IMNZ race report part 2: The Bike.

Now, where did we leave off in part 1? Oh yes, I was in T1...did my usual trick of pretending to get my wetsuit off but actually not so that I could have a wee inside it before i set off on the bike .. ( yeah, yeah, gross I know but every triathletes does that....don't they ?!!).

Anyway, onto the bike into the crisp, sunny morning air:-

Grovelling up Taupo-Napier highway, swim course in background he he

IM Bike by the numbers:-

Bike - 181km ( on the Garmin), 6h 22.    NP 135 W   avg power  126. ( Goal watts was to sit ~130W)

 total ascent- 951 m ( think this is inaccurate)
avg HR 146
av speed 28.4 kph

Food/drink intake :-

2 small Ems power cookies
banana
2 bags Gu chomps ( minus one chomp I dropped)
1 Gu roctane
1 bottle hi 5 zero
1 bottle horleys replace
2 bottles water + 2 salt tabs                                    

Non-aero banana 

       

Mantra for the day was :- 

 "No emotion about anything; it is about getting the job done and putting one foot in front of the other!!. Emotion= need to eat something".

Hoping to avoid these today....

This came to me after a casual chat with Coach John and Philinator in the carbo dinner queue whereby Phil remarked he found all my random emotions while riding amusing. The lightbulb went on ( cue **PING!!!!*****) and I said "But there shouldn't be any emotion involved during an ironman at all - if there is, it's a sign that I probably need to eat or drink".
I received an email from John the night before the race saying I had hit the nail on the head with that remark and to execute as I had done in previous races.

It was pretty fresh when we started the bike and I could feel the chilly air on my arms , legs and feet. Nonetheless,the sun was out and the sky was clear so the promise of a great day was in store!

I tried to take it steady up the Taupo-Napier hill out of town and try let the heart rate come down. Of course, I was passed by what felt like billions of people standing up, hammering the pedals.....
Once onto Broadlands road, it was a little congested and I spotted a few packs of riders and ended up in several situations of being stuck behind a line of slower riders but then I'd have to possibly burn a match to pass them all. I played it cautiously at that stage knowing that in the last 10km of the run, I wouldn't be regretting holding back in the first half of the bike ride.

I was unsure if it felt easy since I was probably more rested than i had been in several months or more likely that we had a nice wee tailwind. The low point of the bike course was the giant marbles that the council had used to seal the road in a section approx 15 km from Reporoa. These put our earthquake affected, potholed roads in Christchurch to shame!

It smiles!

 After the turnaround it was confirmed that there had , indeed, been a tailwind. Unfortunately the return leg from Reporoa is also a false flat with a net uphill; the worst climb meanders gently for ~ 10 km before you hit the turn to descend down Centennial road back to Taupo. Combined with a headwind it felt like hard work and a slow average speed.

....Still not feeling my feet.......

I came though town in 3.06 and was feeling quite pleased with my efforts and thoughts of surpassing my expected 6.30 floating through my mind..... Yeah, right. The second lap follows the same route as the first as you head out of town, up Taupo-Napier, through the industrial area, down under the new bypass and up on to Broadlands road... then you descend Centennial Rd again and instead of heading left to go back to town, you take a right on to a private logging road, Rakanui road which is steady climb back up to Broadlands.
Once back on Broadlands road the wind had picked up slightly so had a superb tailwind ( remember this is a net descent to Reporoa as well!) to the turnaround. I hammered this; passing a LOT of people here. The main benefit of riding with power ( for me) has been the NOT slacking off on the bike as I can see where I am riding too easy. This was a prime example- I was in a big gear, pedalling the small descents and making the most of the tailwind and I was still only at ~115W!!

Spot the difference....

However, I knew as soon as I hit the turn that the journey back to town was going to be just a wee bit tougher than it was on lap 1....Yep!
I amused myself  for  ~ 20km with some mathematics :- "Hmmm, the Ironman run is less than a quarter the distance of the Ironman bike leg yet it takes around two thirds of the time ". This was interspersed with thoughts of "Oh God, I am really not looking forward to this marathon now. This has felt like quite a hard ride and I think I may have blown my legs".

I began to feel a little nauseous in the last 30 km , not sure why. I sipped water but didn't eat much for the last hour as wanted to get rid of nausea.It wasn't severe by any means but thought it would be prudent to let everything settle before I started the run. I can't remember much else about the ride other than letting rip on the final descent of Centennial and pedalling hard to get back to town. I was glad to get off the bike although was feeling crappy when I entered T2, but I guess you never feel that good in an Ironman when you get to T2.

