6 weeks in hell -Abu Dhabi to Conn via Donadea

griffin100

An April Ironman? Too much winter turbo training for me

Izoard

griffin100 wrote: »

An April Ironman? Too much winter turbo training for me

I just about got away with it for Abu Dhabi, so would no doubt go down in flames if I try it again:)

RacoonQueen

Surely it's better to have you training for an April long distance race so all your training is done during crappy weather then you're available for doting daddy and loving husband duties during all the nice weather to bring them to nice places and what not? :pac:

Abhainn

Izoard wrote: »

Are you doing any races before Barca?

I was half thinking of DCT at the end of the month but it doesn't really appeal to me.
Might enter a 5 or 10k road race in the coming weeks to sharpen things up.

Izoard

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Surely it's better to have you training for an April long distance race so all your training is done during crappy weather then you're available for doting daddy and loving husband duties during all the nice weather to bring them to nice places and what not? :pac:

Clever girl:)

Yep, that is the pitch alright...the "going down in flames" reference was more about a spectacular blow up on the crappy roads of SA, due to zero "real" bike training:eek:

Kurt Godel

Izoard wrote: »

Right...

Nothing since April 1st, but I've "3 weeks in hell" quickly approaching, so I reckon it is time to bring this back to life.

How does this "nothing" work? Absolutely zero training? Or non-race-specific ticking over?

Izoard

Kurt Godel wrote: »

How does this "nothing" work? Absolutely zero training? Or non-race-specific ticking over?

I've been ticking along, but "zero" referred to events since Conn Ultra.

If I do sign up for something substantial in spring 2013, it will be the kick in the ar$e needed to get back on the wagon....

handangeo

Happy Birthday old timer! M50 yet??

Izoard

handangeo wrote: »

Happy Birthday old timer! M50 yet??

I think we'll both be going off that cliff almost simultaneously....

Have my eyes on Kona qualification for M75 - If I continue my one-pace approach and avoid injuries, I'm in!

handangeo

Izoard wrote: »

I think we'll both be going off that cliff almost simultaneously....

Have my eyes on Kona qualification for M75 - If I continue my one-pace approach and avoid injuries, I'm in!

We'll both be there so...along with everyone else who has the same idea. It will be more competitive than ever!

Don't have to much Cake, slow you down even more in Galway!

Dory Dory

Is it your birthday???? If so, then happy birthday to YOU!! And don't listen to that party pooper Handangeo - eat all the cake you want. Rumors that it will slow you down in Galway were started by the healthy folks who only eat vegetables and tofu. Don't be that guy.

Kurt Godel

Happy Birthday Izoard!

<<orders a drink for "the baldy fella at that table", and waits expectantly>>

shotgunmcos

50 :eek: no way. do you bathe in milk or something ?!

griffin100

Feck it he's hardly 50........is he? I better start wearing me compression gear to bed so!!

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Happy birthday old man

Izoard

Thanks for the multiple birthday wishes - however, to nail one rumour - I'm a '70's child, so the whole 50-thing is not to be given credibility just yet.

I am a big fan of full-time compression-wear though....:)

Izoard

So, after a summer of gluttony and sloth, I decided it was time for a re-appearance, so signed up to pace the 2hr group at this event.

A few one-liners from VR was about as much info as we got prior to the event and the web site was a hangover from 2010, so pre-race preparation was even poorer than usual on my part.

Travelling from Ballymoney meant a reasonably civilized spin down the N11, in the company of The Chairman, who is talking in terms of a 3.0x at DCM this year.

Cracking day for it, and Wexford's finest were out in force, milling around the local GAA pitch, waiting to get started.

No pre-race briefing - "take the balloon and get on with it", was the gist of it.

VR was all tooled-up in his personalized 1.45 pacer shirt, while I went off in search of my wing-woman - jcsmum, in her first pacing outing.

The gun went off about 2 minutes after everyone started running, so picked a random moment to start the garmin and off we went.

Of course, I forgot I was in the company of Imperial-measurement types, so had to do some Garmin fiddling to switch to miles and feet, while in flight.

The course description was a closely guarded secret, but with some input from the locals in the pace group, we reckoned it was "rolling" until a serious kick around mile 7.

After mile 1, the road headed sharply up into the shadows, resulting in the first cull of our group.

Things settled down until mile 7, where we hit the "hill" - turns out it was just a long drag for about a mile, but served to whittle down the group from 15 to 5.

At this point, it wasn't looking good for jcsmum and myself - potentially finishing with no pacees, is bad for business.

A further kick around mile 10, reduced the pacees to 3 and then 2 - nothing like a personalized service - 1 pacer to one pacee.

