Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Ironman Brasil - Explosions

Anyone reading this would of seen the results from the past Sunday's race in Florianopolis. Looking at my run you can see I had a massive explosion which wasn't the first of the race.

Rewind a week before the race and little Ava has been spewing up and drenching her nappies every half a hour with some massive explosions. I thought I was going to be fine as she been sick for a few days and neither Tracy or myself had showed any signs of picking it up. But the day before I left for the trip to Brasil, everything turned up and started coming out both ends, I didn't even think I was going to be able to fly to be honest. I woke up the next morning feeling a lot better, everything was still exploding, but felt ok to fly.
So a day later I am in Brasil, a not very enjoyable 3 flights, getting up and down every 30min to relieve myself. Its still 5 days to the race so plenty of time to sleep things off. So two days before race and I am finally functioning normally again, just in time. A couple of easy sessions and then race day has arrived.
The swim at IM Brasil is still a mass start with the pros getting a 20m head start, but the age groupers running into the water so its quite a cool atmosphere. I get quite a good start and settle into a group, which is where i stayed for the rest of the swim. Run through transition and see Sturla beside me, he normally has the fastest bike split at Brasil so I new I had some good company for the start of the ride at least.
I hop on to the bike and the legs feel super straight away, this is a good sign I am thinking. I let Sturla set the pace and we pick up a few guys imediatley, with a small group ahead and Tim O and the convoy doing a smashing job at the front.
So I am rolling along feeling really comfortable only 30min into ride, thinking this is good, I have something to eat. And then BOOM, my stomach just starts turning in knots, inside and out, then next thing I know I am power chucking like I used to do at University on a Friday night. A couple of massive spews later, and I am thinking,  am I going to be able to make it to end of bike? what should I eat? etc etc
I decide to not eat or drink until it settles down, and about 30min  after and another couple of chucks later my stomach is feeling back to normal. I decide just to drink the gatorade on course and try some bananas as there are no gels where on the course. I knew I would be low on fuel but hoped if I ride conservatively it would be ok.
I get to the end of the ride and feel a little empty but not to bad, and then get a coke down me in transition. The first couple of ks running where pretty ugly, but then my legs felt good and I started ticking off the ks at a good clip, I ran my way up to 5th,  with 2nd to 4th not far ahead, but by the 21k mark, the wheels where starting to slow, and the next explosion happened. I grovelled my way to the finish and was very pleased to see that line!

Not exactly the race I was hoping for, but if you had asked me a week before, I would of been very happy.

So  I am now looking forward to building some more fitness and heading over to Europe in August