"My First Taste of Ironman" or Ironman Switzerland Recap

Race week:
I arrived in Zurich on Thursday morning, which was just enough time to get everything ready for race day, get over any jetlag and relax a bit. I spent the pre-race days with my sister, which was much better than being by myself. Plus I only see her for a few days a year anyway... The rest of my family arrived in Zurich only on Friday evening and they stayed at a camping ground about 10mi from the city center (and our hotel).

I did very little exercise after arriving in Switzerland (1h bike ride on Thu, 20min run and 25min swim on Friday and about 15min bike ride on Saturday) and tried to stay off my feet as much as possible.

Race morning:
I woke up at 4:30am and felt quite good since I went to bed around 9pm the day before and slept a lot on Thursday and Friday nights too. Since almost all of my stuff, including my bike, was already in the transition, I didn't have to carry much more to the race site. My sister and I and a bunch of other athletes took the first tram of the day that passed by our hotel, which got us to the race site a bit before 6am. I wish there was an earlier tram because in the end I didn't have any time for a swim warm-up. As a result, I decided to take it easy at the beginning and staged myself about 1/3 from the back at the start. Overall, I felt very calm and relaxed. It was great to have my sister with me – she took my pump after I used it (it couldn't go into any of the transition bags) and also took pictures during the whole day.

Swim (1:28:41 - no wetsuits allowed since the water temperature was a few degrees above 76.1F):

The swim was very, very crowded.

There were two swim waves – the pros (about 50 of them) who started at 6:55 and all the age groupers (almost 2500 of us) who started at 7:00. The first 10min or so of the swim were quite an experience. I couldn't really take it easy because I was in the midst of 2500 other swimmers, some of which were accidentally trying to drown me. So I breathed on every 2nd instead of every 3rd stroke and I was still gasping for air. My heart rate was probably in my high zone 3 or even in zone 4. Once the initial craze calmed down a bit and I had a little bit of space to breathe, I managed to pass quite a few people. It seemed that my swim pace was decent. But my navigation was pretty bad. I was usually swimming 10-20m away from the buoy and because of quite a bit of slower or about the same speed swimmers in front of me, I also didn't go straight as I was trying to pass them. To make things even worse, our swim caps were the same color as most of the buoys (yellow), so the buoys did not stand out so well. Fortunately the buoys at the turns were orange. My swim ended up being 9min slower than what I considered the slowest acceptable time for me (1:20), which was disappointing. My GPS recorded 2.75mi (instead of 2.4mi). Later I learned that this was not just because of my poor navigation during the race but the course was very probably a bit longer than it was supposed to be.

T1 (3:57): I took it easy in both transitions because I didn't want to forget something important in a rush. T1 was pretty uneventful. Since wetsuits were not allowed for the swim, I only took off my cap and goggles, put on sunglasses, helmet, socks and shoes, put some extra race nutrition in my pockets (I already had 4 gels taped to the bike), grabbed my bike and off I went. My sister was cheering me on at the transition exit and managed to take a pretty good picture too :-)

Bike (5:35:49):

On the flat section of the course.

I definitely started the bike a bit too fast. Against the advice of all the books and articles I read and against my rough plan to keep my heart rate on the bike in the 150s (high zone 2 / low zone 3 for me), I immediately went into 160s, cruising the initial 19mi flat section at 25mph. I don't think I ever did a race with such a long flat section. I was overexcited and over-tapered :-) but also a bit disappointed in my swim, which all contributed to me riding at a bit higher intensity than I probably should have. I also enjoyed passing a lot of people :-)

I felt pretty good for the first of the two laps. My family was cheering me on at the top of the tallest hill on the course, called "The Beast", which was around mile 40. They seemed to be even more excited than me :-) From the top of The Beast it was all downhill (with a couple pretty steep sections where we were banned from using the aerobars) until we were back at the flat around Lake Zurich. It was maybe 6mi from the bottom of the hill back to the start. Then we did another 6mi mini-loop with a short (0.5mi) but steep (8.5% average) climb, called the Heartbreak Hill.

Climbing Heartbreak Hill - spectators lined both sides of the road (cheering) and left only about a meter wide space to pass through.

I finished the first lap in around 2:45, which was quite a bit better than I expected, so I changed my goal of riding a 5:45-6:00 total to riding around 5:30 or at least under 5:36, which would be 20mph average speed. At the same time I knew that I probably should back off a bit on the intensity since I still had a marathon to run. So I backed off (riding the second lap around 2:50 even without a portapotty visit like in my first lap) and tried to take in a bit more nutrition than on the first lap (almost certainly mistake to eat more closer to the run) since I was starting to get tired.

I don't exactly remember what I consumed during lap 1 but I think it was 1 powerbar, 2-3 gels (GU), a bottle of my own sports drink (Heed), a bottle of their sports drink (Powerbar) and maybe 2 bottles of water. I didn't really have much appetite to start with and it decreased as the race went on. On the second lap I decided to drink more sports drink and less water since I was afraid that I might not be taking in enough electrolytes. So I probably drank 2 or 3 bottles of the Powerbar drink and a bottle of water on the second lap (with maybe 2/3 of a Powerbar bottle in the last 3mi). I also had 3-4 gels (6 total for the bike - the last one with about 30min to go) and 1.5 Larabar. Right now when I wrote it down, it seems like a lot (it probably was) and it definitely could have been spread out better (more in the first half, less in the second half). I didn't think I would have drank so much fluids (at least 6 bottles = 3-4 liters) but it was pretty hot (90F+) and I really did not want to become dehydrated.

T2 (6:09):
I took even longer in T2 than in T1 - I don't think that ever happened to me! I didn't want to get blisters or any major chaffing on the run, so I put vasoline on and between my toes and changed from my tri top into a shirt because I couldn't apply vaseline on where my tri top usually chafes (neck/chest area) while I was covered in sweat. I was also considering changing my shorts into a regular running shorts but in the end decided that that was not necessary.

