I have wanted to do an ironman distance triathlon (2.4mile swim/112mile bike/26.2mile run) ever since I found out about them as a child watching the Hawaii race on tv. I grew up swimming, had a running background from high school and got into biking not long after graduating college when a co-worker signed up for a triathlon and I thought that sounded like a good idea so I joined him. That first year I only did one triathlon, an olympic distance (1500m swim/40km bike/10km run), but I still had the ironman goal in the back of my mind, and a little less than two years after my first tri, I completed ironman France. I chose France because I wanted to leave the country and it lined up with training time lines and I took a bit of French in high school so maybe I’d remember some of it? I also considered New Zealand, but with a March race most of my long bike rides would have to be done in the winter and riding inside for just one hour is boring enough, 6 hours would be pushing the limits of sanity.
Ironman France starts in Nice so you get to swim in the Mediterranean Sea (very clear), bike in the hinterlands of the Alps (beautiful) and run along the beach (cool at first, but repetitive).
Leading up to the race my training peaked at about 15-20hrs per week and a typical week looked something like this (which happens to be an actual week of training from April 3-9 2010 ):
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Monday: Swim 120 min (4100 yards)
Easy run 30 min (3.5 miles)
- Tuesday: Bike 90 min with intervals (28 miles)
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Wednesday: Masters swim 60 min (3300 yards)
Fartlek run 75 min (9 miles)
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Thursday: Bike 90 min steady (27 miles)
Brick run 30 min (3.5 miles)
- Friday: Masters swim 60 min (3000 yards)
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Saturday: Long bike 6 hr (101 miles)
Brick run 45 min (5.25 miles)
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Sunday: Bike 120 min (35 miles)
Brick run 30 min (3.32 miles)
Total swim: 4 hrs (10400 yards or ~6miles)
Total bike: 11 hrs (191 miles)
Total run: 3.5 hrs (24.5 miles)
This was a pretty typical week for about 3-4 months of training, with the one change being Sundays where it alternated between long runs (up to 3 hrs) and some combination of running and biking. This was of course after months and months of building up to that volume and culminated in the actual race. My longest workout was a few weeks out from the race, a kind of mental prep and it was a triple bike/run consisting of a 2hr bike followed by a 40min run, and doing that three times. I totaled about 115 miles, the bikes were about 30miles a piece and the runs at about 5 miles each. But this post isn’t supposed to be about my training… so on to the race.
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swim:
I’ve never been in a mass start of 2500 people before, especially not one that took place on a beach, or on a beach that was all rocks (they are all smooth, but still painful to walk on). I placed myself in the sub 1:06 time group, and was about 3-4 rows back from the front. When the gun went off everyone made a dash for the water, and the mediterranean gets deep real quick (within 5-6feet out you can’t stand and touch the bottom) so everyone was quickly swimming, although I would call it more of squirming next to each other and being pushed forward by the people behind us. The crowd didn’t thin out until the 3rd buoy (1500m or so), and mostly the thinning was due to me being way off to the side of the pack. My line was actually good because when I came on shore after the first lap I was the only person getting out of the water on my side, while there were about 30-40 people getting out on the other side. During the short jog to start the second lap I quickly checked my watch, only to notice it had stopped taking my HR. During the second lap I began to notice how salty the water was, and how very thirsty I was. During the whole swim I only kicked for probably a total of 500meters or so, I was just concentrating on figuring out where to go and trying to take long easy strokes because I still have so far to go. I got out of the water and was pleased with my time, and also quite thirsty.
1st lap: 2.4km – 41:02 (1:42/100m)
2nd lap: 1.4km – 23:09 (1:36/100m)
total: 1:04:11 (1:41/100m)
T1:
The route through transition was grab your bag, change in the tent, grab your bike. I really liked this method because there was no clutter near the bikes at all. I decided if I’m going to be biking for 100+ miles I might as well be comfortable, so I wore my tri shorts and a bike jersey with plenty of pockets for gels and bars, and even a hand pump just in case. With my pockets full I had to keep my hands on the jersey while I ran to my bike so all my stuff would stay put.
