In the near comatose state I found myself in two hours after successfully completing Ironman Austria 2021, I went to bed and was very vaguely aware through the night that my very lovely wife Gaynor was regularly and affectionately stroking my shoulder. The next morning I found out that it was actually intended as a consistent way of checking that I was still alive.
Beyond the physical challenge of Ironman, there are the additional aspects of equipment, nutrition, and strategy. This year I made an error, which then created a domino effect!
I had purchased this bike saddle bag:
Within it, I would have a very clever wee piece of kit, a mini air compressor, which weighs about a pound. Get a flat tyre, change the tyre, then plug in the compressor to very quickly bring the tyre back to race pressure, it's literally a few seconds. (Tour de France teams etc all use compressors these days, instead of pumps.)
More importantly, the bike bag also had space for water bottle number two. My plan was water in one bottle out front, and water with a caffeine tablet in the other out the back, then keep re-filling. All of my training and strategy was based on this plan.
However, upon checking the bike in for Ironman transition, before I am allowed to enter I need to fix my race number on the seat post, and it needs to be visible from both sides. How could I forget that? So, I discarded the entire bike bag and bottle (down goes domino number one), and purchase a handheld pump. Starting the race with only one bottle therefore. That wasn't my plan, so I need a new plan. And that's not good.
Say if fully prepared your body has 3,000 calories of energy, at 14 stones you will burn somewhere in the region of 10,000 calories on race day. The additional 7,000 calories have to come from somewhere. Drinks, bananas, sports nutrition energy bars, and so so ...
Unable to do any big run training in recent months, beyond 5km on soft grass, I had also been keeping my weight up in expectation of then doing lots of running in the weeks leading to race day. That wasn't possible, and what I mean by very purposefully keeping weight up, was making sure I had two cans of beer each night, circa 300 calories. In anticipation of then quickly dropping weight. I was therefore on the start line at a full stone and more than I was in 2019. And believe me, it makes a massive difference to running and cycling (especially up hills), if you are carrying an additional 18 pound salmon on your back!
You would surely never approach a half marathon (or even a 5k or 10k) without proper preparation, let alone the challenge of a full Ironman of 2.4 miles swim, 112 miles cycle, and then a full marathon! I had been fully prepared, or so I thought.
75 kms in the pool in 2021 ... 5,000 kms of cycling training, and 500 kms running, the absolute max I could manage, given a recurring left knee injury.
In advance of arriving in Austria, I had however undertaken a full month of plant-based diet; there are many who swear by it. This decision was driven by watching The Game Changers.
On race day morning I of course had a Scottish porridge breakfast, arrived in very good time, checked the bike tyres, filled my single water bottle and headed for the swim start. I had a coffee, then 15 minutes in the water swim warmup zone. Totally set and ready for the off.
Knowing I was pool training this year at circa 1hr 30mins for the 3.8km swim, then factoring a 10% speedup for wearing a wetsuit as it adds buoyancy and hydroponic streamlining, I opted to join the group who reckoned they could maybe nail the swim in 1 hr 15 mins, but this was an error of judgement. Two kicks to the head in the first five minutes, and multiple other participants swimming all over me. Any notion of the effortless Total Immersion swimming for which I had trained and trained, out the window. No elegant bilateral breathing, it was simply a case of survival, breathing only on the right, and watching what other folk close to me were doing.
A great wee tip! Jaws anti-fog spray! Worked an absolute treat!
I finished the swim in good time, took the long run to transition to pick up the bike, then headed out for the cycle. Bring it on!
Ironman training sustains through the year, week after week. As you approach the big day you will very considerably start cranking the training say 7 weeks out, hold at that level for 3 weeks, then start tapering down at 75% per week, then 50%, then 25%, then zero with a full week of rest before the big day. In that rest week, plenty of quinine (tonic water, as it helps remove cramps), loads of salt, and heaps and heaps of carbs, especially pasta. All that I had certainly done. Totally prepared.
On race day the cycle started well, straight into aero tuck.
However I then soon reached the first gentle uphill cycle section, right of Krumpendorf, up I went ... time to start cranking the power … but oh no what’s this, where is the power in the legs? The power you always have? The power you are used to? It had vanished. Gone. So I pressed on regardless. But what the heckers? Gone! Is it simply now your age, or what on earth have you done?
I am certainly not going to dispute that a plant-based diet can work, but I can certainly say it didn't work for me. If indeed that was the cause?
I reached an aid station, and in trying to 'miracle some more power' I grabbed a bottle of orange Gatorade drink on the way past. Domino two! Nutritional plan out the window, as I was meant to be water all the way for the cycle. Nowhere to put the big bottle of Gatorade, so I rammed it down my top. Domino three!
