SAUK Triathlon Club

The Build Up
Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.
Naomi Wolf

In mid-December 2006, after a month’s rest and 6 Krispy Kreme donuts, my training for IMUK 2007 started. It was obvious from past race results that cycling was my weakest discipline and needed some attention. After mulling that over in my head for a while, I scribbled down my six stepping-stones to success:

If I could nail those, I’d be on my way. Now everything doesn’t always go as planned and I suffered a few mishaps on the way.

BLUNDER ONE - At the end of May, I attempted the Tour of Wessex bike race that involved 100 miles on each of the first two days, with 125 miles on day 3. My cycling prior to the event had been negligible without too many big rides. My intentions were to take it easy.

Day one was pretty eventful. Lots of sunshine, climbing, time trialling and team surges. The legs were feeling good and I was enjoying the bike.

Day two started and finished off the same way with cold blustering winds and incessant rain. At the lunchtime point, about 55 miles from home, I took off my gloves in order to get some food in. Everything was wet and my fingers were painfully numb. I turned my gloves inside out to get them off, and after forcing a ham cheese baguette into my mouth, was incapable of getting my fingers back into the gloves. The insides were tangled and, try as I might, couldn’t get any fingers into the glove. My hands turned to block ice.

I chose (2) and bunched my gloves into my cycling jacket. I thought to myself, “Mind over matter. It’s not cold. The pain will go away.”

Once the screaming in my head had subsided, I ignored the pain in my fingers for the rest of the ride. I clawed the gear shifters with the palm of my hand and worked the brakes by jamming my hands onto the drops. I stopped drinking with about 30 miles to go as I couldn’t get a grasp on my water bottle. We finished the race, and I didn’t get any feeling into my hands for two months. The dexterity in my fingers disappeared and affected everything I did from writing to using the front door keys. My poor judgment ensured that my hands would struggle untying shoelaces or undoing bike helmet clasps for the next few months. Jake stayed buckled in his pram and car seat for far longer than recommended by the Department of Social Services. These hindrances would rear their ugly little heads at IMUK.

BLUNDER TWO - My second blunder was a series of problems originating from my left hamstring. It had been acting up since the marathon and even though I was hitting good speed with my running off the bike (18.05 and 39.43 for 5k & 10k triathlon run legs respectively), my hammy hurt and felt ripe and ready to pop. I should have gone to the physio at this point. But I didn’t. This led to a strain in my left knee on the first day of ride across the Pyrenees. Cycling through the pain caused an imbalance in my pedal stroke and made the condition worse. On my return from France on the 1st of July, I had a John Wayne limp and was unable to put in a decent bike or run session. The physio was duly booked. They found that my left leg muscles were like base guitar strings whereas they should have been like steak. 45 days of below par exercise and 8 physio sessions later, I began my taper.

Not a great build up to the race. But I convinced myself that my freshness would mean that I wasn’t going into the race smoked. Surprisingly, my hammies didn’t hurt that much and I looked forward to the race.

My thoughts about what I wanted to achieve from the race had changed in the last month. Previously it was about going 3.30 on the marathon run. For now, with all the niggles, it wasn’t about time or result or heart rates or speed. It was more about being out there in the Dorset hills and absorbing the physical and emotional feelings provided by the event. Going by flow and achieving a state of Zen and inner calm. I wanted to be like Daniel-san at the All Valley Karate Tournament just before he did the Mr Miyagi crane kick on Johnny of the Cobra Kai.

The Mud
Terrain is an important aid to a commander in military operations. Correctly estimating the enemy's situation, creating conditions to win, and carefully calculating the dangerous grounds and distances are the basic duties of a wise commander. He who knows these and can apply them in war will definitely win; he who is ignorant of these and cannot employ them in war will certainly lose.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I was impressed with the attempt of the English organisers to feed us with some decent lasagne at Friday night’s pasta party. A few years ago at the inaugural half Ironman they served hard boiled pasta and something off-red they called tomato sauce. My ancestors rolled in their graves at the sacrilege.

