The call of the next season...

Galway has been a pivotal race for more reasons than stopping me from completing the Ultimate Challenge.

I thought I'd be devastated not to finish the challenge but I'm just disappointed.  I deserved to have finished all 4 races, I'd put in the work, I had the fitness and the determination.  I have no doubt I would have finished Wales to complete the set had I not broken my collar bone.  Yes, it means I don't get to tick that box, yes it means I don't get the cool special jacket, medal and t-shirt and I don't get to tell people I did it.  But, I did deserve to and that's pretty darned good.  I'll always know that even if other people won't and won't understand it.

The other reason for it being a pivotal race is what it showed me about what I could possibly achieve.  Given the close proximity to the final race of the challenge, with Wales only 2 weeks afterwards, my coach and I agreed I needed to conserve my body and limit damage as far as possible to allow for a comfortable day in Tenby.  This meant I could have a bit of a go in the swim and bike but, as Rich said, "doss the run".

Bear that and the crash in mind and look at the performance differences between Wimbleball and Galway.  Yes, Wimbleball is a tougher course, but look at the improvement vs the rest of the field (rank by that stage of the race) and my age category (cat rank for that leg of the race)...

 

 A minor improvement vs the field in the swim and a bit of learning in T1.  Then I've jumped almost 34% up my age category and almost 25% up the whole field in the bike *including a crash*!  Not completely going balls-out and then 5 minutes on my back/arse at the side of the road and then the last 9km at a gentler pace overall (I think) and still I moved from 60% down the age category to the top 25%. That's really very very encouraging.  Yes, the run was not as good as Wimbleball (quicker, but lower down the field - the courses have quite different profiles), but I had two pee stops of about a minute each ('s hard to get your shorts on and off with one hand) and I was trying not to jar my shoulder too much the rest of the time.  I also had an extra 11 minutes in T2 being seen to by the medics which wouldn't be normal.

The race itself felt great and had I not crashed so badly, I think I might have been fighting for 3rd place in my age category.  Not quite enough for a 70.3 World Championships slot without a lucky roll down - I'd need 2nd place for that - but I have to think it might be possible if that had been an A race.  So, in any case, 70.3 might just be my Goldilocks distance.

Right now, next year looks like the year of 70.3 and trying to qualify for the World Championships at Lake Las Vegas either in 2013 or 2014, depending on what races look possible to make A races in 2013.  Current thinking is Wimbleball, Galway and Lanzarote for a nice spread through the season and finishing somewhere warm in November.  It also means I can do some sprints (hello Blenheim! :o)) and maybe olympics as well through the year as it won't interfere with my overall training, so I can have a lot more fun with that.

IM 70.3 Galway 2012 (@ironmanireland)

And this is where I spoke too soon...

4 days before Galway, I fell off my bike and got battered and scraped.  At the time I was grateful it hadn't happened 4 days before IM Wales.  Little did I know what was to come.

The day before IM 70.3 Ireland, the weather wasn't great.  Rain, winds, swell in the sea.  MrTOTKat (you can find his race report here) and I went for a little jog in the morning and then tried out the sea.  There were volunteers and safety staff from Galway Tri (I think) checking people in and out of the sea and kayakers checking on people and giving handy tips.  To be honest, it wasn't too bad, but the waves were plenty big enough to make sighting of the little orange buoys not easy and to force a large mouthful of water into my throat.  That was pretty unpleasant and I struggled not to throw up immediately.  We trundled 'round the buoys twice and then got out to sort out bikes and bags into transition.

As we got my bike together, MrTOTKat  noticed that the gear cable going into my rear mech was dinked.  On closer inspection, it was completely mashed, almost totally sheared off with only a couple of strands still intact. Argh!  Thank god for on site bike mechanics - a cheerful, silver-haired chap replaced the cable and shroud and sorted out the gear alignment problem that the Planet X has suffered since I first rode it.  All for the princely sum of €10 which he was happy to wait a couple of hours for me to go and get as we had no cash on us.  Lovely chap!

All racked up next to the pros, thanks to our Ultimate Challenge athlete numbers that stay with us through the 4 races, I decided to leave my nutrition bars (opened and cut in half) in the bento box on the bike so I didn't forget them in the morning.  It rained overnight...

A quiet, early dinner in the pub with the Stannetts (Kate and Charlie, also doing the challenge though Charlie had a horrible race at Bolton and didn't finish but is still doing the other races anyway) and in bed by 8pm.

Race morning and we have that down to a tee.  Tea, Ready Brek (you never know what will be available and at what time, so we take something that works with just hot water) with Nutella and banana in it and time to make up the race drinks.  We've been training with what's available in the races even though we should be able to be self-sufficient in this race, so we have Gatorade.  And then we discovered an error.  We had only enough to make up 2 litres of mix and we needed 3 litres between us.  Ah well, upping the solid fuel (I had planned on bagel as well as bars and gels) and taking a weak mix with mostly water in the second of our bottles would work fine.

