The last Post.

Well, it’s one week since Ironman and I have to admit, I’ve been pretty lost this week. I’ve tried to keep myself moving with some light bike riding, walking and swimming. I had my final massage with Rose from R&R treatment rooms on Tuesday and by the end of Wednesday any aching in my legs had gone. I still felt tired and if I did to much it soon caught up with me. By the beginning of this week I should be able to get back to something like my self. Which is great, it takes some people weeks if not months to get over an Ironman. Good news on the bike, it wasn’t as bad as I first feared. It was only an aluminium bracket that had snapped, not the frame as first suspected. Did a few calculations with all my spare time last week, as well as cleaning out the gutters, which was on my to do after the Ironman list. I converted my training hours into distances, based on averages.

Total hours on the bike…219.7.................................... Total distance on bike….3383 miles

Total hours running……128........................................ Total distance run……...967 miles

Total hours swim………76........................................... Total distance swam…... 192000 mts or 120 miles

That to me looks pretty impressive when you lay it all out like that.

Over the last year I have learned so much, about myself and what I can achieve, how far I can push myself and I have learned a new kind of discipline. Where once I would have said. “Nine and a half miles, that’ll do”. Now I say.”come on, all the way to ten”. I have also learned how to train, how to eat while training and what results I can expect. When to rest and when to train harder. I have learned about the psychological side of training for an endurance event. Which as it turned out, was extremely crucial to me. Weighing up all the positives and negatives, eliminating the uncontrollables, controlling the controllables to ensure that the positives come out on top. Simples.

A few weeks before the Ironman I was contemplating getting an Ironman tattoo, I even designed my own, see picture at the top of this page. I wanted something to remember the day by. A permanent reminder of the time and effort that I put into this one day, and perhaps a part of me wanted others to see just what I had done. Now that I have done it, I kind of feel that I don’t need the tattoo. No others wont see what I have done. The most important things are I guess that, I know that I have done it, and believe me when I say that I will never forget it, and those who know me and that are important to me know what I have done. I don’t need a tattoo for that. Now then, the question that everybody that I have spoke to since finishing has asked. Would I do it again? That’s a big question and one that I can’t be too quick to answer. Yes I have issues with the course because of my bike incident and feel that I could have posted a faster time. Is that a good enough reason to take on one the toughest endurance events in the world for a second time? Hmmm, not sure. Looking back at it, I really enjoyed it, Is that a reason? Probably a better reason than the first. What ever the reason, you can’t get away from the fact that it took nearly 500 hours of training to complete a 13 hour race. That is what has to be weighed up. At this time I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no. I’m certainly not saying never. The problem I have is this, The weeks leading up to Ironman I thought about what my targets should be for the following year, there has to be a target to drive me. To beat my time for the Long course weekend was it. Even with the full length swim I want to beat my previous time of 12:57. Having now completed Ironman, that challenge just doesn’t seem enough. I’m fairly confident that even now, I could obliterate that time. I don’t think anything will compare to challenge of Ironman. Certainly nothing would compare to finishing the Ironman. So what do I do? The money I would have spent on that tattoo would go part way to next years entry fee……………………………………

Thank you all for sharing this journey with me. I hope I have given some kind of insight into the training required for an endurance event such as Ironman and I like to think that I may have inspired somebody along the way, not just to take on Ironman but just to take on something. Just give it a go and you might surprise yourself, be it a sponsored walk a sprint triathlon, joining a swimming club or the mother load itself. It’s all achievable one way or another, you just have to want it.

Stuart

Ironman Wales September 16th 2012

The trouble with writing this blog entry is, where to begin. Such a big day, such a huge adventure. I guess the best place to start is at the begining which after all the build up of the days before was midnight on the 16th. My alarm woke me for my first breakfast. Now, if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t really do breakfast, you may find this all a little disturbing. First breakfast for me consisted of 500 ml of low fat evaporated milk made into a banana milkshake and 3 pouched eggs on a bagel, washed down with 500ml of water. Back to bed then until my 4 am alarm call. Second breakfast. Porridge with mixed dried fruit and flaked almonds with a huge spoonful of Nutella chocolate spread. This was followed by a can of low fat rice pudding with jam. I was stuffed, but by then it was still 2 hours until the race start at 7am.

Ironman goody bag with transition bags and numbers inside. Transition bags all packed up, ready for drop off.

