Tango number 5

Mr Tango

Many people have said it takes 5 IM races to learn the race and actually nail one. This year is all about the time:

1. Frankfurt 2011 – the puncture incident. Cost about 25-30 mins. 11hrs 36mins as 53m swim, 6.11on the bike and 4.18 on the run.
2. Roth 2012 – put my back out 5-6 weeks in advance. Couldn’t stay in the bars for more than about 15 mins. Never so glad to see a race over. 11.09 as 53 swim , 5.41 on the bike and 4.22run. Need to do this one again in good shape – should be a very fast course.
3. Lanzaraote2013 – I can’t descend!!! great race but no b*lls for the decents with the cross winds. 11.51 as 56 swim, 6.31 on the bike and 4.08 on the run. One for the bucket list – ticked.
4. Frankfurt 2014– Ohh the heat!!!! time to redeem 2011 (tyres full of no more tubes to prevent punctures!) – 11.06 as 55 swim, 5.33 on the bike and 4.23 run. Heat killed me. Last 18k was hell. Peaked at 38 degrees on the day!!
5. Austria 2015 - ???????????????????????

(I have race reports for the two frankfurts if anyone wants to read). Lanza and Roth are here (first and nearly last post http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056713375&page=7)

Some changes for this year. Major one is getting a coach – Coach Tunney came on board (or I came on board with him).

So the focus was to be on the bike and training commenced in January. I went into Frankfurt holding 263w for a 20m TT (313w for the 5 min). I was 72kg. Power to weight on a 90% of the 20min was 3.29. Tested in November 2014 off little or no biking and was down to 244 watts, up to 74kg and power to weight of 2.97. By January I was back to 261 and power to weight of 3.22. This was based on steady cycles. The focus started January in respect of specific and tailored workouts. The 20 min power moved as follows:
- Jan 261w – ftp at 90% was 237.
- Feb – 271 w - ftp was 244
- Mar – 280w – ftp was 252.
- Held 269 AP in Joey Hannon for 63mins with a 20 min ave of 290. ftp therefore 269 or take 90 % of 290 which is 261w.

Summary – specific sessions work. They need to be structured and have a purpose. We made a decision in April/May to stop trying to drive the FTP up and move to IM specific intervals and really driving that number up. This worked upwards from 190w for 30min intervals to 5x50mins at 205 watts which is the designated IM pace. 210 was just over cooking it slightly. Last year I was aiming to hold 180w (and was there or thereabouts for most of the bike – read the race report for more!)

All this while the weight steadily reduced to a current 69Kg (this is only cutting out some rubbish – amazing what happens when you cut fizzy drinks and baguettes back!).

In tandem with this the run form was pulled apart as it needed to be and very slowly put back

together focusing on one aspect for a few weeks until I didn’t have to think about it and then moving to the next fix. Decent block of running but again structured and away from the higher intensity work I did last year. One thing I gave up was the running club. The coach said it wouldn’t work – you are either in or out – so I ditched that and bought into the whole program. Result is my easy pace is now 5m per km and steady at 4.45per km. Way up on last year. Ran up to 30km with no issues and finishing at or under 5 m per km and feeling I could easily do another hour. The total focus of these runs was form.

The Garmin 920xt was really useful here. Working on increasing the SPM was the focus which went from high 160s to 178. This has a direct correlation to vertical oscillation and GCT. All good – these runs were nearly as tiring mentally as physically. The one long run I did with somebody and was chatting and not thinking the stats all dropped.
Swim wise – aim was to find a training buddy to try and motivate myself. Peter, myself and Graham met up on a Friday and did the following. 5x200, 4x400, 5x200. Times went from turning the 200s on 3.10-3.15 ish to holding 2.45 easily and turning on 3. 400s were done as paddles and pull buoy and we went from 5.50 down to in the 5.20s to low 5.30s. Big gains. Training groups help!! Generally did one extra session a week of about 2k. Hard to motivate on the swim front.

A 6th and 17th finish in Joey Hannon and Carlow Sprint have shown me that I have never biked or ran better - good omen considering zero rest for either race and the focus has been totally on the long stuff.

