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Pirate Champs 2016
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Onto race week.
Stayed at EIX Hotel last year, so knew what to expect – although last year there were no pirates drinking the bar dry.
I also managed to get the right date this year – last year was a bit of a panic as I booked the flights for Friday not realising the race was Saturday. Haha
Bike assembled and went out for a spin on Thursday – managed to get to the top of the Lluc climb and back.
Friday was fairly quiet – registered, racked and had a quick splash in the sea.
A few mental bits played on my mind, first one was a non-wetsuit swim.. although I am confident in the water, I was hoping for a wetsuit swim. Second one was my garmin refused to charge (it is a very old Forerunner 401, circa 2008, so I guess it had to give up the ghost at some point. As the battery was already flat, I threw it in the bin and thought no more of it.
I only use the garmin on the run, just to make sure I can pace each mile and I don’t go off too fast (some chance of that!) but its handy to know so I can do some basic maths on pacing / distance left / what time I will finish etc etc
Anyhows, Mrs DD took it out of the bin – and I plugged it back in. Still dead. Went out for dinner, taking the keycard which also acts as the electric cut off for the room with us… back from dinner and put the card back in and heard a “bleep”. Chuff me, it’s charging. More good news the next morning was it was a wetsuit swim
Race day
Up at 5:45. No need to get up uber early as the start isn’t till 7:40ish, nothing much else to do other than eat breakfast, make up a few cheese rolls for the bike and faff about.
So, off to the bike, put 2 tins of red bull in the aero bottle and a bottle of Cytomax in the cage, put the Nutrition in the bike jersey pocket. Wetsuit on and off to see Mrs DD and crew at the Aussie exit for a last minute pep talk
Nutrition wise, I had 3 cheese rolls, a pastie (nicked from dinner the night before), haribo, bag of m&m’s, and a small tin of pringles (plain)
Also had a packet of chewing gum (handy to clear the palette after a sea swim)
I seeded myself in the 1:10-1:20 pen near the back, and had one of the best, stress free swims during an IM. Out of the aussie exit, quick check of the watch – 5 minutes up on last year. Cheeky smile and a thumbs up to the crew and back in. Saw Seren on the re-entry, tried my best to give her a splash, but figured she wouldnt be too happy given she was holding a camera/phone… so decided against it
Out of the water in 01:08.
Grabbed the bike bag – tipped contents on floor. Stand on towel. Stuff wetsuit in. Get the kit on and off. Still 8 minutes to clear T1, but it did include a pee stop in the pro portaloo’s – the state of which were pretty dire.
Happy that I was out on the bike.
Plan was to soft pedal the first half of the bike, but went through 50 miles in 2:34 which was a bit ahead of where I wanted to be, but thought I had taken it steady.. then the fun started at the bottom of the climb.. as other have said it was a tad wet. Thankfully it was only on the way up and the descent was dry – it would have been carnage if the descent was wet.
Given my lack of bike miles, I was still feeling quite fresh, so decided to push the last 20-30 miles back and aimed for a 6:15 – which I managed to do.
Another looooong transition but at least it wasnt 30 degrees+ like the previous year and got out onto the run feeling ok and only 7:30 on the race clock, well ahead of where I thought I would be.
Then the mental maths started. If I do a 5:30 that’s 13 hours. I’ll take that now. 26 miles into 5:30 is.. 4.7 miles per hour. Or 12:45/mile. So went off on 10-10:30 pace for first lap and get some time in the bank.
First two laps were pretty uneventful. A big “haaaaaarrrr” to the pirate sherpas as I passed them who were now keeping the local bars in trade
Wheels then came off on the third lap. No energy, really hungry. So do I stop for a pizza? Or a kebab? Not allowed. Then at the next aid station was offered a Powerbar wafer biscuit. Sorted. Had another three at the next aid station. Suddenly the legs were back and could go faster than the 15 min/ mile I had managed for the last 3 miles.
Hooked up with DaylightR at the start of the fourth lap. His funky new Garmin had given up the ghost so we kept each other company, pushing each other on. Looking at the splits, I think the last lap was the fastest of the four. A big thanks to him for getting me round the last lap (and a half)
Crossed the line in 12:33 and change – 48 minutes quicker than last year.
IM number 34 done and dusted. IM 35 will probably be Outlaw.
