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Ironman Regensburg 7th August 2011 - entries open 5th July
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Excellent report - that means I overtook somebody on the bike leg !!
Now just looking ahead ...
Outlaw ?
IM Wales 2012 ?
IMUK 70.3 - go shorter and really give it a go - I like Vegas !!!!
Super Report Pugley. I didn't write a report. I wrote a novel. You won't just need a cup of coffee for this, you'll need a full banquet. Toilet movements are frequenctly mentioned, so not for the squeamish! YOu have been warned!
IntroductionThe seeds for Regensburg were sown back at the after party of Ironman Switzerland in 2009. No amount of convincing and pirating could convince me to do Roth in 2010 and by the time I realised a relay team was an option, the places were all gone L However Waff said to me I should join her in 2011 on the pirate ship of fools. By far the highlight of my 2009 Ironman was the pirate massive. To be honest, it was the ONLY thing that made me WANT to go back. I enjoyed the race in Switzerland but I didn’t enjoy the journey which was paved with illness, training in crap weather, and generally running myself into the ground by training hard, not smart. I had met my goal in Switzerland which was to come in under 14H30 by 12 minutes despite a pretty terrible run of 5H45M but the experience of finishing an IM had not been the ecstatic joyous occasion I’d been expecting and I left Switzerland feeling that I had unfinished business with the Ironman.
So when the PSOF set sail for Regensburg, I was on board. I’d changed a few things since 2009, I lost about a stone (which I’ve busily trying to put back on since August 7th J ). I had returned to training too soon after IMCH and as a result, after a fantastic ½ IM race in Barcelona in May 2010, I took most of the rest of the season off as I was mentally burnt out. So after most of a season off, I started training for my second Ironman with a fire and interest in training which I’d lost after Switzerland. I worked from Don Fink’s “Be Iron Fit”. I used the competitive program and I started to really enjoy training again. I completely ignored the swim section as I swam with the Shannon Masters three times a week I felt that was enough on the swimming side. For the bike, I did a bit of mountain biking during the winter which was great fun and when I needed to focus on the road bike and the weather was miserable, I went on the turbo. Derrick (my hubby) had given me an iMagic from Tacx for my birthday and it went a long way to remove the monotony of turbo training. I was a bit remiss in doing the Zone 4 sections of a number of both the run and the bike sections but time wise, I got about 80-90% of Fink’s competitive program completed.
Ironically Saturday wasn’t as bad as I had tasks to do. I had to put my transition bags together and I knew it was critical to at least get the run bag right as I wouldn’t see it again until T2 in the race thanks to the split transition. Trogs dropped me out to the lake to drop off my bike and bags. It was really warm and I was getting concerned about hydration and time on my feet as it ended up a longer walk than we’d anticipated from dropping off the car to the transition area so Trogs told me to sit in the shade while she went and got the car and then handed me a bottle of water when she collected me. Like I said, this woman was my hero for the weekend. I went to bed pretty early but couldn’t sleep. I must have dropped off at some point as I had a dream about doing three laps on the bike and then meeting Henny on the run and wondering why I was over two hours behind her. Still, that was a pretty straight forward dream in comparison to Gladys’ dream about the giant honey monster in the lake. Freud could have had a lot of fun with that boy!
The alarm finally went at 3.30am and it was downstairs for breakfast. Surprisingly, I was able to eat breakfast. I had brought porridge but I didn’t feel like it, so I had muesli, croissants, eggs, I’m not sure what else but I remember being surprised at how much I managed to eat. I did make a ham and cheese roll in case I felt like more food in transition. Trogs offered me and Dinky Pinky a lift to transition and was leaving at 5am. Dave (Mr Waff) also came with us and Benner’s mate Gordon was supposed to come with us but with all of us in the car, he disappeared and Pinky and I were getting increasingly anxious about time ticking away and Trogs took pity on our agitated state and left without him. Despite hearing horror stories of tailbacks the previous year several kms long for the 102 exit the trip went smoothly and we were soon at the parking area although the bus heading to transition was full the guy on duty told us we were about 10 minutes from transition so Trogs and Dave went to park the car and Pinky and I headed to T1. I think triathlon is one of those places where you can have conversations that you simply can’t even consider in another sport. Pinky and I had really only met that morning but how the queues for the port-a-loos would relate to our thus far uncooperative bowel movements definitely made up a good part of the conversation. That and the fact I was stunned to hear she was going for a sub 13 hour time for her first IM. This was when I realised I was in the presence of a speedy pirate!
Into transition and I loaded my bento boxes with my 160mil bottles that I’d filled with power bar gels and filled my bottles with Isomax. The flies that had gathered in the straws overnight were pretty disgusting but blowing into the bottom seemed to dislodge them pretty well. I didn’t want to start the bike with a mouthful of “protein snacks” on the first sip. I pumped my tires and chatted to a Canadian lady who was set up next to me. She was doing Ironman Canada three weeks later. I was impressed! Throughout this, it was lashing rain but it seemed to be brightening up so I was hopeful that the rain would be confined to showers as suggested by the weather forecast.ORCA!!!
