Ironman Mallorca 2016 Race Report

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Ironman Mallorca 2016 Report

Last week, at 7am on Sunday the 23^rd of September 2016, I competed in IronMan Mallorca. It was my 5^th time toeing the start line of an iron-distance triathlon, which consists of a 2.4mile (3.8km) swim, 112mile (180km) cycle, then a 26.2mile (42.2km) run to finish it off.

I was doing this race to avenge a DNF (did not finish) result at IronMan Copenhagen 4 weeks previously.  The DNF was caused by dehydration and having gone too hard in the early stages of the run leg triggering a heart arrhythmia where my heart rate reached 200 beats per minute, while I was walking! Fortunately, it returned to normal after about 30 minutes of lying on the ground with the paramedics keeping an eye on me but the race referee had arrived by this point and I was withdrawn from the race, just in-case it happened again. The most devastating part of this, aside from not being able to finish my main race of the year, was that I was only 10 kilometres from the finish line! In my previous experience, it’s the last 10km that does the most damage to you, and I woke up the next day not feeling too bad. After about 1 week of light training I realised that I definitely had another Ironman in me, and that I needed to do one before the end of the season as I had been holding back all year for Copenhagen and couldn’t bare to finish the year with no successes to my name.

Left: Me, just after a practice swim the evening before the race. Upper right: my race bike with trusty llama mascot on the handlebars. Lower right: the equipment and nutrition I used for the race, later separated into bags for each discipline and stored in the transition area during the race.

The Swim

So, to the race! The swim took place in Alcudia beach – a lovely calm bay in the Northern part of the Island. The last 2 years have seen a new feature to the race start, the traditional mass-start has been exchanged for the new ‘rolling start’, wherein athletes seed themselves based on their predicted swim times and are sent off in groups of 6 at a time separated by 5 seconds. This makes for a much less violent swim, as you can imagine 3000 people all trying to be in the same place at once i.e. the shortest line around the course doesn’t make for a very civilised swim. I hadn’t swum much between Copenhagen and Mallorca, but I did manage to get a couple of handicap 200-meter swim/run races in with my girlfriend while we were on holiday in France – more than enough training to tackle 3.8 kilometres in the sea! The swim at Mallorca is a special one due to the beautiful surroundings and the inclusion of an ‘Australian exit’ about 2.4km into the swim where athletes run along a short section of the beach before starting the second part of the swim. It turned out that I was very grateful for this short run after swimming in very salty water for about 35 minutes! I finished the swim in 58 minutes 15 seconds, a good result for me considering my lack of swim training this year. There was a short 400m run to the transition area where our bikes were located and I was shortly on my way along the flat main road out of Alcudia towards Can Picafort.

The Bike

The bike is the longest section of the Ironman and it was also the part that I’d been most worried about as there had been heavy thunder and lightning the day before the race. I knew that we were due a massive thunderstorm on the day of the race which would make the roads like glass, but by the time I had started the bike leg it was still dry. The first 110km of the bike are mostly undulating and take you through the small villages of the northern part of the island before climbing the Col de Femenia at 115km, which is a 12.5km mountain climb. I managed a good average speed during the initial flatter section, while being careful to avoid getting caught in the large groups of cyclists I passed, as triathlon is non-drafting during the bike leg. There came a point though where I reached an enormous group of ~100 riders. It took me about 10 minutes of riding above my target effort to get past them, and as soon as I got to the front the rider behind me simply latched onto my wheel, then overtook me 2 minutes later. While I was abiding by the rule of dropping back after being passed and leaving a 12-meter gap, people from the huge group decided to overtake me and fill in that, gap – pushing me back even further. While I sat at the back raging at the situation I realised that I could just sit about 20 meters back from the group and still get a slipstreaming benefit, I wouldn’t be going as fast as I wanted but I remembered that my friend, Tom, had impressed the importance of arriving at the bottom of the climb feeling fresh. Tom had learned this the hard way racing the previous year, as he was caught up in the effects of unleashing 300 similarly-fit triathletes upon a bike course at the same time, and was unable to ride up the climb as well as he could have done. With this in mind, I eased off the gas and decided to ‘make my move’ during the 5 kilometre run in to the bottom of the climb where the gradient slightly increased, enough to stretch out the peloton. Another rider and I made our move up the outside of the group, it wasn’t a huge effort as I didn’t go too far above my target average power output but I did want to hit the climb hard. When we hit the climb the rest of the group were caught and passed within the first 500 metres and I just tapped out a pace that I knew I could sustain to the top of the climb from my (many) sessions on the Wattbike at CCCU SportsLab, I averaged about 290Watts for the climb. Thirty-five minutes of steady effort later I had made it to the top of the mountain and not been over taken once, while passing about 50 riders including a few female professionals. The most memorable moment of the climb for me was after reaching the summit, a young man crossed the road blowing an enormous cloud of smoke/vapour into my path. Not wanting to inhale whatever it was I swerved to the other side of the road to avoid it, his friend saw me move and immediately began to chastise the bloke in aggressive sounding Spanish, as I passed she gave me a thumbs up and ‘Vaya vaya’ while I laughed and gave my thanks. Following the climb was a glorious descent for 10km full of switch-backs down the other side of the mountain. The remainder of the ride was fairly uneventful until about 150 km, where the heavens opened and I found myself in the middle of monsoon season. To be honest, I was very lucky with the timing for this shower as a friend of mine, AJ, who was also doing the race got caught in the rain at the top of the climb, making for a very treacherous descent.

