Less than ten weeks to less than ten hours

Come home with your shield or on it.

After the cancelled flight, there was the delayed flight, then the rental car was given away. Then an hour later a car. Then the autobahn was bumper to bumper for a few hours so we went off piste. Then the roads were dug up. Then we had to drive all over the gaf. Then 23 hours later and with 1 hours sleep in 48. At 0330 we got here.

The lead up

My disc wheel was not in great shape bearing wise for TriAthy and I wanted it perfect for Roth so two weeks before hand I left it in to CycleSuperStore to be repaired. A week and a half later it was ready for collection. My mother collected it for me and dropped it over to me on the Tuesday before we were to fly out. Before it went in it was not right, not horrific but not right. When I took it out of the wheel bag and spun it I was horrified - it bearing moved. Disaster. I stripped down the hub and saw that only half the bearings had been replaced - the visible ones. I got onto CycleSuperStore on email straight away to complain. The next morning I dropped it to Base2Race to have them look at it. I was short on time and couldnn't be dealing with proven incompetents. I was blown away by the professionalism and knowledge of the Base2Race mechanics. Base2Race got the bearings in in only a few hours and would have the disc ready the next morning. This took less than a day, it took CycleSuperStore 1.5 weeks. I still had no reply from CycleSuperStore, I intended leaving a confrontation until after Roth as I didn't need it. Thursday morning came and Paul from Base2Race rang. "David with put the new bearings in but its not any better. We noticed that a part is missing - the bearing spacer tube. We can get one in but not today." We agreed that I would come over with my rear 808 and 404 and we would see if the bearing spacer tube from them would work. In the mean time I rang CycleSuperStore and asked told them what had happened and asked them to check their workshop for the spacer tube.

Me: Look I don't care about the bad repair, can you just look for the bearing spacer tube?
Mechanic: Nah dude, Zipps don't have bearing spacer tubes, only Corima discs have them
Me: Really thats odd could I have the technical specifications for the 182 disc hub in front of me and it references it
Mechanic: Ah right, I knew that, but yours didn't have one
Me: I bought it from you in 2006 and used it perfectly for 6 years, it was fine when I dropped it in. It had to have had one.
Mechanic: Nah due, it didn't have one. If you want I can change the bearings again but thats it.

I hung up, got a half day from work and drove to Base2Race with my 404 and 808. I also took my daughter as I might as well get some time with her while I'm off. (I also used the opportunity to go to the 6 month check up of Eoin with the public health nurse. She measured his head then asked "has he been sick? has he had hydrocephalus?" "No, we have big heads and its normal for our family." Then she weighed him "Ohhhhhh he is very heavy, 95 percentile, what do you feed him?...... maybe you should cut back on what he eats.". We bit out tongues. Then she measured his length "Oh you can forget the weight comments, he is 95 percentile plus in length, he is just a very very big boy", anyways I digress). We arrived over to Base2Race. Paul and Peter did tehir best with the disc but the bearing spacer tubes for the 808 and 404 were too short. They rang the Zipp rep who confirmed that all Zipp wheels have these but he didn't have a spare. They hung onto the disc to repair it eventually and I left resigned to racing on an 808. As I was clsoe by I went to CycleSuperStore to see could they look for the part on the workshop floor.

By this stage I had called them out on twitter over this and as I arrived in CycleSuperStore I got a direct message asking for my phone number. I sent it on and walked into the shop with Aoibhe. Determined to be firm but not lose my cool in front of her.

I got to talk to the mechanic again.

Me: All I want you to do is have a quick look around for a thin cyclinder of metal
Mechanic: Look I told you there was no bearing spacer tube, I discussed it with a colleague and its just not possible for me to have lost it
Me: Humour me just look
Mechanic: It wasn't in the hub, it just wasn't
Me: It had to have been as it worked fine, now it doesn't. I've even tried the spacer tubes from my 808 and 404 but they are too short. The Zipp rep doesn't have a spare either. Please look
.....
At this stage a little doubt crept into the mechanics face
.....
Mechanic: Oh all Zipps have them do they? I have a 303 in the workshop, I'll just check that on will I???
.....
Some time later
.....
Mechanic: Eh have you got the disc? I'll try and make one to fit it.
Me: No, its in a different shop.

At this stage the manager got involved and it was accepted that a part had got lost during repair and the manager, to give him credit where credit is due, took over and drove things from there. A Zipp 900 disc was pulled from the stock room, a track one, and the part removed. I just had to go and get the disc from Base2Race. Aoibhe had played on bikes, poked things and generally gotten bored and hungry.