My wife and the kids were all up and getting ready for what was going to be a long day in Tenby. 5.15 and we all headed off to race transition. When we reached Tenby I headed off to transition and the family went to get a space near the beach to watch the start, it was still pitch black. I got to transition and took off the bike cover, checked the tyres and changed into my wet suit. I then had to store my bag in registration. At 6.15 all the athletes walked together down through the town and to the beach.

The kids overlooking North beach on their arrival.

During an Ironman race you are allowed access to your special needs bags, one for the ride and one for the run. I was told on Fridays registration that we must take our bags to the swim start, there will be a van which you put the bags in. Special needs stations will be at kiln park for the ride and Crackwell hill for the run. The reason I’m telling you this now is this. As we walked down to the beach it soon became apparent to me that I seemed to be the only person carrying special needs bags. To be fair, there was over 1500 athletes there, so I couldn’t see everybody. I asked a marshal about the van, he knew nothing about a van. I asked another, again he knew nothing. By now I was almost on the beach, still with these two bags in my hands and nowhere to put them. I asked a third marshal, again he new nothing but he said that he would take them and get them to special needs. I had no choice other that to trust him. So we’re all stood at the shore line waiting for the gun, I’ve had a short warm up in the sea and it’s quite a good temperature (honest). The gun sounded and over 1500 athletes all entered the water and headed for the first turn. The Pros started in the water about 20 feet ahead of the rest of us. My aim was to go slow and steady for the first lap then check my time and make up any short falls on the second lap. I was looking for a swim time of around 1hr 10 min.

Copy and paist this link into your browser to see the race start. http://youtu.be/9DnTp6ILKhs

As we rounded the first buoy which was actually a small boat with a flag on it, it was chaos, there were bodies everywhere, if there wasn’t so much adrenalin flowing through our veins, it would have been scary. Things had thinned out a bit by the time we got to the second buoy and I had some open water to swim in. I completed the first lap of two in 33 minutes. Wow, and that was going easy. I thought then, ok let’s just do the same again only this time I’ll have more space. Things were far more relaxed on the second lap as everybody had settled into a speed and was swimming in their own space. I finally finished the swim in 1hr 1 min. Brilliant, that set me up for what promised to be a really good day for me. There was a 1 km run to 1st transition which took us through the streets of Tenby and the noise from the crowds at only eight o,clock in the morning was amazing, I couldn’t help but smile. I arrived in T1, grabbed my bike bag and began changing out of my wetsuit. Changed into my cycle clothes I headed out of the transition tent and off toward my bike. That’s when a great big smack in the mouth of reality hit me. I got hit by the, you stupid idiot branch of the tree. As soon as I left the tent I realised that when I was in transition earlier on that morning checking the bike, I had forgotten to put my drinks bottles on it. What a plonker. My entire nutrition strategy out the window before I had even started the ride. I couldn’t believe it. I went back into T1 to ask if I could get my day bag from registration as that is where by bottles were. “NO!” came the reply. They did give me a small bottle of water though. I took that and headed off on the bike.