On Saturday morning, I opted for a quick pre-race swim in Sherborne lake. While Jake harassed the ducks I squelched along the mud and jumped in. Even after a pee, the cold of the water sucked the air out of my lungs and tightened up my shoulders. My fingers were barely visible in the murky water. My hands and feet were soon numb. The cold shrunk my finger and caused my wedding ring to wriggle itself off. Note to self: plaster on wedding ring! I overlapped my pinky and ring finger and swam to the starting buoys, about 200metres off shore. I wasn’t able to warm myself up and decided to turn around before I passed out from hyperthermia. I spoke to some of the other swimmers with blue lips who were holding on to the yellow buoys.

“Check out those psychos. Swimming a lap of the race the day before the race. Madness.” I said aloud.

They nodded, and headed off for a loop of the swim course. These people are not normal.

Race Day
Aye, fight and you may die, run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!
William Wallace, Braveheart

I had a few devious plans for my 4th Ironman. Things to try out and see how they would affect my race.

At 4.45am I was in transition looking to hand over some banana bread and a spare Speedo to my fellow racer, Marco “Il Ciclista” Stichini. Try as I might I couldn’t spot Marco whose number I had committed to memory. No problem, he’ll have to swim naked in his wetsuit. It’ll make him stronger. It’s always good for the Ironman virgins to have such dilemmas. It makes them stronger in the long run.

The transition paddock closed to everyone at 5.15am and athletes weren’t allowed out. I was not happy. Not being able to give Nats & Jake our traditional goodbye kiss, did not bode well. I needed to refuel on family mojo. Without it I was Superman in a tub of Kryptonite.

The Swim
Thankfully I found Nats & Jake on my way to the water’s edge. Being fired up, usually this time with the family is pretty emotional for me. Today I was here to have a good time and felt pretty calm. So I enjoyed the moment and took my time in telling Jake to behave while I was away.

The cold sucked the air out of me causing me to swim to the start like someone who doesn’t want to get their hair wet. I snuck my way behind the first group and waited for the foghorn. When the marshals indicated that we had 30 seconds to go I started my watch and tucked it back under my wetsuit. My feet were numb and my heart rate was a pretty high 120. I was thankful that we’d soon be off. And then the marshals tried to coral all the swimmers to behind a buoy about 20 metres behind the pros. We were now in the impossible position of 5 marshals in kayaks trying to get 1,500 motivated people to retreat behind an imaginary line. It was like herding cats.

With the swimmers repositioned, I found myself directly behind the Pros. And directly in front of hundreds of enraged swimmers. My heart rate dropped to 60 beats per minute. The fire in my belly began to subside, my fingers started to throb. After 5 minutes, in a scene evoking memories of Braveheart, the athletes began to rage and started hollering at the marshals. “Just go”, “Get out of the way”, “[Insert expletive here]”. Mob rule began taking over. The People were speaking with one voice. The water rippled with tension. Seconds turned to minutes and the lake felt as though it would explode. The kayakers started reverse paddling with all their might as the angry voices merged with the sound of a fog horn. Like scythes on harvest day, arms began to thrash across the water. The mania had begun.

From that moment until I exited the water, it seemed as though everyone overtook me. People swum over me, across me, under me. It was like being in a vat of eels. After a hundred metres or so, I concentrated on 3 stroke breathing and tried to find a clean pair of heels off which to draft. I took it pretty easy and concentrated on good form. After the first lap, I realised that I had forgotten to tape my wedding ring down and it seemed to wiggle off my shrunken ring finer. At about the same time, my left hand began to claw and my fingers spasm-ed to an open hand position. Try as I might, my fingers wouldn’t close and I was forced to swim with a fist for a couple of metres to get the feeling back in my knuckles and ensure that my ring didn’t fall off. Silly newly married man mistake!

For the last metres to the swim finish I kicked out my legs to prepare for the run to T1. With my wedding band still on, I exited in a time of 58 minutes. A short swim no doubt. There was no way that I had PB’d by 2 minutes.

Jake, who was perched on Natalie’s shoulders, spotted me and started shouting “Daddy, Daddy”. I could hear the aahs from the girls in the crowd. I kissed Jake and Nats and headed off to the bike.

The Bike
T1 took longer than expected as some bright spark (me probably) had tightened the knot on my cycling bag. My frozen fingers looked like pickup sticks. I couldn’t work open the simple bowtie knot. Eventually, my saviour volunteer untied the bag and handed me my helmet, bike shoes and bike top from my bag. At this stage there was no need to stress. Every second, I thought, taking it easy would bring my heart rate down a few notches.