A nice short stroll from our (absolutely gorgeous!) B&B, the Sea Breeze Lodge, we went to transition to put bottles and bagel on our bikes (and I found that my bars, although sticky on one end, had not turned into porridge in the overnight rain) and trot off to the swim start.

Unlike Wimbleball, there was a multi-wave start here, with the pros off at 7am; M18-24, M25-29 and M30-34 at 07:05; M35-29 and M50-54 at 07:20; M55-59 and all female athletes at 07:35; M40-49 at 07:50; and finally the relay teams at 08:00.

Some of the pros ran into some confusion with the first buoy location, resulting in some adding a good 3-4 minutes to their swim, so the next wave were given information on which buoy to aim for and the erroneous one was soon deflated and removed.

Always look gorgeous coming out of a swim!

MrTOTKat was off at 07:20 and I was soon after at 07:35, in the same wave as Kate and Charlie.  As I waited to get into the sea for the deep water start, I couldn't help dancing along to the great tunes and reminding myself of how bouncy and perky Lucy Gossage was before Wimbleball with the same tunes pumping.  The sea was much calmer than the day before and the swim felt pretty good.  I had no problem sighting on the first buoy, but the second was very far away and I couldn't see it for a long time, relying on other athletes and the feel of the swell of the sea to work out the direction.  I'm pretty sure I didn't take the best line and I know I didn't put in a lot of effort (looking at the HR trace afterwards :o)).  The third buoy I definitely took way too wide and only just heard the safety kayakers shouting at us to go between the last two yellow buoys for the exit.

The swim exit was up the beach, up a concrete ramp and then down the road on the same green carpet as the finish chute (nice on the feet!), across the road and into the field for transition.  I overtook quite a few people on that little trot, once I'd got my wet-suit off my arms and shoulders and down to waist level.

A reasonably quick transition with finding my blue bag quickly, dumping out the contents onto a chair, putting my (inside-out, bah!) cycling socks on, discarding my cycling jersey (forgetting it had the second spare inner tube in the pocket), jamming the all-important race belt and cycling helmet on, followed by bike shoes I trotted out to get my bike.  That lovely new Adamo seat is not only the most comfortable seat ever, but it's quite distinctive in its Union Flag colours so it's easy to spot hooked over the bike rails.  The one thing I had forgotten, which I only noticed as I approached the bike mount line, was my sunglasses.  I'd said only the day before that no matter how tempted to not bother with them, glasses would be essential on the course with the wind blowing sand all around.  A split second temptation to turn back and get them was crushed; the wind was much weaker today and I was going to risk it.

The bike course is an almost flat out and back, but the first section goes through the university and has some tight twists and turns, speed bumps and shortly afterwards a bit of rough road surface.  I found out later that Bethan Fowler (one of the pros doing the Ultimate Challenge too) crashed in that bit of the course and damaged her rear derailleur.  I again lost my front bottle over a rough bit of road, so jammed on the brakes and stopped to get it.  A kind old gent had picked it up and was walking towards me.  Noooo!  This was right in front of a race marshal, so I asked the man to put the bottle down on the ground as I couldn't accept outside assistance.  I had to speak slowly and deliberately as he was so pleased to help someone that he wasn't listening or comprehending what I was saying.  He was only trying to help but didn't know he could get me disqualified.  It was important that I got the message over, or I'd have to leave the bottle with him confused and pick one up at the aid station.  He finally got it and I picked up the bottle from the pavement, slotted it in place and headed off thanking him a few more times so he didn't think I was a total cow.

Having got loads of mud and grass wedged into my cleats in transition, I had trouble getting clipped back in and nearly had a bit of an accident with my left shoe skittering hard off the pedal, under it and bending my ankle the wrong way briefly.  At this point I was convinced I was going to have a really rubbish and slow bike leg, but finally clipped in and tried to settle down.  A chunk of bagel and some glugs of Gatorade to start the fuelling and I started to ramp up the power.

Vrooom!

As the km started ticking away, I turned up the dial until I started to fly past people.  Overtaking people from the start wave before me, I started to feel pretty good.  No burning thighs, so definitely not putting down too much power into the pedals the distance was being eaten up on this new set-up of TT bike, aero helmet and comfortable TT seat.  The support out on the course was really warm and lovely and every group of people I passed cheered, clapped, clanged cow bells and I waved at them and smiled.

Under normal circumstances, I would have been pleased with these stats. As it is, I'm actually very very pleased indeed.

For the next 40km I played over-take with the woman who ended up third in my age category before finally making it stick. Coming into the last 15km I was feeling great and still reeling in other athletes when I came to this road...