I was now going to have to cope with just the course supplies, Gatorade and water until I got to the special needs station, where I had another bottle of Carbohydrate formula waiting for me. Assuming that my special needs bag got to special needs, I wasn’t counting on it. First feed station was in Angle about an hr away so I just supped water from the bottle I was given until then. On the bike things were going really well, I was carrying good speed and my legs felt great. I was being very conservative with my energy and trying to keep the peddling light and it was all working. I went through the first two feed stations, picking up bottles as I went and was doing just great until 40 miles. Cruising along around 15 mph suddenly my chain jerked and I had no drive. The chains slipped off was my first thought. Then I noticed my rear derailleur was hanging off the bike. Oh no, this was serious, race ending serious. I leaned the bike up against the hedge and nearly cried, it was looking so over for me. The derailleur hanger had snapped. A support motor cyclist pulled up and after I had told him what happened he asked if I wanted him to ring for the sweeper van to come and collect me. I thought about it for a few seconds. This can’t be it, it can’t be over now, I’ve put too much in for it to be over now. I asked him if he could give me a few minutes to try and fix it, “Sure” he said. I looked at the damage and thought, how the hell am I going to fix this. Then a calm and logical side of me kicked in. If I shorten the chain and put it around just one cog I can still peddle the bike in one gear. So I set about taking the derailleur off the chain taking the correct amount of links out of the chain and putting it all back together in 4th gear. I then strapped the derailleur to the back of the frame as it was still hanging because of the cable attachment. I chose 4th gear because I thought I could spin out on the flats at around 14-15 mph and I should be able to make most of the hills in 4th as well, although there was going to be at least one which would be a walker. So within the first 3.5 hours my Ironman nutrition plan was useless and now so was my pacing plan. In the back of my mind I kept saying to myself, “finish at all costs. After ten to fifteen minutes of cursing, a smile appeared on my face as it dawned on me what I had just done, I had snatched a potential victory out of the jaws of certain defeat. I tell you, one year ago I would have thrown the bike in a hedge and called for the van myself, but this day I was stronger, and that filled me with pride, so I smiled. I finished the first lap and as I headed out of Tenby I saw the family and shouted to them that I was stuck in one gear. At least special needs was just up the road and I could get some carbohydrate fluid into my body, but it wasn’t. I found out after the race that they had moved the Special needs station to Saundersfoot, a town which I had passed 4 miles ago. Still I rode on with 40 miles to go, smiling to myself. I was beating this demon which was determined to stop me finishing. I think I smiled for the remainder of the bike leg, all eight hours of it. I was slow on the flats and the hills hurt like hell and I wasn’t sure if I would have anything left in the legs for the marathon. I was using 4th gear on hills where usually 1st would be a struggle.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally reached T2 not before showing off my handy work repairs to the transition referee and he was quite impressed with my efforts I can tell you. A quick change from cycle jersey to T shirt and a pair of running shoes and I was out onto the run. I passed the family just outside transition and stopped to give my wife a hug, then set about the run at hand. Although all other plans had fallen quite early on I still had a plan for the run. It was quite simple. The run was four laps of 6.5 miles and my plan was to run the first lap before even looking up and thinking about what I was doing. That way, if it suddenly dawned on me that this is insane, at least I would only have 3 more to do. There’s logic in there somewhere. I knew after that bike leg that I was going to find it harder than I had previously expected so I set a pace a little slower than usual. After 58 minutes I had completed the first lap, that was awesome, I felt pretty good as well, considering. I’m gonna try and do that again for the second lap, and I did, 59 minutes. The crowds in Tenby were immense and making so much noise that they could have inspired the dead. Each time I came into Tenby for the next lap, it lifted me. As I headed out for the third, things started to hurt, I needed to keep something back so I walked the main hill heading out of the town, did a little running when I could and walked through the feed stations. Third lap completed in 1hr 10 min. Still not bad going. I was in a lot of pain now so even though it was starting to get dark I kept my sun glasses on in the hope that it would mask the pain. As I passed the family at the end of the third, I told them that this last one may take some time and off I went on my final voyage out of the town. Again I found myself walking up the main hill but I did start to run sooner on this lap. At the half way point of each lap we received a coloured band which represented how many laps we had to do. I could see people with all four bands Yellow, Green, Blue and Pink heading back to Tenby. You lucky people I thought. I already had the Yellow, Green and Blue and I was on my way to get the Pink. I only needed the Pink then I could head home, what a lift that gave me especially when I looked at people with only Green. Those poor souls. I did a little walking before I picked up my final band but once I had the pink beauty on my arm I was running all the way to the finish. Now don’t get me wrong, there was no sudden burst of energy, there was no sprint. I just had it in me to put one foot in front of another for another 3.5 miles, and although at times there was now gap between my feet from front to back, I was still running. I came into Tenby for the final time and the crowds were electric, they could see that I had all four bands and were cheering me home. This was a very emotional time. As well as your race number the crowds can also see your name, and they use it, and by god it helps, even though you know that they don’t know you, they’re calling you on by your name. I was close to tears as I ran through the town partly because of emotion and partly because of the pain I was in. I can’t describe the pain in my quads it was like the muscles had been replaced with blocks of metal that were rubbing against every other part of my legs. Unfortunately it was now too dark for the sun glasses so the pain on my face was there for everyone to see. As I ran through the town I applauded the crowds who had been fantastic, this seemed to provoke them and made them cheer and clap even more. I got to the point in the course where you turn right to start another lap or left to go to the finish. This time I was turning left. I had put in an astounding 4:14 marathon. About 200 metres stood between me and my finishers medal. As I rounded the corner I saw the red carpet, which looked blue in the light and the cheering crowds were going absolutely nuts, banging on the side walling of the chute. I blew kisses at the carpet as I ran onto it then started weaving left and right giving high fives to all the hands that were waiting. There was the finish, I straightened up my direction and headed for the finish line. Just in time out of the corner of my eye I spotted my kids just behind the finish clock arch and I briefly stopped to touch hands before crossing the line. Wow, I’d done it. 62 weeks of training came down to 13:40:09 hrs. What a day, what an adventure. I fell into my wife’s arms before going to collect my medal.

