Race reports

Soldato
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I raced Ironman Switzerland today in a hot and humid Zurich. The weather was supposed to be thunderstormy so I'm glad it ended up being perfect, if maybe a little too hot. This was my first full Ironman and I'd been training hard for it since about a year ago. Before 2015, I was a pure cyclist. I had only run 5km and couldn't even swim 25m.

I'm happy to say the training paid off and I smashed my target time of 12 hours! My total race time was 11:02:53.

Swim - 1:31:16
T1 - 00:06:21
Bike - 5:36:08
T2 - 00:07:36
Run - 3:41:33

I hate swimming and I'm terrible at it, especially without a wetsuit. It was decided last minute that wetsuits were legal as the water temp had been hovering around the limit of 24.5C for most of the week! Thank God. The swim was long and arduous (for me), the water was choppy and people kept swimming into my line. I completed the swim within roughly a minute of my estimated time so I'm happy enough with that considering I actually swam the wrong way for a bit. The buoys clearly weren't big and orange enough!:o
I was relieved to get out of the water.

I wasn't rushing my transitions and allowed for that in my 12h projection. I hopped on the bike and set off on an epic 180km (2x90km laps) with 1300m of ascent. This was a fast course for sure but despite this, it wasn't easy. Coming off the back of a 3.8km swim I wasn't feeling great! I took the first lap relatively easy with the intention of upping the effort in the second. That worked well enough until I felt the onset of leg cramps in the final 40km whenever I tried to put power down. I kept having to stop pedaling and stretch until it subsided which hampered my progress. No amount of coke or electrolyte drink seemed to help but I made it to the end, nearly averaging 20mph but not quite. I did beat my projected 6h time though.

I was relieved to get off my bike and now had to run a marathon! The run course was 4-laps of a flat loop through the city and by the lake. At this point it was survival mode. I projected a 4h marathon at plodding pace which is all I could muster at this stage. The first two laps weren't too bad, slow but I felt okay. I didn't have any GI issues from all the sugary energy I'd been consuming and I did under 1 hour for both laps. Then it started to get really hard on the last two laps! My body was just shutting down and it became a series of runs between aid stations. I walked through every one to take time to drink and eat stuff and this worked well. However, by the last lap the dreaded cramps re-appeared, this time on my running leg muscles. I tried licking table salt from sachets they gave out, drinking lots of water and eating salty snacks but nothing helped. I just had to make it to the finish no matter what!

Crossing the line was glorious and I have to admit I cried a tiny bit. I had dedicated this race to the memory of my brother, raising money for charity in the process, and I beat my target time by nearly an hour so it was quite emotional. It was 11 hours of hell and frankly, I can't recommend it to anyone.:D

I have even more respect now for Pro Ironman athletes. Time to rest my broken body.
 
Soldato
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Great work Shamrock, congratulations to you. I saw some of it on strava. I couldn't ever imagine doing that much in one day that wasn't just cycling and even then that is rare! Have you got a link to your fundraising?
 
Soldato
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Great work Shamrock, congratulations to you. I saw some of it on strava. I couldn't ever imagine doing that much in one day that wasn't just cycling and even then that is rare! Have you got a link to your fundraising?

Me neither. I rarely do rides above 100mi generally, let alone one at race pace with a long swim and marathon either side of it! It's also crazy that people were still going for up to another 5 hours after I finished.

Here is the link, thanks!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/liamreilly
 
Soldato
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Good effort on the IM. You just need to learn to swim and you should put in some very good times. The heat/humidity won't have helped.

My mate has salt tablets in a tube dispenser that you can take on the bike. Really helps with the cramps, when we did a 150k ride together before he did his last year they started to help at 120k and over when my legs started to pack in (and Im usually stronger than him on the bike).
 
Soldato
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Well this morning was tough. Last local league meet of the year. I had to ride to get enough events in to place and our club was aiming for first team and we only had 4 riders (4 required) so felt I had to get out.

Been suffering a migraine since Friday and knew as soon as I got going I wasn't going to have a good ride. Got to the top of the first climb with power at 245w which with the amount of descending to come and my plan for the course was far too low. Just couldn't get any power down. So rode as best as I could. Got round eventually but placed quite low. But sealed our team win! One advantage of the power meter is you just know when you're not able to ride, as HR was where it normally would be but just nothing going down onto the tarmac. Just hope whatever I've got passes by quickly.
 