A two way road with what looks like passing lanes on the sides - demarcated by painted lines and cats eyes (which you can clearly see in the Google street view image above).  Shortly before this part of the road I think I came to a slower cyclist from an earlier wave, who I pulled out from inside the yellow lines into the main lane to overtake.  I remember hitting and going over a cats eye. 

One of these type...

I think I shouted something.  I know I fish-tailed 5 or 6 times trying to regain control of the bike, thinking "when is this going to stabilise" before finally losing the bike out from underneath me.  I was doing 34.5 km/h at the time.

I remember being on my back, shouting "help, oh god, someone help please".  Then there were people.  A man with a mountain bike and maybe some others.  I remember lying on my back saying "please don't make me stop, I have to finish, I have four of these to do".  I remember being briefly worried I'd broken my leg and then seeing a small cut on my thumb and thinking that was the only injury.  Then I remember someone pushing me on the back of my seat to get me started.  I have no idea how I got on my bike.  You can see from the Garmin stats that I was stopped for about 5 minutes and 20 seconds or so (time vs. moving time).

I have no idea how I got back the last 9ish km to transition from the crash site.  No memory of it at all.  I remember turning off my bike computer.  I remember sitting in the transition tent in the medical area, a face talking to me, but no idea what he said or who he was, and again I said that I had to finish and begged not to have to stop.  I have no memory otherwise of what happened in transition.  I have no recollection of taking off my helmet or shoes, racking my bike or getting my red bag (I suspect volunteers did a lot of it for me).  I remember putting on my left running shoe with one hand and not understanding why at the time.  I remember deciding not to put on my running cap and thinking it was a shame I didn't have my sun glasses.   I don't remember getting out on to the run course.  Apparently I was in T2 for around 15 minutes.

You can see after 03:20ish, which is a real HR drop off, that I was quite ginger getting back to T2 and was then there
for ~15 minutes before going on the run. (and forgot to turn it off at the end for a while)

Memory returns at some point on the run course when I started to talk to a guy called Jamie (I think), who recognised my name from the programme (all the Ultimate Challenge athletes are named with photos in the race programme in a double page spread) it turned out.  I was being shadowed by the medic bicycles, some of who were happy to chat and told me they'd been sent to watch over me, some hung back trying to be subtle (guys, the free-wheel clicking is a dead give-away :o)).  I knew something wasn't right as my left arm naturally gravitated to sitting with my hand latched onto my heart rate transmitter and as I passed MrTOTKat on his 2nd lap as I was on my first I let him know something was up but that I'd go to the medic tent at the end.

As I passed spectators on the run course, I kept hearing sharp intakes of breath, the odd "oh dear god", and "that's so brave".  All I knew was my arm needed to be at the angle I was holding it at and I could see a bit of a graze on the front of my left shoulder out of the corner of my eye.  What were they seeing that I couldn't?  The chap I was talking to said I had quite a graze down the back which looked nasty, so I guessed that was it.  I actually felt pretty OK as long as I held my arm in place and didn't jar things too much.  Walking the aid stations for water and a glug of energy drink, I knew I'd get to the end and it wouldn't be too shabby either.  No run PB for the distance, but not dawdling for sure.

Charlie and me

On my final lap, I came across Charlie Stannett and we ran together for a bit.  He decided to run just behind my left shoulder to shield me from accidental bumps from other athletes (what a sweetie!) and we stayed together until he finally spotted his Kate (who he'd been worried about to that point as he'd not yet seen her on the run) just as we came to the final funnel either to the finishing chute (where I was then headed) or more run laps (Charlie had another lap to go).

I saw the green carpet and launched myself down the finishing chute.  I could hear Paul Kaye, the race commentator, calling my name in almost disbelief that I was coming for the finish line (turns out I was all over the race radio from the crash onwards) and I knew the race was almost done and I could get sorted by the medics.

As I crossed the line and was handed my medal I was greeted by a medic who said they'd been waiting for me. He led me to the medical area to find a concerned-looking MrTOTKat.  We sat and I was tended to.  I asked MrTOTKat how he'd done.  Having no idea what my time was, I said "it wasn't under 6 was it?"  Little did I know at the time that I'd come in at 06:18 myself (including a 5 minute "rest" on the bike, a 15 minute "nap" in T2 and two wee stops on the run), and he said "05:22" with a big grin on his face.

Damian (or was it Derren?) the medic cleaned up my grazes and got the doctor to come and give me a shot of difene in the bum for the pain.  That took about 20 minutes to kick in and then I felt lovely.  Nobody was too sure whether my collar bone was broken or not at the time but the lack of movement and the pain level was enough to send me to hospital for x-rays to be sure.  MrTOTKat stayed behind to get our race bags, bikes and assorted stuff while I was whisked off in an ambulance to UCHG.