Copy and paste this link into your browser to see my finish,( sligthtly edited) https://www.dropbox.com/s/4w0swp7w1pzblu1/Ironman2012.mov

That was it, I’d got what I came there to collect and against a lot of odds. In some respects I’m glad it all happened the way it did, what with the bike incident and the bottles and special needs because it proved that I did it mentally as well as physically. I now believe that Ironman is 40% physical fitness and 60% mental strength. The cut off times are generous enough to give most people with a reasonable level of fitness a good chance of making them. It comes down to whether you have the mental strength to make yourself go on, to make your self start a marathon which could take you 6-7 hrs, to make yourself begin the third lap even though it’s already dark and you may be the only one left on the course. To make yourself carry on on a bike that now has only one gear, knowing that you are basically a dead man walking and you’ll have nothing left for the run. I hope that my kids will look at what I have done and know that it’s ok to try your hardest and it’s ok to get knocked down, just don’t ever give up, because to carry on is so worth it!

Hundreds of volunteers helped to make Ironman run smoothly; they did everything from picking your bags up in transition to giving you food and water at feed stations. Making sure you got to the start, and every road junction on the bike course had volunteers keeping the traffic at bay. Throughout Pembrokeshire people lined the route, from the swim at 7 in the morning to the roads on the cycle route and the streets of Tenby and New Hedges for the Marathon. All in all I paid just under £400 to enter Ironman Wales 2012. Thousands of people gave up at least 1 day of their lives to ensure that my £400 was money well spent.

Thank you

The great Carb up.

Three days to go now, so I must begin the great Carb up. After a healthy breakfast of grapefruit, followed by poached egg whites on one piece of brown toast, I prepared the first of many bowls of Spaghetti pasta. There will be Spaghetti with sweet corn & Tuna, spaghetti with Chicken & tomatoes, Spaghetti with rout vegetables, Carrots, Swede, Parsnips and Potatoes. I will still be maintaining a high portion of fruit and I will be decreasing the amount of fibre in my diet. I’m starting to get little nervous palpitations from time to time now. Usually when I either look at the sea or the calendar. A couple of deep breaths and I’m fine. Transition is going over and over in my mind at the moment, have I got everything, can I make it any simpler, what if this happens, what if that happens. I’m not being paranoid I just need to make sure that every eventuality is covered. There are some things that I can’t plan for until after the race registration and briefing on Friday, and that is really frustrating, I have an issue with my race belt. As it is now, my race belt is loaded with gels, ready for the marathon. I have even devised a way of carrying plasters on the belt. What I need to know is, do we get two race numbers, one for the bike leg and one for the run, or just one. If two then great. Ill simply pin one to the back of my cycling jersey ( I’m not wearing a Tri suit) and leave my race belt as it is. If we only have one number, then I have a problem. I don’t want to carry half a dozen gels in my belt on the bike leg and yet come the start of the run, I’ll never get those gels into the elastic holders. The only plan I have for this at the moment is, use a second race belt for the bike. The number will be fixed to this ready to go in transition one. After the ride in transition two I will take the number off the first belt and put it on the run belt already loaded with gels. This will be fiddly but a lot easier than trying to slot gels into the belt. My biggest worry about this is, what I forget to swap the numbers over and simply change the belt. How far would I have to run back to get my number, how stupid would I look. The safest thing would probably be to ware both belts for the run. I don’t know, so much to think about, roll on Friday.

Week 61, into week 62. Race week!!!

Week 61. It’s Monday lunch time as I sit here writing this weeks blog. In six days time I will be competing in my first ever Ironman event. A 2.4 mile sea swim, 112 miles bike leg and a 26.2 mile marathon. Am I nervous? Not yet. Will I be? Defiantly, probably around Friday, when I attend the race registration in Tenby. Week 61 training didn’t see a lot of action, just a final sea swim of 45 minutes and a 3.45 bike ride which was more a test of pacing. So still getting plenty of rest. I have three massages lined up with the lovely lady at R&R treatment rooms in Haverfordwest. I had one Saturday, I will have another this coming Saturday, the day before the race and a final one on the Tuesday after the race. This Saturdays was lovely. The idea being, the motion and the oils relive the stress and lactic acid build up in the muscles leaving you and your legs felling fresh and ready to go. The ankle that was troubling me seems to be ok now. I went for a short half hour run this morning with no problems. A run at race pace with some 1 minute bursts of double race pace. No great volume this week just short sharp workouts or active recovery. I have a box that I am putting everything to do with race in, like cycling clothes running clothes spare tubes, that sort of thing. It will all be sorted into the relevant bags, when I get them on Friday morning from Registration.

