Cant really explain why it's taken me so long to get this race report finished. Narcolepsy?
I hope that you can stay awake long enough to read it!!!
Ironman Wales 2012 (10:12:34 - 3rd Female)
I arrived in Tenby early in the week before
the race, I most enjoy those first few days being at race site before the main
influx of triathletes come and take over the place. In Tenby the contrast is
most stark – the average age of visitor to the town at this time of year is
about 100, and this gave the place a very relaxed (sedated) vibe. Though you’d have been out of luck if you
hoped to find an unoccupied bench from which to enjoy a flask of tea in the
September sunshine to which we were being treated. Following the success of
last year’s race, the local area had really got behind the race; towns and
houses were adorned with Ironman Wales flags and banners, and coffee shops
stocked with “Ironman Specials” in anticipation of the weekend.
Being in place early gave me the
opportunity to ride the bike course, run on the run course and swim in sea.
Having prepared for but not started the race last year, I knew pretty well what
we were in for already but I always feel more prepared for a race the better I
know the details of the course. I’d remembered it being pretty brutal, and so it was a good
experience for me to ride around it on Wednesday, feeling very strong.
In particular I feel it was an advantage
for me to swim in the sea each morning in the hope that I would acclimatize to
the cold water. Not fond of swimming under normal circumstances, these
refreshing sea swims were really a joy for me – but unfortunately the effect of
cold water makes my hands cramp,
“claw” up in attempt to retreat up the sleeves of my wetsuit after only
about 15 minutes. This makes it pretty difficult to swim and was a concern. The
best I could do was get in the water for as long as possible every day -more swimming than I’d have liked to
have done pre-race but I feared the knock –on effect of disabled digits in
transition and the bike more than I did the slower swim time. Whether 4 days is sufficient time for
this adaption is unlikely, but the feeling that I was doing what I could to
improve my situation was important.
Race week quickly passed and before we knew
it, the town was an international buzz of triathletes, the shared language of
race wheels, pointy hats and compression socks. With the race site central to
the compact town of Tenby, pre race logistics were really easy for me as we’d
managed to get sea front accommodation within 500m of the finish line and
transition. This also enabled me to return to my room once I’d sorted my bike
on race morning for a final coffee before donning my wetsuit and making my way across
to the North beach swim start.
The professional athletes lined up knee
deep from the shore line start, with the 1500+ age groupers poised ready to
pounce from their position a few meters up the beach. In order to prevent
athletes cutting the swim course by running the shoreline towards the first
buoy ,an additional marker had been moored a couple of hundred meters directly
in front of the start line which we all had to swim around before taking the
direction of the first turn buoy. Although a much less ambiguous course layout
,this set us up for a very rough
first few minutes as the faster age-groupers caught the pro pack, and then
congested around the tight turn. I’m quite used to this, and aside from choking on waves, fear
of loosing my goggles the blows to the head and sudden appearance of rubber
limbs across my path, I am at least presented with a good choice of feet to
swim after and take advantage of. I
didn’t feel that I’d managed it particularly well on my first lap, with my mind
wandering and line drifting wide of the main mass of swimmers. I felt
comfortable but not very “on it” and frustrated at the frequency with which I
seemed to come into conflict with other swimmers. The lap felt like it was
taking an absolute eternity, so I was surprised and encouraged to be running
around the half way point in 27minutes. Despite a far greater feeling of focus
and rhythm for the second lap, I was about 2 minutes slower. Overall, 57
minutes is a fairly decent swim for me, but I knew that the likes of Hilary
Biscay would already be 10 minutes up the road already by the time I’d made my
way up the steep ramped beach exit, slipped on my shoes and begun the 1km dash
through town to transition. This quirky feature of the race was great fun – fantastic
for spectators and really helps to build a bit of an atmosphere to encourage athletes
for the long and tough bike ride ahead.
This is the part that I was most looking
forward to .I have been riding very strong on the bike since Roth, and have had
plenty of practice doing hard, hill sessions in some fairly gnarly weather
conditions as a result of training from my home in Somerset through a British
summer. I was hoping for the
toughest conditions that Pembrokeshire could provide, which would give me the
best chance of making up ground of the women ahead. The plan was to ride as
hard as I could for the first 1/3rd of the course and make up as
much ground as possible early on, before settling into a more steady middle
third ensuring that I was getting enough to eat and deal with the first round
of hills by smart gearing rather
than brute force .The final 1/3 is always just as hard as I can go…as long as I
have managed that middle section well.