So the scene has been set and race week is upon me. I have been told to commit so here goes:
- Swim and two transitions at 55mins. Will require a 50 min swim, out in the fast wave and told it is a fast swim, wont be pushing the swim at all so if it is a 53m swim then fine, I have some fat to play with! Wont be hanging round in transition though.
- Bike – hold 205 watts when possible, don’t chase a time but hold this wattage on the flats, take the climbs steady and pedal easy on the fast decents. Hoping this will yield a 5.15.
- Run – this is the fear as you can see based on previous runs. Taking the improvement in bike and run though the target is a 3.45. Will be aiming to hold 5m per km as long as possible.
- Sub 10, or 9.55 to be precise.
- Fingers crossed.

Race report to follow!!!!

catweazle

Now that's how to do a training log - in out in less then a week.

Best of luck in Austria!

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Have a great race Darren, hope you nail the sub 10

mossym

Best of luck Darren, the rest of Team Tunney will be rooting for you

shotgunmcos

Cool. Nail it, report, kill the log. Just miss it, report, bag lessons and continue on.

I sincerely hope its what you want. Best of luck!!

Dory Dory

Best of luck at the weekend!!

griffin100

Best of luck Darren.

pgibbo

Sweet. Safe travels and the best of mechanical luck to you.

Oryx

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!

The very best of luck to you.

rooneyjm

Swim 54.06
T1 5.01

It looks warm from the live feed.

griffin100

Done in 10.16. Sub 3.45 marathon.

pgibbo

Nice PB yesterday Tango. Congrats!!!

shotgunmcos

Good running. Hit your target, well done!

Pretty close to your O/A goal too. Swim was close to target. What happened on the bike?

RacoonQueen

Was actually a bit windy out there yesterday Mike, not sure how much that would have affected people on the bike.

Well done Darren, you'll have to go again now to nail the sub 10

tunney

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Was actually a bit windy out there yesterday Mike, not sure how much that would have affected people on the bike.

Well done Darren, you'll have to go again now to nail the sub 10

Well done Darren. Solid work, solid race.

Welcome to the club - the MyIronmanPBisFasterThanFrans Club.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Thats a very small club you are joining beating my PB:) We need to pick a course in 2017 and dual it out for a sub 10.

Congrats on a great result. Am i right in saying thats your fastest IM run by 20mins or so?

Mr Tango

Thanks all.

Back on Irish soil. Happy with the pb. A bit short of the target but will disect that further on due course.

Report to follow....

Mr Tango

Atticus Proud Roadkill wrote: »

Thats a very small club you are joining beating my PB:) We need to pick a course in 2017 and dual it out for a sub 10.

Congrats on a great result. Am i right in saying thats your fastest IM run by 20mins or so?

Yes. 43 mins faster than last year and 20 than my previous best. Notwithstanding the bike time not being were I wanted the better bike legs facilitated the run

MojoMaker

Congrats Tango - time for cake

tunney

MojoMaker wrote: »

Congrats Tango - time for cake

Tango can stay sub 70kg if he is going to do LS. Fat asses don't climb.

Mr Tango

The Drama


If you have seen my previous race reports (and alluded to at the start of the blog) there is always some drama on these trips, from punctures, to cancelled flights to someone ending up in the medical tent.


So not wanting to break with tradition we landed in Munich at about 11 and got our two cars and proceeded for a 4 hour drive to Klagenfurt. I had insisted on my wife going on the car insurance in case I needed her to drive on the way back. Not keen, as she hadnt driven on the wrong side of the road before we reached a compromise that she got to practise on the way down. I did the first 90 minutes then passed the power over to my wife and another girl who was in our car on the way down and back. They shared/practised driving for the rest of the way. I now know how it feels to teach someone to drive, except this was on the auto bahn at about 70mph. I had sweaty palms and found myself holding on tightly to the passenger door. I had to give the ok to overtake and to pull back in as well as warning about walls approaching me at great speed (no hard shoulders overthere). The other car had three lads in it and they were waiting in a layby for us in Klagenfurt. As we (or the girls) congratulated themselves for arriving in one piece we pulled into the parking spot to a loud scraping noise - there goes the alloy (lucky we took out the excess waiver). As the lads laughed, they stopped pretty quickly which was not a good sign. Got out of the car and the tyre had a large tear in it resulting in a chunk of rubber hanging off. We must have rubbed the tyre against the sharpest curb in Austria. No problem, just change the tyre and we can get a new one in the morning. Open the boot and no spare, just a spray to fix punctures. Might have been able to drive it but had to be a risk of blow out and we were 20k from our hotel so called avis as it was after 5 and the tyre places were all shut. In fairness to them they got the car towed and gave us a replacement from Klagenfurt airport which they opened up just for us (they sorted us out quickly so would definately use them again). SO we relaxed and had dinner waiting for the tow truck and then got the spare car. Hit the hotel about 9.30 and straight to bed. FIngers crossed that the is the drama for the trip. Bit of a freak event and unlucky to rip a tyre so that had to be the bad luck gone.


