2007 Almere Long Distance Race Report
Almere was my first IM distance race in 1994 and I have always fancied going back, so early this year when I realised that all the overseas M dot races at a convenient time (August for school holidays and maximum chance of clement training weather) were already full, it was the logical choice.
This report is a bit of a long ‘un but I think you need the preamble to get the full flava..
Thursday 23 rd August: Race Day -2
I do like a good long faff before a race and as well as several evenings of list writing, kit checking and online ordering in the weeks leading up to the race I also had the luxury of a good few hours of fettling on the day we set off. It’s amazing how urgent things can suddenly become: Sealable plastic bags? I have to have them NOW! or my jelly babies will get mulchy on the run. Valve extenders: how many spares do you need? I’ve still got a one item shopping list (write it down so you don’t forget…) which simply says “twiglets”
The car was duly packed up with all the stuff for a family holiday plus all my race kit, and Mrs. Repo’s mountain bike and my Stealth were neatly racked on top, the Stealth in a purchased-specially-for-the-job Thule which carries the bike upright complete with wheels. I actually prefer the remove-the-front-wheel type of carrier but I had previously phoned Planet X and they advised strongly against using a fork clamping carrier on carbon forks, and Thule’s website confirmed this. Great to have the right kit for the job, we don’t want anything getting damaged in transit….
Locked and loaded:
With the smallest Repos wedged in around the stuff and Mrs.Repo riding shotgun off we set for Harwich. Which if you live in Glossop is pretty dumb, as the nearest ferry crossing to Holland is actually from Hull. It’s all in the planning you see.
After 230 miles (about 100 of them unnecessary) we rolled onto the Stena ferry at about 22.30 ready for the 23.00 sailing to Hoek Van Holland. A quick beer and it was time to crash out in the very pleasant family cabin.
Friday 24th August: Race Day -1
Woken up at 06.30 by the on board announcement that (complimentary) breakfast is being served so after a quick feed we head back down to the car deck and get ready to disembark.
In a few minutes the cars in front start to move and I’m gently following on when I hear quite possibly the worst noise I’ve ever heard. It’s metallic, tortured, agonised even: and then I realise that’s just me shouting in a kind of primal rage because in a split second I realise what’s happened, but not why. I’ve no real recollection of the actual noise the Stealth made when it hit the deck above…
The next few minutes were really horrible. I jumped out of the car to look at the bike but it looked so freakishly wrong that I had to just jump back into the car and shout some more, upsetting everyone in the process - I really couldn’t face getting out because the synapses were firing so fast in a string of consequences that I couldn’t keep up: Bike trashed, race over, training wasted, family holiday ruined, fitness motivation lost, a steady spiral of decline….. With cool reflection it these were frankly unlikely but my train of thought accelerated from a broken bike and ended with me sat on a bench in the park, drinking White Lightning, wearing a sack and sexually abusing dogs. Actually I think the last bit might have actually been a flashback, not a premonition.
Once I calmed down enough to get out of the car, I took stock of the damage. The Stealth basically looked like it had had it’s neck broken, so disconcerting was the image of something very familiar with bits horribly out of place. What actually happened was the bar extensions had caught on the deck above, rotating the whole bar assembly in the stem so that it pointed straight backwards, which is not a great look. Both carbon brake levers were snapped off, gear and (brand new I Link) brake cables stretched and snapped, bar tape ripped, paint on bars gouged by the stem and…..that was actually it on the bike. The return ratchet spring on the (brand new) Thule roof rack was shagged but at least it still worked.
Basically what happened was that the car deck above ours had been lowered to let the vehicles above off and hadn’t been raised enough to let the vehicles below exit with the same headroom they had when they drove on. The guy in the car behind had 4 bikes carried the same way as mine and I guess he was pretty pleased that he hadn’t been in front of me in the queue.
The Horror, The Horror.....
The Stena supervisor noted all the damage and took pictures (as I did) of the damage and filled out a form which noted the circumstances. Worryingly the form has “this is not an admission of liability” on it in bold letters but what is probably more worrying to would be Stena travellers planning to carry bikes on the roof is that they have a special pad of forms just ready for such instances of gross negligence. Suffice to say my claim to Stena will not pull any punches.
OK, so we’re now at the port of Hoek of Holland its 08.30 and the bike has to be repaired and racked in the parc ferme in Almere, 90 minutes away by 17.00. 7 hours to sort it: it’s achievable with a bit of luck. Its also 20 degrees c already.
