IRONMAN 140.6 AUSTRIA 2016 RACE REPORT
I thought about Ironman Austria for an entire year, thinking all possibilities… for sure, as far as my imagination could go, I couldn’t image the sensation about being part of such a nice event. At least for me, triathlon is more than a sport, it became a lifestyle. During this last year, I’ve lived more than all other years.
I didn’t sleep well the night before, I wasn’t feeling nervous but now I think a lot of anxiety has dominated my mind without I even noticed it (is that possible?).
I had done all I could do, and now the only thing left is to race.
On race day the alarm went off at 4:00. Saturday night I cooked some potatoes with salt and organized everything, so after a light breakfast I headed down to the transition area for the final checks and to load my bike with nutrition.
The parking area is huge but got full fast, I got one of the last spots in front of Klagenfurt Minimundus. In transition area, checked tire pressure, nutrition, organized the run/bike bags and then headed towards swimming area (it’s about 15 minutes walking). I swum about 100m to warm up and get acclimated with water temperature.
I think Ironman Austria tried organizing in the best way the swimming start, in rolling, according with the predicted swim time. They put some signs indicating the expected swimming time, so athletes should be honest and line up according, but... there were so many people that it was hard to find the right spot.
When you see the swimming course, looks like buoys are near to one another, so you may think that it’s easy to follow the course. Definitely it’s not the case; intermediate buoys are far apart one of each other.
The gun went off, swimming start was almost calm, different from many other races, it's the easiest part, everyone going towards the first buoys, at this stage buoys were visible and people were spread through the lake. First turn buoy, the fight starts, too many swimmers together, each one fighting for a place and trying to keep the pace. The second turn buoy was worst, as soon as you turn, sun goes straight into your eyes, I couldn't see anything, I’ve read about an antenna that could be used to orientate, I looked for it, but was impossible to see anything far away. So, I kept following the person in front of me, sometimes fixing the direction according with my intuition, always looking for the canal entrance. Finally I saw it; it was amazing once I always dreamed about this part of the swimming course. It’s beautiful to see, but there is a lot of traffic into the canal, so sometimes the person in front of you slow down, you do the same and people behind starts to hit you.
Swim – 01:22:23 (02:07/100m) (Oficial) | 4038m (02:02/100m) (Garmin)
T1 had a very long run to enter the tent, at least 400m. I was struggling to remove the wet suit, a guy came to help me then after 5 seconds I was putting it inside the transition bag (nice work man, thanks).
Swim-to-bike (T1): 00:07:04
As soon as I got in to the bike, my first thought was to find the right place to put on my cycling shoes; that was really easy, the first 5km are flat and straight. Interesting, it was totally unusual to see a bike with the cycling shoes attached to it in the transition area; looks like most part of Europeans don’t like the extra effort to put on the shoes while cycling.
My second serious thought was to slow down my heart rate, it was above 160bpm, and my target was something near 150bpm. I didn’t want to make too much effort on the bike; my plan was to go well below my optimal race pace to save some energy to the marathon, and if that meant I had a much slower bike than I was capable of, so be it.
I’ve read a lot of Ironman Austria race reports, there is a consensus about the beautiful of the lake Wörthersee, but the bike course is also fantastic, many times I forgot about the race and got me thinking about all the beautiful I was being exposed.
The first lap goes really fast, when you realize, 90km has gone and there are lots of people cheering you up, so you think “Uoooouu, half way!”, then a few minutes later your realize “Urrghhh, I still have another 3 hours cycling before the marathon”! I think first lap looks fast/easy because there are many people riding near you, so you don’t feel alone. Sincerely, I was expecting a much worse bike course, the hill named Rupertiberg is not the evil and I just figured it out because during the first lap I was chatting with a guy who told me “This is the fucking Rupertiberg”, other case I wouldn't even notice we were rising up the famous Rupertiberg. Aid stations were well located and well-run (although during my last lap some stations didn’t have isotonic anymore); voluntaries did a really good job handling the drinks and food. During my training sessions, coconut water was my preferred drink, so I tried to use it during the race, but Germany coconut water doesn’t have the same taste (I didn’t drink it before the race, damn), so I threw away two bottles of coconut water and got PowerBar isotonic from an aid station expecting a taste similar to Gatorade, but it’s completely different, I didn’t like it.
The descents of Ironman Austria were some of the greatest moments I've ever had on a bicycle, after Rupertiberg you start to descent, for a long long time. When you realize, you are near the city center just a few minutes from the crowd.
The second lap was much harder than the first one, even going easy, legs start to burn, you are on your own and marathon is still to come. At the beginning of the cycling leg, my stomach turned inside-out, I got a deep desire to stop and blow some mud, but decided to hold it until T2. After spend the entire first lap holding this desire, it was bothering me so much that I decided to stop. After 10 minutes I was feeling a lot better, but at this stage, the raining was coming down, people that were riding near me were gone and I was feeling very cold, a lot of people started to overtook me, I wasn’t feeling strong anymore.
Bike – 06:19:38 (28.49 kph) (Official) | 176.84 km (28.0 kph) (Garmin)
Bike deposited and I changed into my run gear. One gel, one mustard and then I start the run, only 42.2 km to go…
Bike-to-run (T2): 00:10:28
“You can be feeling great and suddenly it hits you... again”
Much to my surprise, I was feeling very well, my legs were moving easily, people were cheering up a lot, such a nice environment that I started thinking about to finish to marathon below 4 hours (the marathon in IM Austria is dead flat), but… after 10 kms, the good feeling vanished, my mind took me to some unpleasant place. I didn’t see anyone from my family since the beginning of the race, I started to get worried, all my motivation disappeared, my main thought was “relax, go easy man”… then I gave up about to run and I started to walk. It was the best feeling in the world, so after my first walk I couldn’t convince my mind about to run again for a long distance, so I started to run 500m, walk 100m, run 400m, walk 200m… it was converging to run 100m, walk 500m. I wasn’t expecting to finish the race in a good time anymore, so all my thoughts were towards to finish without suffering. Anyway, it’s a marathon; event walking it’s hard to finish.
The course comprehends some very nice places, with lots of people and shadow, but also many places where you are exposed to the sun, on your own, a little bit far from the buzz. One of the most amazing things about IM Austria is that people are very supportive, they are always saying to you: “hop hop hop”, “bravoooo” and “go go go”.
There is a checkpoint where they gave you bands, when someone passed the other way with more bands than me I felt jealous. I so wanted to be them. The kilometers without a band on my wrist were the ones that I wanted to get out of the way as quick as possible so I could be part of the gang. For the ones that are walking, one of the best things is to make new friends; I did it a lot, but… During my last 5 kms, one of my new friends (an oriental guy) was beginning the marathon, and told me: “Look, can you give me your green band? I can pay for it if you want”. I told him “No”, and started to run again, end of friendship. Of course, the time registered using the chip is what really counts, but for sure he hasn’t good intentions.
After 5h20m since I started the marathon, I entered the finishing tunnel. What a feeling, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had done it.
Run – 05:21:53 (07:38/km) (Official) | (Forgot to stop Garmin)
Considering all my history in triathlon, my sole goal was to finish this race. So anything before midnight would count as a win. I had invested too much time, money, and energy to come away with a DNF. Secretly, I told myself that I wanted to finish the race in 12 hours. I would have liked to have come closer to that number, but I finished right around where my coach suspected I would — near 13 hours.
