Ironman Austria 2014

RacoonQueen

Dory Dory wrote: »

^^^ Nice quads.

Oryx wrote: »

He has quads?

He'd want to wax his abs and chest in case it's a non wesuit swim this year.

toomuchdetail

Getting Nervous yet ?? I had a bad day in Athy and it is not helping any doubts I had about my ability to get thru the IM, I have revised my time to "just get through it " .
I see water temp is 22c , so it could be tigh on the wetsuit swim but looking good.

NeedsTraining

Hi Toomuchdetail,

Did you have a bad day by feel or by time?
Don't read into it too much and have faith in the training you have done to date.

Excitement is kicking in more than nerves but I am sure the nerves will come soon enough.

Temp should be fine for the wet suit swim, weather doesn't look like it is going to get too hot.

Shedite27

NeedsTraining wrote: »

Temp should be fine for the wet suit swim, weather doesn't look like it is going to get too hot.

It's due to break but have ya seen today in Klagenfurt? 32 degrees!!! http://www.weather.com/weather/today/AUXX0037:1:AU

22 in Athy felt hot!

Yeah beginning to get that nervousness alright, but guess that's normal for a first-timer. As NeedsTraining said, you have to trust your training. Had my last long weekend just gone so into wind-down mode now.

toomuchdetail

NeedsTraining wrote: »

Hi Toomuchdetail,

Did you have a bad day by feel or by time?
Don't read into it too much and have faith in the training you have done to date.

.

Bad on a number of fronts in Athy , I had got myself into a bad place mentally in the build up and got anxious about sh*t that I wouldnt other wise .The swim was about 10 mins longer than I would have expected and 300m longer ,school boy errors ,sighting was terrible, used brand new goggles, positioned myself badly at pinch points etc,failed to use the flow correctly etc. This is stuff I would have learned 4 yrs ago .Swim was 1:20. Bike started slow as HR was at 90% for the first 5k, got this together and finish the bike in about 2:40 close to target but the run ...started with a 5min toilet break and then trundled along ok but slow for 8k and then I walked/ran the rest, I couldnt have ran another 2k , I was shattered but more mentally that physically, finished just over 6 hrs , I had a rough idea of Austria in about 13:15/30 as I am a (large bodied) enthusiast more than a competitor but I have revised this to just get around and then race the next one . Comfortable with that so If I can get around in 14hrs+ I am happy but more importantly from Athy I need to talk myself into a good race beforehand.

toomuchdetail

Not sure if we need to pack wetsuits :Water at 25c at the moment .

http://www.wassertemperatur.org/worthersee

Shedite27

toomuchdetail wrote: »

Not sure if we need to pack wetsuits :Water at 25c at the moment .
http://www.wassertemperatur.org/worthersee

Ha, I was thinking all the heat in Austria recently must be impacting the water temperature. They usually try to find a dark corner somewhere to get the official measurement. We'll be grand

NeedsTraining

I was nice and relaxed about Austria next week, but that has frightened the life out of me. No wetsuit? I couldn't think of a worse nightmare. :eek:
Hope they get snow for a few days.

How is everyone feeling? All set for the big day?

Any seasoned ironmen/women out there have any last minute tips or advice?

toomuchdetail

NeedsTraining wrote: »

How is everyone feeling? All set for the big day?

Any seasoned ironmen/women out there have any last minute tips or advice?

Looking for 3-4 nights of bad frost early week to ease the swim worries. Packed the bike off this morning on shipmytribike , great stress free way to take care of that . Only really thinking now about food on the bike but I am sure theres a chipper on the course somewhere .

Shedite27

French Air Traffic Controllers strike. Knew there'd be a late spanner in the works. I'm flying to Munich with AL so should be okay to get around it once the plane isn't delayed anywhere. Thank god I didn't choose IM Nice this weekend!

Shedite27

Right, few last-minute-panicing questions for any IMA alumni

1. On the IM Austria bike course, are thre distance markers every 5/10/20k etc? I don't have a bike computer.
2. When do you hand in your trasnsition bags? Saturday with Bike check-in or Sunday AM?
3. How big a bag can you leave with your "streetwear"?
4. Is the nutrition on the course sufficient or should you bring spares? As in, are there enough gels/bars etc to go around?
5. With waterbottles, I always see videos of people just grabbing them from volunteers. Do people bring their own from home to start, ditch these when empty, then pick up new ones? Seems a lot of bottles to be discarded/lost.
6. What happens post-race. Trying to figure out a plan for the significant other, is there much happening in the athletes area or is it "get your medal, get out of here."
7. Any tourist/restaurant suggestions for the rest of my time there?

I'm sure there'll be more q's during the week!

Pmaldini

Best of luck to all of you heading to Austria, I hope ye all hit you're secret target times!

