One Week to Go
This is Ironman number 5 for me. Time to avoid repeating those silly mistakes which inevitably dog my races. So many things to remember and yet there remains the same focus: Finish At All Costs. Experience is knowledge built on a platform of mistakes. Who knows – this may one day lead to wisdom.

My bike is spotless. They tell me that I have to remove every piece of dirt from my bike lest I wish to incur the wrath of the Ozzie quarantine police. Natalie’s ear buds come in handy as they are required for insertion into the links of my bicycle chain. The bike has never been this clean.

In parallel with my training, Nats & I decided to leave London for Johannesburg. Packing our home for the move and removing any traces of our existence in the UK was more worrisome than I had imagined. Arguing with utility bill call centre agents sapped my mojo and in the last two months I went to bed most nights broken. I’ll sleep on the plane, I thought.

Robby and Brett get ready for a practice swim

I needed the day’s stopover in Singapore with our friends, Paddo & Viv. I was debilitated from the flight and Asian heat. There was a 25 metre pool at their place where I was able to do a few 100 metre sets at race pace. My 1st 100m was in 1m24s. I was wheezing and splintered after the set. There was no way on earth I could hold that for another 100m let alone 3.8k’s. For the 2nd 100m I opted to go as slow as possible without sinking and determine my pace for Busselton. My watch read 1m32s. This was my training pace for my big sets during the year and would give me a 58min split for the race. This was comforting and I decided to race at this pace for the 3.8k’s.

Squashed in economy seats on our flight to Perth, I opted to catch up on some movies I’d rather not have seen. Jake slept on and off with a continuous wriggle. He fell off his seat twice. His catalytic ability to turn warm milk into ricotta, which he spilled generously over the Singapore airline centre aisle and my jeans, was the most memorable part of the flight.

Bearing in mind my Ironman PB was 10h52m at Switzerland and also that the wind had been blowing strong a few days before the race, my predictions for IMWA were:

Handicap
Brett was flying in from Sydney. Paolo from Brisbane. They had agreed that each athlete would be allowed a handicap of 1 hour per child in the family. Brett started with -2hrs, me with -1hr, Paolo at zero. After Switzerland 2005, the times weren’t a bad balance between our abilities. Paolo had experience and tons of speed on the bike. I had baby Jake. Brett had the girls, Theresa and Sophia. All in all, the one hour handicap per child due to the reduced training time seemed reasonable. We even allowed Paolo 20 minutes for his owning a dog. The other racers: Dave, Steve & Houston were not allowed the luxury of a handicap.

RobbyRicc, Steve Small, Brett Fouche, Houston & Dave Jones

Busselton
There were ten of us plus 3 kids staying at the house on the bike course. It was an awesome self-catering spot next to Port Geographe with space in the garage for us to sort out our kit and bikes. Staying with kids means you’re up early as the littl’uns don’t know the meaning of a lie-in. But this is neatly counterbalanced with the privilege of having a great support crew.

We did the usual things in the build up to the race. I even managed to get a signed poster for Jake’s bedroom from the gentlemanly Jason Shortis, last year’s winner in a time of 8h03m. What an outstanding athlete and family man. This year he’d get 12th place in a time of 8h35. Not bad for a guy with 3 kids.

One thing I did change this year was to let go of trying to control everything. I decided to play with Jake as much as possible and do lots of family things without worrying about getting in that extra nap. I did ensure that everything I did, from the carbo party to the race start would be done early. I ensured we woke up at 3am for race day. The race start was at 6am and we needed to have as much as time as possible to ensure we didn’t get stressed. By the start of the race, I was feeling much better than I had felt all week. My sinuses had cleared and my legs were feeling light. A great sign of a good taper.

The Pier
The seeding system for the swim was a great idea. I chose a blue cap for guys swimming in 50-60 minutes. There was still plenty of thrashing in the water as I opted for the faster lane closer to the pier. My race pace was *very* conservative and anyone who was keen enough was permitted to overtake me. Aside from a left hook to the back of the head and my left elbow to someone’s teeth, the swim to the far end of the pier was relaxed. On the way back I decided to play tactics and let an older athlete with powerful arm strokes and relaxed kicking pull me in to the beach. He was a solid swimmer and I protected my ownership of the small space behind his feet as he steadily worked his way up the field. My breathing was smooth and easy. Exiting in 58 minutes I felt as though I hadn’t broken a sweat. My average heart rate for the swim was 124. I get that amount of heart beats when I eat a hot curry.

... the bike course was uneventful ...

The Bike
The bike was 3 loops of a fast 60k loop. Going past our place on the course kept me going for the entire bike. The support of someone you know is worth ten of people you don’t. Aside from Brett’s stories at the after party of dead snakes on the highway and a guy with a disk wheel being swept off his bike by the wind, the bike course was uneventful, except for when I bonked at the 140k mark. I had stuck to my bike strategy of 140HR for the 1st loop, 140-145HR for the 2nd and then by feel for the last loop. The 3 crucial long bike rides I missed due to leaving-London-celebratory-hangovers took their toll. The distance was just too far and the wind which picked up for the last loop was slowing me down. I decided to stick to my lower heart rate and accept my decrease in speed and the fact that there was no way in hell that I could keep up with Paolo and Houston’s bicycle legs. I had played bunny from the swim start and ceded the lead to Paolo on lap 2 and 2nd place to Houston on lap 3.