It seems that its not worth waiting in HvH for a bike shop to open so we head to Almere where there is at least a chance that there may be a trade stand that can help, and once we arrive I spot a promising looking tent with tri gear aplenty. It turns out that this is pretty much the expo and they only stuff available is reduced Ironman branded stuff and not as much as a spare inner tube in sight. Still in stressful times it’s important to shop so I bought a black IM cap to match my black 2XU kit should I ever actually get to the start line..
The very helpful ladies at registration (which was on a boat) pointed me to Almere’s local bike shop which was about 2 minutes walk away and as I walked up, crippled Stealth in hand, it didn’t look good. Outside were racks of commuter bikes and other fairly pedestrian fare and barely a race bike, let alone a carbon and titanium bling machine in sight. I pushed the bike inside and by good luck was greeted by Jan, the owner who was a youngish chap with excellent English and I could tell straight away that he would try and help.
He didn’t have any suitable brake levers in stock (hardly surprising) but thought he had a pair on a bike in his warehouse and promised to drive over and have a look and remove them if he had. To cut a long story short he didn’t but he managed to get hold of an aluminium pair from his wholesaler. Basically I dropped the bike off at 11.00 and he ran around for me on a busy Saturday to make sure that my bike would be ready to race: new levers, cables replaced, tape changed and checked over. I actually pushed the bike out of the shop at 16.55 and into transition at 16.58: he even told me to rack the bike first and come back and pay him afterwards. Needless to say I think he was a top bloke and without a doubt his kindness saved my race.
As it became clear that the bike was going to get sorted I relaxed (a bit, anyway) and started prepping my transition bags ready to hand in, tried to keep hydrated but failed miserably to rest or keep out of the now scorching (28-30c) sun or rest in any way. Still, I was going to be on the start line at least even if the day before hadn’t been exactly full of text book relaxation.
During the day I managed to meet up with Runningboy at the race briefing and have a chat about the course and roughly map out in my mind where the swim exit and transition routes were. After the last bits were done we finally loaded back into the car and drove the 20 minutes down the road to Center Parcs at De Eemhof which is where we would be staying for the next week. Chalet sorted, kids happy, pasta cooked and eaten, 3 alarms set for 04.30 and it was in bed by 23.00. What a day, it was my 45th birthday too.
Saturday 25th August: Race Day!
After the previous day’s Prologue de Stress, race morning was comparatively tranquil. A big bowl of porridge with dried fruit and a mug of tea to start and I crept through Center Parcs in the dark to pick up the car and load everyone in, 3 year old Daniel Repo taking this all in his stride. Arriving at the race start (it’s in Almere Haven by the way, not Almere Stadt) and I pottered around putting bottles on the bike, pumping tyres and chatting with other competitors: in excellent English from them and Dutch sign language and sage looks from me.
The race start is on the beach a few hundred metres from transition and we were lead down by a pipe and drum band ready for the start at 07.30, which is actually quite a civilised time. A final goodbye to the family and it was into the holding pen ready to go. I bumped into Runningboy and then suddenly there was a huge bang as the Dutch Army tank which had been lurking around the previous day officially started the race. I didn’t see the tank but I sure as hell heard it: weeing in the wetsuit at the start if the race is the least of your problems with this sort of ordinance around.
Draftbusters were very aggressive:
Mr and Mrs
Those EPO suppositories are a two handed job to administer...
Ms. Repo
The Swim
As we all know, swimming is the rather unseemly boisterous bit at a start of a race which achieves little other than to ruffle a gentlemen’s composure and attire before mounting his velocipede. Having long since learnt this, I have sharpened my IM swim training and racing to a finely honed state of mediocrity which results in precision pacing of the “anything between about 1.10 and 1.30 will do” type. With this clarity of mission in mind I took it easy on the first 1000m leg of the swim which ends with a quick jog round the beach before its back into the water for the longer leg back round the headland to Almere Haven harbour. I’d like to say that I settled into an easy rhythm and before you knew it the swim was over, but it never really got that comfortable until about the last 500m, when it got uncomfortable. That was probably when I realised that I should actually put some effort in rather than mooning along going “hullo clouds, hullo sky” etc etc
Not a disaster of a swim though, and I gained an interesting new race experience to add to the scrap book: STS - Sighting Tourette’s Syndrome - I couldn’t stop looking up to see where I was going! I normally throw in a heads up sighting stroke every 10 or 20 strokes but for some reason I just couldn’t stop my head bobbing up every other stroke, despite it being a pretty easy course to navigate. Strange: I got over it by playing that game you do when you are a kid in the middle of a big empty field - dare yourself to walk a certain number of paces with your eyes closed. It was when I was doing this that I realised that, compared to a kid in a field, I had a statistically way higher chance of putting my fist up the bottom of a rubber clad Dutchman so I opened my eyes and got on with the swimming.