The race


Breakfast at 3.30am. Very early start but it was stressed at the briefing to be in transition for 5am when it opened. Was very tense at breakfast with nerves. Small bite to eat – porridge and a banana and that was it. Drove down to the race site and parked the car and checked the bike. No issues or drama so just a case of leaving bags in the correct places and heading to the swim start.


5am and there was a DJ pumping out tunes outside the race hotel – I pity anyone not racing and staying in there as the chance of sleep was zero.


Swim start had a warm up area and as I was going for a time I decided best to get in and do some level of warm up. Water was nice and got about 10 mins with a few sprints to get the blood flowing. They closed this area off at about 6.30am and told the fast wave swim people to get across to the entry point. We were not out until 6.50 so a bit of hanging about in the wetsuits. Got a little bit chilly. Pros went at 6.40 and 6.42 (men and women).


We started on the beach and they had a tape across the beach which was lifted up. Interesting to see the tactics here. Best one I saw was someone taking a track start so they could easily get under the tape when the gun went. I took a little bit of a tip from this to ensure I got under the tape asap as the gun went off. They counted down and away we went. About 400 or so in the wave running into the water. I did probably 4 or 5 dolphin dives and found myself doing this while people either side were swimming. The result was I got a nice lead over everyone round me. Was a trouble free swim. There was a group formed ahead of about 10 people who were being led by a paddle board. I was on my own about 20 metres back. It was good for sighting as you just followed the guy on the board. It got a bit choppy at the first turn and stayed that way for a good while – not sure if this was boats or wind, (from the bike – it was the wind). In the chop it was all about rhythm to ensure you moved with the waves.


As we took the second turn (i.e. back towards the shore and the sun) the paddle board went back across to guide others. This left sighting almost impossible as the sun was directly in your eyes. I was aware that they had buoys every (what seemed like) 50-100 metres. You could just about see one and when you hit this one you could not see the next one for about 30-40 seconds. I trusted that I can swim in a straight line and then caught sight of the buoys. I caught quite a few people here so assumed I was sighting well. The next task was to spot the canal entrance. The briefing stated to take a line to the right of the sails of the boats. At this point I seen the larger group at the front now off to my right. They had gone off track and a canoe was directing them back. This meant they hit the narrow canal after me and the 3 or 4 around me. This was good as the canal was almost impossible to pass if there were 3 or 4 in front of you. Also very shallow – didn’t really like this bit. I would hated to have been in here catching the waves in front so grateful I was in the first wave.


Hit the exit at 54 mins so a decent swim but slower than I thought I would be. Found out later I was 31st out of the water overall (out of c3000) so actually a pretty good swim. I will assume it was slightly longer than last year!!!


There was a decent run to transition where we came out of the canal, ran round to the front of the race hotel and then across the road to get the transition. Again, longer than I thought. I knew from checking it out the day before that my target of a 3 minute transition was not going to happen. It ended up at just over 5 minutes. This involved sun cream, putting on cycling jersey, toilet stop so time wise ok. On the bike in just under the hour mark which is always good.


Swim - 54.06


T1 - 5.03





On the bike and was sure 5.15 would be the worst outcome. Stomach felt a bit dodgy/not sure if I was just hungry. The plan was to get a bar into me first thing on the bike as I found last year i was getting hungry on the bike. Had a stinger bar which I had been using in training. Had that in the first 10 minutes. Then took a high 5 drink that I had made up for the next hour. Plan was c300 calories per hour. The two high 5 bottles were 300 each plus the bar was 200. I had gels for the rest and an extra bar.


The scenary was stunning. I had driven the course so knew it was undulating on good roads although my feeling when actually cycling on the roads is that I thought they would have been better. I was hoping for a really unexciting bike after previous years. That is what I got.