Hold the aero tuck position, but the Gatoraid was making an open gap between by chest and my triathlon suit, in effect creating a forward moving parachute brake. I pressed on regardless.
What actually is Gatorade, because at that point I had no idea!
My hydration plan, was straightforward. Drink loads of water! When you pee and it's clear, you are hydrated. When you pee and it's dark yellow, you are not. If it's dark yellow you are potentially well on your way to a DNF Did Not Finish!
During Ironman 2021, I would go on to consume over 12 pints of fluids, but only have one tiny wee pee.
During the first 60 kilometres cycle I needed to apply much more effort to hit target time. I was doing well, and overtook 60 other participants in that section. Then extreme fatigue hit me very quickly. Press on lad, you need to break through. I do not have a DNF to my name in history!
At 115 kilometres I stopped at an aid station, and stepped off the bike. Two Ironman station assistants were straight to me, ‘Do you feel okay, you look dizzy, do you need to sit down?’ I popped two electrolyte pills, filled my water bottle, gulped a further Gatorade and continued onwards.
To explain. Part of my race day strategy is to take a single electrolyte pill half way through the second half of the cycle. And then to take a further pill on every hour for the next five hours. That’s the absolute maximum recommended intake.
Each pill contains a powerful blend of essential electrolytes - calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, and sodium, thereby replacing what the body loses through sweat. Fundamentally, the pills can assist with the removal of race-ending cramps. However, instructions are crystal clear, you shouldn’t take more than one pill an hour.
By circumstances by the point just after the halfway mark on the cycle, I’ve already taken two pills, PLUS I have no idea how much electrolyte equivalent is also in the couple of pints of Gatorade which I’ve already tanned! Vaguely, I recall reading that taking too much electrolyte can create problems, such as dizziness, vomiting, irregular pulse, fatigue, confusion and muscle pain.
By this point any notion of holding the aero tuck position and flying down the road at 32 km per hour was gone, rendered totally impossible by agony across upper shoulders and back of neck, so I was sat upright and rolling at about 27 km per hour. It’s all I could do. One domino then after another going down.
The steeper climbs began. Oh dear. Gradients which presented no problem at all in training started becoming near impossible. The clock was ticking, and the combination of fatigue and pain was providing a quite unprecedented new level of suffering.
For sure, there's no such thing as pain, it's just weakness leaving the body! LOL!
Yep, I was in a bad place at circa 150 kms. But sometimes in adversity it's human encouragement that makes all the difference, and that's what was about to happen.
There was a photographer sat up on one of the climbs, and he watched me from hundreds of yards away, labouring up the hill towards him. As I arrived, out of sheer frustration I clenched my fist out to the side and proclaimed, ‘Onwards!’
That very moment:
To which he gave me a huge smile and replied, ‘Go on, all the way, and good luck with the marathon!’ This very brief exchange grounded me. Eyes stinging with sweat and salt, and I confess, big frustration at my lack of power and speed capability, I focussed again on Rules 5 and 6 of the Vellominati.
My hoped for target time for the 180km cycle was 5 hrs 45mins, but it ended up an hour more than that. But I finished it! Boosted so very much by seeing my wife Gaynor and daughters Isobel and Ruby again when the cycle ended at 4pm, I headed into transition, sat on the ground to change shoes, some water over the head, a glug of Lucozade and started running.
As one of Scotland's most accomplished Ironmen had noted:
So man it up lad for the running, we’re this far in, and looking exactly at the times, ‘all’ you need to do to actually still nail a new Glenrothes Triathlon Club age group record by half an hour, is cover the 42.2 kilometres on foot, in under 6 hours. It's only Markinch to Dundee, have at it!
4 kilometres running and it hits me, the heat! Dizzy, nauseous, I know the feeling because I’ve always made sure of training whenever it’s hottest in Scotland. It's heat exhaustion now, and the only things you can do to stop it once it starts, is either sit down (not an option), or cool yourself down.
As I'd find out later in the day, despite water-resistant factor 50 sun cream, I'd still been cooked medium rare during the cycle!
Arrive at a nutrition station. ‘Where’s the ice?’ (I’ve got a lightweight cap this year! Ready to be filled with ice!) ‘There is no ice! Okay! One cup of water over the head, one cup down the suit, and one cup in the hat, continue and repeat at each aid station.
Run the calculations in my head. 38 kilometres left, at 8 minutes per kilometre you will indeed need to run half, fast turbo walk the other half. So I start picking points, I’ll run to that tree 200 metres away, then turbo walk the next 200, repeat, repeat, repeat!
An electrolyte pill each hour to stop cramp. Do not stop. Watch what you are doing, don’t trip! Focus. Spin the feet. Keep the momentum.
The crowds and encouragement were amazing. HOP HOP HOP! They shout and shout! And many encourage me by name, easy as it’s purposefully on the front of every competitor bib!
