The day after
Besides sore legs and some little wounds on my left foot,
I am doing fine. Of course by body is a bit tiered but it could have been
worse. I want to tell a (short) resume of my Iron Man. Maybe it will be a long
story, but maybe I will come with more stories and pictures in a couple of
days.
Getting there
Early morning with the alarm at 05.15 and a small
breakfast, it is no use to put your stomach full with bread or muesli on
race-day, the carbohydrates should already be stored and a full stomach will
only be uncomfortable during the swim. Together with my great support crew
(Elise, Masja and Evelien), we went towards the start at 06:00.
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| Transition zone at check in - blue covers for the night |
The day before the race, everyone had to check in his/her
bike and special bike and run-bags. So at race day I only needed to give it a
short check in the transition zone to see if everything is ok with the bike and
to remember ones more where to find my bags and bike. This was also a good
moment to visit the toilet for the last time.
Then moving from transition zone to the start, where I put on my wetsuit – against all expectations, it was allowed to wear a wetsuit! The water temperature had dropped to below 24.5 degrees after one rainy day last Wednesday: It was 24.4 degrees. Athletes are allowed to choose for a wetsuit now (above 24.5 it is forbidden because of the risk of heating). For me, it is a now brainer, A wetsuit helps my legs stay a bit high in the water, making me more horizontal and thus faster. Getting out of the wetsuit might take 15 seconds extra in the transition, so not worth thinking of going without. Another feature I implemented was the powergel I took with me under the cap. So I had a quick boost already immediately after the swim during the walk towards the transition tent. Great tip from Bart, one of my swimming partners at D’elft, although he suggested to take it halfway the swim when there was a turning point at the beach.
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| Transition Zone (at end of race day) |
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| Pre race picture |
07:10: Up into the water, getting wet and warm. All
muscles awake and loose, this was a short warm up before the race. It is still
dark at this moment, which makes it quite unusual to go for a swim, but
interesting as well. I was wondered about the large amount of people that did
not go into the water before the race.
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| Sunrise |
07:20: We need to move towards the start. The start is
organized as a so called “rolling start”. You can choose which group you want
to start in, based on the expected swim time. Groups are made on 15 minutes
intervals, so <1 hour, between 1 hour and 75 minutes, between 75 minutes and
1.5 hours etc. After the start for the recreational competitors, they will
first let the fastest group into the water, followed by the next immediately
after. So it is not 2500 people running into the water together, but a continuous
flow that takes about 15 minutes to enter the water. Time starts running when
passing the start, not at the sound of the horn, so time wise it does not make
any difference between where you start. During the IJ-Swim in Amsterdam, I did
a 3.8km – with wetsuit – in 1 hour 3 minutes and some seconds while I was not
taking the best use of others at the last kilometer back then. So a bit
opportunistic maybe, but I decided to join at the back end of the fastest group
that aims for a swimming time of within 1 hour.
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| Start of the professional men |
07:30: Start of Men professionals.
About 30 pro-athletes run into the water. The fastest of
them will do the swimming around 45 to 50 minutes, do the cycling at an average
speed of around 40 km/h (including the ~1400 altitude difference to take) and
finish with a marathon time of about 2 hours and 50 minutes. The winner had a
total time of 8 hours and 17 minutes… From all professionals that finished their
race, I beat 1 Russian athlete.
07:32: Start of Women professionals.
Small group of only 9 women start their race, 7 will
finish. Fastest in 9 hours and 24 minutes and the slowest still over 1 hour
faster than my time.
07:37: Start of the ~2.500 "age-group" athletes.
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| My start |
Although they organized the start as a rolling start,
hundreds of athletes run and dive into the water within minutes! No
difficulties to find nice feet to follow – drafting in the water is very beneficial
and safes a lot of energy. Swimming went very good, I could relax in the water
with a nice long stroke. Of course there were some battles in the water, people
that change direction for now reason, people in front of me that suddenly stop
for a moment, people from behind that don’t know that and thus try to
over-swim. The open water training I did around Utrecht this summer, with
Zwemanalyse, together with the open water swim events, has made me confident in
not getting stressed out by some struggles and even let it happen and don’t
bother too much. If they get you angry you will lose focus and energy on things
that won’t contribute to your own speed.
After 1.2km, we had to come back to take a so called “Australian Exit” this is a very short turning point at the beach, at which a split time is measured. It is quite a strange feeling when you stand up straight and walk/run through the water and over the beach, after being horizontal for about 40 minutes. So Don’t hurry too much here, there is not a lot to gain. Better enjoy the atmosphere and smile to the support crew! My split time was 38:34 after 2.4km.
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| Return into the water - halfway swimming |
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| Thumbs up for the support crew - halfway swimming |
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| Swimming Result |
The second part went good as well. There was a bit more
free space around me, although still some little touching and struggling,
especially near buoys when people get closer to take the buoy around the
correct side. I came out the water with a time of 1:01:34, which is fast for me
and I am pretty certain that if we had fought less and I has pushed a little
more, a sub one hour time had been possible. But one o one, was great for me
especially with the effort I put in.