The last Supper........................I’ve just been shopping for my race week nutrition, or food as I used to call it. What a fantastically healthy looking trolley I had. I will probably never have a trolley like that again in my life. I remember just over a year ago around this time of year a trolley of mine could have contained 2x24 packs of Carlsberg, 4 tubes of Pringles 2 packs of white roles, 24 burgers and a pack of sausages. My how things have changed. All in all my eating habits throughout this process have been good. I may have stayed slightly every now and then but on the whole I’ve done well, by that I mean healthy eating. I have not had more than one glass of red wine in any sitting and probably less frequently than once a month. This week is another notch up. Super healthy virtually zero fat. No large portions, just little and often. Fruit and veg a plenty.

Got my race number last night, 991, so I can now register next Friday. It's becoming very real this week as there is so much activity surrounding it. I also got my race instructions, or Bible. There is a lot to take in, When to register, where to register, when the race briefing is and where. When and where to rack your bikes, Blue transition bags, red transition bags and white finishing bags, spare shoes bag, when to bring them and where to put them. Reservation of pasta party ticket. Rules, so many rules. Black cards, yellow cards and red cards, it's a bit like a football match but with no off side, just drafting, or not, as the rules say. Stop and go penalties in transition and the dreaded Red card DQ. Littering is a disqualification as is abusing marshalls. Drafting will get you time penalties. No ipods or MP3 players,(der). No outside assistance, so for god sake if you see me struggling, don't help, but call an ambulance if need be. No bringing spectators down the finish straight, again, please don't. Other than that it's pretty straight forward. Get from A-B in the fastest posslible time. Went for a swim in the sea on Wednesday. There was quite a strong current so it was quite tough going one way, but I flew along going with the current. I rode on Thursday and as I was riding, the council were putting out the advanced road closure signs, again a sign of reality. The ankle is getting better by the day and hopefuly I will be able to do a short run on Monday. The bike is now in the shop having a final service and I have a massage booked for this Saturday and next Saturday so all seems to be quite well organised.

Week 60 Training log. Almost there.

Week 60. Finally 7 swims in 7 days is over, it seemed to take more than a week though. It was great to do it as I’m really quite confident about my swim on the day now. A bit of a mammoth week really but with lots of rest for the legs. Sunday I did the biggest ride that I will do before the day and I won’t be stressing the legs again much before Thursday next week. Fridays run was tough. A 1 hour run, set at above race tempo. Just a little, but enough for me to know that I wont be running that fast during any part of the marathon. Or maybe I will, who knows? A huge realisation hit the other day. We flipped over the calendar to mark the start of September and flashing like a beacon from the middle of the month was IRONMAN with stars all around it. S#*t it’s finally here. For months I’ve been aware of it and training towards it and I’ve never for a second forgot it, or when it was, but seeing it on this months calendar page sent a funny feeling to my stomach. It’s real, it’s really happening and it’s in two weeks. Deep breaths, deep breaths, fetch a paper bag. I’ve got over that now, but three days into the month I think I’ve stood there staring at the 16th on the calendar at least three times a day. With only two weeks to go I’m very conscious about injuring myself or picking up any bugs. You can only be so careful though and while I was at work on Saturday I twisted my right ankle, IDIOT. It’s really quite painful on the inside but there is no pain when I just move it up and down. It didn’t effect or hurt on the bike ride on Sunday until I twisted my feet to get them out of the pedals. I haven’t tried running, probably better to rest it and hope. I get the feeling that it would be fine in the normal running position, but for how long and what if I lost my footing for a second. Yes best to rest. On top of this my wife woke up yesterday morning and announced that she thinks she’s getting a cold. Great. I did the long course weekend full of cold, I don’t want to do the Ironman like that as well. Well, I’m sure that over the last two weeks I won’t be knocking up any 16 hour weeks, it is now time to unwind and get lots of rest, eat plenty of fruit and veg, not to mention protein and stay well. Yes there will be some training. A fairly big bike session on Thursday with a brick run, if the ankle is fine, and another the following Monday but a little shorter. In between will be some active recovery sessions and lots of stretching. I am worried about the ankle, so I will stay on the side of caution with it and not run at all if necessary. I did find a little on Youtube about Ironman transitions but not as much as I would have liked, so a lot is still unknown. I received the race instruction by email yesterday so a good read of those is called for I think.