The Big Day – Race Report

All smiles

Luckily I didn’t leave writing this report until now, because two months down the line I am definitely looking back at the whole experience through rose tinted glasses.

The week following the race I was sitting on the bus and decided to drop my Mum an email about the big day, which I have posted here for anyone who fancies a read:

‘And in terms of the race, the weeks before I was quite tense and stressed because even if I wouldn’t admit it, I was worried about times and beating people. But the closer it came to it, my focus naturally shifted to just focusing on enjoying it as much as possible.

I decided to view it as the reward for all my hard work rather than something to beat myself up over.

Had some dramas before the race even started. You have to pack the transition bags the day before, and have no access to them on race morning. So put my bag in, got home, and saw my cycling top sitting on top of my bag. Fail. But Holly and I crafted a plan to stuff it into a repair kit bag and attach it to my bike which worked a charm.

Was really relaxed before the swim, super chatty, and wasn’t really thinking about what I was just about to do.

The swim had a staggered start, meaning the field was a lot more spread out than NZ. I made sure I just focused on being relaxed, and finding some of my own space to swim in. The course was a bit of a zig zag, so I definitely swam further than I needed to because my goggles steamed up and I was swimming a bit blind until I could sort them. Also had my goggles knocked off my face, and took on a bit of sea water, but nothing to stress overly about.

Got out the swim in 63 mins which was much better than I could have hoped considering I hadn’t done much swimming the weeks before.

All going swimmingly

Heading out onto the bike knew it was going to be tough as the course is one of the harder ones anyway, and they had predicted some serious winds. Word on the street is the wind was 30/40km per hour, and gusts up to 80. How true that was I have no idea.

Much like the swim decided to start easy and then build into it. Course was two laps, with a MEAN hill at 80 and 170k that loads of people had to get off and push their bikes up.

I ended up having to push much harder than I wanted to given the wind, which meant I still had a reasonably good bike, but knew full well I would pay for it on the run. Nailed the hill both times.

First time up the infamous Matthew Flinders Drive

Also, with the nutrition, I had planned to do a gel every 30, salt tablet ever hour and some bananas here and there, but the salt went out the window when I took my first one and my stomach started to gurgle at me. Decided to risk cramps over sh*tting myself. I would regret that later.

Got off the bike smiling but knowing that the furthest I had ever run was 26km, and that was ages ago, and that I was pretty tired after smashing myself on the bike.

When I started running my watch was reading 4mins per km, and I felt like I was doing an easy jog, to the extent I thought my watch was broken. Luckily I had been warned that might happen, and I slowed to what was felt like a crawl, but what was a much more respectable pace for an Ironman.

Run was four loops and then a 2km canter to the finishing chute.

First 10km felt great, did it in 55 and felt like I was keeping stuff in reserve. Lots of mates out on the run course all cheering me on.

Before it all went south

12km is roughly where it started to go wrong. Started with twinges in my calf which caused me to slow fearing cramps and being sensitive post my calf tear. Hadn’t brought any of my salt tablets on the run, so feared the worst.

From that point on my world got increasingly small, to the extent that any outside interference, even if it was someone like Holly cheering, was met with distress as it required additional energy to respond to. I was running about 6mins a km, and would walk the aid stations and then run to the next one.

The loops were mental torture, because you had to keep shuffling past your ultimate destination which was full of people, life and colour, and back to the empty desolate extremes of the course.

At this stage I can’t really recall what happened when, but eventually I cottoned on to the fact that they were doing vegemite on ice cream sticks, which after 8+ hours of sugar not only helped with the cramps (which were bad by now) but also tasted like heaven. Was washing them down with a coke at each aid station.

Lowest point on the run was when I hit a divot and after my stumble my ENTIRE body went into cramp / spasm. I must have looked in distress because a fellow competitor called for medics. I assured him it was just cramp and that I would be fine. Walked for 20/30 meters and then carried on my shuffle.