Thanks to everyone for their support
Build up – Swim:58h Bike:105h Run:60h
Wales didn’t go quite to plan last year as I tore the cartilage in my knee 7 weeks out from the event with surgery 4 weeks prior. After this, Mrs Daylight took the opportunity to tell me that this endurance stuff was clearly bad for the body and I should stop doing it. However, as the weeks went on, and I realised Ironman corp had no intention of giving any money back or allowing me to defer, I thought I’d at least go down and see how far through I could get. At least I’d get the rucksack – even if it ended up being the most expensive one ever!
I completed the race, but felt I’d been cheated of the time that I was capable of, having had to walk the entire marathon, and made great pains to mention it to Mrs Daylight at every opportunity. As soon as Mallorca was announced as the 2016 Pirate champs – that was it, I was in. Time to get that time the training should have deserved. Mrs Daylight (bless her) obviously knew before I did that this was going to happen, and the “yes, you can do it” came before I’d even started asking the question.
Training went well overall, although there was a month or two of low volumes when work got extremely busy during July and August, and as usual my lazy arse failed to do the key long weekend rides and runs that are so important according to every training plan I see. My plan at the start of the year though was to book in some 100+mile sportives to force myself out the door. This worked, but I’d only had time to book and complete two. I’d actually managed to do more training last year with 7 weeks off through knee surgery, than this year. The combination of this and the fact that I really struggled in the Mallorca 70.3 last year due to the heat – and the reports coming from Spain that they were in the middle of a heatwave, meant the nerves started kicking in a week prior.
We flew out to Mallorca on the Thu morning, checked into the hotel, then went to pick the bike up from shipmytribike. Despite the huge kitbag now on my back, Mrs Daylight and my sister in-law both decide now is the perfect time for some shoe shopping, and we gradually make our way back to the hotel, stopping in every shop / kiosk / Spar that has any hint of there being shoes on sale. While waiting outside during one such shop visit, Hollywood and Tim come meandering past. Some words of “encouragement” were swapped along with a great line about it not being called racing…“Race? I don’t race, I participate in an endurance event. Are you planning to win? No? then you’re just participating too, so what’s the worry?”. Rest of the build-up was pretty uneventful but enjoyable with a Pirate meal on the Thursday, and a swim and bike on Friday to check everything over. After some serious indecision around wettie or not, the briefing finally confirmed it was definitely a non-wetsuit swim and the decision was made.
Race Day:
Up at 4.30 for breakfast in Pirate central, and as usual struggle to get anything down
due to that pre-race sicky feeling. A couple of pieces of toast and a few spoonfuls of
cereal was all I could manage. It was then off to transition for 5.30 when it opened to
make sure all was well and sort nutrition. Just finished all my faffing and left transition
as they announce with an hour to the off that they re-measured the water and it was
now wetsuit optional! Either the physics I learned at school is wrong, or they must
have taken the water temps somewhere a few miles off shore. Oh well, rush back to
the entrance to transition to grab calf guards, then head back to hotel and grab
wetsuit and then head to the beach to line up.
Swim: 1:00:03
The swim the previous day had shown I was 10s per 100m slower without a wetsuit, so the chance of a swim PB was back on. I’d made the decision over the previous few days that I’d try to go hard in the swim to get under an hour and then just manage the rest of the day. I’d not done the training hours to go massively quick for the whole event, so I was just going to focus on the swim against pretty much every piece of advice ever given to triathletes…
I lined up in the 1h-1:10 pen, as there were far too many already in the sub 1hr pen. Needless to say as soon as I hit the water, I found myself steaming past hundreds of people. I can only imagine they all wrongly thought starting earlier meant they had longer to complete the event – they definitely weren’t sub 1hr swimmers. Once I was at the first turnaround buoy though the water cleared and I was able to focus on form. By halfway I was getting very warm, and even considered stripping the wettie as I came out for lap 2. However, checked the watch at the Australian exit to see it said 37mins – damn, way too slow for half distance. I put the hammer down for the second lap to try to make amends, so was very surprised to see the watch say 59:49 when I finished the second lap! Yay – sub 1hr swim. It was only later I’d learn that 1. They weren’t even laps, hence the slow split time, and 2. I’d started my watch a bit late after the start and I’d missed the sub 1hr by 3 measly seconds!