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| Find the blue bag |
Walking out of the water, taking out the top half of my
wetsuit, grabbing the energygel from underneath my cap and have a gentle run
towards the transition zone. Find the blue bag with my bike gear, move to the
tent, get rid of the rest of my wetsuit and take on my shoes and glasses. Have
a small drink from the bottle I put in the bag, and start moving again. At the
bike, first put the helmet on, then the number belt around the waist, grab the
bike and walk to the end of the transition zone. With 2500 competitors, this
was quite a long zone, so I better put in a fast walk.
Cycling:
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| Thumbs up for the support |
Cycling at Mallorca is awesome; the scenery is changing
all the time and the roads are going up and down most of the times. So a great
180km course, consisting of a first “flat”
(450hm) southern loop followed by the second northern loop with the
large climb (7.7km – 500hm). The wind was north east, almost zero at the start,
but getting quite strong during the morning. This means tail wind in the first
part, head winds when getting back towards Port d’Alcudia, tail wind again at
the road towards the climb that by itself is already inclining very slightly
(vals plat) and finishing with a head wind the last 25kms or so.
When getting onto the bike, you are very excited to get
cycling and go fast, but the heartrate has won already and is at a rate of 180
without having done one single thing. This is again due to the body’s physics
of swimming for a long time and then continues with vertical efforts, even when
the swimming part and the transition part where taken relatively easy. There is
one thing that you can do to get your heart rate under control: Slowdown in the
first 5 kms. Luckily I’d learned this the hard way during the half distance
triathlon I did in August in Klazienaveen, so I knew that I really had to start
slow and had put my gearing at the small ring. This means that a lot of people
passed me at the first part, not so fun!
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| Cornering |
For me, the cycling went pretty good. I had a nice rhythm
a good speed and my effort wasn’t even at the limit I had decided for myself
(heart rate of 165). In the second loop, my legs started to hurt a little bit,
like I was moving on too large gears. My cadence here at Mallorca is about 5-10
revolutions per minute lower compared to dead flat and steady environment,
i.e.: home. I decided that I wouldn’t force my effort because the speeds was
already very good and I rather safe some energy and legs for the running instead
of going through the pain in the legs, something I usually should do during
single cycling events. Analyzing the heartrate of the second loop, one can see
that, except for the climb, my heartrate went down to around 140-150 instead of
150-160 I was on during the first loop.
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Cycling result |
There are a couple of funny things I noticed during the
bike part. First of all, there are lots of people on very expensive time trial
bikes. This doesn’t mean that they go very fast or that they are good cyclists
at all. A few examples: Quite a lot of those people ride very big gearing and
low cadence. Some maybe around 65 or 70 revolutions per minute. Maybe they watched
Tony Martin too many times. They do have very big legs which they need to ride
it like this, but when the road goes up slightly (>1%) they slow down a lot,
the just cannot change rhythm or they are too heavily build to get uphill
properly. This leads to a lot of overtaking uphill, and when it gets flat again
or goes down slightly (<2%), they overpassed me again. Steeper downhill,
they just stop pedaling, Maybe afraid or tired, but most of the real downhill
parts it is not difficult to go faster than those real big legged guys.
Another thing is that those pancakes have a hard time at
corners, especially in downhill sections. They move slowly across roundabouts,
and at the large descent in the second loop, they are just damn slow. One
example is shown at the photo, in this case not such a bad ass time trailer,
but it tells the story. He keeps his knee to the inside – which is nowhere
needed or good to do – while his bike is practically straight up.
The last thing I need to tell about is the non-drafting
rules during triathlon. One has to keep at least 10m distance measured from the
front wheel of the rider in front of him. Otherwise he has to go to the left,
speed up and overpass him within 20 seconds. Drafting is simply not allowed. At
flat roads, and wind from aside, the 10m. is enough space to have almost no
advantage of the rider in front of you. But with a tail wind and/or slightly
downhill parts, the speeds are around 45-50 km/h. If you are around that 10m
mark you definitely take advantage of the rider in front of you. This leads to
quite some overtaking, and counter overtaking – or the so called sling shot
movement. Of course you see sometimes small groups or individuals that are too
close to each other and not taking any effort to make the distance again or to
overpass in 2 minutes instead of 20 seconds, which is blocking other faster
riders. It is not fear, and some get caught and will go to the penalty box (5
minutes) or even get disqualified. For the rest, just keep telling yourself
that you are doing your own race, so don’t get irritated when you see that kind
of things.
I finished my ride after 5:25.19. But it seems to be a
little less then 180km. My computer measured 177.6 km. And also the average
speed over the last 15km, as mentioned in the results, is not the speed that I
had in that part. For details, please check my strava recordings:
Strava IronMan Cycling. For the people who'd seen the nice strip of powergels attached to the toptube of my bike (facebook), I ended up having used 10 out of the 11 gels.