Actually the statistical chances with the rubber clad Dutchmen were higher still during my night of r and r in Amsterdam the day after the race, but that’s another story. And it didn’t happen.
The swim finish finally hoved into view (finally, I mean how long can it bloody take?) and I pulled myself up the wooden steps onto the harbour, through the shower and into the changing tent. Was that a hint of cramp in the right calf? Nah, probably nothing. In the tent matronly Dutch ladies were dispensing transition bags and benign indifference to the less than porn star nudity on view. Electing to swim and ride in my 2XU long distance shorts spared my blushes so it was just a quick towel down, shoes and socks on and I even managed, with the help of my, er, helper to get my fully loaded Tritalk jersey on without being showered in gels and tyre levers. After 100m jog to pick up my bike I stopped briefly to fire a Nuun into each water bottle and I was off (It should be served sparkling so I obviously didn’t want to put it in before the swim….)
The family were waiting by the mount line which was great to see and then it was off onto 3 60km laps of the bike course
Swim: 1:21:54
T1: 0:08:08
The Bike
The thing with Holland you see, is it’s flat. No really, flat. There’ll be no tales here of derring do on fearsome climbs, of burning quads and bursting lungs. So if you seek that sort of titillation get back over to those Norseman reports. I know I would.
Heading out on the first lap you follow the water for about 10km and I was feeling great. Down on the aero bars, nutrition plan engaged (20 minute beep on the watch. Eat every beep. Simple), Stealth humming along, 38-40kmh showing on the cateye and all is good. Then you do a dead turn and you come back into the wind. Not much on the first lap but it built nicely until the third lap when it became very tedious.
On the first lap I played my usual game of catch up and passed about 50 riders. Average speed was hovering around 33kmh and knowing that you need 30kmh to clock 6 hours this felt good. I was conscious of not hammering it early on but I felt good apart from the usual back ache (I gave up medication after about 10 ibuprofen and just got on with it) so I just kept it steady.
I continued to pass people on lap 2 and had a chat with Runningboy on my way past and pretty much anyone else who was up for it - the race numbers had your first name and nationality on it so the ice was broken for wallflowers like me. I passed Kate from Thames Turbo who evidently knows Pip and was looking very strong. I had absolutely no doubt that she would be cantering past me on the run later in the day, and she surely did. Fuelling was still going well and I was devouring everything I had. I’m fairly tolerant to most gels so it was a smorgasbord of Carb Boom oranges, Power Bar vanillas, Leppin limes, Isostar peaches in one big fruit salad of mixed gastronomic metaphors. Every 20 minutes. I also finally managed to ditch the second of my crap wiggle bottles which had been spraying sideways through a tiny teat like some kind of botched prince albert, and generally pissing me off. In their place I picked up the rather nice translucent blue race bottles which had just water in. Fire in a Nuun and sorted: simple rehydration and you get to pick up just water from the feed stations which makes you look hard. And let’s face it, it’s all about the look.
Lap 3 was save for a few minutes, pretty much like the first two only with more groaning to the cruelly indifferent winds. As I headed out down the windiest stretch, alongside the er, windmills, I could see the speed of the huge vanes had increased against the now bright blue sky like a giant celestial er, wind speed erm, gauge, thing. I could see my hard won average speed clicking down along these parts, 33, 32.9, 32.8, 32.7.….Let’s just say it got harder but all in I was pretty pleased with my consistency over the three laps, text book or not. My legs were feeling it but not totally trashed, but the increasing temperature was going to make the run and even bigger challenge than usual. The end of the lap winds through a park then back past the grandstand and it was back into transition where my run bag was waiting for me.
Bike Lap 1: 1:51:46
Bike Lap 2: 1:52:01
Bike lap 3: 1: 58:20
Total: 5:42:05
T2: 06:57
I'm not just blagging the proofs, I have ordered em...