Then the heavens opened, I’m 18km from the finish, and it starts getting dark. Then it truly descends into total darkness. We are running and fast walking around Krumpendorf, there are no lights on the trails, the only light is from those participants who have been handed a head torch, and I’m not one of them!
Half an hour earlier, ‘Would you like an Ironman cagoule for the rain?’, to which I replied ‘I am from Scotland, this weather is normal!’
I become totally disorientated, in pitch darkness at a junction in a housing estate I ask someone running with a torch 100 metres behind me, ‘You sure we’re still on the right route?’ We eventually make our way back to streetlights and I then have 12 kms left, down through Klagenfurt city centre on a second loop, and back. Sections are in near pitch darkness through parks, pavement cracks, grass verges, tree roots under park tarmac, keep the focus! The rain was relentless, it was like standing in a power shower, very refreshing! If you miss getting your timing chip across a single timing mat, then you are going down as a DNF!
Manage the circumstances. It wasn’t pretty but I did what was needed to finish, and create the new GTC age group record by 38 minutes.
Was it the plant-based diet that screwed my cycle energy? Am I too old in life to make such a dramatic and quick one month adjustment? I don't have an answer to that.
A cycling plan based on what you can sustain at 32.5km per hour at Fife Cycle Park is fairly meaningless when we are talking 3 times that distance, with all the climbs involved as well.
Can we get something machined to raise the bike’s handlebars by 3 inches, as that more elongated less tucked position is what seemed to be the best position I could learn from those who were effortlessly overtaking me one after another in the second 90km loop. And what about gearing, hills that were causing problems would not be problems at all if we can re-calibrate the gearing to easier normality. As in normal road bike normality. We can add a Mountain Bike triple chainring on the front, it it means we can better handle the hills!
It’s not difficult to explain how I felt the next morning. You want sore legs for a couple of weeks, or a sore mind for the rest of your life? - That doesn't even begin to explain.
Your internal organs have all been taken out, then put back in. The unexpected and unrehearsed blending of how you unexpectedly fuelled yourself leaves you feeling sick. Tiny muscles you never even knew you had behind your ears, in agony. Ribcage agony to the touch. Pass the Nurofen! You cannot walk, you cannot stand up from a chair without leveraging yourself. Every movement is like that of a slow robot! And that's when my very lovely wife called me 'The Mechanical Man' ... 😂 🤣 😂
The pain will go away. But the lasting memories will stay forever.
Such was that pain, I actually ended up after the race saying to my wife, 'I cannot see how I could ever think of trying that ever again!' But writing this blog through the aftershock four days later I have a list:
1. On the day, join your most relevant swim time group, not a faster group.
2. Attach a new single bottle cage directly to the back of the bike seat! Enables you to:
3. Stick totally to pre-conceived strategic and nutrition plan!
4. Add a triple chainring, for much easier climbing.
5. Raise bike handlebars 3 inches, for permanent elongated missile instead of temporary aero tuck.
6. Increase your yoga, so you can handle 5.
7. Stick to Hoka One One running shoes. Stay injury free, and increase run training.
8. Lose one stone. Revert to 2019 weight.
9. Invest in a triathlon suit which completely covers the back, so you don't get roasted.
Will I go back again in 2022 for another race? Maybe take the chance to be the first ever Glenrothes Triathlon Club member to deliver a finish line in Austria, in the Male 55 - 59 age group? Time will tell ... The problem is, that as soon as the race entry opens (as is now imminent once again), it normally sells out virtually immediately!
This photo, I was about to run down the red carpet finish line. I can certainly say at that point that nothing had been left out there on the course. 2021 took everything I had, and the rest.
If you want to find out who you are, it's a great place to go looking.
On that basis, if you combine the 9 hours a week with well considered nutrition and a healthy diet, what you are then embracing is a philosophy of 'an Ironman way of life'. And there's surely no reason why this ongoing approach to maintaining health cannot also be sustained into older age.
We were informed via tannoy at the start line this year, the oldest Ironman entrant was 73 years old. Quite staggering, I have to say.
Ironman Austria normally has circa 3,500 entrants.
In 2021, and with severe travel restrictions in place due to the global pandemic, there were 1,379 entrants. 1,030 crossed the finish line, 25% of entrants did not finish.
I can only count my many blessings that I've been able to keep training this year, and that I had the sheer willpower and inner strength not to give in to such adversity on race day.
So very honoured beyond belief, to have been able to represent Glenrothes Triathlon Club in 2021.
And so many messages received, thank you to everyone.
If you asked me in early 2014 if I would ever in my life receive a message from the Chair of Scottish Athletics?
Memories are Made of This:
All best wishes,
Nicholas
Ironman Class of 2021
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