I thought I would write up a brief outline of my South African Ironman experience, especially since quite a few people have expressed some interest in going the full IM distance there next year?!?

I set myself the goal of a winter ironman to (a) force myself outdoors to train and (b) to see my SA mates who are still ironman-mad, nothing’s changed ?. I didn’t have a specific time-goal in mind except to try and get as close to my PB as I could, depending on my training. So…

We only arrived in the sea-side town of Port Elizabeth two days before the race, and I was relieved that the heat didn’t affect me much, unlike some other hot races where the humidity has been so high that it takes a week to acclimatise. I did an easy 5km jog and a short swim on the Friday before the race. The swim was quite scary with huge swells coming in. Some people got dumped heavily by the waves when coming in. On Friday we registered for the race and later that evening we went to the African-themed pasta party which was a loud affair, with plenty of African dancing and music. On Saturday was the bike check-in, where I spotted Natascha Badmann looking in top shape (when doesn’t she?).

The Swim:
7am next the sun was up and the wind had dropped. The sea looked beautifully calm and a nice 21 degrees. During the night a couple of the buoys had drifted in the wind and the organisers had a frantic time getting the course back to where it should, literally 1 minute before 7am! We actually started on time! The course is a large L-shape which you do twice with a run up on the beach in between where the commentators can read out your name as you cross the mats! My old swim coach Kim was on the microphone and made sure I got a loud shout each time I came through! Motivating stuff!! I had a laugh at two of the buoys where I spotted divers holding them in place with GPS’s because there hadn’t been time to drop anchors. They got the course fairly accurate because my eventual time was 1:04 including the run on the beach, which I think was fair. Not a PB, but I had not concentrated on my swim-training much during winter.

The Bike:
The bike course promised to be a fast one as long as the wind did not come up. Port Elizabeth is known for its howling wind which can make or break one’s race. The course was three laps of 60km each with a spot for a special-needs bag at the end of the loop. It was undulating, but that meant climbing for the first 20km, nothing too steep but chugging up at 20km/h…quite frustrating when you’re hoping to do around 6 hours! The back of the loop winds its way towards the sea on the other side of Port Elizabeth and that’s where the early slow pace is made up. A lovely sea-breeze was at hand to push you along at around 40km/h for the rest of the loop. Lap one was right on schedule (1:55), the only event was my saddle bottle cage broke off somehow. There were regular aid-stations so one bottle less made no difference to my race. Lap two was also on schedule (2:00), but on lap three the wind increased steadily. I’m convinced this happens as soon as the top Pro’s finish, just to make them look faster than they really are, compared to the rest of us age-groupers! The first 20km climb of the loop was now down to a really slow 14km/h into a stiff head-wind. I thought to myself that I’d done this all before in training in England, except in training it was an icy-cold head wind breezing straight down from the Artic to make the training even harder. Now it was a warm sea-breeze off the ocean, so I shouldn’t complain, and it was certainly nowhere near as ferocious as the winds in Hawaii! Time on lap 3 was 2:15, to total 6:10. A bit slower than I would have liked on an “easy” course but not too bad.

The Run:
I always run off the bike very well. No jelly-legs for me! In shorter tri’s I usually have run-splits close to my best ever stand-alone run times. But not in ironman! This is where I have most room to improve. As always I started very comfortably at 5 minute/km pace and, in fact, forced myself to slow down even more to save the legs for later. Alas, it happened again! I bonked badly in the second half due to running out of gas. I think it was due to over-doing the Power-Ade and not being able to absorb any more nutrients. At around the 30km mark I thought it best to find a bush and empty myself of all liquid. I felt better after that but still had not energy left to run. I walked for a further 4 km, sipping water with a bit of coke. After what seemed like an hour of this strategy, I noticed only 5km to go and I had 30 minutes to break sub-12 hours. It wasn’t possible to walk and break 12 hours so I mustered myself into what felt like 5km time-trial pace. It’s amazing what you can do when you can almost smell the finish!

The Finish:
With the finish line as a carrot, I ran the entire rest of the way and finished in 11:56. It was dark at 6:56pm and they shine a spotlight on you for the last 200 metres, announce your name and where you’re from, and give you the usual “YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!” shout. Goose-bump stuff!! I’m fairly happy with my time. It was four minutes slower than my PB at IM Switzerland and 4 minutes faster than 12 Hours! The marathon had still taken me 4:30 which was better than last time, but there is still loads of room for improvement.

Natascha Badmann won the lady’s in 9:23 and Raynard Tissink won in a world class time of 8:21. His next rival was 16 minutes behind.

A word about recovery:
There is a mis-conception that doing an ironman means that you have to rest and recover for about half a season…not true! In my experience (and I’ve done four) the race is at such a low intensity that the physical recovery time is much quicker. Just for fun I entered a half marathon six days after the Ironman and jogged round in 1hr56 virtually pain-free! I think that until you’re able to complete an ironman at “racing intensity” the recovery is more for the mental break from training than it is physical.

Now when’s the next one…?