Random thoughts on IMNZ bike course:-

-Jeez, this is a harder bike course than you'd think.

-A lot of triathletes can't descend for toffee!

-A lot of people can't descend gentle grades on their aerobars!

-This road is f****** bumpy. Oh, there's a tubular/spare/rear bottle cage/bottle on the roadside.

-Draft zone is 10 m, people!! Not 10 cm!!

-Ha ha- those people are going to have a red stripe of sunburn on their lower back where their tri top doesn't meet their shorts ( **blissfully unaware i was cultivating similar red stripe on my own back**)

This guy's going to have really bad sunburn....

Looking back at this, I wonder if I hadn't consumed enough calories. I have a tendency to be good and focussed with my nutrition  for around 3-4 hours then it seems to drop off.
***Note to self = losing concentration is a likely sign I need some calories***
My avg HR was a few beats higher than normal for the ride for some reason but I was certainly not dehydrated.

 Adding up the grams of CHO certainly seems a bit on the low side, probably explains my mid run bonk. Hindsight is wonderful - part of the reason I write this blog and document all this ( boring) stuff is for a reference point for future races.

 Run coming up in Part 3, coming to a screen near you SOON.
Hey, its my blog I can drag this out for as long as I like :)

So  not how my saddle felt after 180km.

Ironman New Zealand 2014 race report- part 1: Pre race + swim

Firstly, it must be noted that this race the 30th anniversary race; IMNZ was one of the first Ironman races outside of Hawaii. It started off in Auckland with a sea swim, a rolling, tough, bike course and a waterfront run. The race moved to Taupo in 1999. This meant record numbers in 2014:-  1700 athletes registered ( ~1651 starters). The previous three times I have competed here there were only ~1100 athletes!

Sometime I wish was just a runner and only had to pack a pair of trainers.....

Secondly, many of the previous champions had been invited back to race in the age group category ; notably Scott Molina, Ken Glah, Jan Wanklyn.....awesome!

Dessert on Awards night

Weather forecast looked good for race day - Southwesterly breeze, chilly start but clear skies and sun for the whole day. Phew. I had had several nightmarish dreams in preceding weeks that we would encounter similar weather to that of 2011- torrential rain ALL DAY. Yah, yah- I know you can't control the weather and all you have to do is pack the appropriate clothing in your T1 bag but riding 180km in the pouring rain is miserable enough without the added insult of having to run a marathon with wet,  wrinkled feet.

Performance enhancing gear.

I slept reasonably well the night before and leapt out of bed, again forgetting about the sloping wooden beams in our holiday home attic bedroom and narrowly avoiding concussion. Just the demise of more brain cells.......

Breakfast was my tried and trusted pre race brekky of big cup of coffee, Em's chocolate oat explosion bar, 2 teaspoons of peanut butter and a banana. I decided it would be prudent to try force down a few more calories but all I could muster was another half banana and sipped on my electrolyte ( High 5 zeros+ water) drink.

Breakfast of champions ( banana missing!)

Once dressed and various lotions were applied ( Deep heat, sunscreen, Butt butter...) I got into my new SOAS black carbon racing kit and was ready to get this show on the road. Woo.
As we were dropped off at transition to pump tyres and switch on Garmins, it was quite chilly and I remembered alarmingly that I had not put my toe covers on my bike shoes; in fact I hadn't even given them a second thought. Oh well, too late now!

I spent ages ( as usual) putting my wettie on and making arm circles and angels in the fresh air, pretending I was a **swimmer**. Ha ha.

Z+I having a face off pre race

We watched the Maori waka come sailing round the corner and the haka on the grass then the pro athletes set off and soon it was time to get in the water, mostly as I was busting for a pee and needed enough time to sort out the goggle fogging situation. I couldn't remember ( being four years since I had raced in Taupo) where I normally line up for the swim - I try to seed myself about one third to halfway back from the start line - and thought it would be better to be closer to the buoy line as I really prefer not to swim any further than the designated distance! Having done Ironman Canada with a mass start of 2900 athletes and IM St George with ~1800 athletes ; I was not too worried about the extra numbers....... Hmmm.

Don't mess with the dudes who set off the start gun.....

I can't remember much other than bobbing around in the lake, a pink capped head amongst a sea of blue caps and other  pink caps intermittently placed; desperately trying to de mist my goggles then BOOM! , canon fired and we were off!

So glad thats over......!