*settrles down for a read*
It was finally time for the rubber suit and I headed down to the beach where I met several other pirates. Then the panic set in and the tears welled up and I thought what the f@%K am I doing here but once more the pirate crew came to the rescue. There were hugs and banter and general reassurances that all would be well and at that moment in time I needed to hear the words. I didn’t care if they were just platitudes I still needed to hear them! Then there was five minutes to go, then it was one, and I couldn’t agree more with the report which said the start sounded like a cap gun and was singularly unimpressive. I started my stopwatch and the long day had started. I had really struggled on where to put myself for the swim. I’m a reasonable swimmer, not fast enough for the front, not slow enough for the back, terrified of the punch up in the middle. I guess I started somewhere around the last third of the field and focused on staying relaxed. There was contact but it was pretty accidental and everytime I got confined I’d sight for some space and reassure myself if it wasn’t immediately available that there would be some space very soon and generally there was. Unfortunately, without intending to, I ended up too close to the first buoy and although it was quite a bit from the start, I think he said the first powerbar bottle was 1 km from the start, this is where I felt like I was in the spin cycle of a washing machine and everyone there was determined to drown me. I was genuinely scared here with arms pushing down on my legs to the point where I ended up vertical in the water and was afraid the next arm would be pushing down on my head. Once I realised the issue was I’d gotten too close to the buoys I clawed and kicked my way out of there and took the rest of the swim nice and wide around the buoys and had a much calmer swim. I thought when I got out of the swim in IMCH that I’d dawdled a bit but I felt I was swimming better here and tried to find feet to follow and came out of the swim checking my watch to discover my stopwatch hadn’t started properly but the time was 8.05. Could that be right? That would mean my swim was about 1H05M, (official time of 1:05:12) excellent, already 10mins ahead of “dream” target. T1 went pretty smoothly. I was wearing a tri suit so none of the panic of Switzerland when I’d lost my cycling shorts, took my time to dry my feet and put on socks and shoes. Decided the weather was going to be warm despite the rain so didn’t opt for any extra clothing. Picked up my bike, trotted out, got a cheer from Dave and Gary and then out to the mount line where Trogs was cheering. Finally managed to mount and I was off for the long bike ride
The road was nice and smooth, I felt good and concentrated on getting the heart rate down. I’m not sure exactly when the rain started, was I a few kms into the bike or had it already started coming out of the swim, I’m not sure, but I am sure of one thing. It didn’t stop! I came to the infamous hills and here I paid the price of good swim because the bling bikes just sailed past me. But I didn’t care, I let them go and tried to get my heart rate down to around 140 which is where I wanted to keep it for the day. Once the HR settled, I started drinking my Isomax and took a gel from the bottle every half an hour. For anyone else who decides to decant their gels into 160ml bottles, it works brilliantly except it can be difficult enough to get the fourth and last gel out of the bottle. Somewhere into the hills, that movement I had discussed with Pinky earlier that morning, decided that it was finally ready to make a move so to speak. It was around the aid station about the 50km mark that the aid station with a blessed empty port-a-loo became available. A swift dismount and straight into the loo where the necessary was completed and I felt much more comfortable getting back onto the bike. All was going fairly well except for the incessant rain. The supporters who were out there were great but understandably there were considerably less than there were on the Swiss course when the weather had been considerably more clement. Coming to the end of the first lap and passing the transition area, who do I see only Trogs in her rain soaked poncho cheering us all on. I couldn’t believe it. I would have headed for my nice warm and DRY car hours ago if I had been her but that was just another example of how amazing this woman was all weekend. The second lap was more of the same. I was eating and drinking well, sticking to the plan. Orange Cannon had passed ages ago, flying along to his fastest pirate of the day award. Then Meface came along at the start of the second lap wanting to know what I was wearing sunglasses for. A fair question in the pouring rain! All was going well but I was pretty sick of the rain. I also had a few very scary moments on a couple of the descents. I was afraid to look at my speedo and was pretty impressed afterwards to see a top speed of 75.33km/hr. At least I now know I had good reason to be petrified out of my mind on some of the descents and I wasn’t a bit surprised to hear that 20 people had required medical attention after coming off on the bike.
