Ironman France, Nice 2008. The race day report.

Got up early, had my usual oatmeal with fruits, hemp seeds and yogurt. Had my bucket of coffee and a liter of water. This is it, this is the day, lets go and have some fun.

My dad and my nephew went with me to the start. I already had numbers painted on me (different from NZ as well as Brazil) from the previous day so all I really needed to do was to check on the bike, fill the tires with air, put on the wetsuit and go surviving the race.

Well, not so fast. When I got to the bike I realized that I put the valve adapters in the bike bag. I tried to pump the tires without them to no avail. After moment of crippling panic followed by cold sweat, I ran to the bag area and the volunteers over there were nice enough and got the stuff out of my bag. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Back to the bike, I put the adapter on the valve but I still can't fill in the air. The little hand pump just doesn't do it. More panic, fueled by the announcer informing us that the bike area closes in 4 minutes. I borrowed a large pump from a guy on the other side of the stand and filled in the front tire in about 30 seconds. Change the valve adapter, another thirty seconds, an announcer telling us that we need to be out of here in 2 minutes, a nervous look of the guy who lent me the pump. Talking about cutting it short. I returned the pump when another guy came to me asking me whether he could borrow my valve extender. I had two so I gave him one and left with a wish of good luck.

I took my chances yet one more time this time and didn't pack a spare tire. I did take a can of Vittoria fix-a-flat and couple of CO2 cartridges. I thought that if I can't fix it, I'll just wait for the mechanic. Well, if something did happen, I would have been waiting for a very, very long time. I found out after the race that one of the pro women blew a tire, didn't have a spare and had to finish the ride on a rim.

Lessons learned: have a big pump and have a valve adapter on the bike with you. And pack a spare.

Well I managed to get to the transition area, put on the wetsuit, cram my civilian clothing into a bag with a very bad feeling about the state of my glasses (yes, they did break as I found out later - another lesson - have an eyeglass case).

So here I am, full of newly found optimism.


I managed to get down to the pebble beach but not in time to flood the wetsuit (well, not with the sea water, anyway), which kind of sucked. There was no way I could get anywhere near water coming in this late. I spat into my goggles in hope to apply the anti-fog spit agent we all generate, only to find out that if not properly flushed out with water, the spit kind of smears on the lenses and I can't see through them at all.

Oh well, ready to go, I put myself into 1 hour 14 minutes blob of lemmings, thinking I'll take it easy, I am in no rush. Eyeballing the cheerleaders behinds I started thinking Zen as well as unholy thoughts. Life is good.


And here we go, off into the warm, welcoming, milky azure waters of the Mediterranean. Go lemmings, go, I don't have a whole day (well, actually, I almost do).


I got in the water, cleaned my goggles and followed the rest of the 2262 insane men and women who apparently didn't have anything better to do for the day. So how did my strategy of "1:14 easy swim, don't get hammered" work? It sucked. I didn't have enough faith in myself to go with the faster swimmers and basically got stuck behind the crowd. There were several times I had to stop or a swim around a bottleneck. As usual, I got kicked, fondled and otherwise abused. To be on the receiving end of such atrocities wasn't a whole lot of fun and soon enough I found myself abusing others in a similar manner. In a nicest possible way, of course. With the exception of the guy who kept crossing in front of me. I finally just grabbed one of his legs and corrected his course for him.

The first leg of the 3800 meter swim sucked. It was 2400 meters of swimming in a sardine can. Occasionally I managed to find a few yards of clear path in front of me but it never lasted very long. I thought of my coach Jane quite frequently. Relax, let the fingers loose, reach and grab the water, get into the rhythm, slip through the hole .... Thanks Jane, I owe you a lot. Although I still suck as a swimmer, I suck much more efficiently now than I did half a year ago.

The second loop was a bit better, it opened up a bit and I was actually able to get into a decent rhythm, still thinking of Jane's coaching, still managing to slip through.

I was a bit surprised to get out of the water in 1:09:02 - a pleasant surprise. Well, I thought, at least one goal has been accomplished. This is the fastest swim I ever had, in the worst field I ever experienced. And I came out of the water relatively fresh, wasn't exhausted or some such.

So I ran through the showers which were kind of pointless because we still had our wetsuits on. Unlike Brazil or NZ there weren't any pretty women on beaches of Nice peeling off our neoprene. Hmmm, another difference, peel it yourself. Got my bike bag, got into the tent, peeled off the neoprene, ate some, drank some, put on my suntan lotion (my nephew called it spackle or gypsum - it's my own, homemade, the white stuff you see on the picture) and off on the bike I went. Well, I took my time, at T1 of 12:30.

My nephew managed to get a passing by picture


The bike was almost uneventful. At about kilometer 20 I got a reminder that I managed to miss the very first climb on the day I went for the training ride. Well, I knew it was there and I figured I ought to be able to manage 10-12% 500 meter climb. I did, even with the 39/23 lowest gear I had, I didn't have to get out of the saddle. It's a bad ass climb but quite manageable.