The Run
To be honest I can’t remember what I was faffing about with in T2 for nearly 7 minutes but there you go. I turned on my Garmin (which I had left in my transition bag) as soon as I got back to my stuff and by the time I was changed it had picked up a signal and I was good to go. H5 gel flask belt on, new black IM cap on, feet greased, new socks, trainers, 2XU top on and I was away, running off into the heat which was by now, without the wind chill on the bike, absolutely scorchio.
Like the bike, the run was a 3 lap affair comprising a long seafront stretch and a long inland section which meandered through a park which gave some very welcome shade under the trees.
I set off out of transition onto the first of the 14K laps and the first see front stretch which was packed with people enjoyed the sun and giving great support. I’ve no idea what sort of pace I was running but I felt OK and ran through the first couple of feed stations, picking up water only to wash down the gels I was carrying in flasks on my belt. I was fully expecting to need to walk within the first few K but I resisted and ended up completing the first 10K inside an hour without a walk which was a great boost. I was quite enjoying the parkland stretches despite there being virtually no support apart from at the feed stations. Pretty soon it was back onto the seafront and into the blistering heat as the loop headed back, through thickening crowds, to the transition area and grandstand where the PA was blasting out europop cheese. First lap in 1 hour 22: very happy.
The second lap is where it went a bit wrong somewhere and I just seemed to walk a bit too much through the feed stations and even my trusty jelly babies (I was lugging about a kg of em in my waist belt) couldn’t get my mojo back. I’d been on the water, gels and coke at every feed station so nutrition was OK, I guess I was just….tired would be it. The dull ache in my calf now extended up my right leg and I knew that it was cramp-in-waiting ready to come and bite me. I managed to hold it off though, but just for a laugh I got cramp in my right arm instead. I went to take a drink and….owwwww you beeee-atch mother funker….my arm locked rigid. Nice change.
Coming back along the seafront on lap 2 was rough. I passed a couple of brits and had a quick chat but everyone was suffering in the heat. I was trying all my mind games, counting steps that kind of thing but I was finding it harder to keep pushing myself and the legs were now really starting to ache. Approaching the transition picked me up a bit and when I got my second band on indicating two laps completed I felt a bit better.
Lap 2: 1 hour 37
In fact, I felt a lot better and I started running more and walking less, in fact I found it easy to keep running than to stop and start again. The trouble was, by now the mental mojo was firing but the body was shagged. Cramp in my right leg was now jabbing at me with more and more frequency to the pint that I was doing a kind of ministry of silly runs method of perambulation which involved keeping my right foot in a certain position so the cramp wouldn’t lock in. I had a couple of half arsed attempts at stopping to stretch it out but every time I did that my other leg threatened to lock out so I ended up just carrying on.
I hugged the shadows during the woodland sections and kept eating and drinking, topping up my gels with the Leppin squeezes which were on course. Being very susceptible to enticing advertising I picked up a couple of the cola/caffeine gels on the last lap because there was a big sign by them which said “Great for the last lap” but they were absolutely minging. Thankfully I was not tempted by the official energy drink Extran because it was such an electric blue colour it made Sunny Delight look organic.
As I hit the seafront stretch for the last time I went into mental maths mode constantly recalculating times as I counted down the km markers and fought off, with reducing success, the cramp. I knew that sub 12 was going to be possible but I just had to keep moving. I was really up for running but every so often I had to give in which became really frustrating when I was only a coupe of kilometres from home. Finally I was with running over the gantry, through the grandstand and into the finish chute, so focussed on keeping it going over the line that I completed missed the family who had been waiting by the barrier for an hour to see me home. One of the dutch soldiers lifted Daniel over the barrier though and he ran through the finishers area with some flowers for me which was just great.
Lap 3 1 hour 36
Run Total: 4:35:41
Overall Time: 11:54:43
This was my seventh IM finish and my second fastest (PB is 11.18 but that was in 98...) so overall I was delighted. After the bike drama I would have been chuffed to just get round OK so I was very happy to go sub 12. I wouldn’t say that everything slotted perfectly into place (and I know that I could have knocked at least 30 minutes off the bike if I had been using carbon brake levers rather than the replacement ally ones) but nothing went horribly wrong, I fed well, paced OK and made it home.
Almere is a fantastic race I really can’t recommend it enough: here’s hoping that a few more Tritalkers will be on the start line next year.