Luckily, we were catching a female runner ahead and despite her best protestations, I insisted she jump on, to get her to the line in under 2.00.

So, we finished with 3 - not sure if our late addition got in under 2hrs - she proceeded to tell me she stopped for a "few minutes to go to the toilet" as we crossed the line in 1.59.15.

Despite the pre-race lack of info, this race was well marshalled and organized. Although on open roads, traffic was very light, so was a non-issue.

The Chairman knocked out a 1.38 and is eyeing a sub 1.30 at the half race series, while jcsmum did a great job in her first outing - me, I was happy to get through unscathed and start turning my attentions to Galway 70.3 next week.

BennyMul

Happy belated birthday sir.

Izoard

Finally, an opinion I can use to justify no stretching...:)

brett sutton ‏trisutto
Stretching. It is necassary in extended range of motion sports, it has little value4 triathletes , other than2 increase the risk injury

pgibbo

Saw that alright and was tempted to open a seperate thread on it. I see Miranda agreed but Leanda called him on BS!!!

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Izoard

pgibbo wrote: »

Saw that alright and was tempted to open a seperate thread on it. I see Miranda agreed but Leanda called him on BS!!!

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Laziness is my only excuse - would be worth opening a thread - I'm sure it would generate some discussion!

Izoard

Poor state of readiness, but a shot at some time predictions:

Swim:
Total lottery, depending on conditions. I've done 28 - 58mins for a HIM and everything in between.
Swimming tends to be much the same, no matter how much or little I do, so I'll go with:
43 mins.

T1 5 mins

Bike: Have never broken 3 hours in a HIM, but have set my 2 fastest 90km times in IM races
Course seems straight forward enough, but sub-3 won't happen on Sunday.
3hr 12min

T2: 4 mins

Run:
Flat route, should be good enough for 1.50 or thereabouts.
1hr 49m

Total: 5 53 - ugh!

handangeo

Izoard wrote: »

Poor state of readiness, but a shot at some time predictions:

Swim:
Total lottery, depending on conditions. I've done 28 - 58mins for a HIM and everything in between.
Swimming tends to be much the same, no matter how much or little I do, so I'll go with:
43 mins.

T1 5 mins

Bike: Have never broken 3 hours in a HIM, but have set my 2 fastest 90km times in IM races
Course seems straight forward enough, but sub-3 won't happen on Sunday.
3hr 12min

T2: 4 mins

Run:
Flat route, should be good enough for 1.50 or thereabouts.
1hr 49m

Total: 5 53 - ugh!

Yea right, take 30 mins off that total, bit of a buffer being built in there

Izoard

handangeo wrote: »

Yea right, take 30 mins off that total, bit of a buffer being built in there

You haven't seen me in the flesh in a while...:)

Izoard

Saturday:
Arriving in Galway, the weather is standard fare – lashing rain and gale force winds. Staring out of the coffee shop in Salthill, this was weather you wouldn’t put a dog out in, never mind do a HIM.

The locals were relaxed – “It will be grand tomorrow, don’t worry” – I was cacking it.

Was staying with The Salesman and his marginally younger brother, The American, at their family home, around the corner from the race site. We’d normally be about the same ability, but The American has lost about 3 stone since I last saw him – life in LA on some crazy diet is suiting him. This also doubled as his stag weekend as he’s getting married in 2 weeks – A HIM for a stag – madness.

Still pi$$ing rain by the time we retire for the night – the 2 boys are tranquillo, while I’m thinking up excuses not to start.

Sunday:
Sure enough, the rain and wind are gone – the race now has a completely different complexion.

Taking a look at the course profile, it has a decent probability of delivering a PB in these conditions, although the bad news, is that the bike course is perfectly suited to The Salesman and his cartoon Popeye quads. Normally, if I’m within a reasonable distance coming off the bike, I can run him down, but on this course, I could easily be 20-30mins down.

Swim:
The sea looks fantastic and this is perfectly set up for me. As a left-sided breather, swimming mostly parallel to the shore and it seemed that the current was in our favour until the final turn.

The Salesman and myself are in the 2nd last wave and I bump into handangeo at the swim start. He’s looking even skinnier than usual and we laugh about his prophetic choice of the disc wheel now that the weather has dramatically improved.

Off we go and it is the full washing machine until the first turn. Things spread out a little after that and I’m feeling great. Lots of kayaks and bouys to sight off, so this is all going fine. Make the final turn and the flow turns, so a bit more effort required for the home leg. Hit the beach with a big smile on my face…that must be in the mid-30’s, I’m thinking.
Look down at the Garmin – 47.xx – WTF???

