Ironman Lanzarote race reoprt

Every race I do I like to take time to reflect and evaluate on my performance so I can learn and develop from the experience – and wow what an experience! So here is my Ironman Lanzarote 2013 race report....

Lead up to race

Laura my Wife, Ollie my training partner and I arrived in Lanzarote on Tuesday 14^th May, nearly 4 full days before the race. Tuesday was spent building the bikes, getting settled in and going out for a 40km cycle to ensure there were no issues with the bikes. Following the cycle Ollie and I had a 30min run on the race course. I felt great both cycling and running and was able to run race pace with ease, no issues what so ever. I was in high spirits for the race.

On Wednesday Ollie and I did not exercise we just registered for the race at Club La Santa on the other side of the island.  We took the opportunity to drive some of the bike course to refresh our memories of it. The course was now sign posted in preparation for the race. Much to our amazement we found there were a few small sections in the first 40km that we had not interpreted correctly and as such had practiced a slightly different opening route, no disaster but just shows how easily mistakes can be made! Registration is always a process I find interesting, you get to see all the other athletes. Ages and experience are varied but the majority of the athletes look in great condition and it is easy for self doubt to creep in. This is where I try to remind myself of my experience and my previous good results.

On Thursday Ollie and I swam a loop of the race course and practiced some beach starts and exits that we would need to do in the race. This was a lot of fun and again made me feel more at ease and confident I was well prepared. After this we had a few hours relaxing on the beach taking care not to over expose ourselves to the sun. In the afternoon Ollie and I headed out on our bikes again, just for an hour this time at an easy pace, following this we ran for 25mins, the race course was being set up as we ran so this was quite exciting and gave us a feel for what we would experience on race day. 

Friday was check in day so the morning was spent organising kit into transition bags and doing the last checks which included a 15min spin on the bike to ensure things like brakes and gears were all working smoothly. All was good. Check in went smooth, Ollie and I racked bags and walked the transition zone picking markers to help identify our positions, following this I felt ready. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing, foam rolling and having the pre race dinner which was Lasagna for me, I know not a Paleo meal but it is low fibre, high energy and easily digestible for me. I went to bed around 20.30 and read for 30mins before dropping off. As expected sleep was less than average!

Race morning

My alarm was set for 04.45, although as usual I woke before the alarm! I stayed in bed until it went off anyhow, then I set about the routine of putting on the race kit, sunscreen and having breakfast. I had the usual nerves and chomped away at my breakfast, it went down easier than normal so I squeezed in an extra protein bar, something I now believe could have been a potential issue.

After breakfast I headed to the race start and did the last preparations to the bike, such as inflate tyres, clip on shoes and leave out helmet and sun glasses which I wasn’t sure I would need as it was raining quite hard!! I was concerned about the rain making the bike course slippery, in particular some of the steep descents. I brushed the concern aside quickly though as weather is an uncontrollable and is the same for everyone, so there was nothing I could do.

Race

At 06.45 I had my wetsuit on and had a quick warm up swim in the sea to get acclimatised to the temperature and open out the lungs. I was ushered out onto the beach with other swimmers just before the start. I position myself at the front but got into some jostling that left me about 3 swimmers back. I was not concerned about this as I had a line picked and was ready to go.

Swim: A beach start with 2 loops of 1900m with a land exit in between loops

On the gun I sprinted to the sea and jostled for some clear water for a dive, I got some okay space but had lots of contact which was simply unavoidable, I got a few elbows, feet slaps, and clips around the head but nothing major. I hammered the first 160m to the first turn buoy where the pack funneled causing lots of contact, I got a good few mouthfuls of water and a few push downs on my feet and hips which I reacted to by kicking violently to help me pull away and intimidate the swimmer behind. As planned I got into a rhythm along the lengthy straights and felt good, certainly not bad but not exceptional either. I focused on swimming a tight line around the course and pretty much achieved this except for a few occasions where I got boxed in by other swimmers which slowed me down a touch and deviated me slightly of course.  I felt I was holding a good pace and was pleased to see 29mins on the race clock at the halfway beach exit, which I felt I did exceptionally well along with my second run in and dive. I did feel quite anaerobic at the start of the second loop but again settled into a rhythm

having minimal contact with other swimmers. About a quarter of the 
way into the second loop I saw an opportunity to draft a swimmer close by and pushed to get on their feet, upon getting up to their feet I went to sight to ensure we were on a good line and got a huge mouthful of water that timed with my inhale going straight into my lungs, this was not nice at all and a few years back would have caused me to panic, stop, cough and splutter, but experience has enabled me to deal with this on the move. I exited the swim and saw that the time was 59mins so made haste to cross the timing mat before the 1 hour mark. My primary goal was to swim 58mins however it is always a secondary goal to achieve a sub 1 hour swim and I have done so on many occasions however on bad swim days or poor conditions I sometimes go just over the hour. 