I was pleased with how well I executed this, and had ridden from 7th
into 3rd place by the 2nd hour. Being in a podium
position kept me focused, and working solidly in the hope a catching a glimpse
of Eimer in her distinctive green race attire up ahead. I did not think she’d
have had much of a start on me after the swim (I was wrong - she swam
53minutes!!) but has demonstrated that she is a strong cyclist. I kept telling
myself that all it would take was for her to be feeling tired after a heavy
season of racing -this is no
course for the fatigued! – and kept pushing on. What I really should have been
thinking about was who was behind me though, as I was passed by Kristin Lie in
that final 1/3rd of the ride. Gutted. I kicked myself for having
eased off the pace (even though
this WAS planned, the plan had not assumed I’d be this far up the field) and from that point on – about the
4.5hr mark- did not let up the pace at any point ,just about able to keep her
in my sights. Logic told me that
to have passed me this late in the ride, she could only have been riding
marginally faster – and expending more energy in doing so. I was well on top of
my nutrition, and felt confident about all of the climbs having eased up them
all on the first lap. For sure, my legs ached now, but I was not going to give
up a podium finish and the extra cash that I’d receive as a reward. I caught and passed my friend Chris as
we neared the Narbeth, who I typically pass back and forth with during an
Ironman, told me that she was only about 90 seconds ahead. By this time it had
started to drizzle and the approach to Narbeth has a very fast descent into an
off-camber bend immediately followed by a stupidly steep climb. My least
favourite bit of road, but I’d practiced it a few times and knew what was
coming. Kristin was not so lucky -
as I rounded the corner and geared for the sharp climb out , I came across her
trying to get back on her bike, on the steepest part of the hill having dropped
her chain or something. She was clearly very frustrated and yelled at a
spectator to “Canst Sie Give Ich a Push” ….which he did, enabling her enough
momentum to re-mount the bike. Well, her hard luck was a gift for me, I bit
down on the bars, and was off. If she wanted to come by again she was going to
have to put in another supreme effort, and take some risks on the wet slippery
hills in the process to do so.
I held her off for the rest of the ride,
and entered T2 in 3rd place, about 6 minutes down on Eimer. It was
the fastest transition that I could manage having decided to wear compression
calves for the run because of a sprain that I’d picked up the previous day.
They don’t slip onto wet legs all that well! Dashing out with a big smiles from
race ref and fellow Somerset RC Tri member Paul Lester and a bar of Kendall
mint cake clutched n my hand, I had the company of a lady called Paula on a
mountain bike. Paula was obviously a well –known character from Tenby Bicycle
Club, and I think that she got almost as much support from the crowds that
lined almost the entire run course as I did! We didn’t, chat much on my first lap, partly because I was
unsure of the protocol having never had a bike with me before, but mostly
because I was running just about as hard as I could both up the long hill out
of town, and then back down it again into the headwind.
The design of the 4 –lap marathon route was
such that there were at least 4 places on each lap where you could get a time
check on anyone close to you. Eimer was far enough ahead that I was just
missing her on the first lap, but my sister and her boyfriend had positioned
themselves in the perfect position to time the gaps and relay the information
to me as I made my return past them a few minutes later. “am I doing enough to
hold her off?” I asked. Their answer did not deliver much joy –“only just”.
With lap one done, I felt that I’d got into a good rhythm for both the ups and
downs having run through all of the aid stations on the way. That’s where the
Kendall Mint cake came in – 400kcals in a very palatable format and didn’t
require a lot of water to wash it down meant that I didn’t need to stop. At the second turn-around things were
beginning to feel much harder, and I learned from my sister that although I’d
made small dent in Eimer’s lead over me, Kristin was chasing hard from behind.
I was lucky that I had Paula and plenty of support along the route from both
spectators and other competitors to keep me from a very dark place for the next
10km, as I could see for myself that she was closing in on me. By the time I
reached the third turn-around, I think my lead had shriveled to a mere handful
of seconds and even Paula, who had also been providing me with little bits of
information, started preparing her farewells. Thinking quickly, my sister
reminded me that if caught I could still fight back, and I prepared myself for
whatever pace she would pass me at. It’d taken her 25km to catch me, so it
wasn’t THAT fast, I reasoned. I’m
not exactly sure what happened then. I think it was a combination of that
thought process, the thought of handing over $500 after all this pain, and a
very helpful age-group girl (who was on her first or second lap) who gave me
encouragement to match her pace as she passed me. The result was that for just
long enough I picked up my pace for just long enough that Kristin was unable to
quite catch me, and must have lost hope of doing so. The next time we ran
through Tenby, up and down the hilly streets to a din of music and cheering,
each out-and back section revealed a little more breathing space. By that time
in the afternoon most people had started their marathon and the course was
getting rather congested. This is where having a lead bike really comes in
handy, as I was able to send Paula ahead of me, blowing her whistle and
shouting “lead runner coming through” ensuring that I had a clear run of the
narrow streets as I dug deep. It was awesome – every one that I passed, whether
they knew me or not, gave me a huge “well done” and stepped aside to let us
through. The final run up the hill
seemed as easy as the first, but I grabbed several gels just incase a fast
finish would be required. I knew that if challenged I’d be able to dig deeper
now that I was so close. It may sound a pathetic, the first woman had already
crossed the finish line at this point, but finishing in third place was important
to me – and was providing the motivation I needed to get the very best out of
myself at the end of such a long day.
I didn’t use my Timex GPS watch due to my
haste in T2, but it seems to be widely agreed by those who raced that the run
course was somewhere in the region of 2km short, so my 3:09 run split isn’t
quite as good as may seem – none-the-less, I am pleased to have felt strong for
most of it, and persisted when I didn’t. I feel that the terrain more-or less than compensates for the mis-measurement,
but it’s still a mystery to me that such an error can occur when there are 3
dead turns which should enable adjustment when the route is being checked. Not
that I’d have thanked anyone fro an extra 2km at the time!!
In all, a very enjoyable race, if you like
more challenging terrain and conditions. This one really gives value for money with bike splits
typically 10% slower than the “average” Ironman and the level of spectator support
and local interest from start of the week
and then from the start line to the finish on race day ranks amongst the
very best that I have experienced.
