Legs felt surprisingly bouncy.
Run: The main reason I wear a Garmin on the run is to stop me going off too quickly. First mile in 8:04 (aiming for something around 8:30-40), d'oh. In retrospect this can be explained by the tail wind, but at the time I didn't think of this. Next few were much more in the correct zone.
As the splits show I got progressively slower as the race went on. My enthusiastic 'arrgh-ing' of the crowd and fellow pirates waned. I was just about keeping to the plan of gel every 30 mins and iso (for me) and water (to pour over me) at each aid station. A random recollection of a David Hemery interview on wanting to stop came back to me- the gist of which is grade how bad you feel on a scale of whatever, if you think you can live with that then crack on with it. Fabulous to see Melli behind the lead bike. One wasted potential comedy moment, both me and Cheerful Dave simultaneously overtook Mouse at the start of one of the 'up the lake' laps, 'Are you racing each other?' she enquired. I tried to think of some witty way of explaining how much quicker Dave was, he answered for both of us with a 'No' before disappearing off into the middle distance. Lap 3 was the worst time wise, feeling more nauseated and a little bloated, a portaloo stop relieved the feeling a little. On the final lap I caught sight of Flyers in front of me- not a hope of overtaking her (by this stage I'm repeating to myself 'focus on the process, not on the outcome'), from reading her report she was allowing herself a slightly longer break going through the aid stations, so a F1 type overtake happened at the next station. It was a relief to get back to the lake again, I'd mentally miscounted the miles (refusing to look at times) so it was a very pleasant surprise to see mile 25 where I was expecting 24. Into the headwind again, more cheering and as I entered the grandstand section I heard from some pirate supporter that sub-12 was on. I was overtaken by some twonk in the final 20 metres (which seems to have deprived us both of a finishers photo), but I'm delighted with the finishing time. 4:03:46 for the mara and 11:57:27 overall. I'm possibly even more pleased to see Flyers in the food tent a few minutes later also having clocked a sub-12. She wasn't feeling too well so I wandered back with her to the medical tent. Happily the Major was quickly located he seemed to think that the situation could be resolved with the application of hot tea.
Collected bags from transition, threw bags in car, showered (as I was walking over to the shower block a random small child went 'arrrgh' at me, so I had to respond) and then rolled back over to support.
Monday morning, having been thwarted in our attempts to get breakfast at HPP, I ended up leading a small convoy to Morrisons. Convinced that I'd remembered the route correctly I suffered an embarrasing episode of premature leftage and delivered all and sundry into the local NHS carpark. Ahem.
Awards: fabulous time, as someone else has said elsethread, it's a bit like a wedding, you don't get a chance to talk to everyone you wanted to. Me and my legal team are still discussing a possible appeal of the mincing awards to the Court for Arbitration for Sport as technically Gladys was only present in a cycling capacity (which reminds me, one of the random comments as I was running past a group of spectators 'interesting technique').
Top weekend, thanks to all the feedstationers, supporters and fellow competitors. Here's to Lanza 2013.
Great stuff Ferret. So will it be sub 11 for Lanza
?
In terms of maintining the mathematical progression I would need to go sub-11. 14:16 IMDE, 13:25 IMCH, 13:26 IMW (which I'm claiming as a 12:xx equivalent) and now 11:57 Outlaw. However I'm fairly confident in predicting that I'll break the sequence.
Great reports Ferret and Orca
Rather liking the phrase "suffered an embarrassing episode of premature leftage"
nearly spat my drink out across the office!
Haha, I forgot about the detour to the NHS center, we thought you were after some drugs or something.
And no disrespect to Gladys and his awesome mincing skills, but if I'm honest, at the mince off at the pub, I reall did think you had the edge.
I've run a whole marathon with Ferret - 2 in fact - that boy can certainly mince with the best....
Catching up on all the reports....great reading you lot.
Dustyboyyyyyyyy you silly old bugger. Brought a tear to me eye that did. Bloody gutted I was for you. That hug on the run was a "thank christ he is off the bike" as that's the bit I was worrying about for you. True pirate spirit is what you have in shed loads.
When summer comes perhaps a Pirate ride is on the cards.
GB - I was with your brother at the Feedstation; we had a long debate about what you shouted for. We reckoned you needed a big mac as you'd been on the lash! A really honest report - you will grow from that experience and have the IM you deserve!
A work in progress
In fact I think it was a pint and a half on Friday and nothing on Saturday .. improvements all over
Good report GB, and you managed to finish it as well !!!
I'm much more a burger king boy