The plan was to hold 205 watts whenever on flat on small inclines. My problem here was I could not see my watch with the way the sun was shining on it. After about 20 minutes I found a way to see it which involved changing wrists and having it on the inside of my wrist. Now that I could see it I was holding around 200 as opposed to 205. There were some good sweeping descents which the recce had shown you could stay on the bars which was good. i notices a bit of wind also - mainly head wind on the descending.


Had a quick check on the average power after about 60k or so and it was 194 so probably about right. This dropped to close to 190 by the end of the first lap and a time of c2.45 was also on the clock. I knew that I was off pace and figured I would try and pick it up a bit on lap two - which was also slightly shorter so thought a 5.20 may still be in reach. Unfortunately not - there was just no zip in the legs and the big hill at the 60k mark really had a bang in it second time round. THe most exciting thing that happened ont he bike was a deer running across the road about 20metres in front of me!


The course was rolling and about 1700m of climbing so not flat but generally accepted to be fast. I was fortunate to be in the frist wave so had a clear road. Every so often about 10-15 would come by which meant sitting up or stopping pedalling. Generally these guys were marshalled by the draft marshalls. Although I didn't see them stop anyone. This also upset the rhythm but I used this as an opportunity to eat and drink and stretch the hip flexors. Frankfurt


In my head on lap two I was eager for the 165K mark as it was pretty fast and mainly downhilll from there and I made up a good bit of time on lap one in this section. Unfortunately the wind had picked up so you were not getting the same speed for the work. It was also quite congested and on a narrow road the whole race backed up with one eijit blocking the road for about 10 minutes and no one could get by. Once we cleared him I was able to pass about 30-40 people that had been waiting to get by and make my way towards the finish.


Time on the clok was 5.26 but I had not started my watch until a bit after the start of the bike so official wimt was 5.28. Not impressed.


Bike - 5.28,


Average Power - 186w, Normalised Power 198w, 20 min 210w, Average Hr - 142


Points from the bike:

•Didnt hold the power I was holding in training. Last key session was 5x50min at 203w with 10 min easy.


•AP was higher than Frankfurt (175 ap, 185 NP, 20 min power was 196w) last year but the speed was slower - slow bike in Austria I think (noting that the winner did a 4.11 and broke his own bike course record). Frankfurt bike was 5.32 but it was a few km longer.


•HR was higher than it should have been. Normally I sit at a low 130 and build over a five hour cycle to 140s. This race seen me at 140s and high 140s for the first lap before it moved back towards low 140s.


•Didn't feel great in the stomach for first lap. Seemed better on the second.


•Need to have a think at what didnt work here.


•Soaked my legs and feet at each aid station from about an hour in. Last year my foot swelled up in the heat - this strategy worked as no issues this year - temp was about 25 degrees.






T2 - this involved one of the longest wee's ever. I can never empty the bladder fully on the go on the bike! I was extremely disappointed with the bike. So walked for a bit as I made my way to the bag pick up. I took a seat and got my trainers and run top on. (No gels being given out on the bike course meant wearing a cycling jersey and putting my 12 gels in the pockets.) Had a couple of small tubes of sun cream. Started realising I was wasting time so grabbed the suncream and would put it on as i went. Had a few gels which I put in my pocket.


Just over 6 mins in T2. Embarrassingly slow. Reckon I gave up about a minute and a half here looking at others times. However, I need to box off that bike and take a minute to rationalise that although I was 15 minutes slower on the bike all was not lost. I was at about 6.5hrs into the race. I pretty much knew sub 10 was out as me running sub 3.30 was dream time. Two choices were to restart the clock in my head and hit the 3.40-3.45 run split myself and the coach had talked about and ignore the overall time or all chips in and try and run sub 3.30. I went for the original plan as I did not want to blow up like frankfurt and end up running 4.26 again.


First km on the run was a disaster, 5.45 although I had stopped to put the suncream on. My stomach was turning circles also. Hit the first aid station and took a cup of coke with the intention of settling the stomach. Worked an absolute treat. Wouldn't have fancied running behind me about 10mins later as the wind left me for a good 5-10 mins!!!


The plan was 5min per km for as long as possible and then holding on towards the end and looking to go under 3.45 overall. If this worked I knew I would be about 10.15 and still a decent performance.


I was running on feel while checking the watch. The km splits were popping up and all around 5-5.15. I decided that I would sit at this for a while as I had a fear of going out too fast. Strategy was walk every second aid station and have a gel at these. I was still on the power bar gel but I had two high five iso gels with caffine - used these on my long runs and thought the caffine might be good in a while. Worked out at a gel every 25-30 minutes. Lots of people had hoses out and sponges as it was hot so this was nice to cool down.