Long story short, I ended up stood in front of the x-ray machine while the radiographer took his x-ray.  We chatted and I was still in denial right up to saying, "I'm racing again in 2 weeks" *click*bzzzzz* (goes the x-ray machine) "No you're not".  And he showed me the x-ray.

Ow.

Up until this point, and even after, I was convinced I'd be able to carry on with the Ultimate Challenge and that everything would be fine.

I cannot in any way condone doing what I did on this day.  The drain on race safety resources who could have been needed by someone in real trouble was not a good thing to have done.  It was utterly selfish of me, but at the time I was full of adrenaline and had "race head" on.  I am glad for myself that I finished, more on why that is in another post along with the stats and analysis.

The rest is a story for another day.

Forgot to turn the run Garmin off too. But hey, not bad avg. moving pace for having a broken collar bone?

Detailed bike splits. Stopped for dropped bottle in 1st 5km, crash in 17th 5km and not sure what the stop was in the 18th 5km.

Detailed run splits - wee stop in 3rd and 14th km, total bugger to get shorts on and off with one hand!

Stats from IMUK

Heart rate (I left the watch on for a couple of minutes at the end before I remembered to turn it off):-

Run stats:-

Run course:-

Bike stats:-

Bike course:-

Bike course profile:-

Bike course temperature profile - peaks at 27C:-

Ironman UK 2012 - race report

(photos, stats and links to follow)

3am. The alarm was supposed to go off, but I was already awake by 5 minutes having got to sleep some time after 11pm.  Hot and noisy hotel room, but not too bad at all as race nights go.  As it's an Ironman race, all the transition stuff is packed, racked and no need to worry about it on race morning.  We just needed to get to the start, put water bottles and tool kits on the bikes and get into our wetsuits. Bolton's split transition areas makes for quite a bitty feel and no festival atmosphere around the tiny expo and setup at the race start.

So, the ambience was a bit odd, but Paul Kaye and Emma Jenkinson were doing a great job in geeing up the supporters and athletes.  Me, I felt calm.  No nerves.  It felt weird, but not in an unsettling way.  Despite a really long day ahead, I felt oddly blank and muted.

The swim start was called and we filed down into the practically tropical 18C water to bimble over to the starting line.  The water was silty and murky; visibility practically zero you could see very light coloured things once they were 3-4 inches from your face.  That made for fun not getting kicked in the face throughout the swim and in fact that's exactly what happened.  The entirety of the first leg to the first turning buoy, someone was on my toes.  Not just tapping them, but scratching and grabbing at them.  I got angrier and angrier until the first buoy, at which point the kicks in the ear, neck and chest as the washing machine cranked right up to maximum and everyone converged at the point.  And it didn't get a lot better after that - I had my goggles knocked off with a fist, got a dead leg from an elbow in the calf, winded with a kick in the chest, elbows in the head, shoulders and back of the neck as well.  By far the harshest race swim I've experienced and at one point I was so pissed off with two guys who closed in on either side of me from behind, squeezed closer and simultaneously hit me in the head on each side that I stopped and swore really loudly at them to get their own water.

The shore run between the two laps was over marshily wet, muddy grass, but not too bad then back in for a second go at the water punch up. Exiting for the end of the swim wasn't much less violent than the swim itself with lots of people desperate for an extra few seconds in a race that if they're putting in swim times similar to mine, they're unlikely to be competing for a Kona slot (not -quite- true as my swim isn't all that bad).  Up the grass runway into transition, listening to Paul egging the omelette about swim times being so good that people leaving the water now must have trained with at least three swims a week of 3.5-4km per swim.  Hmm... Not quite!  He does do a good job of bigging up the effort and achievement though, god love him!

Transition... Well, it wasn't all that slick.  Just under 11 minutes of faff, it turns out.  To be fair, I'd rather be comfortable for 180km on the bike than a whole lot faster in transition, but I'm sure I can do better than that.  Wetsuit off, muddy feet cleaned off, bike socks on, energy bar wrappers opened and put back into my cycling top.  Top on, shoes on then helmet and clip-clopping out to find my bike.  Or I would have done were it not muddy grass in transition.  Bike was easy to find, given the very useful permanent, high race number for the Ultimate Challenge series. The speed bumps out of T1 are known for launching drinks bottles out of their holders and on the second bump I was no exception with my aero-bar mounted cage vibrating on its sling and dropping the bottle into the grass verge.  Thanks to the pre-race thinking session on "what if..." I stuck to my plan of picking up the bottle and not letting it lie where it was.  My plan was to have two bottles so I stuck to it.