Special thanks of course to the family Repo for their support and indulgence during my training and racing and to the whole Tritalk community for stimulating me to get back into the sport after a few years of too many beers and pies.
Roll on 2008!
_________________
This report is a bit of a long ‘un but I think you need the preamble to get the full flava..
Thursday 23 rd August: Race Day -2
I do like a good long faff before a race and as well as several evenings of list writing, kit checking and online ordering in the weeks leading up to the race I also had the luxury of a good few hours of fettling on the day we set off. It’s amazing how urgent things can suddenly become: Sealable plastic bags? I have to have them NOW! or my jelly babies will get mulchy on the run. Valve extenders: how many spares do you need? I’ve still got a one item shopping list (write it down so you don’t forget…) which simply says “twiglets”
The car was duly packed up with all the stuff for a family holiday plus all my race kit, and Mrs. Repo’s mountain bike and my Stealth were neatly racked on top, the Stealth in a purchased-specially-for-the-job Thule which carries the bike upright complete with wheels. I actually prefer the remove-the-front-wheel type of carrier but I had previously phoned Planet X and they advised strongly against using a fork clamping carrier on carbon forks, and Thule’s website confirmed this. Great to have the right kit for the job, we don’t want anything getting damaged in transit….
Locked and loaded:
With the smallest Repos wedged in around the stuff and Mrs.Repo riding shotgun off we set for Harwich. Which if you live in Glossop is pretty dumb, as the nearest ferry crossing to Holland is actually from Hull. It’s all in the planning you see.
After 230 miles (about 100 of them unnecessary) we rolled onto the Stena ferry at about 22.30 ready for the 23.00 sailing to Hoek Van Holland. A quick beer and it was time to crash out in the very pleasant family cabin.
Friday 24th August: Race Day -1
Woken up at 06.30 by the on board announcement that (complimentary) breakfast is being served so after a quick feed we head back down to the car deck and get ready to disembark.
In a few minutes the cars in front start to move and I’m gently following on when I hear quite possibly the worst noise I’ve ever heard. It’s metallic, tortured, agonised even: and then I realise that’s just me shouting in a kind of primal rage because in a split second I realise what’s happened, but not why. I’ve no real recollection of the actual noise the Stealth made when it hit the deck above…
The next few minutes were really horrible. I jumped out of the car to look at the bike but it looked so freakishly wrong that I had to just jump back into the car and shout some more, upsetting everyone in the process - I really couldn’t face getting out because the synapses were firing so fast in a string of consequences that I couldn’t keep up: Bike trashed, race over, training wasted, family holiday ruined, fitness motivation lost, a steady spiral of decline….. With cool reflection it these were frankly unlikely but my train of thought accelerated from a broken bike and ended with me sat on a bench in the park, drinking White Lightning, wearing a sack and sexually abusing dogs. Actually I think the last bit might have actually been a flashback, not a premonition.
Once I calmed down enough to get out of the car, I took stock of the damage. The Stealth basically looked like it had had it’s neck broken, so disconcerting was the image of something very familiar with bits horribly out of place. What actually happened was the bar extensions had caught on the deck above, rotating the whole bar assembly in the stem so that it pointed straight backwards, which is not a great look. Both carbon brake levers were snapped off, gear and (brand new I Link) brake cables stretched and snapped, bar tape ripped, paint on bars gouged by the stem and…..that was actually it on the bike. The return ratchet spring on the (brand new) Thule roof rack was shagged but at least it still worked.
Basically what happened was that the car deck above ours had been lowered to let the vehicles above off and hadn’t been raised enough to let the vehicles below exit with the same headroom they had when they drove on. The guy in the car behind had 4 bikes carried the same way as mine and I guess he was pretty pleased that he hadn’t been in front of me in the queue.
The Horror, The Horror.....
The Stena supervisor noted all the damage and took pictures (as I did) of the damage and filled out a form which noted the circumstances. Worryingly the form has “this is not an admission of liability” on it in bold letters but what is probably more worrying to would be Stena travellers planning to carry bikes on the roof is that they have a special pad of forms just ready for such instances of gross negligence. Suffice to say my claim to Stena will not pull any punches.
OK, so we’re now at the port of Hoek of Holland its 08.30 and the bike has to be repaired and racked in the parc ferme in Almere, 90 minutes away by 17.00. 7 hours to sort it: it’s achievable with a bit of luck. Its also 20 degrees c already.