Run course was two laps in a figure 8, or you could look on it as 4 laps, two to the left of the finish and two to the right of it.


First 5km was 26.11 so basically on track. 10km was 52 so holding pace and half way at 1.51. The next 10km is were it has got very tough in every other IM race. I ran the next 10k in 56m so was slowing a little bit but still on track. Overall i was at 2.53 at 32km with 10k to go. I was still feeling good and sticking to the every other aid station place. I was starting to enjoy this. The reward for hitting 30k was the second caffine gel and then coke and oranges to the finish. (I had purposely avoided the coke apart from the first aid station so it was something to look forward to - worked a treat). Covered the last 10k in 50mins so not only did I not slow down but I got a little bit faster. I felt like I was running a lot fasert but that was the pain kicking in and me trying to pick it up which really meant running at almost the same pace for more effort.


Had a peak at my overall time at the 41km marker on the course. It said 10.07, figured I could get in in 10;12. I knew their markers were out and figured the course was short (great!) but their last km was probably about 1.5km. It ended up a couple of hundred metres short (probably evened itself out with the run from the swim to transition). Anyhow, hit the finishing Shute at 10.16 and was on my own which was good so could enjoy and high 5. Some nice finisher pics also.


Run overview -

•Went to plan which was good. 3.43 overall - would have taken that at the start of the day.


•Aver heart rate was 137 so on the safe side.


•Was maybe a bit tentative between 15km and 30km. Whilst there were a few tough bits in here it was never in doubt. I would say I could have picked up the km pace by a couple of seconds and still been ok.


•Next time commit to no more than 5min per km. A 3.30 run is definitely achievable.



Overall


Nothing exciting happened during the race which is great - i was really hoping for a 'boring' day which I got (doesn't make for a funny or exciting race though).. I got a 50 minute PB so was delighted with the result and the more focused and extra training had really paid off (Thanks to coach Tunney). Think it was a slow day overall I finished 329th (Men) which last year around this position was in or around 10 hrs. My 10.16 would have had me at c440th last year. Overall therefore happy.,


Four of us raced (three from Phoenix) and the finishing times ranged from 9.55 to 10.24 so everyone performed well and everyone got pbs. Great race and definitely one to add to any IM bucket list you might have. If you can enjoy the scenery in the mountains it is something to enjoy when it gets a bit tough out there.


As usual the support crew was great, with the shouts of encouragement and the Irish flags (even if they got the bus out to the hill at 60km and missed me going by as they were all looking at their phones!!!). It is a real help on the run that you know you will get shouts of encouragement at a certain point and it is a bit of motivation to get there. Of course, with the training involved Ironman involves 'buy in' by all in the household and with three kids I certainly get that so it is a real team effort. Thanks for putting up with me waking you up at 6am when I am trying to be quiet heading out on those long cycles and runs!!


Dave (tunney) has taken on the coaching responsibility and made a massive difference. We run at lunch times and he noted that he now can't run with me if he is hungover and feeling crap (this was a compliment!). It makes a difference to have someone looking at you and giving direct feedback. The bike sessions are hard, sometimes look too hard but once you commit can hit the numbers so big Thanks to him also. He has definitely made me a better cyclist and runner (now he needs to get me a few minutes on the swim :-)).


Once the dust settled I was p*ssed at the bike. Need to evaluate and see what happened here. Although whilst I think I should have been quicker, it ultimately was what it was but I was able to run much better off the bike than last year which shows the better bike legs had a positive effect on the overall race.


Have now entered the Titanic and CK Oly distance and Kenmare as the main target so expecting good things in those.


I know now that sub 10 is achievable for me. Whilst this was my target going into the race I had about 80% belief in it. Now I have 100% belief I can go sub 10. Problem now is I was taking a break from IM next year to race more. Will have to think about this..........................................

Dory Dory

Well done on both your race and your report! Question, if you don't mind: your plan was to take in 300 calories on the bike per hour, so you needed 1650 for the 5.5 hours out there - how many calories did you actually consume...and in what form were they consumed (bar/gel/drink), and at what intervals were they consumed?

