Monaco Ironman 70.3 2008

I don't normally read my previous posts, and so I was rather amused to read my post about my first triathlon. It appears to me that I go through the same cycle again and again when it comes to racing.....

Sign up for (dumb ass) race -> Train (not enough) for race -> Panic -> Do race -> Suffer -> Be surprised at race outcome -> Sign up for a new (dumb ass) race

And the cycle starts all over again.

As it turns out, L'Etape du Tour was merely the beginning of a very exciting journey I have embarked on. A week after the race, the novelty of not having to cycle wore off, and I was once again looking for a new challenge. I decided to take advantage of my new found cycling fitness, and had a look around on the Internet for a cycling challenge.

The result of it is I signed up for a cycling holiday, called La Randonnée Alpine Côte d'Azur-Léman, which is basically the Alpine raid, cycling from the northern Alps (near Geneva) all the way to the coast, where we finished in Nice (this is the opposite direction to what is described in the name), barely a month before the start of the tour.

A week of cycling 100 odd km every day, with an average of 30km of ascent (the longest ascent of about 50km) per day, meant that I cycled a good 712km over the week, crossing 30 mountain passes, and climbing approximately 17,485m. A standard day comprised of a few of these photos (posing at the top of the col):

A fantastic holiday, and even more new found fitness, I decided that I was ready to take on a Half Ironman. So I signed up for the Monaco Ironman 70.3. Of course, I had only ever run more than 20k once in my life (I am a 10k runner!), and I now had 2 weeks to get my act together. Nothing beats a little challenge....

I rocked up at Monaco with Mark in tow (my enthusiastic support team!). We faffed about with logistics...

And even had some time to enjoy the posh scene of Monaco...

The race became the new official hardest thing I've done in my life. A panic attack in the swim (mass start in the sea did not do it for me!), a cycle leg that was much hillier than I anticipated and nearly took me out at one point (slippery roads and sharp turns), and a run leg with stomach cramps in the last 8k, left me somewhat spent at the end of it all. I swear my supporters were much more enthusiastic at my finish than I was. I looked like this, and I could barely stand:

In an interesting twist of fate, I came 8th in my category and bagged a place in the World Championships in Florida:

To be fair the organisers were practically begging people to go, there was that little interest. No matter, all to my advantage because in a couple of months' time, I will be a World Championship competitor!



If you are still bored, read on for an example of how NOT to do a Half Ironman:

Introduction

This race report covers events from approximately 12 hours before the start of the race, 7am, 7th September 2008.

Timings are approximate.


Race Diary

19:00 – Having spent the last 2 hours queuing to rack the bike, and queuing to deposit transition bags, it’s time to chill.
19:30 – Hmmm why is no one else wearing "Athlete" wrist bands drinking cocktails
20:30 – Dinner: Half a bottle of wine, seafood pasta
22:00 – Head back to hotel. Final preparations (Day clothes bag, swim stuff, last check on food for bike, money in frame bag, etc etc). Shower.
23:00 – Walk around area, discovered local festival going on. Joined the party for a bit, dancing included.
00:30 – Sleep

03:10 – Wake up scared. What time is it? Oh, only 3 am.
04:50 – Wake up scared. What time is it? Hmmm almost 5. Must calm down.


05:00 – Get out of bed, shower, take phone call.
05:40 – Leave hotel, make our way to the race venue.

06:00 – Final checks to bike done, mobile phone left with bike, bike computers strapped on, water bottles on bike.


06:10 – Now what? To wear a wetsuit or not, hmmm. Mark is telling me to stretch, I don’t see the point, I am not going to swim very fast in the sea. But ok, half hearted stretches it is.

06:20 – Hmmm everyone else is wearing a wetsuit, I’m still not convinced I need it. I’ll dip my toes into the sea and see how it feels.
06:30 – I still can’t decide. Maybe I should take a dip in the sea.
06:40 – Dip in sea. Swim a bit. Seems fine.
06:45 – Decision made, no wetsuit. Oh dear, why am I the only one without a wetsuit? Stop thinking about it.


06:50 – Take place near the barrier where I can still talk to Mark.
06:55 – Oh, where exactly am I swimming to? Ask for directions.