The spur up to the laps of the bike course was flat, fast and I was happy to get down onto the aero-bars early and for all of it.  The first little bit I was really very worried as my gears were being tricky, not engaging well and three of the cassette rings resulted in loud clicking noises when using those gears.  Clearly they were not well adjusted when I changed the wheels over from my road bike and got a bit worse when I did that.  I thought I'd spend the next 8 hours pissed off and stressy over it, but it didn't get that bad.  I felt great and came to the first aid station, picked up a fresh bottle and then worried that I'd not had all of the first 750ml bottle.  My nutrition plan was 1 gel, half an energy bar and 1 bottle of Gatorade per hour.  1x 500ml Bottle.  The nuance was lost on me until a bit later on.

Up and onto the loop and Sheephouse lane turning was lined with loads of supporters with cow bells, clappers, bangers and a lot of love.  The route to the finish line to the right was blocked off, the pros wouldn't be coming through for a while yet.  Starting up the lane of the hill, lots of smiles came as the chalk on the road had some great slogans and messages, including a "GO WIGGO!" and various others.   A hand-painted sign with "what would Voigt say?" and then "SHUT UP LEGS" were great.

Sheephouse Lane (the hill) was eaten up by my lovely TT bike.  I passed quite a few people up the hill and a good few more after the false summit, then whooshing down the swooping, sweeping curves of the long descent into a villagey bit where there was a sharpish bend, a blue "POLICE SLOW" sign and a copper waving to slow down.  I thought there was a dangerous bend or drop, but it turned out to be a crash where some poor guy had a car turn straight into him as he was finishing the descent.  He was sitting up and talking, but covered in a blanket and being tended to by an ambulance full of paramedics.  Yes, this was a closed roads race, but local access carries on.

I was soon passed by Kate Stannett's friend from Ipswitch Tri club, Jayne, doing her first Ironman too, but clearly a lot faster than me (and in the same age category as me too!).  She said hi, introduced herself and we parted ways as she sped off ahead to a great finish time.  Good work! The next aid station, I decided to change my pick up tactics and only carry one bottle as the aid stations were roughly an hour apart at my pace. So I didn't need to carry an extra 750g weight up that hill the next two times.  Not sure whether that wasn't more than cancelled out by coming to a stop at each aid station to take a bottle.  Hopefully I'll get even better with bike handling so at the next race I can take a bottle on the move.  180km of race certainly got me a lot more confident on that bike - eating and drinking with confidence now on the move.

I think it was on my first lap of the bike that I was passed at great speed. Fraser Cartmell and the TV crew, shortly followed by the guy who won the race in the end... My God, he was shifting and I shouted after him "GO Fraser!".  Not sure he would have heard really.  About 10 minutes later another pro came through, followed by Sam Baxter!  Sam came in 5th overall in the end and that was including the pros.  Man alive he had a good race!  He was in front of Simon Oliver, the Welsh pro, by quite some margin at that point in the race.  Way to go Sam :o) For me, my backside was getting sorer and sorer, it was really very windy for all of the laps of the bike loops (TT bike was absolutely the right choice there) once I'd got off the long spur up to the loops, and I was starting to get mentally tired of cycling by about the 6 hour mark.  I stopped for a wee twice and for fresh bottles 5 times (missing the first and last aid stations due to mental screw-up around 500 vs 750ml bottles).  Worse than the mental tiredness was that I had stuck to my nutrition plan really well and had 4 energy bars, 6 gels and 6x 500ml Gatorade and was really REALLY sick of energy bars by that point.  I forced down one more bar, the last two gels and another litre of Gatorade but couldn't manage the energy bar.  The thought of it was making me gag.  I knew I had a peanut butter and Nutella bagel in T2 that would cover the deficit of that bar, so didn't push it.  I think I did pretty well with the plan, especially with the last two Gatorade bottles being so sticky it was incredibly difficult to get them out of the rack to drink.  Really quite a struggle!

The last 60 minutes of the bike was hard.  I felt fine, but sleepy.  I kept finding I'd stopped pedalling and was free-wheeling and had to remember to pedal some more.  I was up on the base bars a lot more, less aerodynamic, but less tiring on my aching neck.  I did get down on the bars a few more times to overtake a few more people on the last fast stretch, but it was getting unsafe with how heavy my head was and I couldn't look forward in that position any more.  Half an hour of that and I was passed by two giants who expressed it quite well "come on lass, let's get off these f*****g bikes!".  Yeah.  My arse had well and truly had quite enough of sitting on that seat. The final time of hitting the lap split junction and all the supporters had buggered off!  No cow bell and clappers for me.