Bike: 6:23:xx
Transition was uneventful, 5 mins which is about average given how huge transition at Mallorca is. First half of the bike was purely about going easy. On the two sportives where I’d pushed the pace, I’d struggled towards the end – both through lack of fitness and still not being able to get to grips with nutrition. Plan today was to keep the HR below 135 for the first loop, and below 145 for the second if possible (allowing for it rising a bit more on the hill). I knew the first lap was flatter than the second, and other than a complete lack of support out on the course, quite enjoyed the route – some short climbs followed by long sweeping downflats where you could really keep the speed up and stay down on the tribars. A quick look at the Garmin at the end of the lap showed 2:40:xx well ahead of target pace (wanted the whole bike leg to be somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00). Came through the end of the first lap with the crowds to hear the announcer say “we have a Pirate!”, a massive AAARGGH! In response, and then head down for the long flat stretch out to Pollenca.
I was now familiar with this part of the course having done it twice before as part of the 70.3 last year and May this year. I continued to take it easy on the long drag to the start of the climb noticing how the new tarmac gave a false sense of speed. At this point the clouds started swirling and building, and I really wanted to try to get over the mountain before the downhill got wet. It rained pretty hard for the whole 70.3 this year, so I know how treacherous the descent is in the wet. As I got to the first false top though, Cheerful Dave came past and the heavens opened. Torrential rain and even hail at one point made it very difficult to even see where you were going, let alone keep the speed up given it was like cycling in a shallow lake. I pushed on and was very relieved to get to a dry descent. In the dry, you can really carry some speed through the downhill sections – you just need to be very careful at a few of the hairpins. Once I was down, it was head down and push on back to Alcudia. The rain kicked in again about 25k from the end, and I felt for those still up in the mountains. I said a silent good luck to Fraggle and those that I knew were pushing the cut-offs and before I knew it was back at transition.
Run: 5:01:xx
I’ve no idea what happened in T2. I’m normally quicker than at T1. It took me over 8 mins though to take the Monaco off and swap for the new tech tee. I’ve suffered with chafing before, so was trying something new on race day in true Pirate style. I needn’t have worried though – even though it was wet through, it’s probably the most comfortable top I’ve worn – thanks again to Schmunks and Red Stripe for getting it out to Mallorca. As with the half earlier in the year, I took a bit of time to dry my feet and put fresh socks on. As with the half earlier in the year, I shouldn’t have bothered. 2 yards out of transition and there was a lake to run through from all the rain.
The first lap of a 4.5 lap course went pretty well. I’ve changed my run strategy this year to always run/walk. I’ve found that even on 70.3 events, not only do I end up with a better time because I don’t fade at the end, but recovery in the following days is much better. I stuck to the 4min on 1 min off, enjoying the Pirate support around the course both off and on it – including some random dude running in an orange tee that seemed to know the Pirates and gave a good shout whenever we crossed paths. There were kisses for Mrs Daylight whenever I saw her, which proved tricky given she had seemed to adopt a “pop up where you least expect it” approach all along the course as she wandered along it throughout the afternoon.
Trouble started on lap 2. I started to develop some serious stomach cramps which meant I couldn’t run without being in quite bad pain. I kept trying, but it was no good, and somewhere around this point caught up with Digger and Ironbaws, both with their own issues. The vast majority of lap 2 was spent walking and chatting with the two of them while the stomach tried to sort itself out. I’ll try to be polite - by the start of lap 3, a “pressure build up” which had been causing the cramps, released itself – luckily without me also losing my dignity (had been a big worry until that point!). After that I was able to resume the run/walk. Random dude in the orange tee then caught up with me somewhere toward the end of lap 3, and introduced himself as Decadave. We started chatting and now that I was feeling better said I’d just try to keep up as best I could. Throughout that last lap and a half, with Dave acting like a human pace calculator, we realised that not only was he on to beat his time from last year, but I’d also be able to break the 13 hour mark. I’d said before the race that I expected anything between 13 and 14 hours, and if I could get anywhere near 13 I’d be happy. We pushed on, and my 4:1 run walk became more focused - run as much as we could, keep the walking as brief as possible when needed. We both supported and pushed each other through that last 8k or so, with Dave updating the paces and times accordingly. I’m pretty sure that last 8k was the fastest 8k of the day. With about 400 yards to go Dave pushed on and left me to my own magic carpet finish – high fiving everyone I could, bright lights blaring, and completely unable to see Mrs Daylight. I stepped over the line to see Dave waiting for me, big grins on both our faces with his PB and my sub-13. There was a meaningful handshake and a quick introduction to his supporters as the reality of what I’d done sunk in. I found Mrs Daylight and said I needed 5 mins to recover and I’d see her at the exit. At that point, wrapped in my aluminium space blanket, I lay down on one of the sun loungers, and promptly felt very ill. Nauseous, faint, dizzy, I dozed for what felt like a few minutes, but was more like 20. Eventually as the world came back into focus, I made my way to the ex
After a shower, and a quick meal, we headed back to the finish line for hero hour. All I can say is that this was the highlight of the weekend for me. Huge amounts of cheers, clapping and partying to see Bobs your father, Meldy and Fraggle home. Paul Kaye was giving much love to all the Pirates both finishing and supporting, but that was nothing compared to the last 20 mins. With about 5 mins to go, we knew Trogs was still out on course, and the updates we’d had from other Pirates meant we knew it was unlikely she’d be there in time, although it was close.