Disc collected and back. It would be done straight away. It took a good while and we had passed dinner time, she is out of nappies now so we had two wees in CycleSuperStore and two wees in the much cleaner toilets of Base2Race. Promises of pops, crisps, a new bike, a scooter were made. I may have even promised a puppy. In the end she settled on "a purple juice and a sister". I told her I could manage the purple juice but we'd have to talk to Mommy about the sister and she already had a brother. Finally the disc was ready. I checked it and it was 95% right but the bearings were not right still. The manager said he'd get it sorted and delivered to me. I thanked him but told him I'd come back at 2030. Home we went. I packed frantically and told Glenda that I may or may not have promised Aoibhe a purple juice and a sister. I got a bollocking. Wolfed some dinner and back to CycleSuperStore. Disc was ready. 98% right, didn't have the fight in me to go on about it. Thanked the manger, who to be fair did do a great job. Out to the car where I got a text saying "Aoibhe actually wanted a Tango twister not a sister".

Home, packed bike. Went to bed. Slept 45 minutes and then up to go to the Airport with Darren. Who was of course 20 minutes late. Got to the airport and Fran called. "Flight cancelled". "Fvck off you pr1ck, too early for this". Got in. Flight cancelled. Chaos. The woman on the counter was German and also abusive. Something that would continue unfortunately with all German women we met. "What do you want me to do? Your plane is cancelled, do you want me to bring you over myself in my car?" This was to a woman with a connecting flight in Frankfurt and a gorup of 27 children with her. Must have been a big car.

Darren had started talking to an Irish woman who worked there. I joined them, we made some jokes and were pleasant. Then she asked where we were going and we told her, and we told her why. She said she could put us on standby for the 1pm flight and she would book us on the 6pm flight. Given everyone else had been told tomorrow we took it. There were only two seats left on the plane. Uh oh. She pointed at Fran "but sure he is almost a babe-in-arms it will be fine". (She oversold the flight by one and gave us our tickets, someone else may not have made the flight but statisitcally 10% don't show anyways).

Back to my house by 6am. Ate, chatted, played with kids and then we all went back to the airport for the standby, no joy but we did get €150 euro in food vouchers. We said we'd hang on in the airport for the 6pm flight. (Actually the we here is Fran and Darren, I wanted to go back to my house which was 5 minutes away so we could all get some sleep). Went to a restaurant and got €65 worth of food. Went to pay with the vouchers. Turns out they were for €22.50 Then we slept in a seat in the restaurant for a bit, generally fvked about and waited.

Onto the plane well after 6pm - why, it was delayed.

Eventually we took off and finally we touched down in Frankfurt. We could move on, forget about it and we'd be in bed by midnight and all would be fine. All bailed into the jacks for a lash as we were all dying. After about two mintues Fran announces "actually I didn't need to go" and shuffles off. I think he just wanted to hold his lad for a bit.

When our flight was cancelled we rang the hotel and told them and got the Avis office in Dublin to ring the one in Frankfurt.

We got our bags (delayed) and walked down to the Avis desk to be greeted by Hitlers sister. A middle aged cranky cvnt. "You are late, your 9 seater is gone. You cannot have another one. Good bye". We had paid for the van already and we explained this and the fact that the Avis Dublin office rang them "YOU ARE LATE. NO CAR FOR YOU". Some time later a younger girl said she would sort a 9 seater for us but it would take and hour.

Right we said we will be there for 1am, no biggie we said.

Into the car and got driving. The A3 and the E45 would get us there in 2 hours. Well it would have were it not for the massive traffic jam. Four lanes blocked bumper to bumper. Two hours later and 200km still away from Nurnberg I remembered something I said about the E45. It was in German but the fact it was mentioned was bad. Darren was fast asleep in the back. Fran was on and off asleep driving. Fran and myself made a call to go "off piste" and drive through rural rural Germany to get there. Armed with a sat nav that wasn't worth a fvcking sh1te as it wanted to stay on the motorway and an iPhone we pieced together a string of villages to follow to join the dots to get there. We got to without 50km of Nurnberg and the small road we were on was blocked off and the route was blocked. We had to drive back west and south to get onto another change of villages to follow. If you have ever sat in a passangers seat of a nine seater being driven at 160km on roads barely as wide as the van, in the middle of the night, on windy roads, in pitch black doing seat of the pants navigation. Its not fun. Less fun when the driver falls asleep. Anyways we got there. 4am. 23 hours of travelling later. Darren wakes up "oh we are here??? that didn't take long".

Checked into hotel and went to bed. Up 5 hours later. Hotel staff had not yet done the manners, customer, service, or "not being a cvnt" modules of their hospitality training yet. Registered, racked bikes. I had known that they rejected most Giro Advantage helmets because of cracks and I had replaced mine as the only helmet my mongo head can fit in is a large Giro Advantage. Anywys then we ate a little and pottered about. One thing was noticed by Fran and myself everything we did required waiting on Darren. EVERYTHING. Easily distracted, faffing, no sense of urgency. Call it what you will. Drove us nuts, I'd go on more about it except for one key event that I will come to later.