I mounted my steed, reached for my arm warmers that were folded neatly in my red Barloworld bike top and checked my heart rate. My HR read 140. Not too bad. Now to take it easy for the 1st of the three loops.

The Cerne Abbas Giant where it is said women, wanting to get married, spend a night alone within the safety of the giant’s phallus. Alongside is Homer as part of the maverick marketing launch of The Simpsons movie.

As everyone and his grandmother overtook me on the bike, my mind wandered. About 15 miles into the ride, near the Cerne Abbas giant, I overtook a woman who had “PRO” marked on her right leg. This almost caused me to clutch my brakes. I have no business overtaking any Pros on the bike, even if they are having a bad day. I leaned off the gas and sat the legal distance behind her. I didn’t have my speedometer but knew she was going really slow. I stayed there for a few minutes and realised that something was not quite right and, as easy as that, I overtook my first professional athlete. The warmth in my gut fired me up.

“All the training was beginning to pay off. I can cycle. I have the power in my legs,” I said to myself. Patience and consistency – that’s all it took. Inside my cold body I was gleaming. My pride was short-lived as the Pro came by me about 10 minutes later. I never saw her again after that.

Getting my heart rate under control and keeping it below 145 beats per minute was like trying to nail jelly to the wall. On the downhills - no problem, but with most of the climbs back towards Sherborne, my heart rate was nudged up into the high 150’s. On several occasions I saw 160+ which didn’t bode well for the run. My heart rate would recover quite quickly but I knew that I was struggling far too soon in the race even for these fairly ample hills. The power in the legs was missing and the headwind was whittling away my reserves.

My two nuggets for the bike ride, (1) drinking gels out of a bottle is really disgusting. Although it was required for my fingers, which can’t open gel packets at 40kph, sucking the gloop out of the nozzle is a filthy business, to which the sugar tracks down my neck would bear testament for the rest of the day. Nugget (2) it is ok to pee on the bike. Who knows what I expected. I saw videos of cycling pros angling themselves to one side as they watered the roses. This looked far too dangerous and I knew it’d be ugly explaining the situation (with my shorts half down) to a bemused paramedic from an entangled bike frame and hedge. Instead I opted for the pee-while-coasting-downhill approach.

Now, I tend to dress to the right, probably from force of habit rather than preference. This would play a key role in my first pee-whilst-cycling-attempt. On my 2nd loop of the course I was cold, had no power in the legs, so decided I might as well try. After moving my water bottle from between my legs and bike frame to my rear Xlab bottle holder, I found a gently sloping descent, lowered my right pedal to the six o’clock position and thought of jacuzzis.

It took me a few hundred metres but eventually I was on free flow and the dribble would snake around the back of my right leg gently gushing from just below my right knee onto the road behind me. The warmth in my shorts cheered me right up and after a quick clean from my water bottle was soon back into the rhythm of racing. Why I hadn’t thought of this earlier, I have no idea. Even the startled look of the guy who overtook me while I was in the process of relieving myself, indicated that this could also be used as a tactical weapon to ensure that no-one drafted off my wheel. This weapon would not have been as effective if I dressed to the left! I went about three times on the bike and found that it broke the monotony of being chipped away by the cold and clobbered by headwinds.

I kept waiting for Marco to overtake me on the bike. He’s a solid cyclist and he should easily make up the time I’d have gained from the swim. I never saw him on the bike. It made me think the bike course was indeed hard, even for the good cyclists.

On my last loop of the bike at the 85 mile marker, while rocking on the pedals up a pretty severe climb, I saw a woman timbered over to the side of the road, her feet still stuck in her pedals. She wept uncontrollably as a marshal brushed her hair from her face and offered words of condolence. I wasn’t certain if she wept because of the fall, or the fact that she still had to reach the half way mark of the bike course.

The wind and rain had picked just as I smelt the stables of Sherborne. My glasses dripped with the condensation. My heart rate was dropping to 140. The legs and mind were tired of fighting and I was glad to be coming into T2. My hamstrings had tightened, but I looked forward to getting my butt off my bike seat. There is only so much wet friction one’s undercarriage can handle.