It seems that its not worth waiting in HvH for a bike shop to open so we head to Almere where there is at least a chance that there may be a trade stand that can help, and once we arrive I spot a promising looking tent with tri gear aplenty. It turns out that this is pretty much the expo and they only stuff available is reduced Ironman branded stuff and not as much as a spare inner tube in sight. Still in stressful times it’s important to shop so I bought a black IM cap to match my black 2XU kit should I ever actually get to the start line..
The very helpful ladies at registration (which was on a boat) pointed me to Almere’s local bike shop which was about 2 minutes walk away and as I walked up, crippled Stealth in hand, it didn’t look good. Outside were racks of commuter bikes and other fairly pedestrian fare and barely a race bike, let alone a carbon and titanium bling machine in sight. I pushed the bike inside and by good luck was greeted by Jan, the owner who was a youngish chap with excellent English and I could tell straight away that he would try and help.
He didn’t have any suitable brake levers in stock (hardly surprising) but thought he had a pair on a bike in his warehouse and promised to drive over and have a look and remove them if he had. To cut a long story short he didn’t but he managed to get hold of an aluminium pair from his wholesaler. Basically I dropped the bike off at 11.00 and he ran around for me on a busy Saturday to make sure that my bike would be ready to race: new levers, cables replaced, tape changed and checked over. I actually pushed the bike out of the shop at 16.55 and into transition at 16.58: he even told me to rack the bike first and come back and pay him afterwards. Needless to say I think he was a top bloke and without a doubt his kindness saved my race.
As it became clear that the bike was going to get sorted I relaxed (a bit, anyway) and started prepping my transition bags ready to hand in, tried to keep hydrated but failed miserably to rest or keep out of the now scorching (28-30c) sun or rest in any way. Still, I was going to be on the start line at least even if the day before hadn’t been exactly full of text book relaxation.
During the day I managed to meet up with Runningboy at the race briefing and have a chat about the course and roughly map out in my mind where the swim exit and transition routes were. After the last bits were done we finally loaded back into the car and drove the 20 minutes down the road to Center Parcs at De Eemhof which is where we would be staying for the next week. Chalet sorted, kids happy, pasta cooked and eaten, 3 alarms set for 04.30 and it was in bed by 23.00. What a day, it was my 45th birthday too.
Saturday 25th August: Race Day!
After the previous day’s Prologue de Stress, race morning was comparatively tranquil. A big bowl of porridge with dried fruit and a mug of tea to start and I crept through Center Parcs in the dark to pick up the car and load everyone in, 3 year old Daniel Repo taking this all in his stride. Arriving at the race start (it’s in Almere Haven by the way, not Almere Stadt) and I pottered around putting bottles on the bike, pumping tyres and chatting with other competitors: in excellent English from them and Dutch sign language and sage looks from me.
The race start is on the beach a few hundred metres from transition and we were lead down by a pipe and drum band ready for the start at 07.30, which is actually quite a civilised time. A final goodbye to the family and it was into the holding pen ready to go. I bumped into Runningboy and then suddenly there was a huge bang as the Dutch Army tank which had been lurking around the previous day officially started the race. I didn’t see the tank but I sure as hell heard it: weeing in the wetsuit at the start if the race is the least of your problems with this sort of ordinance around.
Draftbusters were very aggressive:
Mr and Mrs
Those EPO suppositories are a two handed job to administer...
Ms. Repo
The Swim
As we all know, swimming is the rather unseemly boisterous bit at a start of a race which achieves little other than to ruffle a gentlemen’s composure and attire before mounting his velocipede. Having long since learnt this, I have sharpened my IM swim training and racing to a finely honed state of mediocrity which results in precision pacing of the “anything between about 1.10 and 1.30 will do” type. With this clarity of mission in mind I took it easy on the first 1000m leg of the swim which ends with a quick jog round the beach before its back into the water for the longer leg back round the headland to Almere Haven harbour. I’d like to say that I settled into an easy rhythm and before you knew it the swim was over, but it never really got that comfortable until about the last 500m, when it got uncomfortable. That was probably when I realised that I should actually put some effort in rather than mooning along going “hullo clouds, hullo sky” etc etc
Not a disaster of a swim though, and I gained an interesting new race experience to add to the scrap book: STS - Sighting Tourette’s Syndrome - I couldn’t stop looking up to see where I was going! I normally throw in a heads up sighting stroke every 10 or 20 strokes but for some reason I just couldn’t stop my head bobbing up every other stroke, despite it being a pretty easy course to navigate. Strange: I got over it by playing that game you do when you are a kid in the middle of a big empty field - dare yourself to walk a certain number of paces with your eyes closed. It was when I was doing this that I realised that, compared to a kid in a field, I had a statistically way higher chance of putting my fist up the bottom of a rubber clad Dutchman so I opened my eyes and got on with the swimming.
