Mission Accomplished - initial race briefing

I am wide awake on the morning after Ironman Austria. Legs are very sore and I have a bit of sunburn but other than that feeling OK and elated that I met my 2 goals of completing the race with a smile on my face and under 13 hours.

The official time was 12:23:03 with the following splits:

Swim - 1:24:08
T1 - 0:05:57
Bike - 6:06:23
T2 - 0:05:38
Run - 4:42:55

I was positioned 1,049 out of 2,700 (that entered, not necessary finished) so in the first half of the competitors. All in all not bad for my first Ironman event.

Further breakdown on splits can be found on the official website:

http://ironman.com/events/ironman/austria?show=tracker&race=austria&year=2012#axzz1zMCAlh00


Swim
I knew this was going to be on the slow side. Not that I am normally very fast in a wetsuit anyway but it does give you the buoyancy, which helps with a good glide through the water and for me personally makes me a little more confident. So as a non-wetsuit swim (water temperature too warm) I simply wore my tri suit. The big countdown got the adrenalin going but I entered the water with the other 2,000 plus swimmers a little nervous. It was very congested for the entire race and I was constantly trying to fight for my own space. I did have some success getting on the feet of faster swimmers and obtaining the drafting benefits but was concerned that I was not always going in a straight line. The water was crystal clear at least until the last 1km when we hit the narrower and much shallower canal. It was great to see all the thousands of spectators line the canal banks, you could almost reach out and touch them. So I jumped out for a time of 1:24:08 and ran to the transition area.

Bike
My transition to the bike wasn't the fastest I have had but worth taking the time to get on some socks and apply both chamois cream and suntan lotion (even though I still got a little burnt). It was also quite a long run from the swim exit to bike transition. I went off quite quickly easily averaging 35-40 km per hour for the first 60 mins before hitting some hills. The view around the bike course was spectacular with lakes, mountains and beautiful countryside. Just before hitting one of the bigger hills I got a welcomed surprise and was greeted by Chrissie Wellington (world champion Ironman) standing in the middle of the road giving me lots of encouragement to 'go, go, go'. After the first lap and 90km down I was a good bit under 3 hours. I continued the decent pace for the next 50km but began to tire as I hit the hills. The last one really took a lot out of me, however I finished strong and was pleased with my 6:06 effort. In terms of nutrition I ate as much bars and Powershots (gels) my body could handle but had quite a lot left when I arrived at transition. I did however take on a lot more fluids than I normally would. My neck was a little tired, probably being in the aero position for such a long time.

Run
Bike to run transition was also pretty smooth although I should have taken time to put more suntan lotion on. Apparently the temperature hit 40C (well above 100F). So off on the run, this is where things started to come undone a little. Within the first km I felt some cramping - likely caused by hitting the bike a little too hard. I can only compare it to how I normally feel after mile 20 on a marathon, only on this occasion I hadn't even reached mile 1 - it was definitely going to be a long day. I tried to stay positive and decided to adopt Matt's strategy of walking for 1 min and running 9 mins. I failed on my first attempt and only managed about 4 mins running. Over the next couple of hours I experimented with different run and walk times but was not able to run more than 10 mins on any one occasion. I only took one gel but my body was craving more fluids. I decided to start on flat coke and must have drunk one at every aid station - that is a lot of coke - I estimate about 5 litres. I also continued drinking water and fresh fruit - banana, oranges and water melon. For the second half of the run I expect there was as much walking as running but I was no different from the other athletes, the vast majority were doing the 'Ironman Shuffle' or simply walking the course. I managed to build up to a bit of a power walk, which I was still able to do without causing further cramping. At the end any running more than 1-2 mins in duration was very painful. One bit of good news was that my maths was a little off. The run course was marked in km and I convinced myself it was 46.2km rather than the correct 42.2km. I was getting a little worried because I was running so slowly at 41km that I thought there was a slight possibility of 13+ hour finish time. I was very pleased to see my wife at the 42km marker confirming I only had the finishing shoot to run down to complete the race. I mustered all the strength I could and ran the last 200m trying to soak up as much of the atmosphere as I could and to hear those important words - David Brian Pegler, you are an Ironman!