At that stage thought there was no way I would run the last 10km, but managed to do exactly that. Before the race I wanted to go under 12 (not including the less than ideal weather conditions) but given what I was going through couldn’t even bring myself to push a button on my watch to show the total time. It was totally irrelevant.

Getting the band that signified I had finished my fourth lap was elation like I have never experienced, it was nearly over.

The finishing chute was a bit of a non event. I was so shattered I kinda just shuffled to the finish line, nearly fell over a kink in the red carpet, and mustered a brief hold of my hands above my head.

However as soon as I finished I turned into a big girls blouse. I ended up balling my eyes out on the shoulder of the woman who caught me at the finish to the extent that she gave me a kiss on the forehead.

I then went straight out and found Holly, neglecting to do my health checks and recovery bits. Cried a bit more and called you guys.

Then decided I should go get checked out and went back to medical. On my way saw my training partner of the last eight months who looked worse for wear and needed a drip. Stayed with him till his family came back for him with the car.

Holly and I then went for a Subway and took me home to bed. At least that was the plan. I got out my stuff, had a shower and then went to bed, but was so high on adrenaline I couldn’t sleep so decided to go on an adventure.

The state of me …..

Put on my finishers tshirt and tracky bottoms and headed back to the finish line to have a beer and cheer some of the last finishers.

Finally got to bed just after 12 and was out like a light.

Next day woke up and was pretty stiff but nothing out of the ordinary. What was out the ordinary was my appetite. I’ve never known anything like it. I think I had about 7 meals plus snacks through the day.

Still can’t quite believe I did it. 100% the hardest thing I have ever done, but I’ve loved the journey, and feel like I have learnt so much about myself in the process.’

Job done!

They did it cooler in the 80’s

A couple of days back, on one of my all too regular facebook browsing sessions, I came across the picture above which was posted on the Ironman page.

You can’t help but look at the photos from back then and get the feeling that they had the right idea. Endurance sport without the frills. No compression tights, power meters or wetsuits, just epic mustaches, high cut running shorts and speedos.

To highlight just how much more awesome they were, I decided to pull together the following montage for your veiwing pleasure.

Cycling now:

Cycling then:

Running now:

Running then:

Swimming now:

Swimming then:

Fair to say that while modern technology may have made us faster, it definitely hasn’t made us cooler.

And for anyone still doubting just how badass the 80’s were, I would like to point you in the direction of solo man.

Ross

Highlights of the week: Really starting to see the benefits of the training. Broke my PB for a sprint distance tri with an epic hangover, and also set a new PB for the BRAT’s monthly 16km time trial on a seriously windy day.

Lowlights of the week: Got ahead of myself in the injury rehab (which was always going to happen). Was feeling good so got a serious case of the too’s. Too fast, too far, too soon. Back to the drawing board.

Are we addicts in disguise?

Typically when you think of addiction your mind immediately takes you to negative connotations of smoking, drug and alcohol abuse.

Given that I live a pretty clean cut life (most of the time), I have therefore always put myself firmly in the non-addict box.

But recently a couple of my friends have playfully suggested that they think I have an addictive personality, their logic being that when I get into something, I get really into it.

When one person suggests something to you it doesn’t register, but when a few more tease you about it you begin to take notice.

So to start my amateur self-assessment I went to the answer machine and did a Google search of ‘sport addiction’.

The search throws up loads of articles, lots of which are written by people with names like ‘Dr Phil’, but the best one I found on the subject was this one – http://www.active.com/articles/know-the-signs-of-unhealthy-exercise-addiction

The article describes exercise addition as ‘a chronic loss of perspective of the role of exercise in a full life’,

It then goes on to say that ‘the exercise addict has lost his balance: Exercise has become overvalued compared to elements widely recognized as giving meaning in a full life — work, friends, family, community involvement — in short, the fruits of our humanity.’

Given that I have a pretty active social life, am enjoying my work and do the occasional bit of volunteering, I immediately reached the conclusion that I am not one of the aforementioned addicts.

