Sorry for the long blog post, but it was a long race and there was so much more I could have included.
The whole winter the only goal I head to push through the endless hours on the trainer was to qualify for Kona at Ironman Los Cabos. For this reason I was also slightly more nervous coming into the race than previous races. In addition to that I had a slight cold for about 3 weeks which never quite went away. Other than that it wasn’t all that different from other races except race morning. Once I was in transition and was supposed to get some last pre-race fueling down I wasn’t hungry anymore. I couldn’t eat the power bar and decided to just have a gel 15min before the start. Unfortunately, the Gel was in the bag I gave to Amy. So I was at the starting line without any Gel. Not that it mattered since my stomach wasn’t in a happy place anyway. This race allowed for a warm up in the ocean which I took advantage of, I only swam 2-3 min. But it was nice to get the wetsuit and goggles wet and get the blood in the arms moving.
The original line up strategy for me was 2nd row in the middle of the field. But there were lots of people. Even more to the right, the reason being the swell. The race organizer mentioned that the waves are much smaller to the right. So I changed my mind and went all the way to the very left. I thought I rather deal with big waves than with lots of people fighting for a very compact space. The swim start was a short run of 20 meters down the beach into the water and then 500m straight to the first left turn buoy. I lined up in 2nd row after trading places with a guy aiming for a 90min swim time. 🙂
Swim Start, background first wave
Swim:
The start horn sounded and we were off. The one thing I realized was that a wave was incoming. I sprinted faster and took a couple quick strokes to clear the top of the wave before it broke behind me. I soon reached the first turn and tried to get some extra air before the turn just in case I get pushed down again. I didn’t stop around the turn and just kept going which worked out okay. Couple minutes later everything settled, people around me were a similar pace and I started to relax and tried to focus on my stroke and moving forward. *Whack* out of nowhere, I had a hand in my face. Well shouldn’t let my guard down completely, I guess one is never safe with so many swimmers around. All in all people were swimming straight. The real difficulty seemed to be sighting with the waves. Most often I could only see to the next buoy and sometimes not even that far. I just mostly followed the other swimmers, kayaks and boats. A couple times I was able to draft of someone feet for a while but then lost them again. I knew that it wouldn’t be a fast swim and coming out of the water I saw the race clock with 1:08. I wasn’t too upset I figured everybody was in the same boat with these conditions. I just focused on the task at hand and tried to get through transition quickly.
T1:
Ocean Swim
I ran along the beach up the stairs into the changing tent. There wasn’t really a good way to get rid of the sand on my feet since there wasn’t enough carpet on the ground or no place to clean the feet. Since I didn’t want to waste much time I just jumped with the sandy feet into the bike shoes. Luckily it didn’t bother me too much through the race. I went trough T1 in under 4 minutes.
Bike:
Out of T1 we had to go uphill over cobble stone which was a little “iffy” since people were in the wrong gear, not clipped in and generally riding all over the place. With yelling and making myself heard I managed to get past them and ended up on the main road without incident. There was a pretty strong wind and people in front of me were pushing a really fast pace. I tried to ignore them and the few riders who overtook me and focus on my task at hand. Get nutrition in! I knew I was behind from the morning and with the heat it was crucial that I drank enough that I could pee. I drank almost twice as much in the first hour than I normally would while riding slightly on the conservative side. After about 50min I started to go a little harder but I was amazed that I was pretty much riding alone already normally that would only happened in the later stages of the race so that felt pretty good. Once I was back in Los Cabos 1:40h into the ride, I dropped my chain. It was my fault, without thinking I just switched both chain rings at the same time. Fixing it only took me only a couple seconds, but from then on my power meter didn’t work anymore. This was right before the first long uphill on the toll road where I would need the power information the most. Too cool myself for the hill I poured water over my head and back. To make matters worse, this apparently took out my heart rate too. The only thing left for me was to climb the whole hill by perceived exertion. I knew I couldn’t go too hard to burn too many matches but also didn’t want to lose too much time. So I just put in the lowest gear and spun up that hill what felt like a good pace to me. The hilly toll road continued up for a while than down on the other side were we turned around to tackle the hills once more. I was slowly getting worried that I wasn’t drinking enough since I still haven’t peed yet. Only a little later 2.5h into the race I finally managed to pee. After a long decent into Los Cabos I reached the halfway point around 2:45h on my watch. This was pretty much according to plan and I wasn’t too worried considering the hot temperatures and the strong wind.
