Race week taper was very similar to what I had done previously to win the Tauranga Half Ironman so is nice to know that its worked and will have me jumping out of my skin come race day.
Race morning I was pretty nervous! Not knowing what to expect was exciting but daunting. The weather was perfect, nice calm waters and clear blue sky’s setting a spectacular back drop to this new event.
6:45am rolled by and we were off, a few jumped the gun a bit so I was a little slow to catch up to the front. I missed the feet of axe swimmer Clayton Fettle who would pretty much swim the same speed as me all the way around the 2 loop course, but 30 meters in front. I felt really comfortable swimming and came out of the water a handful of seconds down on the lead but made up through transition.
Onto the bike Clayton and I shared the lead for the first 45km until 2 x World Champ McCormack caught up and then the three of use rolled around the 183km cycle leg. We had built our lead to about 6mins by the end of the ride to the group of five behind which was a nice buffer on some of the “runners” of the race. I had been feeling so good throughout the ride so was confident that if I stuck to my plans I could put together a solid run.
Heading out onto the run I half expected my legs to be like jelly but surprisingly they were fine and I was able to set into a good rhythm right away. This lasted about 6km then it was like someone had hit me over the back with a baseball bat. The weather was really heating up and there was no wind to cool us down, this pretty much stopped me dead in my tracks. The next 22km was brutal, run/walking between aid stations trying to get in coke and get ice to cool my body down. Things never got better and when I started to get cold in the 30 degree heat things weren’t right. I was devastated to pull out and it’s a feeling I never want to experience again, in hindsight sitting on the side of the road for 2hrs eating and drinking then walking to the finish would have been better than succumbing to the medical tent.
So breaking down my race to see what caused this melt down didn’t take long, I knew I had done the training so it wasn’t my fitness, pacing was spot on, I drank and ate enough on the bike as my energy levels were even right though and I felt good starting the run. I can only put it down to depletion of salts in my body which gave me a few of the symptoms that comes with this. I guess it’s a good thing finding out what went wrong and knowing that if I fix that things should be better. It’s just a bummer to find it out the hard way.
Ironman hasn’t scared me, it’s made me more determined and I can’t wait to have another crack at it soon!
3 comments:
Not sure what hydration is on the course at Challenge Carins but I learned from IM Canada that drinking chicken broth on the run is awesome for both the sodium and hydration. Sounds nasty but give it a try on your next long run.
Awesome effort my man...was great following the race and im sure you put the shits up macca... next time my friend.....toddy
Good to see you are taking the positives from the experience - you were up there with the best till that point.
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