Overall it was a solid swim that put pretty much on schedule with my race goal, it was not a personal best but it was no shocker for me either.

Bike: 1 loop of 180km with approximately 2500m climbing

My Transition went to plan, I was methodical, finding my swim to bike bag with no problems, particularly with some guidance from a very helpful volunteer. In the change tent I stripped my wetsuit quick, had a brief towel down and put on my arm coolers whilst another volunteer applied sunscreen to my shoulders, lastly I grabbed my nutrition and run to find my bike where I slid on my helmet and sun glasses. I had a smooth mount getting my feet swiftly into the pre clipped shoes and begun the bike leg. I planned to ease into the bike and conserve energy over the first 60km ready to push after this, as such I started easy, however after 5km/10mins into the ride there was a left turn sending me up a short incline into the wind. I went to push up this short climb and found my legs pushed back! They did not respond at all, they felt like I had done a big ride the day before and had some fatigue in them, particularly my right quad which was tight and felt like it was being poked. This was really confusing and I must admit I started to worry. I had to deal with it so I decided to gear down, spin it out and hope that the legs would come good. Around 15mins I started my nutrition intake, here I had another shock when after 30 seconds or so of taking the first gel I did a small mouth vomit, not a full vomit by any means, however it was a signal that the nutrition was not welcomed by my stomach, which also begun to twinge slightly. I was now a touch worried and had little choice but to continue to bike conservatively in the hope things would come good. To be honest the first 40km were a real slog, I couldn’t seem to generate any power and felt mentally sluggish.  My training partner Ollie also passed me in this time which was a touch surprising for both of us for two reasons, one, Ollie is a much better swimmer than I am and was expected to hit the bike course before me and two, the expectation was I would bike quicker than Ollie. As it turned out Ollie had a shocker with his goggles in the swim requiring him to stop loads, this meant I just nipped him coming out of transition so he was behind me, but then was cycling well to pass me. Ollie and I had pretty much agreed prior to the race we would not speak to each other if we passed each other or if we did we would not expect a response. When Ollie did pass me no words were spoken. I was certainly confused and after speaking to him post race he was as well, he was not expecting to pass me and was concerned he was biking too hard when he passed me.

After a long fast descent into El Golfo I felt I might be getting my energy back, I passed lots of people on the descent including Ollie and my spirits lifted a bit. 10 or so minutes later we were on another climb and again I found my legs were not generating power well and Ollie passed me back. We then climbed for the next 40mins which included fire mountain which is a long gradual climb into the wind where you can see the road disappear into the mountains, As I climbed this I watched a bunch of triathletes which included Ollie pull away from me, I tried to respond and chase after them but simply had nothing! I was by no means cycling slow relative to the rest of the field however I was by my standards, my bike is my best weapon which was simply not working, The rest of the ride was a struggle, I did have moments where I felt slightly better and after 80km I was able to trickle in nutrition without any sickness but generally I was sighing a lot and at one point thought I might fall asleep on my bike! If I was video’d round the course I would have been caught shaking my head in confusion on a number of occasions.

The conditions on the bike were good and the morning rain cleared after 40km. There was the usual Lanzarote wind as expected but to me it did not feel any worse than I had experienced when training on the island.

One thing of note on the bike leg was when I witnessed the worst bike crash I have ever seen. Descending down from Mirador del Rio which is one of the highest points on the course I was overtaken when travelling between 65-70km/h (I last looked at my Polar cycle computer at 66km/h) by a triathlete who was clearly very confident and taking some risks, he was about 50-60m in front of me as we hit a sharp corner and he got it wrong, I saw his front wheel go into a wobble then he smashed into a metal barrier, his bike splintered apart, wheels and carbon went everywhere and he flew over the barrier down a 15-20ft drop onto rocks! I couldn’t believe my eyes, I immediately sat up and slowed right down, a spectator on the corner run over to the crash site and as I cycled past I debated stopping, I glanced back at the spectator who made eye contact with me and put his thumb up which I took to mean he was okay dealing with the situation or that the triathlete was okay. A triathlete that was between me and the triathlete that crashed saw the whole thing even closer and was clearly in quite a bit of shock he was just free wheeling in a daze, I cycled up close and put my hand on his shoulder and let him know I thought the triathlete was okay, just down the road I passed a support car and informed them of the crash, I then cracked on with my ride.