Not much to say except I got absolutely pummelled in the first 500m and knew I was swimming at an effort a little higher than I would have liked but there was nowhere to go so just had to settle in and in the words of Dory -"Just keep swimming , just keep swimming". After a hard blow to the chest around the golf balls ( golf balls are visible on the lake bed ~ halfway up the swim course due to the hole in one putting thingy on the shore) I was getting rather anxious but repeating to self " its not personal, just keep swimming long, strong and smooth". By the time we were getting close tot he turnaround, I was blinded by the rising sun and could only hear the kayakers shouting "left, left, left" so wondered if we were inside the buoy line but i couldn't see so blindly kept swimming and then arrived at the large turn buoy - I was right beside it so got clocked once again; this time in my left eye but no damage done to goggles. Phew.
After the next turn buoy, I started to count the orange buoys and doing maths in my head...I knew the last one before we headed into shore was number 25 so was going to tick them off. However, I was under the impression the orange buoys were 50 m apart and the sums didn't add up?! Many strokes later, I solved the problem - 150m!
The southwesterly breeze was more evident on the return leg as there seemed like a very slight side on "swell" ( swell is rather an exaggeration but I can't find another word to describe properly...perhaps "rolling" is better...) although it could have been some wake from a boat, not sure. I had drifted a little and was annoyed with myself for straying off course slightly, not helped by the twat who whacked me with EVERY stroke for the next, oh.....250m. I think I thumped him on the leg or gave him an elbow as I was getting very pissed off. Is a pink cap a target for age group men to exert some of their muscle?

For the age group men at IMNZ...

Much to my delight, buoy number 25 had been replaced by a large yellow M dot turn buoy then it was a straight swim into the beach. I swam as far as I could and when stood up in the shallows the clock said 1h 11:30 but my time to the timing mat was 1h12:00. I'll take that ( my fastest time here is 1h11:58 and slowest 1h13:00 so no complaints. I am such a talented swimmer that from my first ironman to my seventh, I have only knocked off 1 minute. Pffffft.

Still can't get those dam sleeves off!!

Fumbled a bit ttrying to get my my sleeves off and lost both my swim caps. Hrrrrrmph. Transition in Taupo is ~ 400m run including a steep flight of stairs so you end up at VO2 max before you have even mounted your bike!

Next exciting instalment coming soon.......

Pre race IMNZ + other shenanigans..

Since Auckland 70.3 I was a busy bee knocking down to the meat and potatoes of training plus a load of other non-triathlon stuff that I had to get done before heading to Taupo for IMNZ.

Work selfie

I did intend to blog but never got around to it so I'll just give a quick fill in:-

4 day Ironman Training Camp:_

This was 4 weeks out from the big day and ran Thursday-Sunday. There were approx 20 athletes on camp and it was mainly bike focussed. My only rule for the camp was "real food only" on the bike as I didn't want to be suffering with a gel hangover on Monday.

Day 1-  200km  Chch- Kaikoura + 30 min run off the bike

This ride was ~ 186km from our departure point but I rode to the start ( 10km) then tacked on 4km at the end of the ride.
We set off north ( most unpleasant ride up Marshlands road in busy tradesmen traffic, roadworks + traffic cones) then headed off the main state highway through Rangiora, Ashley and Sefton to pop out in Amberley for out first aid station. I got stuck in the toilet queue here and as I emerged, all i could see was the group I had been riding with pedalling off into the distance……!***!
I couldn't catch them nor hang onto the Axel/John/Phil train that came barreling past especially as its a gradual uphill from Amberley and I think I was a little behind on nutrition. Oh well, the sun was out, we had a light tailwind and it was far better than being at work so I just pedalled along and lived in my own thoughts until the next aid station in Cheviot. I didn't stay too long there and headed off again; soon to hit the Hundalees which offered some good hills ( it was DAM hot in there!!) and a nice descent ( apart from being fucking terrified of the thought of an articulated lorry/stock truck coming down behind me) down to the coast which left only 25km to go to Kaikoura. I was at 196km to the Top ten holiday park so appeased my OCD by riding a further 4km to make it a 200km day. 7 h 15 in the saddle; 150km of that solo. Yusss.
I joined Emma for a 30 minute T-run which was rather hot and my Em's power bar was still sitting in my stomach.

Aid station with cool silhouette selfie:)

Day 2- 45 min off road run - 135km bike Kaikoura-Hanmer Springs - 15 min T-run

We started off the day with a run round the headlands by the seal colony. Would love to do that on fresher legs as it's just my kind of run- trail, hilly+fresh coastal air. Again my OCD took hold ( much to others amusement) and after returning to the car park in 44:27, we ran up the road and back to ensure the stopwatch had ticked over to 45 mins. Yep, I am a crazy obsessive-compulsive type.

