Aside from Kona there possibly isn’t another place in the planet that is better suited to an Ironman event. Lanzarote just oozes Ironman. It has everything that makes this sport so attractive – the sea, the mountains, the lava rock and the heat. It’s a compelling setting.

The Build-Up
I went into the race with less training than I had put into the Ironman UK. Although the total hours were less I felt the quality was improved and I did feel that I had done enough of the key (read long) sessions. Work commitments meant I was never going to have more than 4 or 5 hours for training during the week and more than 13 hours for a full week. The weekends were always going to be filled with long, hard sessions. Saturdays would have 4k swims followed by 25K runs. Sundays would be 6 to 7 hour rides. I managed to keep that going for about 8 weeks. All in all I thought I was ready for this one.

3 weeks into the race….just as I was starting to taper I picked up a calf strain in my left calf. This little niggle turned into a tight, sore monster injury over the 3 weeks meaning that by race day I had done nothing for 3 weeks and I really didn’t not know if I could race beyond the swim. I’d tossed any thoughts of having a great race but I wanted a finisher’s medal badly….very badly! With only a finish in mind I had no idea what to expect and promised myself I would take this all in and enjoy the day whatever happened.

The Swim:
The Lanza organisers really need to have a re-think about this swim start. I have probably done well over 40 triathlons in my time (most of them Olympic distance) and to date this was the roughest, most physical start I have ever had. Despite seeding myself correctly (for a 53 to 56 min swim) they channelled 1000 sprinting swimmers into the sea through an 8 meter wide chute to a buoy that floated 100m out from shore! My heart rate was still 15 beats over threshold after rounding the second buoy! It was a bit like being caught in a salty washing machine with a hundred drowning grizzly bears! I managed to free myself of the flailing pack half way through the swim and swam ‘easily’ through to the beach. The split was 55 min but I had noticed my HR was at least 10 beats higher than what I would have wanted. I paid no attention - I was curious to see if my calf would let me run up the beach to T1.

The Bike:
BONUS: the calf allows me to jog to T1 and on the bike it seems to be OK – onward! The beginning of the bike leg is always interesting for me. Being a weaker cyclist and swimming at 55min means you get passed by around 200 very fast pro’s and age-groupers in the first half of the bike. In my Olympic racing days I would snigger to myself because I knew I would overtake at least half of them again in the run. That’s just not the case anymore…these guys pass me once and only once! In the first 50k of the bike two things struck me – my concerns about having the wrong cluster on the back (22-11) were completely justified and my heart rate was still in the stratosphere! I was watching all these mega cyclists go past me and each and every one of them had a granny gear on the back. I started to feel like a schoolboy outside the headmasters office.

At around 30k I noticed my vision had those spinning little circles …the ones you get when you are about to faint. Not a good sign….I promised myself I would keep an eye on that (sic).

Between 50 and 80k on the bike is a fast to flat section of mid-island road. There are a few pulls but nothing unusual. Despite the awesome smooth road surface my heart rate was still too high and I was puking occasionally. Pretty much everything I had consumed since the swim was still sitting in my gut – undigested. I continued to prepare for the worst.

At around 80k we started the first of two big climbs. I had been steeling myself for this and was ready to feel the sting of the wip. The damage was pervasive…with only a 22 on the back the heart rate was sky high. I promised myself I would coast down the other side and get that HR down to below 100.

The little spinning circles where still there – more Coke please!

At the top of the final climb (the Mirador Del Rio) I realised how much of a beating my legs had taken. I tried to stretch out my hamstrings only to have my quads cramp! And this is at 110k on the bike!!!

The ride home is flat to downhill and is usually downwind the whole way. For us we faced rising temperatures and a stiff headwind. A stretch of 25k that is pretty much flat….I think I was doing around 22kph, sipping quietly on an overly diluted, warm bottle of Coke…wondering if I was going to be able to stand when I got off this machine.

The Run:
And through all of the above I was not sure if I was going to be able to do the run at all…and not because of the state I was in but because of the injury. I had not been able to run for 3 weeks. I remember sitting in T2 mumbling to the polite English lady smearing me with suncream something like…’that bike course was brutal!….brutal!….damn that was tough!…..’ She just said... .’Oh well …you’ve still got a little run to do…’ Indeed.

Heading out onto the run course I was really surprised to discover the calf was fine….completely fine…healthy. The rest of me was a mess. I chuckled to myself at how wrong I had got this. I thought 42k would be a long way to walk but then blurted out loudly to myself ‘Bloody hell…just get on with it!’ Talking to yourself is usually a sign that the system is starting to unravel and the screws are rattling loose!

The little spinning circles where still there – I was losing interest in them. If I fainted now I would enjoy the rest!

The rest of the run was just a long slog of walk-run intervals trying all the time to get something to digest. I only really remember two things…one was a 100m walk with Alison where I got an update on Dav and Nige. I was glad to hear they were still in motion and that the bike course had not claimed any victims. The other was a topless lass on the beach…I think it was lap 3 of the run…I’m not sure….But all of a sudden I was missing Jo terribly and thinking intensely of some other stuff not usually associated with running. It was a great painkiller and lifted my spirits. That might have been the longest stretch I ran continuously.

The aftermath:
I’m really chuffed that I managed to run the final km to the finish. I wanted that finisher’s medal so badly. I felt like I had overcome a lot to get there and I wanted that medal! I think I managed a pretty good impression of a winner…mainly because in my own little way I was a winner. I immediately sat down - the circles were gone!

I’ve noticed that most of the race reports have some final learning’s, or thoughts or sometimes advice for those who will follow. I don’t really have much advice but here are my thoughts on Lanza:

• While there’s no real need to run over 32k in training for this one you need to ride over 200k often to prepare for this bike course. I was wrong about this…you do need to do intensity work for hilly courses like this.
• Stay out of the fight zone on the swim. The energy lost is more expensive than the time lost. Small guys like me lose big in the fight zone.
• Ironman is tough. We do it because it’s tough and because the tough stuff is where we learn all the good lessons.
• Ironman is all about the finishers medal – nothing else matters!