Then the road is a bit up, bit down, nothing to write home about. One has to watch out for potholes, sewer lids and an occasional speed bump. I got reminded once by not registering a speed bump and hitting it too fast - it almost took the handlebars out of my hands. The road is well marked, people cheering along the road, I rode through picturesque villages on narrow roads. Occasionally I got to talk to someone, I remember I was making fun of an Italian guy riding a Specialized equipped with Shimano. That's just wrong. Heresy. But I passed him and he was in my age group so I felt pretty good.

An older guy, 55+, passed me. His name was Jean-Yves. Looking at his calves, it was quite obvious he is at home in the mountains. I picked up the pace and kept up with him (nope, no drafting), he occasionally got away but I always caught up with him, passed him on an occasion or two and he then passed me back. He is one of those I have respect for. He is the guy who passes you near the top of the hill. Steady, consistent, it was a pleasure just to watch him working the bike. I remember passing him for the last time about 10 km before the end but I am quite sure he wasn't very far behind me at the finish line.

Here I am at the end of the bike. I did have enough at the time, the bridge of my left foot hurt as usual on a long ride and I was actually looking forward to running. Well, not really, I just wanted to get off the bike. The stuff you see on my face is my homemade suntan lotion. The stuff lasts through 112 miles of Ironman bike, I think I'll start selling it.


And yes, you can see my Orca whale lurking behind my water container. Paying respect to the people I used to work with. You know who you are.

The week before

We made it to Nice in about 18 hours of driving, mostly overnight. It wasn't too bad. I found out along the way that smoking alleviates my coughing, so I figured what the hell, I might as well. So lets take the inventory. It's a week before race, I have a cold, runny nose, cough, the bike frame has potential for dumping me at 40 mph zipping down the mountain and I started smoking. Perhaps I should start drinking, too. So yeah, we had a bottle of wine or two. To my credit I extinguished the smoking habit pretty quickly and didn't touch any alcohol for at least 4 days before the race.

What I did instead was to go and check out the run course and did a nice, easy 9 mile run on Monday, just to get a feel for it. It actually felt good, I kept 8'40" pace and clocked the heart at 162 average. A bit faster on both counts but I figured I should be able to do 9'09" at about 155 beats. Which, of course never happens after you ride 112 miles on a devil's instrument.

I figured I need to do something with the bike gears. Either take the chance and keep on the nice, light, Titanium 11/23 and hope I can make the hills or put on the hefty, solid steel 13/26 and bitch and moan later on. Decisions, decisions.

So on Tuesday I glued on my training tubulars, kept on the 11/23 and went to test the bike route on Wednesday late morning (getting up early was not one of my habits at the time).

The countryside and the views are just phenomenal, it was worth the trip just to see this stuff because I sure as hell won't have time during the race. My Motorola phone isn't exactly the perfect picture taking tool but it did relatively decent job here.





Somewhere down there is Nice


And here is the holy grail I came to see. I just climbed 1120 meters.




I felt good enough so I came to a conclusion that the hills aren't anything I haven't seen before and decided that I'll just keep the 11/23 for the race. I do have the legs to push through this and this year I trained a bit more than 70 miles total.

So I rode back, this time mostly downhill, listening for the carbon croaking sound. It didn't happen, the frame held well and at the end of the day I found out that I rode for about 6 hours and put in 140k. Probably not very smart, considering the race is on Sunday. Oh well, I am still not 100% so it really doesn't matter. At this time I adjusted my goals to survive the swim and just do better time than before, on the bike front I wanted to pass at least one French and one Italian in my age group and it would be really nice to run the whole marathon if I make it that far.

Nothing exciting happened since then, I got my usual chocolate craving but this time it didn't last a whole week before the race, it kicked in sometime on Thursday. With 3 days left, I went to swim part of the course a couple of times and in general spent time with my family. We went to the beach just about every day and interestingly enough, myself and the little kid were the only ones spared sunburn.

I packed my bike and run bags, nothing unusual, although I did change my nutrition a little bit. Some time ago I ran across Ruth's Hemp Bars (search Amazon) and realized they are about as good of a nutrition as I can lay my hands on. Small, tasty, about 200 calories, mostly from fat. It doesn't get much better.

I also bought a huge Profile Design aerobars mounted bottle - this one has 2 compartments, one for water, the other for the sports drinks. I am done with frame or seat mounted bottles, this stuff is really nice.

I checked in my bags and the bike on Saturday afternoon, let the air out of tires since it was quite hot. I had nice diner (I was eating a lot of carbohydrates this time, not as much meat as in previous races, it just felt right for some reason. Listen to your body is still my guiding principle), drank adequately but not too much and went to bed early.

Weeks before the race

I trained and trained well. I quit my day job at the end of February so I had plenty of time to get ready.

Swim:
I started swimming with Boulder Aquatic Masters at the end of January. The first few weeks were tough. I started with two times per week so I have plenty of time to recover. I didn't think I could finish the workouts for the first 3 weeks. Then I got a bit used to it, it got a bit easier, so I added another day and then yet another day. By the time I was leaving for France I was a regular, 4 times per week and the workouts, while still demanding, were quite doable. I even had time to throw in a couple of open water swims at the Boulder reservoir. My goals for the swim were to beat my previous times and come out of the water relatively fresh.