So, after 30km of wet, careful riding I returned to Alcudia for the second time to end the bike course in 5hrs 5 minutes. I had a bit of a kerfuffle in transition as thanks to missing the race briefing the day before, I had no clue were to chuck my run-kit bag once I’d removed the shoes and energy gels from it. Luckily an event volunteer was there to take the bag and tell me to get running; ‘¡Ánimo!’.

The Run

The run course involved 4 and a half times a lap of 9.5km along the high street, through some of the residential part of Alcudia, and then along the beach front before looping back onto the promenade and around to the high-street. Despite the pouring rain for the entire 3 and a half hours of my run, the support from the locals, friends and family of other athletes, AJ’s partner, Josh, and random British holiday makers was immense and as encouraging as the crowds at the London Marathon. I started off at a steady pace and knew that all I wanted to do was survive the run and get a finish. My old nemesis, stomach troubles, started to give me issues after about 6km but I knew that it wouldn’t stop me from finishing (thankfully, there were toilets at every aid station, about 2km apart on the run!). When I came off the bike onto the run at Copenhagen I had less than 6 hours on the clock and potentially a Kona spot to chase down. I started off suicidally fast, running about 4:00minutes per km for the first 5km when my target was to hold 4:40 min/km. This is my usual tactic and I know that I will eventually settle to a maintainable pace, but combined with the 30-degree heat and necking 2-3 cups of Coke every 10 minutes, this lead to my DNF. My club mates and junior section coach, Bruno, had all given me a lot of advice on how to deal with this and my plan for Mallorca was to cap the first 5km of the run at 5:00min/km. I actually averaged this pace for the entire run so it definitely worked for me and next year my goal is to work on building pace throughout the IronMan marathon. I crossed the line after 9 hours 54 minutes of racing, which was good enough for 16^th in my age-group out of ~180 and 175 overall out of 2500, including professionals. In terms of my goals for triathlon, I want to qualify for the world championships at Kona, Hawaii one day. I was about 30 minutes off the pace required to qualify at Mallorca, but considering my goal was just to finish, and having done nearly a full Ironman less than 4 weeks beforehand, I don’t think that it is too much of an unrealistic goal. My swim and bike are definitely up to the required level, as I was 11^th in my age-group off the bike in Mallorca, but lost 5 places on the run (probably while in the loos!). Next year I hope to improve my run endurance off the bike and ability to maintain speed, which I can hopefully achieve through more specific training at SportsLab and with the advice from the experienced friends, club members and colleagues I’m lucky enough to know. As a race, Ironman Mallorca is up there with the best; the organisation, support and course make it one to do. Even if you're chasing a fast time you shouldn't let the hillier bike course put you off as the smooth roads more than make up for the added elevation gain. If you're good at descending (unlike myself) I think you'll be within 10 mins of a flatter course's time.

 Thanks for reading! 
James

Last week at home & Bedford Classic triathlon report

Hello everyone! I am writing this post a bit later than planned due to a combination of laziness and being busy sorting everything out before leaving for America. The time since my last post has been filled with a race at the Bedford classic triathlon (olympic distance), saying farewell to friends, a minimal amount of training, and Packing! I'll start with the race as its by far the most interesting out of the above.