No idea, what happened there – what a way to kill the PB attempt L
47.35

T1:
In my confusion over the time, I hit “stop” on the Garmin, and didn’t realize until well into the bike, so timing was now out the window. Long transition both in and out and eventually on my way.
7:39

Bike:
Quite technical at the beginning, but once out of the University, it was down on the tri bars for extended periods. Suddenly hit a pot hole and “bang”, the water bottle hops off.
With only one bottle, I had to turn around. Once I got there, I saw the last drops draining from the bottle, as the lid had come off as well – Grrrrrr!

A this point, I needed to clear my head of the swim and poor start to the bike, or this was just not going to be enjoyable. Decided to ignore the Garmin for the rest of the bike, as I couldn’t make sense of the timing. Head down, and started to steadily catch a number of people ahead of ahead of me. By now, the drafting was a major issue – mostly people on road bikes riding as a group. At one point, a guy over took me and said “fair play to you, I’ll do my turn at the front now”

The leading pros came flying by on the way back – they didn’t get those tans in Galway!

Once we hit Oughterard, the decent road evaporated and more typically Connemara roads emerged. It was a bike-bottle grave yard and quite a few cages also on the ground.
Heading to Maam Cross, I spotted The Salesman on the way back with a healthy lead already.
2 more bottles hit the deck on the return, but didn’t have a material impact.

Hit transition not knowing the time, but it turned out I’d come in at 2:52.

2:52:14

T2
Had decided to use chamois crème on the bike, which didn’t do the job, so spent an extra minute applying industrial quantities of Vaseline, to dim the pain.
4:51

Run:
3 laps around Salthill. Started well, and saw The Salesman on the other side of the loop. Grand – he’s only about 5 mins ahead of me. Turns out I had no idea of the course, so by the time I eventually got to the top of the loop, I reckoned I was 15 mins behind him.
Once your turned around in South Park, you realized that the wind had picked up and it was a stiff headwind all the way back.

Spotted handangeo who was taking a walking break, so let him know that he needed to get his ar$e in gear J

Also spotted the lovely Rosanna D, who fills a tri suit particularly well. Comical scenes behind her, as guys are falling over each other to get the best view. Her celeb mate, Keith D, was having a hard time on the run and was probably wishing he could go incognito for a while.

2nd time around, I’m gaining on The Salesman, but nowhere near fast enough – he’s on for a strong finish.

Generally feeling good, but by the 3rd loop and the headwind, I was slowing dramatically. Last water stop at the top of the loop and then a strong finish required.

Great atmosphere at the finish and nice touch of having your personal chip time on the scoreboard as you cross.

I presumed Mike Reilly was going to greet me with:
“Congratulations, Izoard, you are ½ an Ironman!”
-He must have been on his tea break.

Run ended up as a shocking 1:54. And total time of 5:47.

Highlights:
Great course, but totally dependent on the weather.
PB bike split of 2.52 – finally a HIM under 3hrs.
Rosanna D.

Summary:
Really enjoyed the day, but pretty disappointed with the time, as I’ll never have a better opportunity to get a PB.

pgibbo

Congrats. A lot of the swim times are slower than expected with bike times being around 10mins faster than last year. The course change and weather made a huge difference. Congrats on going sub 3 on the bike! :cool:

handangeo

Hey, I'm glad it wasn't windy as I nearly got blown into the Atlantic avec la disc just racking the day before!

Agree with you on Rosanna, just couldn't catch up with her, she was always going the other way :mad:

Well done and thanks again for the kick in the ass, I thought nobody would see me taking a little walk break - you had me spotted in 10 secs :rolleyes:

claralara

Well done in Galway Izoard. Sounds like a good tough 'un! Not that I have a rashers about this multi-sport world. :rolleyes:

Did Rosanna actually take part in the whole event or did she pull a Kip Litton or a classic Rosanna-gate move?!

Izoard

claralara wrote: »

Well done in Galway Izoard. Sounds like a good tough 'un! Not that I have a rashers about this multi-sport world. :rolleyes:

Did Rosanna actually take part in the whole event or did she pull a Kip Litton or a classic Rosanna-gate move?!

Poor 'ol Rosie, the mini-marathon farce will haunt her for a while yet.

AFAIK, she was doing the run as part of a relay - now, whether she did the full 21.1km....

RacoonQueen

Izoard wrote: »

Poor 'ol Rosie, the mini-marathon farce will haunt her for a while yet.

AFAIK, she was doing the run as part of a relay - now, whether she did the full 21.1km....

Took her 1:55 - not quite in line with her 43 minute 10k time in the congested womens mini marathon. Maybe she had a bad day.