I crawled in with a 5h40m bike (including T1) and thought about the run.

The Run
I thought about this run for all of the 4h23m that it took me to do the marathon run on the Ironman UK in August. That was a long, slow day but I knew that I was holding back waiting to unleash some form of retribution on the Western Australian Ironman run course. Bar one, all of my long runs (3 x 1h50m) had been on the treadmill at the Langley Leisure Centre. Oh the joys of autumn training in London.

I held back for the 1st loop and kept my heart rate at 155 and tried to stay on my 5min per k pace. My watch said I was on target for a 10h30m. Stuff my 10h58m goal time, a voice roared inside my head, I’m going for the sub 10h30m.

I hit the 10k marker in 47 mins. With my heart rate still under control this was great news. The legs were working. As long as I kept eating, drinking and cooling myself down I could keep up the pace. The cramps nudged my hammies and I immediately took my salt tablets. Placebos or not, that definitely kept the beasts at bay. The ACDC house which was roaring out the classics were a godsend. My speed immediately increased every time I heard the guitar riffs. If one it were permitted to use an iPod, I swear I could knock out a sub 3 marathon on ACDC.

Paolo & Houston were piling on the speed and I waited until the 25k mark to start picking up the pace. The legs were feeling light and my body was feeling strong. But after about 5 minutes of deciding to give it a go my left knee started twinging as though it would buckle at any moment. The pain slowed me down. Heading out on my third lap I looked at my clock and realised that 10h30m was a fading target. I was empty and the wheels were falling off. I chomped on some jelly beans.

At the 33k mark I spotted Paolo who had been flying up the road when I saw him on loop 1. His incredible 5h04m bike ride had left burn marks on the tar. On this, his third and last loop, he looked like a shell of his former self.

And with that exchange of words Paolo had given me my motivation to pick up the pace. Who knows how but I was fired up by the possibility that I could catch my friend and main instigator of my turning to Ironman races. My legs began spinning quicker and out of nowhere I was running at sub 5min per k pace. But could I hold this up to catch him? ACDC fired me up with “Thunderstruck”. Instantaneous mojo replenishment.

With the Indian Ocean on my left and the pier on the horizon ahead of me, I had about 45 minutes to make it back home. I made many promises to myself this year: being a Spartan and never surrendering was one of them. Sounds like a good promise one ought to make to themselves now and again. The feeling in the legs went and I started picking off runner after runner. At about 10h16 into the race, I heard the announcers calling Houston over the finish line. In his virgin race he executed a perfect race. The dude’s tough as oak. I’d imagine he could go quite fast if he actually broke a sweat.

Robby and Paulo

I caught Paolo at the 40k mark. He was on fumes.

After several paces, we realised it wasn’t going to be. Paolo was hurting and could barely move his feet in front of the other. I guess that’s the risk of doing a 5h04m on the bike in order to gun for a sub10! Brave indeed. I thought about staying with Paolo for the last few k’s, but I’d be doing our relationship as competitors and friends a disservice. I told Paolo that I was gunning for a time and that I’d see him at the finish line. He told me to go for it. With that I dug deep and went for it.

The finish line clock read 10h28m47s. My heart rate was maxed out at 160 for the last 10k’s. I couldn’t have pushed any harder. This was a good race.

Following my massage, my body started shivering and my quivering wrist spilled my drink all over the floor. People all around me looked at me as though I was about to crumple over. I quickly put on all the dry clothes I had to heat up and Paolo took me to the med tent. I had weighed myself prior to the race at 69.4 kg’s. My weight now read 70.3kg’s. Putting on weight especially after such a hard effort, so they tell me is, is a sure sign that I was over-hydrated. So no more drinks for me until some of the water I had put in came out. Aside from the shivers, there were no other serious post race repercussions. The mild weather conditions and my overambitious drinking regime seem to have been the main cause for this. The race doctor at race briefing had indicated that dehydration is fixed by a drip, over-hydration is more tricky and can result in an athlete lapsing into a coma. Food for thought for next time.

Post Race
Whilst sipping on our Coopers and catching some sun off the Great Barrier Reef, Dave Jones summed up the course perfectly: it is fast and forgiving. I thought about things that I did right and wrong and made a quick list:

Things I did Right:

• Hold back on the swim, bike and 1st half of the run
• Didn’t race with too many bottles on the bike. Extra weight requires extra effort
• With an average 7 hours training per week in the 12 weeks before my race, I focused on one key session per discipline per week. Do your best with the remaining time
• Turbo sessions take less time than rides on the road
• Didn’t stress about little things before the race

Things I did Wrong:

• Missed too many of the big bike rides
• Not enough hill running for strength in the legs
• Emigrated to a different country between races

Anyhow, I feel as though I’m starting to figure this all out (the fast course may have helped!). One key point is that what happens on race day doesn’t really make too big a difference to your time. It’s what you were able to do in training that does. As for that extra effort to keep up a good pace in the race, you need to prepare your mind for the dark times of the race beforehand. Keep reminding yourself that it’s tough for everyone, that pain subsides, that surrender is never an option and, as Natalie says, no-one will love you any more or any less if you win or lose.

Merry Christmas and balls to the wall for 2008,
~RobbyRicc

Results with permitted handicaps:

Brett Fouche takes gold