But a little further down the page, the article has the following checklist:

• I have missed important social obligations and family events in order to exercise – affirmative
• I have given up other interests, including time with friends, in order to make more time to work out – affirmative
• Missing a workout makes me irritable and depressed – negative
• I only feel content when I am exercising or within the hour after exercising – negative
• I like exercise better than sex, good food, or a movie — in fact there’s almost nothing I’d rather do – negative
• I work out even if I’m sick, injured, or exhausted. I’ll feel better when I get moving anyway – negative
• In addition to my regular schedule, I’ll exercise more if I find extra time – negative
• Family and friends have told me I’m too involved in exercise – not explicitly, but isn’t a joke just a polite way of drawing your attention to something!?
• I have a history (or a family history) of anxiety or depression – negative

So while I haven’t displayed all the signs of exercise addition, I have ticked enough of the checklist for Sharon (designer of said check list) to suggest that I potentially need to seek further help.

But that is where the difficult bit comes in. When I signed up to the Ironman, part of the deal was that sacrifices would need to be made in other areas of my life – it is 100% impossible to train for an Ironman without missing the occasional social event.

But I think the article has a very valid point, and one that I will make sure I am mindful of – life is all about balance.

Too much of anything, even if it is a good thing, is bad for you. And if variety is the spice of life, I have met some athletes who are about as spicey as a potato. I don’t want to be one of them.

Ross

He wins all the races

Highlight of the week: Recapturing my love of running. It wasn’t that I didn’t like running, far from it. But getting faster became all-consuming for a bit, and very rarely was I running just for the fun of it. Since having the ITB issues I have had to do a lot of running that doesn’t involve going particularly fast, or particularly far, meaning that I have spent my time enjoying my surroundings rather than recording my splits.

Lowlight of the week: Saying that, while it is getting better, my ITB is still a limiting factor and one that doesn’t appear likely to shift anytime soon. LAME.

The Enemy Within

Not to be trusted.

What if all of us possessed the ability to be super human athletes, but our brain was playing the role of the over protective parent who prevents us from realising our full potential?

Turns out that might not be too far from the truth.

Last week I stumbled across an experiment they did at Northumbria University on the role that the brain plays in when it comes to athletic performance.

They got a group of cyclists to pedal as fast as they could on a stationary bike for 4km.

Using that as a benchmark, they were then made to ‘race’ an avatar of their quickest time. Only the avatar wasn’t their quickest time at all – it was intentionally quicker.

Unsurprisingly all of the cyclists ended up matching what they thought they had done previously, thereby going quicker than they had ever gone before.

Which makes you think – just how much is my brain holding in reserve? And how can I consistently trick it into allowing my body to push its limits (short of developing amnesia and repeatedly racing avatars)?

Highlight of the week: Last week I clocked 12 hours’ worth of training, and still managed to have some semblance of a social life which bodes well for the next few months!

Lowlight of the week: Still haven’t managed to sort out my knee which is starting to get really frustrating. I JUST WANT TO GO FOR A RUN. On the plus side, all the rehab and stretching means I can touch my toes for the first time in my life. It has also meant that I have been able to concentrate on swimming and cycling, both of which have improved heaps.

Life for the next 5 months.

Ross

Spice of Life

The musical equivalent of a triathlete

The major reason triathlon is my sport of choice is because of how varied it is.

If I don’t fancy going for a bike ride in the rain, I can lace up my running trainers. If I am sick to death of following the lines at the bottom of the pool, I can head to the gym.

And variety is particularly important when you have a seriously low boredom threshold, which I am 100% guilty of.

But sometimes even triathlon, with all its different disciplines, can start to wear a little bit thin.

If you have been waking up at 5am every morning for weeks on end, for the same routine, training at the same locations, sometimes a bit of variety is exactly what you need to keep it fresh.

For specialist runners / swimmers / cyclists the other two disciplines are often championed as the best cross training activities.

What happens if you already do all three!?

My salvation came through tagging along to the 6 o’clock club – a crew of like-minded souls who do ‘micro adventures’ in and around Sydney and its surrounds.