Mr Tango

Dory Dory wrote: »

Well done on both your race and your report! Question, if you don't mind: your plan was to take in 300 calories on the bike per hour, so you needed 1650 for the 5.5 hours out there - how many calories did you actually consume...and in what form were they consumed (bar/gel/drink), and at what intervals were they consumed?

The energy bar which was 200 then a bottle of high five at 300. I then had to force myself into the gels and went every 20 mins at these with water. After about 4 hours i went to the other high five bittle which was another 300 and had an extra gel just before the end of the bike.

So in theory
2 bottles high 5 - 600 calories
1 energy bar. - 200
9 Gels. - 900
May have been a gel more or less. I had about 12 gels with me and cant remember what was left in my pocket.


Took some iso at last aid station but only had about half of it and u dont know the consistency of them so wouldnt tely on them.

Also took a salt tablet every hour and a gel before the swim.

Dory Dory

Thanks for the breakdown....and congratulations again on an awesome PB!

RacoonQueen

Mr Tango wrote: »

I know now that sub 10 is achievable for me. Whilst this was my target going into the race I had about 80% belief in it. Now I have 100% belief I can go sub 10. Problem now is I was taking a break from IM next year to race more. Will have to think about this.........................................

Haha..

Super PB Darren.

Mr Tango

So decided to update post IM - seen some poast about what you should and shouldn't do post IM. So see below for my experience from the last 2 races.

Mr Tango

Belfast Titianic Triathlon – 26 July

'Home Race'. Second swim since IM Austria four weeks ago (first was on Friday morning, two days ago). Plan was go hard and see what happens. The Lagan was surprisingly clean and not somewhere I ever imagined I would swim in the millions of times I have crossed that bridge. So it was high tide and raining and we lined up for the start. A few went off ahead of the gun so took a while to catch them. One went off with the lead kayak – he was gone. Caught the second group and went straight by them. They all latched on to me. I tried speeding up but was at the limit and on the turn back up river ther was a small bit of chop and a bit of current so it was just a case of hold position and get out of the water in second place. Had a quick look behind me to see Peter on my toes (just like training on a Friday morning). There were about another 4 or 5 a few metres behind him. I got passed by 2 of them on the way to T2 but a 20.24 swim was okay for me – happy enough.
Grabbed the bike and exited T2 in about 4th but everyone still in sight. Put my feet in the shoes and realized the main difference between Road and Tri shoes. The Tongue! both shoes I put my feet in on the tongue and pushed it down. This meant taking the feet out and fixing and back in again. Cost about a minute id say. So I lost the 4 or 5 round me.
This bike course was flat as a pancake. Even on a calm day it is windy round the harbor so today it was gusting. I was holding on tight to the tri bars and holding the middle of the road to compensate for getting clown across. Caught one guy afer about 10 minutes and set about reeling in a couple more. Caught the second one at the end of lap one but as I shouted going by him he pulled out infront of me and I jacked on the brakes. Hit the turnaround and he latched on to the guy in front and I lost two of them as I nearly did a 'Dan Martin' on the streets of belfast (over a man hole in the rain – front wheel skidded but got control again. Lost the two in front, with the 2 180 degree turns and the 4 or 5 right angle turns per lap I got a good view of the wheel sucking going on. I was catching them with the wind behind but losing time into the wind. Gritted the teeth and worked the last few km which were tail wind and caught them with about 2k to go – give out to them but they didn’t care. I was not impressed. Bike stats were 38k with ave speed of36.95kph. I have never gone this fast for 40k before. Watts were 235 ave and 241np and 20min at 249
Back to my own race as I said this year I would ignore the drafters. I had a good T2 and out on a 4 lap run round the city centre. This was great – a lane of traffic closed off and 4 quick laps. I though I was running fast than I was so was disappointed with the first couple of km hitting 4.10 and 4.15. Ended up negative splitting the run with the last lap the fastest. ave pace was 4.07 at 41.45 overall.
Finished in 2.08 and 12th overall. Good race – will go back next year. On a dry day this course will be fast.