T2 had bike catchers and a very odd atmosphere.  At that point in the race the athletes are a lot more strung out and transition is less busy than T1.  There were only a few benches and some other, quite surly athletes as well as the usual jovial ones.  I was glad we'd slapped on some single application sports sun cream before the race as it had been very sunny on the bike and I was a bit coloured even with the sun cream on.  I'd packed more of the same stuff for T2 and this time it was factor 30 as the sun was predicted for late afternoon.  As it was, it came early. I spent ridiculously long in T2, eating my bagel, changing socks, having a wee in a proper loo and... I'm not exactly sure really.  Anyway, I filled my run bottle at the first aid station with more Gatorade as per the plan, but I felt really very very sick from the energy bars and gels earlier.  Coach Rich's race strategy notes said that If I felt sick, I needed a higher water to nutrition ratio.  On the bike I just couldn't have managed that, but on the run I decided to make it through 500ml more Gatorade and then switch to water.  That really worked and over the course of the 5 and a bit hours of the marathon, I slowly felt less and less like I was going to throw up.  The last hour of the bike was pretty hideous in that respect.  It was odd, my body felt strong, it was my mind that was tired and I felt really vomitous and that persisted into the run.

I started the run feeling strong, sick in my belly and like I just wanted to go to bed soon please.  It was hot, sunny and I'd been up for 12 hours, 9.5 of which were racing.  Thankfully there was a shady, tree-lined run for the first portion and I kept to the shady side of the street as much of possible until we got to the path down by the stream.  It was nice along that stretch and the lack of shade was traded off by people in the gardens that backed onto the stream having barbecues, beers and cheering us as we trotted slowly on.

The weird thing about the run overall was that my heart rate was quite low and I could have pushed harder, by quite a bit, but my head had all the safety controls in place - this isn't the end, there are two more races to get through (and this is why I still feel weird about this Ironman instead of ecstaticly happy) - so my pace stayed right where it was.  I was well-fuelled, well managed in terms of effort through swim and bike, so there was plenty available to put in a quicker run than I was. At the top of the spur, the route turned left.  I was expecting right so that threw me off straight away.  I chugged through most of the Gatorade and by the first aid station was ready enough to refill with water once per lap thereafter.  Cadets were happy to fill up my bottle with cool cool water.  And the best bit was... Ritz crackers!  Yes!  Something salty!  My God they tasted good!

I passed MrTOTKat a couple of times and Matthew Pritchard, who was looking not in great shape at all.  A few other notable faces to remember for each lap as they passed and I got band envy even before I had any on my arm - the elasticated bands you get at the completion of each run lap to indicate how many you've done.  So, the run was up the spur, round the left end, down to the right end, past the finish line and a bit further, back to where the spur joins where you get a coloured band: yellow, pink then green.  This confused me a lot and I was convinced that it meant that I had to run up the hill past the finish spur 4 times, not 3.  I was not happy about that at all.

As the run progressed, my pace stayed roughly constant.  The numbers look odd on the GPS as there are a few aid stops to fill with water and a couple to wee as well.  The over-arching, growing feeling in my head was the urge to sleep.  I really wanted just to sleep please.  The counter-balance was the receding nausea.  I was getting more angry about the winding bit around the finish line around the shops of Bolton town centre - it felt pointlessly punishing.  Finally... I had three bands and was allowed to peel off left down the finishing chute.  The light was dimming as it was approaching 9pm (sunset around 21:25) and I'd taken my sunglasses off finally, though I was worried I'd start crying as I crossed the line it turned out I needn't have as it took a couple of minutes afterwards for that.  As I rounded the corner onto the red carpet, Emma called out my name as an Ultimate athlete and before I knew it, I was high fiving all the way down the red carpet and over the line.  I was an Ironman.  Emma told me so.  I was smiling and waving until I got out of view (so I thought) and before the finish line photographer wanted to take his photo of me with my medal.  I did not feel great at all.  I hadn't heard Emma telling me I was an Ironman, or maybe I had.  I just wanted to sleep or be sick or both.  But I grinned dutifully for the photo and head into the finisher's tent.  Where I sat down on the first free chair I could find and was quiet for a minute or two until a volunteer brought me a slice of the promised pizza.

I took a desperate mouthful and it felt wrong.  Someone brought me an empty box.  I wanted to throw up.  I spat out the remains of the second mouthful and lost the first one in almost exactly the state it had gone in.  I really really wanted to sleep and be sick and die and make it all stop.

I was desperately disappointed.  My emotions had been switched off since the day before and everything of the day had built up to a head.  I sat some more and sobbed loudly for a good ten minutes.  Proper, shaking, snotty sobbing.  I felt utterly robbed.  When I should have been on top of the world for completing my first Ironman, I couldn't feel it because it's not the end.  Only half the job is done.  There are two more races to go and Wales is hilly.  Collecting myself a bit, I got up and went out of the tent to find out where MrTOTKat was.  He'd finished an hour and 40 minutes before me.  It was all a bit confusing and I sat down outside for a bit, still really very down. MrTOTKat arrived and I found Kate Stannett waiting for her massage so I chatted a bit, then went and got some potato wedges as I was still desperately hungry for salty carbs.  Thankfully those stayed down.   And then some pizza and after a massage another couple of slices of pizza and humanity was being restored.