I got off the bike at the mount line and found I was unable to straighten after spending most of the previous 6.5 hours in the aero position. You dropped your bike at the available space as directed by the marshal and headed for the changing tent picking up your bag on the way. I made a quick dash into the nearest port-a-loo. It was absolutely disgusting with a floor covered in both solids and liquids, but it’s pretty amazing the way you overcome any squeamishness you might have during an Ironman race and you just get on with it. In to T2 and I was very grateful I’d put fresh socks in my T2 back. However I hadn’t thought to put in a towel but thankfully I had rolled them down so they went over the wet feet pretty easily. I also took my bum bag with my run nutrition consisting of a 200ml and 100ml bottles of high 5 iso gel. I just started out of transition when I realised I was still wearing my bike gloves so I dashed in to put them in my bag but the oh so efficient German helper had already packed it away so I located it in the dozen other bags, dumped the gloves, and started running. It hurt. I felt lousy. I was cold, my legs felt like lead and if it all went pear shaped like Switzerland, I could be looking at almost 6 hours of slogging ahead of me. I had hummed and hawed for about 6 months on the best strategy for the run. Would I run/walk using a 9:1 ratio which I’d tried in training a few times or would I try running it all. I had lunch the previous day with Artful Hen and I was chatting to her about her marathon strategy in Roth as we have similar enough stand alone marathon PBs but she was an hour faster on the marathon in Roth than I was in Switzerland. She had employed a run/walk strategy and said the most important thing was to stay in the moment. Only focus on this 9 minutes or whatever it is you’re running and don’t think about the 26 miles to go. Coming out of T2, all my self belief and confidence disappeared but I clung onto those words and said right, you only have to run 9 minutes, then you can walk. Don’t think about the rest of it. Thank You Hen, you got me through the run with those words. It was around here I met Steve Ho, Steve I’m really sorry for being so grumpy, I was just in a world of hurt at that point and you were looking fresh as a daisy. Steve was faster than I so he headed off after a few minutes, he told me afterwards that he was afraid I was going to tell him to “P&*s Off”! During the 1 minute walk, I marched rather than walked, let the HR drop a little and then took on my nutrition. I continued this throughout. The first big block of pirates was near the town square and they were on both sides of the road in black and yellow, waving pom-poms. It was brilliant. Unfortunately this is where I saw Lee and realised that she hadn’t made the bike cut-off L Next time Lee for sure!
Post Race
I was given a foil blanket crossing the line which I was grateful for as I quickly felt cold. I got a hug from Happy Chap who was waiting for Toucs to come in. I wandered around the athletes area trying to figure out how to get out to meet Trogs who had my phone but there didn’t seem to be a way out. I had promised Der I’d ring when I was over the line so a massive thank you to Gladys who lent me his phone to call home. I was initially very disappointed with the food which consisted of pretzels and fruit, not realising that the athlete’s food was down in the briefing area about 500m away. I showered and changed and got myself a bowl of pasta soup which tasted great but was all I could manage before heading back to the stands to cheer in the pirates who had yet to come. I was hoarse the next day from all the screaming I did, cheering people coming in. It’s quite a humbling experience to watch the last few hours of an IM, you see grown men in tears as they finally run down that shoot. I didn’t stay around in Switzerland as I was spent after the race but this time I felt great and cheered and cheered for the next few hours, right up until our last pirate, Rio, came home with 5 minutes to spare before the 16 hour cut off. I have to say though the “laser show” in place of fireworks because of noise regulations was a bit pathetic! Once it was all over we headed down to collect our bikes. It was in my transition bag that I discovered the ham and cheese roll I’d made that morning. Score! It was squashed to death but it tasted mighty fine at that stage of the day! Then it was back to the hotel – a 25 minute walk which felt about a 100 miles at that stage.
The next day I had planned to shop til I dropped at the IM shop but I found it very expensive and there wasn’t that much there that I wanted except for a very nice finishers jacket but they were all out of smalls and no matter how I tried to convince myself otherwise, the medium was huge on me. However Shuffle Bunny had found a stand with some great bargains with tops reduced from 120 Euro to 35 so I got to satisfy the shopper in me after all J From there it was down to the beer garden where the pirate party was to be held. This was fabulous, good food, good beer and unlike the day before, good weather! When it came to the awards, I had thought I was going to get “All the Gear and no idea” award but I was warned I had scuttled my chances of that with my great race the day before. Therefore, I accepted with pride the “Biggest Sandbagger” award. I’m going to have to get those yellow pirate high heels put on some kind of mount for next year, they are something special. I thought my two hour improvement might have been enough to get me the “Biggest Improver” award, so I was thrilled when Anna read out my name as I’ve always wanted to get my name on one of the pirates shields. However I was stunned to get fastest female pirate, I felt a bit guilty taking this one as Pinky was an honorary pirate for the day but apparently, honorary membership wasn’t enough to make you eligible for the award ceremony. I was actually quite emotional with it all. So all you have to do now is make sure there’s a big pirate gathering before Outlaw ( which clashes with IM Austria 2012 L ) so that I can return the shields for next year! Once again a massive thank you to all the pirates, you were amazing. I won’t get to join the PSOF in 2012 as I’ll be in Austria, but maybe 2013..... Probably as a supporter though if I don’t want to end up divorced J
Pugs, that's one of triathlon's great unanswered questions. Imagine a li'l group of piratey supporters in the town centre, shouting with gusto and endurance all day "Yaaaaaaay!!!" ... punctuated all too frequently with: "NNooooooooooo!!!" as one of those very hairyarsedEuropeans trips past...
But well worth it, great read! Must get Dinky Pinky on here to post her report....
I know, I was a teeny bit late
I'd love to read Pinky's report, where is it ?
Now that mine is finally submitted, I can slag other people
im lanza 2013....??
great report btw
Mandel, My apologies, I got your name wrong throughout my report and it won't let me edit! Sorry!
Would anyone object if I gathered all the race reports into a word document? Then anyone who was there can have it as a souvenir if they'd like it? Mandel, your name will be duly corrected in the Word Doc!
Hey Orca,
No problems about the name confusion. Awesome report and think the word document is a great idea!