Bike:
I had plenty of time to ride now but I still didn't feel I got enough miles in the saddle. Partly because the weather still kind of sucked, even in mid May, partly because I had other projects I needed to spend time on and partly because I found out that 25 hours of training per week is indeed quite demanding schedule.
However, my preparation was much, much better than for the last year's IM New Zealand. I kept track of the training, started a spreadsheet and this time I threw in a climb to Flagstaff as part of my 56 mile Westminster -> Boulder -> Longmont -> Westminster loop, making it something like 70 miles, with 6.3 miles of 7% average climb. Considering IM France climbing starts with 500 meters of 12% at about 20 km into the race and then there is about 21 km of about 6% average grade, riding Flagstaff was the minimum.
First time I rode up the damn hill I almost left my legs and soul on it. That was the day I realized that having 11-23 in the back was somewhat less than adequate. I had to turn around one time and ride back slowly about 1/8 mile, just to catch my breath, another time I stopped I had quite difficulty to get it going again. Freaking hill.
It got a bit better after I bought a 13-26 cassette, however, the first time up I thought "How the hell did I make it on an 11-23?". Although I managed to come up to the hill and then beyond, I don't thing I'll loose respect for it anytime soon.

Run:
I picked a training route from our house to a nearby park. Out and back it's 6.6 miles, aka about 1/4 marathon, so this is a perfect route to train for IM Nice. The course in Nice is 4 loops, 5.5k out, 5.5k back. Flat. Doesn't get much better. I ran with various results but overall focused on slow and steady. I varied the distance but for the most part the minimum run was one loop (6.6 miles). Towards the end I started doing bike/run bricks and started getting used to them.

Final week of training before I left for Europe consisted of 220 bike miles (including 2 Flagstaffs), 2 hours of open water swim and 21 miles of running, 14 miles in the last run. I felt good, I felt strong.

That lasted exactly until about the second day in Europe. I flew to Prague on Thursday May 29th, got to my dad's house Friday evening and woke up Saturday morning with a severe head cold, runny nose, my tonsils swollen like a couple of walnuts. Great. Off to the pharmacy, I was pretty sure this is a bacterial infection but I didn't want to take any antibiotics. So I tried to cure it with the traditional stuff, sweating it out, cold beer for the tonsils. It got to the point that I used my drastic approach of dipping a toothbrush into alcohol and rubbing my throat with it. From the inside. Unpleasant to say the least but it gets the bugs out if you manage not to gag.

Well, the freaking bugs moved from my head to the upper respiratory tract so I started coughing, too. I still managed to go out for a couple of runs and a couple of bike rides, just to keep moving. This was supposed to be my most demanding, my last week of training. Well not really, being sick really doesn't do a whole lot for your fitness level.

Another great thing happened as I was unpacking my bike, my nephew said: "Hey, you have a crack in it". I dismissed it for I couldn't see it - it was late in the evening, so I figured I'll take a look in the morning. Yes, indeed, there is a crack in the frame where the seat tube meets the seat stays. Great. I got in touch with Kestrel, sent them pictures of it and basically found out that they can't do anything for me anyway because they are totally out of 2008 frames.

Their recommendation was to take it to a reputable shop and have them look at it. So I took it to a well known shop in Prague, two mechanics are humming over it, saying, well, it could just be a crack in the clearcoat or it could be for real. Wait, we have an expert here, he really knows carbon. The expert showed up, took one look at it and said: "Yup, it's busted". However, he said (as well as a lot of other people did) that carbon just doesn't give up like metal and it's quite OK to ride it until it really cracks. Just listen for the creaking sound and yes, I would probably notice that my pedal stroke all of a sudden got soft. When that happens, it would be a good time to get off the bike. Oh boy, I am looking forward to it cruising down the mountains in France.

The other uncool thing was that I ordered an 11/27 Titanium cassette from Netherlands. The only cassette Campy makes with 11T is 11/23 and I really wanted some bigger gears. Long story short, the cassette arrived at our house on Thursday at about 4 pm when I was already at the airport and it was about 1/2 hour past the time when Nancy could possibly get in the car and deliver it to me at the airport. So she shipped it to me to Czech Republic. I thought for sure that it will show up before we leave for France - the plan was to spend 2 weeks in Czech Republic and then drive to Nice with my dad, my nephew, his wife and their daughter. Well, we were leaving on Friday the 13th of June and there was no cassette. At that point I basically decided that I'll either try it with my 11/23 or bite the bullet and use the massive steel 13/26 I brought with me just in case.

So we left for Nice. It's one week before the race, I am still sick, have a crack in the frame and the one piece of equipment that could make my life a bit easier is nowhere to be found. And I didn't really train nor did I rest a whole lot for past two weeks. At this time I was pretty comfortable with the thought of just finishing the race at any time. The only highlight were my really cool orange racing flats from Saucony (about 1/2 the weight of my training shoes) and my new experiment, toe socks by Injinji. I did my last 14 mile run with this combo and have not had a single blister, my feet felt quite pampered. So I thought, well, at least the run should be fine this time, that is, if I make it this far.