I don't know what to think right now.  A lot of lessons learned.  Perfect technical execution of the nutrition plan, but I need to find a way to avoid feeling so sick for 1/3 of the bike and all of the run trying to recover from that.  I got a lot more used to my TT bike over the 180km and I'd like to investigate a better/more comfortable saddle to avoid the soft-tissue damage as much as possible.  I'm sore in the quads and my knees are stiff, but nothing worrying.  My toes are tender and my feet ache - perhaps slightly bigger trainers for this sort of temperature and a long run in future.

Yes.  I am an Ironman.  But it hasn't sunk in.  My own brain has sabotaged the celebration.  I am not allowed to be happy because the journey isn't over yet.  Any sane person would be celebrating the achievement but I won't until I get to the end of the Ultimate Challenge, or I fail before that happens.  It may be through no fault of my own that I fail, like Russell Cox who crashed out of UK 70.3 with a quite spectacular mechanical failure of the rear mech shearing off his bike and almost through the chain stay.  It won't be through lack of training, fitness or even last minute preparation.  But it could still happen.

2011 - the year of too many races

2011 was the year of too many races randomly sprinkled through the year, no actual training, too much annoying knee injury, but lots of fun:-

 

(our wall of races, needs to come down now)

• 5x Sprint Triathlons
• 2x Olympic Distance Triathlons
• 2x Half Marathons
• 1x Thames swim
• 1x London to Brighton
• 3x 10Ks
• And a bunch of Parkruns, but they don't reaaaally count.

2012 looks like this:-

• 1x Sportive (February)
• 5x Sprint Triathlons (April to August)
• 1x Olympic Distance (May)
• 1x Half Ironman (June)
• 1x Ironman (September)
• (and a bunch of Parkruns, most likely)

NO ENTERING ANY MORE RACES BEFORE THE END OF SEPTEMBER! (Long running events, sportives and century rides are allowed -if- they fit with my training schedule and are treated as training sessions, but otherwise, NO!)

I been and gone and done it

British Olympic Ball (2012)

How lucky am I?

I got tickets to go to the British Olympic Ball, 294 days out from the 2012 Olympics.  A charity dinner, hosted by BT, at the Grand Hall at Olympia, with 140 British Olympic medal winners (83 golds) in attendance and a great show.

We arrived on a "red"(gold) carpet with god knows how many Olympians and other assorted famous people in a media circus...

(shoulda ditched the bunny... I had glorious collarbone in that outfit, dammit!)

...and headed in to an impressive sight of the Grand Hall set out with 179 tables and a huge runway stage for the displays and show later on.

Chinawhites provided the bars and lounge area in front of the dining area and we mingled around a bit before spotting a few people we recognised... Denise Lewis (looking strong and beautiful in a flowing, black, backless dress that showed off her gorgeous back), Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, Tessa Sanderson and then... Alistair Brownlee (squee!), followed by Jonathan.  Gah!  They were standing a few feet away from us so we finally gave in, did the shameless thing and asked for a photo with them.

Had a bit of a chat with Jonathan more than Alistair and he was a sweet guy, very down to earth and un-fussed by the media attention.  We quickly ran out of time and had to find our table for the start of the proceedings.  Our table turned out to be right in front of the stage where Stephen Fry and Miranda Hart were leading the proceedings and introducing the various speakers.  After the initial fun and games with the autocue having been set up more for people of Colin Moynihan's height than these two, there was much self-deprecation in the presence of quite so many of the best athletes in the world.  You could hardly blame them for using their physical differences for humour at such an event; one of the things that struck me most about the Brownlees was how tiny they are.  I knew they were light and lean, but crikeybobs it's a different matter close up than it is on the telly.  Miranda looked stunning in a simple black outfit, lovely golden skin and make-up.  Wish there was more of her on the telly!

After the initial display from various athletes (BMXers, trampolinists, gymnasts, judo players, break dancers, Tinchy Stryder...) we were treated to speeches from various members of the British Olympics organisations, from the Princess Royal, to Sir Clive Woodward, Colin Moynihan, Denise Lewis and a couple of others.  It didn't take long to settle into paying attention, despite the next table along being oh so star studded (Mark Cavendish - who seems to be really quite shy, but was immensely gracious about having his photo taken with us, Ed Moses, Clare Balding, Katie Melua, Peta Todd, Alice Arnold, James Toseland...)

Food came and went and was, as you'd expect in such a huge venue, tepid and forgettable (due to it being tepid, I'm sure it would have been fabulous if it'd been hot.  Sorry Tom Aikens, but the venue was against you there).  Wine was plentiful and resulted in things getting a bit fuzzy from here on in.  We had some fun bidding on one of the charity auction items (we were never going to win it, given the sort of people in the room)...