The Bedford Classic Triathlon

This race is an olympic distance (1.5k/40k/10k) that took place on the 29th of July this year in sunny Bedford, the swim was an out & back route in the river running through the town country park up to the main bridge and back again, the bike course was a single, flat loop through the countryside with a few lumps (nothing major) and the run was 3 flat laps around the riverside and crossing a bridge at each end constituted the only climbing reqiured on the course. You'll notice a similar trend on the description of this race as I did- FLAT, which in my mind is meant to mean FAST! It was also an ETU 2013 qualifying race so there would be a good field to race against.

The race didnt really go to plan for me however, despite my best efforts. The week leading up to race day I actually tapered properly (by my standards anyway) and clocked up around 10 hours of training all together, mainly race pace sessions on the bike out on the road, running around ladywell park @ planned pace on Friday & track with Kent AC on Tuesday and a few swims in Charlton Lido and with my club. I skipped out on the usual 'filler' sessions I do at a steady intensity to boost the mileage in each sport and eventually (read: hopefully..) yield long term gains by founding the aerobic base I missed out on during my later teenage years (building more of a carbon-monoxide/tar/alcogol foundation during those years ;) )
So I was feeling pretty confident on race day, I positioned myself well in the swim but soon after the gun I realised that unless I managed to get on the front line then I would encounter a fair amount of biff. As it went - I was on the 2nd line in the narrow river when the flag dropped, not having the confidence to go right to the front- fool! I was soon swamped by the 100 or so swimmers behind me trying to sprint to the same place as each other, I literally couldn't get my arms out of the water to start and made my way over the side til the madness subsided. I waited about 10 seconds then I thought- I'm not going to lose any more time, just get in there and swim through them all! I sought out the biff that I had just hidden from and found I was a lot better at giving it than taking it and got into a good rhythm soon after. Fortunately it didn't take long for the adrenaline fueled super-swimming exhibited by most at the start of the race to wear off and the field was very strung out after the first 200m, I managed to swim through them all and join a decent group of 2 other swimmers on the way back. The only problems I encountered on the way back were not being able to see due to the sun being in our eyes, we managed to move into the shade during the final 400m of the swim though and fortunately didn't overshoot the exit ramp!
The swim time came out as around 24 minutes including a 50m+ run to transition, I wasn't very happy with this when I saw the time later as I have been training to swim 1500m in around 22 minutes and have done so this season already with a 400m p.b of 5:40... Oh well!


Once on the bike I knew I wasn't going to have a good day, I felt absolutely awful for the first 20 minutes, my legs became very sore as if they had no blood in them and couldn't get the power (that I had been holding with relative ease during the week on race pace sessions) up at all. It wasn't until climbing one of the few sharp hills on the route that I started to come good, I decided to stop looking at my power meter as it was making me depressed and just went on feel- this coincided with the sudden revival of my legs somehow, maybe I'll just race completely on feel next time. I also believe that the short hill which I went up quite hard possibly 'woke' my legs up and got them used to a harder effort.
The run started off quite well but just went downhill after the first of 3 laps, I had lost all my nutrition on the bike as I had cack-handedly cellotaped them on earlier and they just fell off about 10 minutes in to the bike. I ended up cramping horribly on the other 2 laps and having to run-walk the rest of the way.


Alas, this race did not prove to be the PB-setting scorcher I had hoped but I still really enjoyed it. The organisers at Galeforce events threw on a cracking race in lovely settings, the swim was one of the most scenic that I have ever done (not that I should have been paying attention to the scenery!), they got very lucky with the weather on the day and the announcer kept me amused for an hour in transition while waiting to go in the water. My only gripe is that the wave sizes were very big and caused problems for many during the swim in such a narrow canal, being an ETU qualifying event though would have meant that they received a lot of sign ups and probably had a load of other regulations to contend with in that context.

The Final Week

My last week before heading to the States for 10 months! It was spent mainly resting and being sick, on Monday night I started to feel stomach pain and was preparing myself for another bout of gastroenteritis after having suffered it once after a 10km river swim (although that was in the Thames and I was lucky to escape with just that really!) The illness persisted through the week and interrupted most of the training I had planned, I wasn't too fussed about this really as my season ended on Sunday after Bedford and I find it difficult to do any tough sessions without a race on the horizon. By the next Monday it had cleared up though and my fears of having something more serious than a tummy bug subsided (seriously, it brought out the hypochondriac in me- Big Time).
Saturday night was my farewell-do with friends and club mates, I had a fantastic evening- Mo Farah won the Olympic 10k for us to improve our night- and realised just how much I will miss everyone while I am gone. Triathlon is obviously a big part of my life and I spend a lot of my free time training for it, without the inspiring, challenging group of clubmates I am honoured to share the pool with twice a week I will find it hard to keep motivated this year. I'm hoping one or two of my friends will be able to come out and visit me while I'm away after our exams are over. The next big task on the horizon, apart from getting safely to San Francisco, will be finding a place to live in with my 3 uni-friends also on the exchange as we were hoping to share a house together, hopefully it wont be as complicated as I'm dreading...
Til the next one!