Actually the statistical chances with the rubber clad Dutchmen were higher still during my night of r and r in Amsterdam the day after the race, but that’s another story. And it didn’t happen.
The swim finish finally hoved into view (finally, I mean how long can it bloody take?) and I pulled myself up the wooden steps onto the harbour, through the shower and into the changing tent. Was that a hint of cramp in the right calf? Nah, probably nothing. In the tent matronly Dutch ladies were dispensing transition bags and benign indifference to the less than porn star nudity on view. Electing to swim and ride in my 2XU long distance shorts spared my blushes so it was just a quick towel down, shoes and socks on and I even managed, with the help of my, er, helper to get my fully loaded Tritalk jersey on without being showered in gels and tyre levers. After 100m jog to pick up my bike I stopped briefly to fire a Nuun into each water bottle and I was off (It should be served sparkling so I obviously didn’t want to put it in before the swim….)
The family were waiting by the mount line which was great to see and then it was off onto 3 60km laps of the bike course
Swim: 1:21:54
T1: 0:08:08
The Bike
The thing with Holland you see, is it’s flat. No really, flat. There’ll be no tales here of derring do on fearsome climbs, of burning quads and bursting lungs. So if you seek that sort of titillation get back over to those Norseman reports. I know I would.
Heading out on the first lap you follow the water for about 10km and I was feeling great. Down on the aero bars, nutrition plan engaged (20 minute beep on the watch. Eat every beep. Simple), Stealth humming along, 38-40kmh showing on the cateye and all is good. Then you do a dead turn and you come back into the wind. Not much on the first lap but it built nicely until the third lap when it became very tedious.
On the first lap I played my usual game of catch up and passed about 50 riders. Average speed was hovering around 33kmh and knowing that you need 30kmh to clock 6 hours this felt good. I was conscious of not hammering it early on but I felt good apart from the usual back ache (I gave up medication after about 10 ibuprofen and just got on with it) so I just kept it steady.
I continued to pass people on lap 2 and had a chat with Runningboy on my way past and pretty much anyone else who was up for it - the race numbers had your first name and nationality on it so the ice was broken for wallflowers like me. I passed Kate from Thames Turbo who evidently knows Pip and was looking very strong. I had absolutely no doubt that she would be cantering past me on the run later in the day, and she surely did. Fuelling was still going well and I was devouring everything I had. I’m fairly tolerant to most gels so it was a smorgasbord of Carb Boom oranges, Power Bar vanillas, Leppin limes, Isostar peaches in one big fruit salad of mixed gastronomic metaphors. Every 20 minutes. I also finally managed to ditch the second of my crap wiggle bottles which had been spraying sideways through a tiny teat like some kind of botched prince albert, and generally pissing me off. In their place I picked up the rather nice translucent blue race bottles which had just water in. Fire in a Nuun and sorted: simple rehydration and you get to pick up just water from the feed stations which makes you look hard. And let’s face it, it’s all about the look.
Lap 3 was save for a few minutes, pretty much like the first two only with more groaning to the cruelly indifferent winds. As I headed out down the windiest stretch, alongside the er, windmills, I could see the speed of the huge vanes had increased against the now bright blue sky like a giant celestial er, wind speed erm, gauge, thing. I could see my hard won average speed clicking down along these parts, 33, 32.9, 32.8, 32.7.….Let’s just say it got harder but all in I was pretty pleased with my consistency over the three laps, text book or not. My legs were feeling it but not totally trashed, but the increasing temperature was going to make the run and even bigger challenge than usual. The end of the lap winds through a park then back past the grandstand and it was back into transition where my run bag was waiting for me.
Bike Lap 1: 1:51:46
Bike Lap 2: 1:52:01
Bike lap 3: 1: 58:20
Total: 5:42:05
T2: 06:57
I'm not just blagging the proofs, I have ordered em...