8:23
bike:
Wow, the bike course is absolutely stunning. As I got to about 12miles or so we hit the first climb, it was a 500m hill with a average of 10% grade. This had me crawling by the end, but I was still in the big chain ring up front (I don’t think I’ve ever used the small one in VA). Of course after this short climb, we had a brief flat and then a long climb that averaged about 4%, this time I switched to the small chain ring and settled in at about 8mph. A bunch of people were passing me on the climbs, and even more on the descents – I was surprised because I was flying downhill at 25-30 with my fingers just off the brakes and people went shooting past me with no apparent regard for their health. I think I need more work on going downhill. The scenery was stunning, it felt like we were nowhere near the beach, and as we climbed higher and higher we saw all around the villages and other mountains, that I prayed were not for later in the ride. During the longest climb (about 20km) I had a huge urge to get off the bike and just stare out at the scenery, or maybe take a nap… This course would make a nice ride in a car I think. The miles piled up as I climbed my average was about 10mph, the descents were between 25-30 and the flats around 18-20 (the only place I actually passed any significant amount of people, who would all pass me on the next climb or descent). Around mile 85 I got a flat and it took about 10-15minutes to fix, it took me forever to try and find what caused it until I just gave up and fixed it anyway. Also people like to draft over here, on the climbs you couldn’t help it much because everyone was crawling up, and the descents people stayed a good distance away because it was so dangerous, but on the flats people were in large groups and actually doing the hand signals for potholes and such. When we started heading back to Nice, we were going into the wind, and it was flat, and I was passing a bunch of people – or so I thought. I glanced behind me and there was a paceline tucked in behind me, I didn’t like that so I put on a burst of energy and rode away from them. If I had my HR monitor working I probably wouldn’t have done that, or taken the climbs (especially the first one) so fast.
overall: 6:18:14 (17.7mph)
T2:
Entering T2 I was astonished that I still had a marathon left, and I’ve never even run that far. Other than that, I felt pretty good, didn’t have to stop to go to the bathroom on the bike and nutrition
was good. changed into my running shorts and a tshirt grabbed my visor and got sprayed haphazardly with sunscreen.
8:16
run:
At this point I knew I was getting tired and my goal was to run each half lap in about 30minutes and round out a 4ish hr marathon to hit 11:30 or so overall. The first lap felt good, and what felt the best was the showers they had next to every aid station which I dutifully ran through and felt relieved. I walked the aid stations and took in water. At the start of the second lap I felt my shoes were all wet, and I could hear them sloshing around with each step, by the halfway point of the second lap I thought I might be getting blisters. By the first aid station of lap 3 my feet were absolutely painful, every step was me stepping on blisters and to top it off my feet/socks and shoes were still all wet. I walked a good part of this lap, and even took off my shoes at one point and squeezed out the water from my socks and walked barefoot for a while to try and dry my feet off. It didn’t help. About 3/4 of the way through the 3rd lap it dawned on me that even though I was walking my feet still hurt with every step, so I thought about that some while I walked and then I decided that since I would be finishing the race it would be better to attempt to run the rest of it because it’ll be over quicker. This thought was greatly helped by adrenaline kicking in on the 4th and final lap, I was actually running again and only had about a 10km left. I kept counting down the distance in my head and by halfway through the lap wanted to break 5hr for the marathon. Eventually I made it to the finish chute and crossed the line, got my medal and sat down, took off my shoes and looked for my finishers tshirt (why else would I put myself through that?).
splits by half lap: 28:50, 31:33, 33:27, 34:56, 48:16, 45:05, 35:46, 38:09
total: 4:56:02 (11:17/mile)
Overall – great race but I don’t think I’ll be doing an ironman next
year. Nice is a great place and really beautiful, I hope I get to
spend some time here in the future without a race looming or being so sore it looks funny when I walk. Also there were so many people out cheering, even on the bike course, especially on the climbs. Also this makes me cringe when I think about the savageman bike course – apparently theres a section with a 31% grade… well at least I won’t have to run a full marathon after that.