Post race
I knew I had pushed this race. Got a sudden pain in the chest – more tightening – like a stitch at km 7 which was a 4.16km, it passed and got back down to 4.05 or so. My quads cramped putting my shoes on in T2 which is unusual for me. Put it down to residual fatigue from the IM. I had no speed in the legs for the run so will accept what it gave me.
The next day I was in a jock.
Calfs were hurting going down stairs for 2 days.
My shoulders hurt from the new lower and more aero bike position (lowered the stack to zero and moved the seat fully forward (about a further 1cm).
Abs (or what little abs I have) sore round the side and various other places on my chest.
The bit of my arms between the back of my wrist and back of my elbow was sore from holidng on so tight to the tri bars (I heard comments from a guy who was a few minutes behind me he didn’t go on the bars as it was too windy).
Quads also sore.

Definitely not over Austria. Maybe not a great idea to go hard at Olympic distance after 4 weeks and only 1 week back in training but it was fun to not worry about pacing and going to hard.


Caroline Kearney Tri – 8 August 2015
Always a good race – was in two minds with some aches still ongoing from Belfast. Couple of Nurofen seemed to deal with the aches and no further aches from training so said I would do the race and if anything flared up just would stop.

Again I was going to go hard on the swim but had not swum since Belfast – assumed it would be grand. The started made the mistake of counting down from 10. So on about 4 or 3 the race started!! I headed for the first buoy. Again, one guy was way out in front and there was a group taking a tour of the lake to the right. I had Peter on my feet. He give me a push every now and then to let me know he is still there (or maybe to swim faster!0). Got to the first buoy – could really see it but Ii figure that I swim straight so didn’tt check that much and I had a rough line of a large tree in the distance. We managed to hit the buoy the same time as a group of others who must have swum at least an extra 50m. the came in hard from the right. Peter nipped by me at the buoy and I hopped on his feet. This took me to buoy 2 but I noted we were zig zagging - he was following the pack of about 4 or 5 - they were side to side. As we rounded buoy two, two of the pack had dropped back and to the side, one cut right acrosss me. There was a bit of coming together and he stopped, this made me pop up in the water as he was in front where he proceeded to kick me full in the chest. He hit my Hr strap and left a bruise – I was not happy and went a bit mental. After a bit of retaliation I calmed down. By this stage I then had to sprint on to the last feet in the pack. Unfortunately this guy then dropped back. By the time I realised I was probably 20 meteres back and couldn’tt bridge. They did swim to the right as I went straight so I made up a bit of time. Reckon it cost me about 20s though. Out in 19;15. Swim was about a minute short.

Unfortunately my two swims in 6 weeks took their toll and I couldn’t bridge the gap – lesson learnt – I need to swim at least once a week and there is potential to gain a minute or so with an extra one or two swims a week.
Hopped on the bike and no issues. Nice bike course. Plan was to tyr and push the bike. Though I would aim for about 250 watts. Ended up averaging 243 with a NP of 249 and a 20min power of 249 so not to far from where I thought. Slightly up from Belfast which was 235 ave and 241np and 20min at 249.

Bike course was 40.7k and I managed to set a new 40km pb on the garmin at 63mins. overall bike time was 65 and ave speed 37.1 which was good. Noticed that guys passing me were not cycling away and this indicates the bike is getting better.
Tweaked the position again to bring the tri bars a little bit higher to reduce should stress and also to bring them back a bit – more towards a right angle in the arm position. Seems to be better.
I hopped off the bike into T2 and had one of my best transitions. 34s. Fastest of the day was 31 so happy with that! Was 12th after the bike.
Forgot to take the watch back off the bike so was just trying to run with a high caedence and son form. Pretty sure I ran the back end faster again. A few passed me after a couple of km but then only one more from km 3 to the finish. The last km was hell as I knew I was getting chased down but held off the guys to finish in 2.08 again and for a runt time of 41.45 (exactly same times as Belfast). Finished in 21st overall.

Key Learns
Swim at least once a week.
Bike still getting faster despite just an IM focus.
Most people cant swim straight unless there is a blue line beneath them
I should make use of a legal pace line. There were two chances for this and I let people go by to far before I started pedalling again – too afraid of getting done for drafting.
Need to work on leg turnover for the run. It has dropped post Ironman from up towards 180 spm down to low 170's.
Short course racing is fun. Havent really done many races in Ireland over the last 4-5 years – might focus a bit more on this next year.

Next up – Dublin City. Managed to get myself in the Cat 1 race. Draft legal which should be fun/interesting (as long as I don’t get isolated). Think I might need to do a trade of letting people draft me in the swim in return for them letting me draft them on the bike!!!
Then Kenmare and a 4-6 week break to let the body heal!!!