A yummy breakfast followed then back on the horse for today's ride which although shorter in distance, has plenty of climbing to compensate. I got blown off the back of the Nadia train within ~ 90 secs thus decided it would be another day tootling along at my own pace. I rode with the back half of our group for a while and then we all scattered apart a little once we hit the hills. I rejoined with Emma at the first aid station so we rolled along through the climbs at our own pace with plenty of conversation and picked up Dave and Mark in Waiau. Mark was struggling a little so opted to sit at the back while the three of us rotated the 40 km to Hanmer. I hit a very bad patch around 25km from Hanmer and was distracted by thoughts of throwing myself under the wheels of oncoming traffic or over the Waiau bridge ( yes, THAT bad!!). However, the promise of coffee on arrival in Hanmer Springs buoyed me up and I was able to drag myself through the suffering ( many thanks to Dave and Emma for this one…)

What on earth have we done to Mark?!!

I had a wee 15 min run off the bike after a  nanosecond's deliberation regarding tacking on to make it 150-160 km day. N.F.W.
A visit to the hot pools in the evening was very welcome to all the tired legs despite all the flabby white people with misspelt tattoos in abundance. Although I am sure they wondered who all the people with odd tan lines were?!

Day 3- pre brekky swim and 3+ hour run around the local trails.

Blegh is probably the most descriptive word I can apply to how I felt on sleeping and waking. Stomach was in serious rebellion and I couldn't decide whether puking or evacuating from the other end would fix my woes. I managed to get my way through an hour of swimming but decided against going with the majority to run the St James trail for fear of needing to visit the toilet and the only bush up there is matagouri ( very spiky native bush - not good for pit stops unless you want needles up your bum and the spikes are very small so no privacy :).

My preferred option would have been to go lie on my bed and wait until the aliens growing in my tummy decided it was time to head to another planet but no,  better to go get it over with. Feeling this crap could be another tool to put in the box for Ironman…..Anyway, after an hour of running and another visit to the loo, I started to feel a LOT better although my pace was only a little faster than "shuffle" pace. I thoroughly enjoyed my tiki tour through Hanmer forest plugged into my iPod ; being an introvert and an only child to boot means that some  solo time is a daily requirement to maintain sanity. Probably explains my loathing of team sports!

We walked into town for coffee #2 of the day and an ice cream in the afternoon to loosen off the legs then back to the forest camp for dinner followed by a trip to the pub for some social time.

Day 4 -  run longer loop (4km) to pool for a swim and ride back to Chch ( 146km)

Thankfully my stomach had returned to normal after being very cautious with food intake on Saturday. Today's swim felt like a bit of a death march as my legs were very heavy combined with general fatigue.

Riding Barbies

After breakfast and takeaway coffee, our group set off at steady pace. The sun was out and promised a decent day weather wise, thankfully. The route home is a net downhill but the first ~40km to Culverden is rolling. A quick loo stop here and then we set off to Waikari where the aid station was set up to refill bottles and Em's power bars. We were working in a single  pace line and rotating ; once out on SH1 at Waipara the road is very rough and I realised my error of inflating my tyres to 110 psi as my bike was bouncing around - highly unpleasant on the undercarriage given the previous weekend's mileage! The fuel tank seemed to be close to the empty gauge for most of this day; I guessed I was playing catch up from Saturday as I had knowingly eaten less than I needed to allow my guts to calm down and get back to normal.
Sunday afternoon traffic on SH1 is busy and I found the whole ride rather mentally stressful until we arrived at the Palms and wound our way home ( in a smaller group) through the suburbs. I did consider tacking on a loop of the downs to make it 160km but I didn't.

Training is SOOO last year, Mum!

A few easier days beckoned ( TSB of -57!!) then back into the last pre-IM block. Aside from  S-B-R, this was a busy time with podiatry visits, massages, packing/cleaning bikes+ gear, admin……copious list-writing…….mad panic when informed that my Team BSR kit was not going to arrive  in time so thanks to a good friend letting me try out her SOAS racing gear and excellent service from Amanda at SOAS racing in Australia ( www.soasracing.com.au) , my black carbon tri kit arrived 4 days before IMNZ. I had already worn  my friend Nicky's kit on a bike/run which confirmed it was a good choice - I didn't want to wear the shorts I had on in Auckland as they don't have a flat locked seam on the tri-chamois and I wouldn't be able to bear that for 180km !

Mid gorges lolly stop

While I was at camp, Brett was off to Blenheim for the start of the Kiwi Brevet ……..You can read all about his adventures here.