Since 4am Friday I'd been finding new and imaginative ways to call Fran short. I had gotten quite good at it. His reponse was to call me a "fat pr1ck". Without Michelle to back him up thats generally the best he could manage. Plenty of ammunition was supplied to him though. The hotel left bags of Haribo jellies on your pillows and at registation I bent down to pick something up and split my shorts. Rest of the day walking around with my ar$e hanging out as the lads wet themselves. Fran started slagging me about being a "fat b@stard" and that I should do the "I'mmmmmm soooooo sexy" routine of fat b@stard in Austin Powers. One of his better slags.

Back to the hotel, I packed my gear for the morning. We went into town for a bite to eat where Fran had prawns. Again will come to this later. I kept it simple and light and after dinner we went back to the rooms and agreed to get up at 4am to leave at 0430. I set my alarm and went to bed.

I woke a 11pm, midnight, 1am, 2am and 0340. At 0340 I said "Right alarm goes off in 20 minutes and then its go time." At 0428 I was woken by my alarm ringing, the hotel phone ringing and the two lads hammering on the door. I had slept in. C0ck. Grabbed everything and ran. Breakfast was to be had in the van on the go. No more slagging Darren about waiting for him as we left 30 minutes late.

We got there in time anyways and we finished setting up tranistion. Jack Lynch was racked beside me. Small world. I was in the 0640 wave, Fran in the 0700 and Darren in the 0705. Had a dump, and went down to the water.

Into the water and I knew I would get a kicking. The women were off five minutes behind me and I didn't have the training done to be in wave I was in. Off we went and I was off over the place for a bit. Hit a rhytmn, made sure to sight and kept going. Rough enough swim. At 2km I just happened to stop. I think caughtsomeone in the sub nine wave who had just changed to breast and that forced me to pull up. I checked the Garmin. 2km swum at 1:45 pace. Happy days. On track for a 66 minute swim. Unfortunately I faded badly and this swim was accurate. Out of the water in 1:12 having swum 3.94km.

Grabbed my T1 bike and into the changing tent where a volunteer helped me change. Unlike the IM branded events I had done Challenge Roth has unisex changing tents. I was a little distracted by stark bollock naked birds with their baps hanging out pointed things in directions that they should never be pointed. Anyways, changed and out to my bike. Jack Lynch was gone. The one thing I was sure of that day was that I would be out of the water ahead of him. Slightly shaken I headed out on the bike.

From the off something wasn't right. I was riding at 210 watts and only doing 32kph. I felt like I was bouncing up and down and my front derailleur wasn't right. On the first lap I stopped five times to try and sort things but I still don't know what the problems were. Anyways I rode as best I could, there was alot of drafting going on but I stayed legal. I ate when I wanted, drank when I wanted and wee'd when I wanted. In hindsight I underate. I wee'd alot actually. There was a savage head wind on the bike. Amazingly at no stage was there a tail wind. A big shout out for Laura from the UK, never seen drafting done quite so well. Also respect to Sebastien from France who undertook me at an aid stage on a climb, pushed me out of the way and took the water bottle that was being held out for me. All I can say is everyone within earshot learnt some new words. I don't think everyone knew that cvnt could be a verb and and adjective as well as a noun. Fair play to the volunteer that ran up the hill after me with a bottle of water.

On the first lap I was frustrated. Wattages were not resulting in speed and I was getting annoyed. I lost focus on the second lap and backed off masssively. I started to feel like sh1t too, probably the undereating. I started to dread the run, thinking that it would be a 42.5km walk of pain given how I was feeling. I was in a dark place and I didn't think I had the training done to pull myself out. I sorta of gave up I suppose. The atmosphere and support on the bike was amazing.

On the first lap I saw a little girl with a sign saying in German "Can I have a bottle please?" By the time I realised wht it said it was too late to give one to her. I swore that the next kids I saw who wanted a bottle, if I could spare one, would get one. On lap two I was riding along about to come up to an aid stage when a boy put up a sign saying "bottle please". He had it up a millisecond and I cannoned a bottle to him. He got quite ashock. In hindsight throwing a full water bottle at a 7 or 8 year old boy was a mistake.

Anywas we all lived and I rode on. Counting the kms down, cursing my lack of training and inability to focus on the bike. Also cursing the never ending head wind and my poxy bike for not being right. Eventually it ended and into the T2 tent. No boobies this time. Off with the urine soaked socks that I tried to put into the bag but the volunteer was insisting that she did. I didn't really want someone to have to handle pi$$ soaked socks but she insisted. Ultimately she got her own back as she put them in my helmet.

