Ironman Mark

This is an old post that got lost after the hack on my old blog.

The reason for re-posting?  Well, it’s because this has been re-named the Swashbuckler and I am doing it again on Sunday

So how did I do?  Fantastically well but a little disappointed with how my feet felt in the run.

I did 4hrs 58m 3s which is 20m quicker than I was targeting.  This was down to a very short swim, a fantastic bike and a slow second lap on the run.

In terms of process, I learned:

1. I need to work out why I get pins-and-needles on the run.  This left meant I pretty much couldn’t feel how my feet were landing and as a consequence my left foot was landing pointing inward and got very sore.  It did this after 3 miles, got really painful 10 mins later and I ran with it until after mile 8.  Then I just had to slow down because of the pain.  Perhaps I need to stop and massage my foot? I tried this at Wimbleball but at Sherborne I just ran through it and it felt fine after 10 minutes.  The best thing I can do is to find out how to stop it happening in the first place.

2. I need to get some shoes that I am happy running on and off-road with.  My Puma H Streets are fine on road but they are pants in the muddy sections as they have absolutely no grip at all.  I was weaving all over the place for four miles of the run because of the mud.  I have just ordered a pair of Inov-8 F-Lite 230’s to fix that.

3. I need to recce the course properly so that I know how much running on gravel/stones there is.  The H Streets just did not have enough cushioning to stop the pointy bit of some stones digging through the soles.  Again the F-Lite’s should help on that.

4. I need to bring a spare pair of socks for T2.  My socks were soaked after the bike ride (rained for about an hour on the bike).  I am not sure if this played a part in the pins-and-needles but it (and the pins-and-needles) definitely played a big part in the big blister on my left foot.

5. My heart rate will be high coming out of T1 for 20mins or so when I push my target power.  It did this at IMUK as well.  Just keep the target power and the HR will gradually come down to what is expected.

6. I ate a lot of gels on the bike but I didn’t have a routine that I normally have.  It makes sense to always eat on 0min, 20min, 40min, 0min, etc.  Trying to work out how long ago I ate just adds to complicate my thinking!  As there were no proper drink aid stations (in the IM sense) on the bike I conserved water rather than drank when thirsty.  I don’t think it caused a problem but I did finish with a full bottle (having drank one 750ml one) and so I over-conserved.

So:

- Swim: Uneventful.  Didn’t see any of the jelly fish. I did swim very close to the bank on the way out (I could see the bottom) and then swam in deeper water on the way back.  The tide coming in was very strong and I think it made a big difference to my swim.  I did a bit of drafting, especially on the way back.  Something happened to the far turn around buoys and so the swim was only about 1,200m or so.  The swim from the far side of the river to the finish was interesting.  You had to swim across the tide and so I aimed up river of the turn around buoy and got swept down to it.  It is a strange feeling deliberately sighting and heading the wrong way.  I over took the guy in front as he aimed for the buoy and got swept away from the buoy.  I did it in the low 19 mins.  I got the wetsuit off at the bottom and then ran up the hill, to where T1 was.  Including the run and wetsuit strip, my swim was in the top 10% (although most others seem to have taken there wetsuit off in T1, I still think it was a good idea to take it off before).

- Bike: Awesome.  My AP was 204W, NP=208W so I met my bike targets.  I felt very comfortable all the way through.  Some times I had to push the power a little to over take a few people who were riding fractionally slower.  I think the pacing was just right.  I am not sure I could have gone much faster without feeling worse for the run.  I did it in something like 2:33:30 which is much, much quicker than I expected.  I came something like 24% percentile (including T1 and T2) which, as I am not the fastest in transition is a big improvement for me (at IMUK I was something like 39% percentile for the bike).

- Run: First mile, fine.  Just after that two people fell off because they hit/avoided a pony.  This was about 50m in front of me so I helped out.  Someone with a car looked after them and so after a minute or so I carried on.  At 3 miles my feet started getting pins-and-needles.  By 4 miles they were pretty bad.  I started losing a little ground to someone who was in front of me.  When we got to the off-road bit my feet hurt a lot and I lost about 400m to that guy.  My feet hurt even more but my HR was steady at around 150 or so for the first lap.  There was great support going through Bucklers Hard to start the second lap.  The first lap took 56mins (exactly on plan if you ignore the 1 min stop). The plan was to increase the pace for the second lap but with my feet being painful that was hard to do.  I caught up to within 20m of the same guy and just left it there for about 500m.  Then my left foot just hurt like there was a big stone in the shoe.  I knew there wasn’t but I thought it might have been the stock so I pulled that up and then my left foot hurt big time.  I couldn’t keep running at the intensity I had been so I slowed a lot.  It hurt for the rest of the way around.  I loved running up the hill to the finish the support from the crowd was great.  I finished the run in 1hr58mins, having lost five minutes to the guy over the last 5 miles.  I think he must have slowed too because I was definitely going more than 1min per mile slower.  So, I came something like 43rd percentile.  This is worse than IMUK.  However, this was caused by my foot rather than by my fitness.  If I had stayed with the guy I was with, I would have finished around 30th percentile.

Overall: I came 27th percentile which is good, but I’d been hoping for a bit better.

How do I rate the race?  Great.  It was well organised, well marshalled and in a very nice location.