Run (4:34:14 or about an hour slower than I was planning to run :-( WARNING: this might be a bit too detailed)
My main concern at the beginning of the run was that the outer sides of my feet would hurt since my cycling shoes started feeling a bit too tight about 4-5 hours into my ride (probably a result of my feet expanding when I ride long (it happened to me in training too) - if anyone has suggestions for this, let me know). But I was fine - thank you, Newtons, for being so soft and flexible :-)

I started running at about 8:30min/mile (my goal was 8:00-8:30min/mile). My heart rate was about the same as it was during the bike (160s), which is a moderate effort for me on the run and it was what I planned on doing. I smiled and waved at my sister who was standing at about mile 1. She said I looked great (which I did compared to people already on their 2nd-4th lap). After 2 miles I decided to visit a portapotty since my stomach felt slightly queasy and I needed a pee break anyway. I thought - well, this (diarrhea) sometimes happens to me at long training runs too, good that I took care of it now. And I continued running at ~8:30min/mile pace. In not even 5mi I had to go again... I thought - hopefully this is the last time I need to stop like this. But in 2mi I had to stop again :-( At that point I was certain I wouldn't be consuming any gels on the run (even before this GI disaster I felt like puking just thinking about gels - maybe I should not have forced the last one on the bike...). So I alternated drinking the Powerbar drink, water and a bit of Cola and at one station I took a sip of Red Bull too. After 6 portapotty visits and with about 8mi to go, I decided to only drink water... My pace was terrible by that point (9-10min/mile) because I had a side stitch and I was afraid that if I go faster, I'd immediately need to run into another portapotty :-( Plus, after about 3.5h of running my legs didn't feel that great either - I never ran longer than 3h 35min! I even started to take walking breaks when the stitches got worse.

The run was mostly very uncomfortable up to painful...

I didn't expect this run to go like this! (Fortunately???) most people around me were either running 9+ min/mile or were walking too, so I didn't get passed much (other than when I had to go to the bathroom - there was this woman who kept passing me every time I had to go and then I passed her back before I had to go again – I wonder what she thought of me... but at least I beat her in the end!).

Back to 8mi to go though... At that point my dad (and partially my mom and brother), who came down to Zurich on their bikes, were riding along the course and taking zillions of pictures of me. I usually appreciate people taking pictures of me racing but after my dad shouted "smile at the camera!" several times, I wanted to punch him in the face :-) Still it was nice to have them around and see how much they enjoyed watching the race. Plus, it motivated me to not walk as much.

With about 6mi to go (last lap!), I had to go to the bathroom again despite my water-only “nutrition strategy". But when I opened the portapotty at the nearest aid station, I was greeted with human waste overflow (read: poop above the level of the toilet seat), which disgusted me too much, so I immediately shut the door and started walking to the next aid station (about 1K away). I tried to jog at times but it was not sustainable. With only a few hundred meters to the next portapotty, my brother came next to me (on his bike) and gave me a chance to have someone listen to my complaints about the whole situation :-) Fortunately the following portapotty was the last one I needed to use and I managed to run the last 5mi at about 10min/mile pace. (Not) surprisingly, I was running relatively fast compared to the rest of the crowd, which felt good. Plus, I managed to pass one girl in my age group (another one of those who passed me every time I had to stop) with about 2mi to go.

Last Lap - looking (relatively) fast!

Sprinting to the finish (not dark yet, just cloudy)

 

I sort-of sprinted to the finish line, though I was also trying to not look like I am at death's door because that's how I usually look at the end of shorter triathlons :-D

Post-Race:
Once I got my medal and a Mylar blanket to keep warm, I felt pretty tired and sore (but not as sore as after a standalone marathon!). So I lied down and asked my sister to hold my feet up. This didn't last long since my family wanted to take a picture, call my grandparents etc. Still, did I mention that it was very very nice to have them around and being so supportive? :-) They had to leave right after taking the pictures because it was already raining and thundering and they had to bike 10 hilly miles back to their camp ground.

I slowly collected my stuff - white bag with "street clothes", food, finisher's T-shirt, blue and red transition bags and my bike in exchange for my timing chip. Once again it was great that I had my sister with me because she took some of my stuff and rode my bike back to the hotel while I took a tram back.

Back at the hotel I looked up my results and found out that I was 6th in my age group (out of 18), which was better than I expected after my very disappointing run and pretty disappointing swim, but at the same time I was pretty bummed that I was "only" 46min behind the 3rd person in my AG and 50min behind the 2nd one - a difference that I think I could have easily made up if I didn't have my GI issues... But those issues were at least partially my fault (eating more in the second half of the bike than in the first half, not practicing my real race nutrition and race intensity in training and going too hard on the bike), so I shouldn't complain. Next time WILL be better. Hopefully at Mont-Tremblant 2014 :-)

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Lessons (hopefully) learned:

1) Practice race nutrition in training:

•     a) If I plan to use a sports drink during an IM, I should at the very least do a couple of my long rides and runs with it. 
•     b) As much as gels are practical, if I don't use them on the bike in training, maybe I shouldn't use as many of them as I did during the race. Maybe more energy bars or even something salty would work better on the bike. 

2) Practice race pace during my long rides and runs and stick to my pacing plan during the race (at least for the first half of the bike).

3) Do longer transition runs after long rides: I suspect some people might not agree with this but I think that doing at least a couple 7-10 mile runs after 5-6 hour rides would be beneficial for figuring out the best nutrition strategy for running long off a long bike since I don't think I can simulate this well enough in my standalone long runs...

4) Position myself closer to the front at the start and don't swim so wide around the buoys.