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| Very pretty scenery for cycling! |
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| Find the red bag |
Transition 2:
Get off the bike, bike back at his place, to the red bags
for my running gear. It was hot, already 25 degrees in the shade, so I put on a
cap and used the sunscreen the organization had provided. I also changes socks,
so I would have nice, dry, socks that usually are my preferred running socks.
This might have been a mistake…
Running:
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| Running with ice cubs under my cap |
The running course was dead flat, 4 loops of 9km’s and
6km more in the fifth loop to finish the 42 kms. It was hot, over 30 degrees in
the sun. This is challenging of course, keep drinking and keep cooling with
sponges and ice. I had saved some energy in the second half of the cycling part
and I knew my challenges. I started running easy, just above 5 min/km and
decided that going under de 5 min/km would be stupid to aim for because of the
situation. But going round with 5.20 per km on average would give me a good
pace for a very nice overall end time.
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| Support! |
Unfortunately, already after 4km, my left foot hurt as
hell. It was warm and swollen and thus squeezed within my shoe. This caused me
to run with short steps and not in a nice and loos manner as I am used to do,
hurting my muscles more than needed. Anyhow, from km 4 I was struggling and
after km 12 I decided to remove the sock from my left foot. This helped a lot
but still every round I needed to stop, take my shoe off and cool my left foot
with a cold sponge. The first loop of 9km went more or less ok, besides from
the left foot. But from that point onwards I was running from aid station to
aid station, allowing me to walk along each aid station. There were four of
them at the 9km course, and my main goal was to make sure I wouldn’t get caught
by the heat.
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Last Kilometer
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Second loop was the one that I removed the sock. And
although I had been fighting to get through I got back a bit of moral and was
thinking (or hoping) that if the third round would go the same, I would manage
and even within the 11 hours finish time. But during the third loop the
struggle got worse, I drank too much, which causes little stomach problems. The
moral went down again and I had to really push myself to the end of the third
loop.
At that point it was still possible to do within the 11
hours, even when I should become a little slower during the last 1,5 loops to
go. But 3kms later the moral was down a lot, I had to walk a bit, started
running again, and decided to walk again. The stomach was hurting (in Dutch:
zijsteken), and instead of running from aid station to aid station, I went from
km to km, with a minute walk at the beginning of each km. End time was not
important anymore, it was just surviving and getting to the finish line without
stupid things (like collapsing as I saw a few others..). Temperature went down
a few degrees, I took another energygel, which I had forgotten to take in the
middle part of the marathon, and only used water at the aid stations.
Slowly I progressed to the finish, and after 11:18:27: I
can call myself an Iron Man!!
I was relieved, glad, proud and a bit tired. Nine months
of endurance training, learning proper swimming and train the running to not
get injured by it, all resulted in this achievement. I am very happy with my
overall result, there might be a very slightly disappointment about the
running, but how I felt during the marathon I am just happy to have finished
the race.
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| Overall Results |
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| After finish photo with the goodies I got from the Elise, Masja and Evelien |
This was a challenge that is different from previous long
distance things I did. That where bike events and I can put everything out of
my body to finish as fast as possible and being exhausted in the end. Now it
was more a moderate output for a very long time, which I couldn’t put to the
limit during the running because of the problems I had. So it turned out a very
mentally game, both moral to continue as well as keeping smart and taking good
care of myself.
After the finish I got the medal and the finisher shirt.
Looked for the support. Got a massage and free beer (got half a beer), and
coke.
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| After finish foto |
Support Crew:
Elise, Masja and Evelien have followed me during the day
and made the pictures. They cheered for me at the beginning, half way and in
the final stages. And I am so glad that they were with me. Also I was very
surprised and pleased by the very large amount of people who followed from the
Netherlands (and Australia/New Zealand/Kazakhstan), that is really great!
Thanks everyone for all the good luck wishes and the cheers afterwards at watts
app, facebook, sms or other means!
The day after:
My legs hurt and are stiff. My left food has a few
abrasions because of the running without sock. No blisters at all! And I feel a
bit tired. I had a short night, my body was still very active so it was hard to
catch the sleep (is this nice dutch-english or not..?). Overall I’m not feeling
that bad at all. Today we went to the fan shop to do some shopping and get the
medal graved.
Sorry, this day after story became very long, but it tells more or less my Iron Man racing day. Hopefully I can cheer for one of my friends, colleagues or family members sometime in the future for their sporting achievements. This doesn’t mean that everyone should do an iron man! That would make it less special ;-), and sporting achievements can be made on any level or distance that suits the athlete!
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| Like! |
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| Chears for running |
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| Support crew chilling out |
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| Chears for cycling |
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| The bike, the day after incl the goodies |
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| The running results |
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| Start of the swimming |
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| Sunrise at port d'alcudia beach, people waiting at halfway point |
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| Start |