The 6 o’clock club is not sport in the traditional sense, if at all. But that’s why I like it. It is a group of people who love outdoor adventures. It just so happens that you can’t help but do physical activities when you are adventuring.

During the trips to date we have been kayaking in the Kangaroo Valley, surfing in the Royal National Park, hiking (everywhere) and mountain biking in the Blue Mountains.

Mountain biking session in the blue mountains

None of which conforms to any triathlon training plan I have seen, but every weekend I come back completely refreshed, having eaten nothing other than what I could carry and, as soon as my head hits the pillow on Sunday night, I am out like a light.

And best of all it isn’t some exclusive club, there are no membership fees – the only requirement is that you are up for it.

The lads love a hammock

If you fancy giving it a go search ‘6 o’clock club’ on Facebook and like the page. Henry and the crew send out updates for upcoming adventures roughly every month.

Ross

Highlight of the week: With 6 months to go, settling into my routine. Starting to find my feet on the bike, and I have already clocked up 6.5km in the pool this week and it’s only Friday. Pow.

I have also found the perfect tool for my competitiveness on the bike. I first heard about Strava ages ago, but due to my basic aversion to technology (classic late adopter – I don’t want anything until everyone else has it), I didn’t download it until this week.

It basically means every ride is a race. And you earn points accordingly. So awesome.

Lowlight of the week: My knee still won’t play ball. I have been doing everything that my physio has told me to – taking it slow on the runs, incorporating lots of walking intervals, but all to no avail (yet).

I have seen the dark side

Over the past couple of weeks I have tempted by the dark side.

When I first started out doing triathlon I promised myself it would be under my own steam, without the techno wizardry available to those triathletes who want it.

But over the last couple of weeks I have joined up to a new squad, Turbo Studio, under the tutelage of Danny Moore, with a view to getting in some more specific coaching and guidance for the Ironman.

Danny’s tagline is ‘train smarter not harder’, which gives you a fair indication of how open he is to using new technology to drive performance.

Before I had even signed up, Danny invited me to a demo of the software he uses to track how his squad are progressing toward their particular goals.

It was mental.

He chose one guy in particular, and was able to map every workout he has done over the last 12 months including measurements like elevation, heart rate, power output (and that’s just the stuff I understood, there were things for tracking fatigue and all sorts).

Having all this information, the theory goes, means that Danny is able to get his athletes to peak at exactly the right time for their target races.

This still means absolutely nothing to me.

My initial reaction to that level of detail was mixed.

One part of me still wants to do it old school, judging my effort levels by how hard I am breathing and how much it hurts. Using all this technology feels a bit like cheating.

Another part of me is terrified that it will make me accountable in every single workout that I do. So not only will I know that I’ve been slacking, so will the boss.

But in spite of these concerns, the fact is, the guys I know who joined the squad a while ago are now completely different athletes to the ones I used to ride with a few months ago. They have come on leaps and bounds precisely because they have been able to track their performance over time and tweak it as they went along.

And given that my ultimate goal is to drag my carcass through an Ironman, I have decided I will take on board any little advantage I possibly can to give myself the best chance of making the finish line.

Coincidence that they all wear black?

So while in my youth I was in the pro-rebel camp, in this instance it appears that I am more Anakin than Luke Skywalker. In the quest for improved performance, the pull of the dark side is a strong one.

Is this the start of a very slippery slope?

Ross

Highlight of the week: Spent the weekend mountain biking in the blue mountains which was an awesome change from the asphalt. Also managed a run for the first time in weeks. It was only 15 minutes, but it was refreshing to be out there regardless.

Lowlight of the week: Was involved in a crash in centennial park. I managed to come away with little more than a graze and some bruises, but the guy in front of me wasn’t so lucky, a stick in his wheel snapping his forks in two and giving him a suspected broken shoulder. Hope he’s alright!

Swimming in Sydney

Given that I have the attention span of a 4 year old, I can often find swimming lap after lap in the same swimming pool a fairly tedious exercise.

Luckily for me Sydney is a swimmer’s dream.