Run: 3 loops (1x 21km, 2x 10.6km) making up 42.2km

On arrival at T2 I was relieved to get off my bike yet was pleased with myself for battling with myself mentally and mustering up a ride that was sub 6hrs on such a tough course. At this point I was also very unsure how my legs would be on the run but know from experience that your bike legs do not necessarily carry over to your run legs so I had some hope that they may come good on the run.

As I run out of transition I checked my pace which was a touch quick at 13.5km/h so I immediately reigned myself back to target race pace of 12km/h. My legs felt a touch heavy but this was nothing more than usual for a T2, I was now more confident the legs might come good. At about 6km, I was in a nice rhythm and my legs did feel okay, my stomach was behaving and I was able to consume my shot blocs and water as planned. Ollie passed me at about this point and looked strong and on pace for his target run time of 3hrs 15mins, again we only gave each other the slightest of acknowledgements as neither of us dare come out of our ‘focus states’ which go some way to minimising the discomfort. At 15km my legs were starting to feel it and my pace was starting to drop, I focused on my technique and mantra’s but did not manage to find enough mental strength to pull myself back to race pace.  After 20km I needed to wee so I decided to nip into a portiloo. I walked for 1min after this and consumed some water, I resumed running and felt better for about another 1-2km then the fatigue crept back and it was a run/walk slog until the finish. From 20km I could see myself losing considerable time against my target pace of 12km/h (5mins per km), with each km it also became an increasing physical and mental battle to keep running, there was lots of leg fatigue but it also felt more central, I was simply exhausted but yet I did not feel under fuelled like I did in Florida. One big plus point was my feet did not blister so the new trainers worked on this occasion.

I crossed the line with a run time of 3hrs 55mins and a total time of 11hrs 5mins.

Overall

Unfortunately this was far from the race performance I was after, I wanted somewhere between 10hrs 15mins and 10hrs 30mins (something like a 5hr 45min bike and a 3hr 35min run). This said I was pleased with my effort and my will to continue given I did not feel great on race day. In 13 races I can only recall one other time I have felt that bad on the bike and that was Ironman Wales when I bonked from under fuelling.

Post race recovery 

Some might assume after an Ironman that you would sleep well - for me this is not the case and I do not believe it is for Ollie either. Personally I have broken sleep, tend to twitch an awful lot, have weird dreams and wake up the next morning with very sore legs and something like a hangover! Recovery is a slow process and for me starts with mental recovery! I usually begin this with some excessive eating and drinking which was easily achieved in Lanzarote! For physical recovery I use various techniques such as active recovery, compression, cold baths, massage, trigger point therapy and a gradual increase in activity over a two week period to get back into training - I will be doing a post on recovery techniques shortly.

What’s next? 

Next up I have Ironman Frankfurt in approximately 7 weeks time on the 7th July. This is a race I have done before a couple of years ago. I went 10hrs 8mins previously so am looking to improve on that race performance. More to come on this......

Short Evaluation

With Ironman Frankfurt in mind and 7 weeks to progress I will now consider and act on the following:

• 1 week active recovery - unstructured training, do by feel, focus on retrieving 'freshness' from low intensity and lots of recovery work.
• 1 week gradual build in volume and intensity, include some running on trails/grass.
• 4 week block followed by a weeks taper.
• 4 week block focuses:
• Swim - Maintain endurance and keep working on speed. I have a few 3.8km open water races and will put in some lake sessions doing sessions like 10x 400m repeats.
• Biking - I will have a focus on this to put my mind at rest that I am in great bike shape. The better shape I am in for this anyhow the fresher I will be for the run. Example focus session: Long rides of 5-6hrs with 10km TT efforts at race pace. 
• Run - Continue to work on endurance at race pace via high volume interval sessions such as 15x 2km repeats 
• Leg strength - Put a 4 week progressive block of dead lifting and front squats into routine 
• Electrolyte consumption pre race. I did not mention this in the above but in the days leading up to the race I consumed more electrolytes than normal via electrolyte tablets. Both my Wife and Ollie noticed I was urinating an awful lot which means something was going on with my body. Since my return from the race I have looked into overconsumption of electrolytes and have found some common symptoms which are: fatigue, nausea and weakness and that urination is a way the body tries to excrete excess and restore balance! This is something I will research in more detail and do a future post on. Either way I will not electrolyte load prior to next race.
• Pre race breakfast - Stick exactly to planned consumption! I believe the extra protein bar was a touch too many calories which have contributed to the early sickness on the bike due to my breakfast not being fully digested. 

Right I have plenty to crack on with! - Safe training all.