7:00 – Off we go

07:03 – Bodies everywhere, I can’t see where I am going, I can’t see the bouys so I don’t know where I should be going, waves are coming in at us. Panic. I can’t do this. What now?
07:04 – Get a grip, you can swim. Better to do some breast stroke, take it easy and calm down than to drop out completely. Slow swim is better than stopping now!
07:06 – Calmed down and swimming, switch to front crawl
07:20 – I wonder if I am the last swimmer in the sea
07:32ish – Turned around the final bouy. I wonder how long I’ve taken. Only 32 minutes?! Not too shabby
07:38 – Exit water


07:40 – Transition 1: This is easy, I just need to put my shoes on and off I go.
07:42 – Why is everyone walking so slowly?! Out of my way, I have a bike to get on


07:43 – Away on my bike!

(from here, events will be logged according to km cycled)

1km – Road is climbing. Attempt to eat cereal bar. Eating whilst standing and trying to push up a hill is a very bad idea. Choke on bar.
5km – Ok I better switch bicycle computer view, I’ve only done 5km, I have a long way to go!! Why is this so difficult?
7km – Why didn’t I look up where the course levels off and/or climbs?!
10km – Why don’t I understand that sign? Why does it say 80km? Ohhh, 80 km to go.

12km – Why didn’t I look up what numbers fall into my category? Hmmm, 28 in my category, I am 521, I can’t let anyone with race number 521 +/- 28 overtake me.
18km – Ok where is this fuelling station? They said it’s at 18km. It’s meant to go downhill. Why are we still going uphill?


20km – Ah, fuelling station. Chuck out old bottle, look for energy drink. No I don’t want Coke, no I don’t want water, no I don’t want bananas. Ah there you go. Why is it only 500ml?! It’s meant to be 750ml, they lied…

25km – On the descent. Oh look, I’m overtaking girls who overtook me on the climb. Hah, all that energy you spent climbing faster, lost on a free descent.
27km – Nearly lost control of bike, back tyre skidded on wet corner. That was a bit scary. Best not to die, need to finish race.

40km – Back on another climb. Front derailleur acts up. Gears go from top drive to lowest (3rd) drive. Stop to check. Get overtaken by half a dozen people. Hmm why is my left foot moving about on my pedal? Oh dear maybe I should not have put new pedals on my bike, what if it all falls apart?!
47km – Still worried about pedal.

50km – 2nd descent. Something black comes lose from my bike and I run over it. Uh oh what the hell was that. Turns out it’s my pump. I better not get a puncture now, I’m not turning back. Ok, another near miss at a corner, people need to chill or we are going to die.
60km – Ok this is stupid, no point in worrying about the pedal. If I make it I make it.
67km – Not very tired but not going very fast. Text friend.
70km – Definitely slowing down but I can’t seem to do anything about it.

72km – Downhill and homeward bound!
78km – Why are we going uphill again?!


90km – end cycle


0.2km (run) – Uh oh why is my Garmin not working properly?! Much fiddling to get it into the right mode (must have run 400m by now)
0.4km – Focus on style, rhythm and technique
1km – Lose Garmin signal in tunnel. Ack!




3km – Uh oh why are we going uphill? What do you mean I have to do this 5 times? Crap…
4km – Abandon all pacing strategies
5km – Crap, I forgot to check my time for my first loop, oops

5.5km – Running strong. Notice man crying whilst walking. Has the world lost its mind?
6.7km – Splash of water on head
8km – Running better than last time round on the hill
9km – Start checking out competition
10km – Crap, I’ve forgotten to check my loop time again. Duh.

10.2km – Water on head
10.5km – Wayne said I would be tired and want to start walking by now. I don’t, hah!
11.5km – Hmmm my stomach hurts
13km – Ok my stomach seriously hurts
16km – Pass man screaming in pain (looks like a cramp)
21km / 11:48 – Finish run. Can’t stand straight

12:00 – Can’t walk. Legs don’t hurt, stomach hurts.

12:30 – Feel vaguely human again
13:00 – Get food and finisher’s t-shirt


And that, is how not to do a Half Ironman.... :)

L'Etape du Tour 2008

A chance conversation with a client on a project I didn’t want to be on, and a very bad first cycle up a Pyrenean mountain in my middle chain ring are what I have to thank (blame) for completing and coming 13th in my category (!) in l’Etape du Tour 2008 on the 6th of July. For someone who bought my first bike in January 2007 to "try" triathlons, that is not bad at all.

