Ironman Mark

Swim: there was quite a strong current while we were waiting for the start so I started swimming towards the far bank when the horn sounded and we were off, swimming straight into the sun.  Almost immediately I got an elbow to the nose but carried on swimming.  I now have a bruise where the nose bridge of the goggles go.  At the time I wondered if there was blood, but there wasn’t.

I followed the bubbles of the person in front of me but had absolutely no idea where I was going, the sun was so bright. I only spotted the turn around buoy about 30 metres away.  I knew that it was into a strong current so I pushed quite hard on the out lap.

Round the buoy I took another elbow in the face.  No worries this time.  I took the swim easy on the way back. It felt like it took a quarter of the time to get back to the start of the lap.

I pushed the effort up for the out leg on second out lap and took a tactical decision to follow someone towards the left rather than straight up the middle. I figured that the current would be less close in.  Good decision. I started over taking people still on the first lap almost immediately. I am not sure if they started late but if they did start with us, they would have been in there a looooong time.  The breast strokers were the first to be overtaken.  Then the backstrokers and finally the front crawl people.

I stayed a bit too far away from the guy who went left most of the way to the turn around.  I just could get close enough to make it easy but I did have bubbles to follow.  I knew someone was following me as they kept tapping my feet.  Towards the end of the third leg I went a bit wrong trying to work out where the turn around buoy was (sun was still too bright and in the way) and my feet got away.

I ran up the hill taking my goggles and arms out.  I was going well so I carried on up the hill with the wetsuit around my waist.  I lost a few places in T1 as I sat there putting my shoes on.

Swim + T1 was 36:35.  This is 5th percentile.   Not bad.

Bike: My heart rate was very high at the start.  I felt slow.  My neck hurt.  I knew I was under trained on the bike.  And I felt it.  And like normal, loads of people screamed by me.  Knowing I was under-prepared made me feel bad.

The second lap was much better and only a few people went by.   A group built up going past a horse that was out of control (its rider only just stayed on).    I then tried to stay with them but not to draft.  Almost everyone looked honest, although there was one person who was consistently closer than I thought fair.

Every now and then the gap in front of the person I was (legally) following grew to big and so I sped up and over took them before following back in line.  It is the first time that I had ridden in a triathlon like that.  It was much more fun.  I was concentrating on riding rather than feeling bad.

The difference can be seen in my appallingly lower power: AP=185W NP=191W (VI = 1.03) Av HR =151 before the horse incident.

After the horse, it was: AP=180W, NP=197W (VI=1.09) av HR=148W

The forest is so wonderful to ride and we even got to go by the beach. There must have been some thirsty people out there as there were lots of bottles on the road (esp by the cattle grids).

Time: 2:28:53 = 41st percentile  - Not too bad I suppose but not surprising bearing in mind how little I have seen my time.

Run: Hot, very hot. Did the first lap ok in 55:10 (just under 5 mins per km).  I stopped once to put the timing band over my sock as it was digging in.

Like normal my left foot started to get pins and needle.  Noticed it properly at 29mins 30.  Typical.  Then it got worse but I carried on.

At the end of the first lap I pushed the effort because of the crowd.  Then I kept up the pace for the next three miles but I went too hard and had to slow. It was hot and I was drinking less than half a cup of water at the aid stations.  I eased off a bit.  Then a bit more. My heart rate still in the 160′s even now.

Just before we got on to a downhill path I decided to stop and get a big drink.  And then another.  Then I carried on.  Two miles to go.  Then my tummy played and I walked 20m, to the next shadow.   Down the rest of the hill and I turned the corner and walked another 20m.  A bit later another 20m.  I spoke to someone wearing TriTalk kit and after that had to carry on running.  Eventually I got to the bottom of the hill and sprinted up it.  I felt bad over taking someone running to the finish with their son.  But I did.

I got quite a few blisters on my left foot because of the pins and needles.

Time: 1:53:03 for the 14 miles.  2mins 30 more for T2.  This was 31st percentile.  That’s good.

There was no official time for my run but this is based on my GPS time and also knowing where I finished compared with three other people.  So I might be a few seconds out but it is not too far out.

Overall: 5:00:50.  That’s 23rd percentile.  OK.  I need to practice the bike more.

Today’s been a rest day.  I ache all over.

Since drafting this I heard that Tim Wilks died on the second lap of the run.   It really puts things into perspective.  I don’t think I have met Tim but I may well have passed him while he was still on his first lap.  I left the Bucklers Hard before I heard anything about it.  My best wishes to his family and friends as well as those (like Mrs Mash) who helped him.

As I said, this was written before I heard this…

Had a great race. Like everything else with Race New Forest, the weather was very well organised. My car said 26C on the way home! Summer is here!

Swim: there was quite a strong current while we were waiting for the start so I started swimming towards the far bank when the horn sounded and we were off, swimming straight into the sun. I followed the bubbles of the person in front of me but had absolutely no idea where I was going, the sun was so bright. I only spotted the turn around buoy about 30 metres away.

I took the swim easy on the way back. It felt like it took a quarter of the time to get back to the start of the lap. I pushed the effort up for the second out lap and took a tactical decision to follow someone towards the left rather than straight up the middle. Good decision. I started over taking people almost immediately on the second lap. Not sure if they started late but if they did start with us, they would have been in there a looooong time.

I stayed with him for most of the way to the turn around but I went a bit wrong trying to work out where the turn around buoy was and he got away.

Bike: Felt very under trained for the first lap as people bombed by me. The second lap was much better and only a few people went by. The forest is so wonderful to ride and we even got to go by the beach. There must have been some thirsty people out there as there were lots of bottles on the road (esp by the cattle grids).

Run: Hot, very hot. Did the first lap ok. Then pushed the effort up for the next three miles but went too hard. I eased off a bit and then lost quite a bit of time in the last two miles. I’d got very thirsty and was looking forward to an aid station at the run/bike junction but it wasn’t there on the second lap! I ran to the next one and drank two cups of water too quickly and so felt a little sick and slowed a lot. Mrs Mash took the mick out of my running yet again.

No idea of the time yet. Didn’t start my watch until I got to Beaulieu.

Definitely recommend it for next year.

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.