And then danced about a bit to Tom Jones' hour-long set (yes, we saw you Denise Lewis, boogieing away to Mr Jones!) before deciding to call it a night.

There were so many more huge names of sport there that we didn't see.  Like, seriously, Bradley Wiggins, -how- did we not see him?  And loads of others.  All in all, a great night.  We're both really fired up about the impending Olympics.  It's a real shame we don't have tickets for any of the events, but damned sure we'll be rocking up to watch the non-ticket bits of the triathlon and road cycling events.  2012 is the Year of Sport and I can't wait!

Doing something the average person doesn't do.

I wanted to complete an Ironman in the year I turned forty.  Initially I intended to do it when I had actually turned forty, but once I was bitten by the idea I didn't want to wait that long.  It's a compelling need to do Ironman.

I started triathlon in 2010 when, as a former swimmer who had recently taking up cycling and running, Mr TOTKat said he wanted to do another triathlon after doing one a few years back and I looked around online.  I found a "civilised" one where the swim was in a pool and it wasn't that far from where we live so would be quite easy to get to.

The Thames Turbo Sprint Triathlon races are held at Bushy Park/Hampton Open Air Pool - a half hour drive from our house.  Thames Turbo Triathlon club is one of the oldest and largest triathlon clubs in the UK and "...can count three World Champions and other elite athletes amongst our alumni: Stuart Hayes, Spencer Smith, Richard Stannard and current World Champion Tim Don have all been Turbos on their way to the top!"  Their sprint series is geared towards introducing people to the sport of triathlon and every race the question is asked "how many people are here for their first race?" and so many people raise their hands... the races are excellently run and marshalled, with firm but fair application of the rules.

In 2010, we entered the whole race series and I ended up having to miss the first one having injured myself skiing earlier in the year and was signed off from running by the physio.  I cheered Mr TOTKat on at the first one, while freezing in insufficient clothing on a cold Easter Monday morning that started as the alarm went off at 04:45.  All of the races are on bank holiday mondays and for the first three races of the series in 2010, it was utterly freezing cold and we suffered horribly with the temperature both when waiting and when spectating.  We made a lot of mistakes in the first couple of races, but learned and got better, stripping down the equipment in transition to just bike shoes, running shoes, bike helmet, race belt and sunglasses.  Makes for nippy transitions (and oh boy was I glad of that at the British Super Series race at Blenheim - I was way up the field in the fourth discipline there thanks to that learning at the Thames Turbo races).

The field of competitors at the Thames Turbo sprint races is asked to estimate their overall race time and their 400m swim time.  The field is then split, roughly at the 01:20:00 mark and those who estimate over that time for the whole race go in the first half, and those who estimate a faster overall time go in the second half.  Those halves are then seeded by swim time to determine the order in which you start in the pool.  This stops a lot of congestion in the pool and works really well, it also means that the slower athletes aren't the last to start in the morning and left to finish last, extending the race duration out for a very long time.  As a former swimmer, it's my strongest natural discipline and I seed early in the swim starts, but until 2011 I was in the first half of the field of competitors.  There's a great advantage to that on a bank holiday monday morning in that there's almost no traffic on the roads, and that's a big plus for a race where the roads aren't closed.

Over the Thames Turbo races in 2010, we improved and we did a couple of 10K races too.  Come Christmas 2010 we were sure we wanted to do more and, in a night of tipsy foolishness, we registered for all of the Thames Turbo races for 2011, all of the British Super Series races (some of which had a choice of sprint distance or Olympic distance and I decided to take the plunge and sign up for one Olympic one), most of the Clapham Common 10K races and the Speedo Hampton Court Thames swim.  And over 2011 we started working through the races, having the odd injury niggle, missing the odd race because of it, signing up for a couple more races here and there, a half marathon, a 5km swim... and then someone started me thinking.  I can't remember how Paul seeded the idea into my head, but he did.  And it sat in the back of my head.

I bought a few books, read them, looked at all of the courses and decided that heat was a bigger enemy than hills.  And the decision was made.  I'd wanted to do an Ironman race when I got to forty, but the race calendar was against me for the end of 2012 and I didn't want to wait any longer. MrTOTKat asked whether I'd be OK with him doing this too.  So.  Wales is the choice at the moment and we're signed up for Wimbleball Half Ironman already, which is at a good time in relation to when Wales will most likely be scheduled in 2012.  We're volunteering at the first Ironman Wales to get an idea of what the event will be like, and the course and the area.  If all goes well, we'll register for Wales Ironman 2012 while we're there.

There are two hard things at the moment... not getting over-excited and starting a training schedule too soon, and getting my head around how I'm going to fit all of that training that will be required into my life.  There will probably have to be changes and sacrifices made.  Ironman isn't a walk in the park, it isn't easy, it's not called "ironman" for nothing.  Otherwise everybody would be able to do it.  But.  It's not something the average person does.