From then on I focused on cooling myself with pouring water over myself (especially on the hills) to keep my core temperature down and getting all my fueling in. To my surprise I had no problem with my stomach and could eat everything according to plan. But my motivation wasn’t top notch. With no power meter and the heart rate not working properly it was hard to ride hard without risking doing too much damage for the run. The wind was pretty tough and I really noticed how strong it was once I was at the turn around to Cabo San Lucas. I rode the same speed downhill into the wind as back up with the wind in my back.
Than finally happened what I expected to happened I started passing people again without going harder. Some of them started to pay their dues for going too hard early on. I overtook at least 10 people in my age group (marked with D on the calf). Not to mention all the other people I passed. At that point my spirit started to improve a little. and I was wondering how many people would fall apart on the run. Once back in Los Cabos we had to go up the toll road again and back. There it became even more obvious that some people already had spent all their horses. The back on the toll road was a little bit of a mind game since the wind was blowing quiet strong. But before long I was back in town and searching the turn for T2 which was a little bit unclear from the map. The last road to T2 was one of the worst roads so far, despite of that I tried to take off my shoes here which I eventually managed to do that I could jump off the bike bare feet.
I finished my bike ride in 5:38 only a few min slower than expected. Average temperature for the bike was 30C.
T2:
Super quick transition (86 seconds) the only time I wasted was to get some more sunscreen on my body.
Run:
Together with me there were two more from my age groupers leaving the transition and starting the run. At that point I only noticed the one since I was in second position. But I told myself to take it easy and stick to the plan. Later in the day is time to focus on competition. The person in front of me dropped back behind me to tie his shoe and I just focused on myself. The plan was to start with a 7:15min/mile no faster! I really tried to take it easy but I still ended up running a 7:05min/mile. I tried to go a little slower and settled in my HR Zone. After 3 miles the same guy overtook me right in an aid station. I called for ice but the volunteers had only one cup ready so he took that first cup and I didn’t get any. To my surprise he turned around and handed me 2 ice cubes which was nice of him. It was hard to let him pass and not get drawn into racing. I let him go but to my surprise he slowed down after a mile and at mile 6 I overtook him again. I was thinking that he was done and I wouldn’t see him again. I used ice and water to cool my body every mile to make the temperatures manageable.
At mile 8 shortly before finishing the first lap I wanted to walk, my motivation was gone and my legs felt tired. I was a little surprised that the tiredness came that early, but there was no way I would walk. Within 1-2miles I felt better again and kept pushing. After about 15miles I started to drink coke. The problem was that they served it in tiny cups and you would need a couple to get a decent amount which I didn’t have time for. On the first two laps I overtook a handful of people from my age group which certainly was a motivation boost each time. I was happy when I was able to start the last loop but to my surprise the same guy overtook me again and this time quite faster than I was running. A couple miles later a second person from my age group overtook me and asked me in what position we were to which I had no idea. I was only thinking IF I had a shot at Kona I would need to pass these two people. I was running behind him for a bit but was starting to hurt. I really wanted to walk and when he slowed down to walk up a steep section, my brain gave in and I decided to walk the same part he was walking. Once on top of the bridge I was running again. This was all with 4 miles to go. At the next aid station I walked again to finally pee. I was uncomfortable during the run and finally felt so much better once my bladder was empty. Some random guy overtook me and said I should run with him. We stuck together for a while and eventually I was able to drop him. I walked 1-2 more times at an aid station but mainly to get nutrition in. I was ready to be done and was super exited once I came to the finish chute. I was so spent that I didn’t even see my girlfriend or noticed much. The only thing I heard was “You are an Ironman”. The first time I actually heard these words. So that was cool! I finished the marathon in 3:23 which was certainly slower than expected.
Overall I finished the race in 10:16:22 which was 10th place in my age group. Since I head this huge expectations I was very disappointed.
I might have been able to hold off these two guys if I had a better race but that would only put my in 8th place and there were only 4 slots. The realization that with this competition on that day I was simply not good enough to qualify is a hard one to swallow. Especially after all the work I put in and the sacrifices I made. 3 days after the race I was still hurting, I think I was never that sore after a race.
At the awards ceremony I spoke to Chris (9th place in my age group, he was the one who overtook me late) as it turns out we will both be competing for a slot at Ironman Whistler.
Obviously, I tried to enjoy Los Cabos once I finished the Ironman. As proof here a picture from swimming with dolphins. If that guy only could have helped me during the swim 🙂
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