I know nothing about bikes (I had to ask what size inner tube to buy last week), and I am not a cycling enthusiast. I know nothing about Tour de France, and the names Tourmalet and Hautacam meant nothing to me. I signed up for l’Etape du Tour in February because it sounded "challenging" and seemed like an opportunity of a lifetime, being based (against my will) in Pau, France, the host venue for the event in 2008, on an assignment. This was all the information I had when I signed up:

What followed next was 4 months of random triathlon training (2-2-2 split between running, swimming and cycling), a comedy of errors of cycling accidents (including falling off because I'd jammed the brakes too hard), blazing through some 10k run races...

...and the Etape Caledonia...

...and finally cycling up 3 quarters of the Tourmalet to find myself too knackered to cycle up the last 5km, let alone another mountain (Hautacam).

This was the beginning of June, and I decided it was time to take this Etape training a bit more seriously. I abandoned my 2-2-2 routine, and started cycling 3 times a week. 1 fairly fast, undulating 40-50k evening ride, 1 hill rep ride and 1 long ride. Being a so called triathlete I felt compelled to run and swim once in between all that as well. All in all, a rather tiring lifestyle.

Consulting a friend, it turned out that struggling after three quarters of the Tourmalet might have just been due to lack of fuel (low heart rate and no power). Whew. I can deal with eating more, much easier than finding new legs. But I was taking no chances, and did a few more long rides, including the Hautacam, and to and from Spain via two mountain passes.

6th of July arrived and I’d done the whole route, albeit in bits. I’d done all I could do (within the one month of serious training), eaten all the pasta I could eat and called around for as many good luck wishes and charms I could get. This was it, the Big Day after months of anticipation and a week of being highly strung and nerve wrecked. I even had homebaked cookies baked by Riss and packed by her mum...

My number was 7046, which means I was the 2nd last batch to leave. Not a good start seeing the broom wagon (the bus that sweeps up the too-slow riders) left soon after I did. Waiting around in a crowd of 7500 people was rather exciting...

I nearly forgot to take a picture of my bike at the start but Caragh reminded me to:

I started off at a reasonable pace, latching on to faster riders coming by me and being towed along shamelessly. I was half the size of most people there, so it is allowed in my opinion. Leading group looked like this:

There were 3 small hills before the big climbs. I found myself spinning quite easily in my granny wheel going up hills while the big boys huffed and puffed in their compact, or worse, double chain rings. I even felt compelled to smile and wave at the camera at this point...

A more serious view...

My support team, Chris and Riss, had come along to the first hill to cheer me on, despite the rain (check out their colourful jackets)!

Then came the Tourmalet…

I spent the first 5km or so wondering why the climb was so tough. I’d bought a new bike the week before, and thought that perhaps the new gear ratios were catching me out. Uh oh, I’d barely started the climb.

It was only when I looked down that I discovered my mistake. I was in the MIDDLE ring, and not the little one. That would explain why it seemed so tough. Down to my granny wheel and life was fine. It was a fairly long climb (16.9km) but didn’t knacker me like it did the first time.

I stopped for water a La Mongie (4km from the top), and munched on a ham and cheese baguette whilst walking a few hundred metres, much to the amusement of other cyclists and on lookers. Back on the bike and made it to the top without stopping.

Looking at the clock at this point of time, I was 1 hour ahead of the broom wagon, and for the first time, I knew I was going to make the finish without being swept up. It was an emotional moment. But, no time for that, don a jacket and away we go. 38 km of downhill to the bottom of Hautacam.

And this, according to my timing chip, was about to become the biggest achievement of all in the entire race. I arrived at the bottom of the Hautacam to hysterical cheering because I was a girl. Being gallant and competitive, I felt compelled to cycle faster to "thank" them for their encouragement. A few km in and I realized I really needed to conserve my energy to finish the 14km of uphill.

Annoyingly, everyone seemed to be cycling really slowly. The road was narrow, with half of it being coned off for people coming back downhill after finishing. I spent much of the 14km practicing my French saying "Pardon" and "A gauche" and "Attencion" in an attempt to avoid getting knocked over. Surprisingly I only took 1:16, as opposed to my predicted 2 hours. According to the results I overtook 700 people on that climb, over 10% of all finishers (6178).

The final outcome…. 13th in my category (out of 78 who signed up), 33rd woman (out of 200+), and 2627 overall (out of 8550 who signed up). At 7:51:30 I qualify for a silver certificate, certainly more than I expected, seeing I wasn’t even confident I’d beat the broom wagon! A happy picture at the finish with Caragh, without whom I would probably never even have bought a bicycle!

I will be carrying my souvenier bag and bottle everywhere, showing off to anyone who cares to notice. 7 hours and 51 minutes of cycling, 6 months of training, I think I am entitled to it!