The Run
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Kahlil Gibran

I asked a volunteer to remove my helmet clasp. My fingers weren’t up to the job. I then got stuck into tying my shoelaces. It felt as though I was doing it underwater. My stomach at this stage felt pretty good. The 10 gels, 2 bananas, 4 bottles of Energade, 4 bottles of water, two slices of banana bread, two Nuun tablets and solitary Nutrigrain bar (blueberry flavour) seemed to have done the nutritional trick. I had also taken three salt tablets to prevent cramps and removed the remaining 3 salt tablets from my plastic packet and put them in my back pocket. With my shoelaces done, I made my way out of the tent.

I settled into a rhythm and made a conscious effort to go at an easy pace. This felt extremely slow but I decided to stick to a slow pace for 5 miles. After 10 minutes, I walked one minute. Not casual walking, but fairly brisk speed walking. Enough to get the heart rate down and keep moving forward. I’d then start up again.

The run was split into 2 x 5 mile loops around the castle, a short run through the town and two x 5 mile loops of Babylon Hill, before returning back to the castle for the finish.

The first two loops were pretty uneventful except that I met some dude from somewhere up north near Manchester. Hell of a nice guy. He was much faster than me but still chose to run with me for a while. It turns out that he had lived in Busselton, Australia, for a year or so. I told him that I was registered for that race. So we had a good chat about that. Eventually we split up at a pee break and I saw him tearing up ahead of me. We’d offer each other encouragement on the Babylon loops. Amazing that you don’t even know someone’s name and yet you look out for each other on the course and wish each other well. That’s pretty cool.

Crossing through the town at the half marathon mark, I walked over the A31 pedestrian bridge and encountered Bryan Rhodes who was heading to the finish. After having a 20 minute lead, he had blown his calf and was limping home. From 1st he’d eventually end up in 31st position.

Running up Babylon Hill the wind started leaning against the runners like a sturdy hand against the shoulders. I could feel the wheels falling off at the 15mile mark and felt as though someone was tightening a vice around my hammies. My stride shortened and I looked into everyone’s eyes trying to recognise Marco’s. “Where the hell is he?” I thought, worried that something had happened or that he had blown up and was walking the marathon. As it turns out, Marco had a decent swim and whilst overtaking another competitor at about 45kph, Marco’s front wheel slid on a solid white line and he hit the deck. Despite having given his arms, legs and hips a good whack, he decided to get back on the bike. Now he was angry. He found that not only was his body battered, but that he had cracked his bike and stuffed up his derailleur. He had no option but to pull out and limped back home on a broke bike. Angry at being sidelined on his first Ironman, he did what all motivated guys do. He went home, slept, woke up and entered Ironman France 2008. No holding back that boy.

At the 20 mile mark I felt as though my body was running out of salt and reached for the tablets in my back pocket. The tablets had dissolved and all I came up with was salt mixed with sweat. There is still so much to learn.

On the last few miles home, my run-walk strategy had become a walk-run strategy. I switched off the engine and slowly turned the legs. No need to go to The Well for this race. As I turned to head back to the castle, I looked down 3 miles of road. The site was staggering. To the horizon, the wind had reduced everyone on both sides of the road to a walk. Usually you see a few athletes giving it a go and hitting the run. For that moment, it looked like the mass exodus of Israelites from Egypt. Lost souls trying to find a home.

Jake was waiting for me on Natalie’s shoulders at the last corner of the finish chute. I picked up the guy and walked across the line. I was amazed to have finished under 12 hours. Because of the delay in the swim, my watch read 12 something. Another good nugget: always start your watch early. Helps avoid getting your head knocked off trying to tuck your watch under your wetsuit, and of course, if there’s a delay and you’re racing against the clock you always have few seconds, and in my case minutes to spare when you cross the line. My run time was 4h23m.

Keeping in mind that I had my eyes set on getting to the finish line with the body intact, I was very happy with my day.

Getting fired up for Ironman Western Australia is pretty easy. There’ll be sun there, a few hills and plenty of speed out along the beaches. It reminds me of what Susan said to Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights: Well, Ricky Bobby is not a thinker. Ricky Bobby is a driver. He is a doer, and that's what you need to do. You don't need to think. You need to drive. You need speed.