Out of the tent and prepared myself for a world of pain. Plan was to run as best I could until I died. I reckoned 5:00 per km for 5km and then I'd walk. I quickly realised that this was not going to be the case. My pace drifted down to 4:15 a km and it felt easy. My HR was down too. It went to 4:05 and then 4:00 and then 3:59 and then I said "fvck this" and backed off to 4:30 a km. I walked all aid stations - every two km. Every odd one I walked for the time to took to neck a cup of water. Ever even one I walked the length of it and drank and ate. I felt great. 5km came and went, 10km came and went and I started expecting Fran to pass me. The run was an out and back, I had no clue as to the course as I didn't read the docs and I didn't go to the briefing. I could see the km markers on my side of the run and if I looked I could have seen the km markers on the way back and then I would have known how long the out and back was. I refused to look as I thought it would be a surprise, a treat, to find out when the turnaround was. Turns out it was 12.5km. I still felt amazing. Back down the way and no Fran. Saw Darren and I worked out I had 6km on him. 30 minutes. I was ahead of him by 5 minutes or so. Ran on, still felt great, another out and back once we got back to the run start area. Again I refused to look at the signs to figure out how far out I would be going. Still felt great. Turned around at 28km or so I think. At 32km or so I saw Darren coming the other way and I knew I know had 40 plus minutes on him. He looked fecked. As much as I wanted him to beat me, and as much as he deserved to beat me, he wasn't going to pull it off. Still no Fran. I knew something had happened. I ran on. I had slowed up 15seconds or so around 30km but I still felt good. I felt amazing until 36-37km when my hip flexors (rec fems manifesting at the hip joints) said hello. I knew it was a matter of time before they went so much that I would transfer more of the load onto my quads and then that would be game over. Game over happened at about 38km on an uphill. Halfway up I had to stop and walk. That was it. The last 3km were more walking than running. Great atmosphere on the run. Ran the last few hundred km and as I was coming over the line I tweaked my nipples ala fat b@stard in Austin Powers. What I hadn't realised was that Fran was sitting right behind the photographer and he thought I was doing it to him. Anways. Finished, had some grub, grabbed my phone from my bag and saw all the texts about "What happened Fran? He stopped registering at 153km on the bike." The rest of the day was about finding Fran and making sure he was okay.

Once we had all crossed we got the bus back to the van which was parked in a field and spent 30 minutes looking for the car. We had gone to the wrong field.

In short : A comedy of errors which absolutely everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. Outside of the race that is. The race for me went well, better than I deserved. I'll get to the bottom of whats wrong with my bike (although it should be noted that most of the slow bike time is due to me and me alone), I'll learn to swim again. I have to say though that I loved the run. It was epic. Onwards and upwards. The next IM I do will be different.

10:42
1:12 swim
5:35 bike
3:45 run

The road back home starts soon.

Thanks to Glenda for the support, Aoibhe and Eoin for the motivation on the run, Darren and Fran for the company. Also a big thanks to Liam Dolan for the kicks in the ar$e and the advice.

dev123 wrote: »

Great report Tunney, the lead-up to the race sounds like comedy of errors.

Out of interest, how much lower do you think you could have gone with the planned 10 weeks of dedicated training?

Not sure I follow what you mean by "planned 10 weeks of dedicated training"?

I've done 9:51 before though.

dev123 wrote: »

From the title of your log.

Reading what you have been posting on here, you have been trying to get out training over the last number of months but with both the family and work commitments you have found it difficult.

Ah right - makes sense.

Work and family may have had an impact but the real blocker to my training was myself.

Key things that would have changed:
1) Weight 12st racing. Race weight is 10st 8. Even if I was 11st 7 that would have made a huge difference. 11st 7 is the magic number for me being able to run properly. Also the bike wasn't flat at all so would have helped there
2) Swimming: I wouldn't have faded quite as badly in the back 1.8km if I had swam regularly in the ten weeks
3) Biking : Huge difference. I didn't ride my bike for 4 weeks before Roth. No long cycles in the ten weeks I think. mentally that would have been huge.

Could I have gone faster with the ten weeks - yes, no doubt. Would I have gone under ten hours. Unlikely.

Water under the bridge and time to move on though! What was is passed. Whats to come is still to be defined!

pgibbo wrote: »

LMFAO

It sounds like your bikes won't be sold from under you either which is good to hear

Emmmmm.

I need to present a weekly training plan starting next week. On a Wednesday for the next week.

A season overview must also be handed over next week combined with scheduled testing plan with metrics detailed and desired results and a plan to hit them.

When your wife spends years and years around triathletes, and has a sciencey mathsy mind with a talent for planning.........