The Run
To be honest I can’t remember what I was faffing about with in T2 for nearly 7 minutes but there you go. I turned on my Garmin (which I had left in my transition bag) as soon as I got back to my stuff and by the time I was changed it had picked up a signal and I was good to go. H5 gel flask belt on, new black IM cap on, feet greased, new socks, trainers, 2XU top on and I was away, running off into the heat which was by now, without the wind chill on the bike, absolutely scorchio.
Like the bike, the run was a 3 lap affair comprising a long seafront stretch and a long inland section which meandered through a park which gave some very welcome shade under the trees.
I set off out of transition onto the first of the 14K laps and the first see front stretch which was packed with people enjoyed the sun and giving great support. I’ve no idea what sort of pace I was running but I felt OK and ran through the first couple of feed stations, picking up water only to wash down the gels I was carrying in flasks on my belt. I was fully expecting to need to walk within the first few K but I resisted and ended up completing the first 10K inside an hour without a walk which was a great boost. I was quite enjoying the parkland stretches despite there being virtually no support apart from at the feed stations. Pretty soon it was back onto the seafront and into the blistering heat as the loop headed back, through thickening crowds, to the transition area and grandstand where the PA was blasting out europop cheese. First lap in 1 hour 22: very happy.
The second lap is where it went a bit wrong somewhere and I just seemed to walk a bit too much through the feed stations and even my trusty jelly babies (I was lugging about a kg of em in my waist belt) couldn’t get my mojo back. I’d been on the water, gels and coke at every feed station so nutrition was OK, I guess I was just….tired would be it. The dull ache in my calf now extended up my right leg and I knew that it was cramp-in-waiting ready to come and bite me. I managed to hold it off though, but just for a laugh I got cramp in my right arm instead. I went to take a drink and….owwwww you beeee-atch mother funker….my arm locked rigid. Nice change.
Coming back along the seafront on lap 2 was rough. I passed a couple of brits and had a quick chat but everyone was suffering in the heat. I was trying all my mind games, counting steps that kind of thing but I was finding it harder to keep pushing myself and the legs were now really starting to ache. Approaching the transition picked me up a bit and when I got my second band on indicating two laps completed I felt a bit better.
Lap 2: 1 hour 37
In fact, I felt a lot better and I started running more and walking less, in fact I found it easy to keep running than to stop and start again. The trouble was, by now the mental mojo was firing but the body was shagged. Cramp in my right leg was now jabbing at me with more and more frequency to the pint that I was doing a kind of ministry of silly runs method of perambulation which involved keeping my right foot in a certain position so the cramp wouldn’t lock in. I had a couple of half arsed attempts at stopping to stretch it out but every time I did that my other leg threatened to lock out so I ended up just carrying on.
I hugged the shadows during the woodland sections and kept eating and drinking, topping up my gels with the Leppin squeezes which were on course. Being very susceptible to enticing advertising I picked up a couple of the cola/caffeine gels on the last lap because there was a big sign by them which said “Great for the last lap” but they were absolutely minging. Thankfully I was not tempted by the official energy drink Extran because it was such an electric blue colour it made Sunny Delight look organic.
As I hit the seafront stretch for the last time I went into mental maths mode constantly recalculating times as I counted down the km markers and fought off, with reducing success, the cramp. I knew that sub 12 was going to be possible but I just had to keep moving. I was really up for running but every so often I had to give in which became really frustrating when I was only a coupe of kilometres from home. Finally I was with running over the gantry, through the grandstand and into the finish chute, so focussed on keeping it going over the line that I completed missed the family who had been waiting by the barrier for an hour to see me home. One of the dutch soldiers lifted Daniel over the barrier though and he ran through the finishers area with some flowers for me which was just great.
Lap 3 1 hour 36
Run Total: 4:35:41
Overall Time: 11:54:43
This was my seventh IM finish and my second fastest (PB is 11.18 but that was in 98...) so overall I was delighted. After the bike drama I would have been chuffed to just get round OK so I was very happy to go sub 12. I wouldn’t say that everything slotted perfectly into place (and I know that I could have knocked at least 30 minutes off the bike if I had been using carbon brake levers rather than the replacement ally ones) but nothing went horribly wrong, I fed well, paced OK and made it home.
Almere is a fantastic race I really can’t recommend it enough: here’s hoping that a few more Tritalkers will be on the start line next year.
Special thanks of course to the family Repo for their support and indulgence during my training and racing and to the whole Tritalk community for stimulating me to get back into the sport after a few years of too many beers and pies.
Roll on 2008!
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