Soldato
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90km road race today, rolling hills nothing steep, state open so good field. Maybe 40 in division 2 (club A graders). I've not been riding or racing enough recently so knew I was in for a hard time. We only dropped 3-4 guys, almost no wind made it a bit easier to sit on.

Didn't bother putting race wheels on as I've not glued my rear tyre on and I knew I had no chance. Probably cost me 10w per tyre and 10w of aero, plus the extra weight so not a good start.

I was on the limit for pretty much the whole time. Didn't see anything of the front!

38.5kmh average, 255w average and 281w NP (Garmin said 291w NP). 2 hours 18 of pain!

8 minutes faster than last year when I was in Div 3.

It hurt but I need it to get going again. I got to the end in the bunch OK which is all I hoped for.
 
Soldato
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Probably my last triathlon yesterday. Wasn't really feeling up to it, but I put in an okay performance considering it's only two weeks after the Ironman.

Bike course was short by about 3km according to my Garmin. I didn't really average 39.9kph.:(

IkpuyHd.png
 
Soldato
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Niceone, solid time still. When are you going to start cycling properly then? ;)

Haha! When is a good time to join a cycle club? In the Spring?

I will probably keep up the running. I think I have a bit of natural running ability, unlike swimming!

Looking at entering Winter Ballbuster duathlon. Five 8-mile laps of Box Hill in 8-24-8, run-bike-run format.
 
Soldato
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Haha! When is a good time to join a cycle club? In the Spring?

I will probably keep up the running. I think I have a bit of natural running ability, unlike swimming!

Looking at entering Winter Ballbuster duathlon. Five 8-mile laps of Box Hill in 8-24-8, run-bike-run format.

Winter! So you have mates to ride with when the weather is even worse (if possible) than the summer weather :)

What is your 5k/10k PB's?
 
Soldato
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Winter! So you have mates to ride with when the weather is even worse (if possible) than the summer weather :)

What is your 5k/10k PB's?

I believe I can go sub-18 and sub-38 respectively for 5k and 10k but at the moment my PBs are:

5k 18:25
10k 38:13
Half-Marathon 1:21:47

In the Ironman I did 3:41:33 for a marathon but probably can do a sub-3h marathon alone.
 
Soldato
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I believe I can go sub-18 and sub-38 respectively for 5k and 10k but at the moment my PBs are:

5k 18:25
10k 38:13
Half-Marathon 1:21:47

In the Ironman I did 3:41:33 for a marathon but probably can do a sub-3h marathon alone.

:cool: Awesome, nice work.
Your 10K time is weaker than your 5k time. If you were to work on achieving a sub 37:30 for 10k I would almost guarantee you would run a high 17 for 5k on the way to that.

If you want any help with running specific training, please give me a shout! I am pretty clueless with cycling training really but my running brain is pretty decent and proven!! :p
 
Soldato
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:cool: Awesome, nice work.
Your 10K time is weaker than your 5k time. If you were to work on achieving a sub 37:30 for 10k I would almost guarantee you would run a high 17 for 5k on the way to that.

If you want any help with running specific training, please give me a shout! I am pretty clueless with cycling training really but my running brain is pretty decent and proven!! :p

I didn't realise you had a running background!
 
Soldato
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Haha! When is a good time to join a cycle club? In the Spring?

I will probably keep up the running. I think I have a bit of natural running ability, unlike swimming!

Looking at entering Winter Ballbuster duathlon. Five 8-mile laps of Box Hill in 8-24-8, run-bike-run format.

Autumn/winter I'd say. Enough time to rest a bit from triathlon, then get a kicking late season to bring you up to speed for the racing season next year.
 
Soldato
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I didn't realise you had a running background!

Yeah, I got an injury that stopped my running so took up cycling as an alternative. I would have done good things in running as I was good at it, but, it was not to be :(

I've run under 33:30 4 or 5 times for 10k, think PB on paper is 33:00 flat. Was definitely on course for knocking minutes off that over these past few years, still a pretty sore point for me, was only getting started! :mad:
 
Soldato
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That's pretty rapid! I know a few guys who are strong runners and I'm not allowed to their training sessions until I can run a sub-35 10K. :(

Anyway, probably not good to pollute the racing thread further with triathlon and running chat.:o
 
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