Not only does it have some of the world’s most iconic beaches and a harbor famous the world over, but tucked in and around the city are also some pretty special swimming pools – meaning that I always have the option to mix up my routine and head somewhere a bit different.

Within spitting distance of home and work I am lucky enough to have all of the below:

My favorite of all the pools in Sydney, the Andrew Boy Charlton, or ABC as it is otherwise known.

Home aka Bondi Icebergs. Within rolling distance of my front door, and an awesome option for when the swell is too big to swim the bay

Redleaf Pool – Less of a pool, more of a net in the harbor to keep out the bull sharks

Bronte Pool – couple of bays down the coast

Price Alfred – the new kid on the block. Only just opened after years of delays, meaning that it’s free swimming till November!

The North Sydney Olympic pool – the only one I am yet to actually swim in! I am currently couch surfing just around the corner, but it is unfortunately having a refurb, so will have to tick it off another time

So while London definitely has some awesome outdoor lidos (or outdoor swimming pools as they are otherwise known), I think it is fairly evident why the move from London to Australia has done wonders for my motivation to get outdoors and do some exercise!

Ross

Highlight of the week: Writing this. Have had a fairly eventful month that has definitely interfered with my training and routine – some personal drama, couch surfing and getting up to speed with a new role at work. Hoping this post is marks a return to normality!

Lowlight of the week: For the first time in as long as I can remember, I got a man cold. So for the time being I have swapped outdoor activity for a blanket and some Lemsip.

Drugs in Sport (and Triathlon)

2012 was the year that I lost my sporting innocence.

It was in the back end of 2012 that USADA released their report on the US Postal Team and Lance Armstrong, outlining how they ran ‘the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen’

It wasn’t that I was an Armstrong groupie, far from it. But, when somebody had maintained for years that they were innocent, had never tested positive (publicly at least) and had gone to the extent of suing people for libel, at the very least you want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So when the USADA report was released, and Armstrong subsequently did his damage limitation on Oprah, to say I had become more cynical about elite sporting achievements is perhaps an understatement.

And unfortunately, while Lance has become the poster boy for EPO, the problem of performance enhancing drugs in cycling was around before he came onto the scene. In fact, at one stage, Lance was seen as part of the solution rather than the problem.

Having only started taking an interest in cycling over the last couple of years, my knowledge of the cycling pre-Lance was limited at best.

It was only after reading David Walsh’s book, ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’, that I found out that cycling has already been through a doping scandle on this scale just over a decade ago. The 1998 Tour de France was overshadowed by the Festina affair, where one of the team assistants was found with large quantities of doping products in his car, revealing a culture of drug taking within the sport.

As a result of the fallout from the Festina affair, the 1999 Tour was named the ‘Tour of Renewal’, the premise being that it would herald a new beginning for cycling, free of doping.

The reality didn’t turn out quite like that. Not only did the peloton clock speeds greater than the year before (when a drug free peloton should have been slower), it was also the maiden victory for a cyclist who would go on to dominate the sport – Lance Armstrong.

So when cycling has already been through one false dawn, you can understand why journalists are still questioning the likes of Wiggins and Froome on the subject today.

Sadly, the Armstrong affair has not just tainted my view of athletic brilliance in cycling.

The words used to describe Armstrong in his heyday went something along these lines: once-in-a-lifetime, extrodinary, insprational.

Are those not the exact same words we use when we describe someone like Usain Bolt? I am not for one second suggesting that Usain has doped, but sadly for him (and me) the negative light from the Lance Armstrong saga stretches far beyond just the world of cycling.

Which brings me to triathlon.

It is fair to say that triathlon has not had doping scandles on the scale of those faced by other sports. This can be attributed to that fact that, by and large, triathlon is still a fringe sport. It does not offer the fame or financial glory offered by the likes of the Tour de France.

But triathlon is now one of the fastest growing participation sports globally. It is also becoming increasingly mainstream, with the likes of the Brownlee brothers now household names in the UK post the Olympics.

Given that increased participation and marketing reach typically bring more dollars, it would be foolish to assume that the sport is immune from the pressures that give rise to performance enhancing drugs.