The fireworks went off, and that’s normally where it would end. However, Paul Kaye then said that as the race official was following her in, we’d wait and see her home as the unofficial last finisher. Huge chants and cheers went up, with the pros, volunteers, officials all lining the magic carpet and the beer flowing. We could see the lights in the distance, and the Pirates started migrating down the final distance to line the way home. Eventually, a 20-strong ship of fools followed Trogs down the finish chute to what must be one of the most amazing finishes ever.
A massive thanks to all the Pirates for making the weekend so amazing, but particularly to Digger, Ironbaws and Decadave for keeping me strong on course. You’re all oarsome. I still owe Dave a beer for pushing me round that last lap and a half – next time!
I’m already working on Mrs Daylight for next year. I can see chinks opining for either Lanza or possibly Hamburg. Not sure about racing (sorry I mean participating!) yet, but we’ll see
nice report there Daylight
and congrats on your sub 13 
Firstly, the guys that got round the course during alledgedly the worst storm in 35years in that area I salute you. Just amazing. Also, terrifying. Was glad to see each of you off the bike safely.
My race report is short and not so sweet. Generally, I vomited my way round the swim. There has been many conversations as to the reason. Seren believes she gave me a lurgy. Overheating, polarised goggles, over buoyancy and of course swallowing - sea water! Whichever, it wasn't nice and at one point did contemplate getting out. However, I was quite determined to continue. So I did. Swim 1:47... Seren, thanks for the kooch!
I went into T1 feeling shocking. I continued into the portaloo feeling shocking in there. LittleClown gave me some encouragement before she headed off on the bike. I may not have responded very well!
I had a small bottle of Coke on my bike to get rid of the salt and a sugar boost. Managed a swig but the nausea stayed. So the bottle stayed on my Tri bars. Stopped twice on the way to the 1st feed station to bring back up anything I had consumed. A tiny bit of Snickers and some energy drink. 1st feed station tried a bit of water, didn't go well. Made it to 2nd feed station, took some coke and managed to keep that down. Felt a bit better. The hail and rain improved my mood, plus the knowledge I was now last on the bike course. I managed to speed up to get to town at the end of the 1st loop within cut off. Caught up with LittleClown. Massive storm ensued with quite amazing thunder and lightening. At which point I had to make a decision. I can't say I'm happy to have pulled out. In fact I'm gutted. But it's done we move on.
Thanks for all the hugs and positive vibes sent my way. Thanks for the lovely week. Bring on Lanza x
All things considered, you did well MrsD! Onward and upward!
Great reports all!!
MrsD - as you rightly say, "its done we move on" great attitude, stay positive and look forward to the next one
Loving all the race reports coming in.
Well done to all you pirates out in Mallorca. I can confirm the weather was b....y awful. During the race my husband and I bought a fleece each, an umbrella and a waterproof mac thing
so hats off to you all.
It was great to be out there supporting. I think if you've never been at an actual event it's difficult to truly understand what people go through. The good bits and the dark bits. So well done again all of you and it was great to meet loads of you over there.
Trogs - that was a great party at the end. I never expected to be going down another ironman carpet again
and I didn't even have to train for it! Hope you're full recovered now.
brilliant reports people. Congrats to those who managed to battle their way through the biblical conditions. I think I would have crapped myself going round hairpin bends in a thunderstorm
To those that didn't get to the end, commiserations. I've been there, it's not the best but you've al got a great attitude about it and about the future. Shit happens, and the finishes are still out there for the taking.
I for one had a fabulous holiday
Coming back to reality sucks! I wrote a kind of support report, it's here if anyone's interested.