The lead in to this race had been fine until a couple of weeks before the race. I had a suspected stress fracture in my leg and so based on professional advice my race was ‘off’. I took advantage of this time to catch up with friends and ‘socialise’. Ie: go out, have fun and drink a lot of alcohol. I still planned to travel to Barcelona and have a holiday and watch the race and support other friends and my coach who was also racing.
Then 5 days before the race I got the results of my scan back and it wasn’t a stress fracture at all, I’d had shin splints. So this was great news and now the race was back on. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone out ‘consoling’ myself as much as I had.
I had rested my leg and it felt fine but I wouldn’t run on it properly until the race. I then had to ride and swim a bit to try and minimise lost fitness.
I arrived in Barcelona and travelled to Calella, an hour north of Barcelona where the race was to be held. Having done a recce here, it was a lovely familiar feeling and I began to get excited about racing now.
Race morning I got up with my alarm at 5.45am. Barcelona is a really late start for an Ironman race (8.20am), usually it’s 7am (or in Bolton it’s 6am)
After the usual breakfast, walking the km to the swim start, checking my bike and getting wetsuited up I felt great and was just keen to get on with it now.
The music as we stood on the beach was great, god bless Ironman for putting on a show, it really got us all going and I felt quite pumped with adrenaline. Then we were off, the rolling swim start is advantageous to me as I don’t like swimming in a big pack.
The swim was uneventful, I got caught a few times behind groups of slower swimmers who obviously were more hopeful about what time they were going to swim than realistic. Note to self, position myself higher up and stop going at the back of the pen in future races.
The swim felt quite slow but I do take it easy. I think if you go off too quickly or burn too many matches in the swim, you’re burnt out in the run later on. I had set myself goals of overall time 10.20 (swim 1:07/ bike 5:30/ run 3:45). These were the aims but I’d be happy with anything under 10 and half hours.
I was pleased to exit the water in 1:07, that had felt about the right time I’d been swimming and I knew some of my swim fitness had gone.
I ran to where my bike bag should be and the peg was empty. I started shouting ‘someone has taken my bike bag, who’s got 443 bike bag’ and then I saw it about 5 pegs down. Some girl had obviously picked up the wrong bag (easily done because only one in every 5 pegs had a number on it instead of each one) but then she hadn’t even put it back on my peg. This made me a little mad because I’d done exactly the same thing in the 70.3 Worlds in Australia but when I ran back I made sure I put it back on the right peg. This had cost me precious time.
Onto the bike and I just got the head down, settled into a rhythm and tap tapped along the road. It was a pretty boring route but I like this because my bike handling skills are pretty non existent. However, I go well in a straight line. I can push the bike hard but throw in a corner or a descent and my handling skills are pretty non existent. I took a gel every 40 mins and kept taking water from the aid stations. I had Torq energy powder on the bike.
As usual you get to play ‘cat and mouse’ with certain people who are roughly the same speed as you, as you have your individual moments of energy bursts or little rough patches. I noticed a guy in an all white tri suit (note to fellas, please stop wearing these, it’s not a good look) and in between trying not to look at his arse crack hairs (hard to miss in white) I saw he had a tendency to wiggle all over the road and swerve a bit. I thought to myself I’d stay away from him. The wind picked up on the second lap and it made the last 20kms into town quite a push. I’d done the first lap (90km) in two and half hours and thought I was going too quickly. I slowed it down a bit on the way back as I wanted to keep some in the tank for the marathon. I was wearing a bright pink Betty Designs Trisuit with “Badass is beautiful” written on the bum. A guy went past me and asked me if it said ‘lardass’, I could hardly stop laughing and told him it was ‘badass’ lol. The next time I passed him, I told him he would be in my blog. You have to take these little moments to have a bit of a laugh with people as its such a long day for us all. Quite often I make little comments to people but I think not everyone gets my sense of humour.
Then I spotted white trisuit/ hairy arse crack man and as I passed him I saw he was quite bloodied up. Obvs he’d had an accident but at least he was alright and still going. He might learn not to swerve all over the road now and take care of people around him.
I made it back to town in a total bike time of 5:07 and I felt great. No aches and pains and I felt like I could have gone faster.
Quick change of the shoes into gutties and off on the run. The legs felt really slow but apparently I did the first 10km in 48 mins so I was running well enough off the bike. In the first few kms a guy said to me ‘fuck me, you can run as well’ which I thought was really nice. A weird thing happens though, in IM Brazil and here in Barcelona when I got off the bike for the first hour on the run I couldn’t feel my left leg and it was all pins and needles. Eventually it came good though but I had no shin problems. The second lap was good as well. Then the third and last lap I really felt slower. I knew I was in third place and I saw the girl in second at the turnaround points. Usually I finish strongly and I can run people down but I really slowed up on the last lap and couldn’t quite manage it. Possibly a combination of some lost run fitness before the race when I had the shin splints and a very fast bike time just taking its toll on the legs.
I’d seen my coach out on the bike course and the run course and it was so lovely to have his encouragement. I was easy to spot in my bright pink suit lol. The support from the crowd was great as well. If you give a little back to them, a smile, little wave or even a funny grimace, they tend to remember you on the next laps.
I was so pleased to finally get to the magic carpet for the fourth and last time. As others in front of me passed it and went on to do another lap, I turned onto it and really enjoyed the last couple hundred metres. I passed the finish line and saw my time 10:14. I couldn’t believe it. My run time was slower than I’d wanted (3:53 instead of 3:45 but with such a fast bike split I had time in the bag).
So I’d smashed my overall goal time and this time would have won my age group last year but this year was only good enough for third. I was 4 mins behind second but there was only one slot for Kona in my age group so this was irrelevant. I’d achieved my much wanted podium place and ironman trophy.
I can put to bed now my last race of the year and a bloody great year. I’ve made such fantastic inroads on my cycling as it was always my achillies heel but now I can say Im pretty strong on the bike. This is down to the horrible sessions set by my slightly sadistic coach Darren Jenkins. He’s definitely the coach to have if you want to work on your bike or run. I have made such amazing improvements in these in the two years now of being with him. So I can take this confidence and progress into 2017 and it’ll be back to South Africa on 2nd April where I have some unfinished business.