Ross

Highlight of the week: Thanks to some tips from my swimming partner, Andrew Wiltshire, whose claim to fame is the towel he got from Commonwealth Games trials for New Zealand (it’s a great towel), I finally feel like I am getting to grips with the swim.

Lowlight of the week: Realising that the stereotype of year round sunshine in Australia is a massive PR stunt. It gets cold, and it rains, and it gets dark early. All of which cause massive problems for my ongoing training.

Swimming: Inspiration not Perspiration

Swimming is the discipline that puts the fear of god into 99.99% of triathletes. The other 0.01% either swam competitively growing up, or were born in Australia, where it is compulsory to be awesome at all water sports (I love a good stereotype, and factually correct statistics).

We all know we can run, and we all know we can ride a bike. Sure we might have to go reaaaaallly slow, but if things don’t go to plan we can just plod our way to the finish line.

But in the water if things don’t go to plan, it means getting rescued by a 15 year old on a kayak.

The cycling and running legs also have rules and social norms around things like personal space. These do not apply whatsoever to the swim. If you need any proof, check out the video from IM Melbourne earlier this year – http://bit.ly/12NU2Hl

So given that the swim is absolutely the most terrifying part of the triathlon, most people throw themselves into the training with gusto.

They jump into the pool and try swim as far as they can in every session. They focus on stamina rather than technique, hoping that eventually the body will get used to the longer distances and they will miraculously become a better swimmer.

But, from my experience, that is exactly the opposite to what you should be doing.

When I trained for my first ever triathlon, the prospect of a 750m swim kept me up at night. I signed up with three friends and while it was never officially a competition, the fear of embarrassing myself meant I was pretty dedicated with my training.

I used to go to the pool around the corner from my work every lunch time and drag myself as far as possible. I say drag because that’s exactly what I did. In my mind I didn’t have enough time to practise technique, the race was too soon for that.

After a few weeks of much effort and little progress, I realised that if I carried on at this rate I would never make it. I could do no more than 5/6 lengths in a 50m pool without feeling like I had died. Something had to give.

So I did some research and came across Terry Laughlin. Terry created a programme called Total Immersion, which completely changed the way I thought about swimming.

Total Immersion’s philosophy is that trying to pull yourself through the water is absolutely useless, and that instead you should be focused on making yourself as streamlined and efficient as possible. The antithesis to how I had viewed swimming previously.

So, with the triathlon fast approaching, I ordered his DVD off the internet and set about trying to teach myself how to swim from scratch.

I kept going to the same swimming pool, but instead of doing laps I headed to the baby pool and did the drills I had watched the night before on my laptop.

At the beginning it was VERY frustrating. I was putting in all this effort, looking like an idiot doing drills by myself in the kids pool, without seeing any returns.

But slowly it started to click, and I started to see some real gains. I didn’t become a faster swimmer overnight, if at all, but I found myself able to do the distances without feeling like I was running on empty. Also, in stark contrast to how I had felt before, I actually started to enjoy myself.

By the time it came round to raceday, I was pretty confident I would be able to survive the swim, if nothing else.

As it turns out, the swim ended up being my strongest leg of the entire race. On the day, thanks to Terry, I was the first of my mates out of the water with a fairly respectable time of 16 minutes for the 750m.

So my beginners advice: if you are currently training for a swim of any distance, ditch the the repetitive lap swimming and focus on technique. Not only will you see real improvements in your ability, it will also become much less of an ordeal and altogether more enjoyable.

Ross

P.S. My lead coming out of the water was very short lived. My mates caught me within seconds of the start of the bike and the next time I saw them was at the finish line.

Highlight of the week: After a couple of weeks of inactivity I have finally got back into my routine. The fact that this is a highlight shows that I am fast slipping into middle age.

Lowlight of the week: Going for a long ride after a pretty heavy long weekend. By the time I got home my spirit was crushed and my ego battered.

Pretty apt …

Sure a couple of my mates would subscribe to this.