Challenge Roth 2014
Hey,
Thank you for coming by! I want to describe the last awesome experience I had.
It is almost two weeks since I raced my first Ironman. It was Challenge Roth in Roth Germany, that I swam 3.8km, biked 180km and ran (or the closest to running I could manage) 42km. It was an amazing experience, intense, with a lot of sweat, some tears, and thankfully no blood :)
Let me give you a report of the race:
Pre-race
I drove down there and met with quite some of the awesome members of Team MaccaX. The days before the race, we were biking part of the course and we swam in the race venue. The swim was pretty cool since we were in the water with Macca getting some tips for the swim part of the race.
The morning
Race morning started fairly early, I would say, with my alarm clock ringing at 3am (which was without a doubt harder for dad than for me) so I could avoid the traffic going into Roth and finish the last preparations with the bike (and myself) without having to worry about time.
Everything went rather smoothly and I was eager to get in the water and let go of all the excitement!
The swim
The swim went as expected. Took it at a good pace but not too hard, had a long day in front of me and didn't want to burn any matches already. An added difficulty was that I was catching up to people that started in waves before mine and that made it impossible at times to swim in a straight line. I have a feeling that it might have been a little bit too long (also considering the swim times of the pros), but was pretty happy when I got out of the water just under 1 hour.
The bike
Then it was time to get on the bike and pedal for 180km. I would say that this segment went better than I expected. Felt solid the whole way, controlling the effort and enjoying the awesome bike course.
The nutrition also went really well! I was using mostly Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem (Caffe Latte flavour) but also a couple of their Hammer Gels and two Clif Shot Bloks. I was really happy with this combination. I started using Perpetuem 3 months ago and I am really happy with it, but also wanted to add some more solid foods during the ride more for the mental of actually chewing something during the ride. Perpetuem is a powder that contains complex carbs, which help providing a stable source of energy and for this race I prepared what they call a multi-hour bottle, which had around 800kcal, that I drank from throughout the bike segment. For hydration I was on water and also had some salt pills to try to replenish the lost electrolytes.
The spectators were amazing and part of the reason why I was actually looking forward to get to the climbs, such an amazing support! And the famous Solar Berg... WOW!... that was something! I must admit that I shed a tear or two when I climbed it the first time: the public there was five people deep on each side of the road supporting us, we almost didn't have space to pass. Really felt like a super star there! And so I finished the bike leg in 5h22m, with an average of a bit over 33km/h, I was pretty happy with the ride and looking forward to get on my feet.
The run
And after a bit over 6h45m I was ready to tackle the run. I only had a marathon left to run and was actually looking forward to it! For nutrition I had some more of the Hammer Gels (some with caffeine) and took some High5 gels in the aid stations as well, working on taking around 2 per hour.
Looking back, maybe I was looking forward to it a bit too much. I did the rookie mistake of starting a bit too fast. I mean, I didn't think I was running too fast: I was feeling good and the heart rate was where it was supposed to be. That was all nice and pretty, but at around km 20, the legs started to complain: both my calfs started cramping and at this point I had to walk. Not that easy to contemplate the possibility of having to run the last 22km, but if that was what was needed, I was going to do it! The only thing I could do at this time was to hydrate, get in some extra salt (maybe I didn't have enough during the race) and get some more gels. I did so and was hoping I would get my calfs back before the end of the run, so I could actually run some more.
And I did get them back! And when I started running a bit, I caught up to one of MaccaX team members, and not any member! It was Milhouse, a cancer survivor that had the dream of racing in Roth. We at MaccaX raised money to get him to the race and he did the marathon on of the MaccaX's relay teams. So after I caught up to him, we started running (more like shuffling) together and walking a little bit if we had to. We kinda started feeling better again and kept on running a bit more ("let's run just to that aid station and then we can walk a bit") and walking a bit less. Along the way we were caught by some more of MaccaX members (Wavy Davy and Anthony) and Macca also joined us in the last km. We ran all together to the finish line, which made it a pretty epic end to an awesome experience! A day that I will never forget! I ended up with a 5h09 marathon, not what I was expecting but okay given the circumstances, and with a total time of 11h36, which is not too bad for a first ironman in super hot conditions :)
Now I have been recovering from the race and will start getting ready for Ironman Kronborg 70.3 on September 14th to finish off the season! :)
Until next time, Jose
(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the brands mentioned above, just wanted to share my fuelling strategy)