Original first post title & Dartford HM report

Hi there to everyone who's taken the time to visit my blog! I've decided to start this blog as a convenient means of keeping friends and family updated on my life while I spend a year abroad in California where I will study for my second year of a sports science degree at San Francisco State University on loan from Brunel university. I plan on making a weekly update from now on that will give an overview of how I am progressing in the course, adapting to life in the US of A, and getting on with training for triathlon (swim,bike, run).

I've realised that for my second year, which will be a lot more challenging academically, training will likely have to take more of a back seat in the priority list compared to my first year where I managed to average 14-17 hours a week and still come out with a 1st classification. The level of work will be much higher in the 2nd year and the American college systems' approach is of more frequent testing and assignments for each module as opposed to the 1 or 2 pieces of work per module we were given in the 1st year. Also, they are likely to boot me back to the UK if my grades fall so I can't risk the juggling act this year!

Right, that's my excuses made for any abysmal performances next year- I couldn't train as much! :)

Dartford Half Marathon

Sunday the 22nd of July I took part in the 36th Dartford Half-marathon, I haven't done a stand-alone running race since the winters' cross country seasons (Kent league and West London college league) and fancied trying my feet over the longer distance. I heard it was a tough course as well, which is something I usually try and avoid- being so utterly useless at running up hills of any grade- play to your strengths ;) This was to be my first half-marathon not preceded by a 56 mile bike and 1.2 mile swim so I thought that this would give me a decent time in comparison. Training suggested (wrongly) that I was in shape to hold a pace of around 6:45-6:50 minute/mile, I based this assumption on an 8 mile tempo run the Monday of race week. Ideally a sub-90 minute run would make me a happy man, however. What I didn't take into account was that going for a 70 mile bike ride  & 3 mile brick run with two club mates who are stronger cyclists than myself the day before would have any impact on my performance- Wrong!

The route started off fairly flat and I settled into target pace early on, I felt pretty good on the flat sections until we turned off the Hawley road and into the lanes where the fun started. My approach to tackling the undulating route involved snailing it up the hills regardless of length or gradient, hammering it on the downhills to 'average out the pace' (literally just leaning forwards and striding as far as possible, a technique honed to reasonable competence by a fair few XC races) and getting into target pace on the flats. It would 'average out in the end' I told myself.
This strategy was apparently working well, I took a SiS caffeine gel at mile 9 'just in case' and was feeling good, on target and in control up until 10 miles which saw the wheels fall off completely. My earlier enthusiasm of lumbering downhill as fast as possible resulted in the eventual detonation of my quadriceps and painful cramps which reduced me to a walk for  a fair chunk of the last 3 miles- these were meant to be the easiest part of the course being all downhill and all I could do was watch my Garmin pace-maker slink further and further ahead with what looked like an 'I told you so' smug expression on its tiny face. I finished in 1:32, and I am not as disappointed now as I initially was- it was a hot day, a tough course by most peoples' (who I asked at the end seeking reassurance) standards and I have been training for much shorter runs this year.
So I managed to avoid the usual post-goal failure routine of signing up for an easier, faster course (preferably the next week) as soon as I got home! If anyone is considering doing this race next year I can definitely recommend it- faultless organisation, challenging course with lovely countryside and closed roads for the majority make it a must-do.

The best bit of the race was seeing our Club coach on the course at about the 6-7th mile to cheer us on- I was not expecting to see anyone til the finish and couldn't stop laughing with happy bewilderment for the next 1/2 mile and felt like I was flying (which were mainly uphill- just goes to show the mark of a good coach is doing the right thing at the right time).

The rest of the day was spent hobbling about, eating food and lying down- just another day in the life of a student on summer holidays :) Thanks for reading my first post if you stuck around, I hope that this time next year I am looking back on an amazing years' worth of experiences and feelings recorded while in the US.

I'm doing the Olympic distance Bedford Classic triathlon next Sunday and intend to rest properly this week and put in a decent show.

Til the next one, take care...