I think the past 3 months of my life and certainly my family has been a very very busy one, to say the least. Moving house sale, packing up the house, moving country UK-Cyprus, racing Dubai 70.3, Joel settling into new school, generating work leads, athletes coming out to train and also training full time for Ironman South Africa. Wow, almost all of the biggest stresses in life just in 3 months.
Since Dubai 70.3 i have had some issues with Gluet Medius and never really got back to running freely, not pain but more discomfort and restriction in running gait. I have been working on it and even to the extent of introducing run/walk system to training 9min running @4:45/km then 1min walking @8:00/km looking to cover 2km minimum every 10min. Not the easiest of training sessions when fellow athletes see you walking every now and then even in training. However this was working towards looking for 3:30hr at the worst for IMSA.
Training to IMSA was good and certainly in an environment that was very similar to Port Elizabeth, based out of Pafos Cyprus I was limited a little to pool access but always had the sea to transfer a session to. The biking was awesome along the coast road putting in the set reps and tempos and certainly pushing myself against some of the windy conditions in February March. Running was something that i have started to increase for the brick sessions and no longer than 2hrs due to the Guet issues.
IRONMAN SOUTH AFRICA
It was a long journey flying Cyprus-Gatwick-Heathrow-Jo Burg- Port Elizabeth, no hassles with luggage on all airlines and no bike weight allowance/breakages/delays issues on any of the flights. I travelled with fellow Pro athlete Oliver Simon and also I had arranged for us to stay at a family friend of ours 5km from Race HQ. It was good to be able to travel with Oliver as it certainly helped to race week train together and also support each other on last minute race gips or briefs etc. The training for race week was more for me to get climatised and certainly get my bearings on the course. Climatising was difficult one as we went from being drench in african storms in 19 deg C on the Tuesday to the weather hotting up to race Day Sunday 35 deg C.
I had an issue with my Power Pedals failing on me and after a lot, five, of trips to the bike shop i gave in and was not able to race with power. One very positive decision i made during the week was to purchase an aero road helmet , as my Sworks Maclaren has no vents on it.
RACE DAY
I lined up with 37 other Pro men, strong field but no out right winner was the favourite. The swim start was fast, but i certainly held my own (11th from the left in pic). The waves were not big but there was a swell so once into my stroke it was as though you were swimming 40miles out to sea. 300m out to sea then left turn and a full 1600 down to bottom end of the course. I managed to find feet for some of the out section but with the swell there was very little advantage to draft and difficulty sighting. I knew I was starting to fatigue from the swell for the last 500m to T1 so just composed my self and stroke and pushed on. Not a great swim 1:02 as i went 56min in Barcelona last year, however all the swim splits were 3-5min slower than normal.
T1- went smoothly and I road out of town ready to get it going and riding to Perceived effort & HR as power meter was broken.
Aero Road Helmet was a Race week purchase and definitely didn’t regret this as temperature rose through the day max reading on the course was 36deg C. Also racing in my 2016 Zone3 Lava Speed Top long sleeve – Functional fabric with optimum temperature control. It was perfect for this climate allowing me to squirt water on to the fabric if required to aid in cooling.
2 lap course 90km each, the road was really bad for most of the course and the bottom end of the course was the worst, sapping a lot out of you #parisroubaix . I lost my rear bottle cage at 20km into the bike but managed to grab my bottles from it before it hit the floor, stuffed the bottle in my rear pockets on my Zone3 Top. I made the turn at the end of the course 45km in 1:13hr and felt ok , on the return leg the wind was more a head wind so i just concentrated on holding a smooth cadence as best as i could. Completing the 1st lap 90km in 2:30hr. No dramas for the outbound 2nd loop turning in another 1:15hr, however on my return leg with about 30km to go I got stung on top of the quad- groin bound – by a bee. Not that i am allergic or went into shock, but it certainly made me stop due to the adrenaline and 145km of racing in the body. I was able to get some ice from the feed station to reduce the swelling. However no dramas just lost about 3min, but i was starting to fade after that to T2 for the last 30km. The heat was starting to get to me.
Once again not a great bike split 5:15hr, but was determined to get out on the run and implement the run/walk structure to get through the marathon with what training i had in my legs.
The famous phrase in any long distance event is “I was on for ……..” and it is very difficult to avoid saying that. However I had a plan that was working very well up to 17km and then the no matter what or who was cheering you on the side of the 4 lap run course with spectators bbq beer and loud voices cheering you on my run/walk became a walk walk walk run ………. The heat was now well and truly on 1pm – 4pm. I had a chance to see some of the other Pro men on the run and they certainly looked how I felt, but only the top 5 guys were running very well. I was determined to finish and not let the only Ironman in Africa beat me.
This was my 2nd slowest marathon in an IM 4:18hr ,bringing me home in a 10:41hr – 1hr off what I was after. 29th Pro Man African Ironman Championships, South Africa.