BTH

NeedsTraining wrote: »

I was nice and relaxed about Austria next week, but that has frightened the life out of me. No wetsuit? I couldn't think of a worse nightmare. :eek:
Hope they get snow for a few days.

How is everyone feeling? All set for the big day?

Any seasoned ironmen/women out there have any last minute tips or advice?

You fairly fcuking nailed that NT. Nice work sir.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

BTH wrote: »

You fairly fcuking nailed that NT. Nice work sir.

What time did he do?

BTH

Brooklynn Nutritious Stockyard wrote: »

What time did he do?

Not wishing to steal his thunder, but a tasty 9:5x.

mossym

BTH wrote: »

Not wishing to steal his thunder, but a tasty 9:5x.

boom. well done on that.

Shedite27

Absolutely over the moon myself.

Signing up last year I aimed for about 12:30, then with training going well, I reckoned 11:30 was more fair, possibly breaking 11 if everything went perfect.

Thankfully it did, felt absolutely invincible for the day (okay, struggled from km 24-34 on the marathon), but finished in 10:44 after a very enjoyable day. Full report on the way

NeedsTraining

BTH wrote: »

You fairly fcuking nailed that NT. Nice work sir.

Cheers sir.

Enjoyed every minute on that course yesterday. Even when the pain set in the crowds support was tremendous.

Ecstatic with my 9.54.05. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a sub 10 was possible for me.

Well done to all out there yesterday. Looking forward to the reports.

I'm drinking beer and eating ice cream

Ceepo

NeedsTraining wrote: »

Cheers sir.

Enjoyed every minute on that course yesterday. Even when the pain set in the crowds support was tremendous.

Ecstatic with my 9.54.05. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a sub 10 was possible for me.

Well done to all out there yesterday. Looking forward to the reports.

I'm drinking beer and eating ice cream

What a absolutely cracking time. Well done NT

Shedite27

Here's a little something I threw together on the plane home last night....

Background
After a 3:39 Commemarathon and a 2:28 TriAthy last year, I decided to sign up for a Half-IM (Skerries) at short notice. Felt good after that (which I finished in 5:38), so said I’d bit the bullet and move to longer distance. 1 year to get to Klagenfurt from last July, I set out a plan. Last year July-October would be Dublin Marathon and Rebel Tour (160k) cycle, then spent the winter months indoors in the gym before starting on Matt Fitzgerald’s 20-week plan in Feb.

20 week plan
The “Super Simple Ironman Training Plan” was picked for a number of reasons. Firstly it was the shortest timewise (max ~16hrs) and also the sessions seemed to fit to my schedule. It focused on intervals rather than just going through the motions for a longer period of time. My week was…
• Mon – Rest Day
• Tue – AM Swim – PM Bike
• Wed – PM Run
• Thurs – AM Swim – PM Bike
• Fri – PM Fartlak
• Sat – Long Cycle
• Sun – Long Swim and Long Run
Did probably 90% of the sessions in that, missing a few weekends for weddings etc, and a handful of “it’s cold” days. Entered races/events when they suited to break up the boredom, including Tour de Foothills, Tri Athy Double Olympic, Howth and Bray Aquathons.

Logistics
Travelled to Klagenfurt via Munich on Friday, 3 nights in Carinthia Stadthotel (perfect for IM, 4am breakfast and shuttle to start), Sat was race briefing at 9am and bike check at 1pm, before spending the rest of the day on the beach relaxing. Didn’t do much exercise in Klagenfurt. Probably 10min cycle to make sure it still worked (bike had gone over with Ship My Bike), and a 10min swim in the lake.

Race Morning
Leading up to the race, I was up at 6.30am Thursday for my last swim, 5:30am Friday for the flight and 7:30am Saturday for the briefing so thankfully I was fairly tired when I went to bed Saturday. Lights out at 10.30 and was asleep fairly quick. 4.30am alarm clock and suddenly it all hit me, “what the f*ck am I doing here”. Had shower to kill the nerves then breakfast. Didn’t eat as much as you hear some people eating, probably 2 bread rolls and some toast. Got the shuttle from my hotel at 5:30, 10mns in transition to pump the tyres, drop the waterbottles and check my shoes, over to the beach to drop my swimwear, last Nature Valley bar, then off to the shore.

Swim
I was dreading the swim start a little bit, had a few bad experiences recently with crowded swims, but thankfully the beach start (my first) seemed to manage the crowd better than a water start. The canon went, and we were off. Surreal moment, all of us lined up on the beach, TV cameras overhead covering it live for Austrian TV, loads of fans along the pier and out on boats/paddleboats around the lake. The water quality is excellent, lovely and warm, and very clear.

Lots of space too which was very surprising. Out to the first buoy had no problems, packed up a bit there till the next buoy, but once I took the second corner there was no more traffic. Sighting the way back is very tough, you’re swimming straight into the rising sun. They had a balloon lofted high which looked right to me so I aimed for that. Once we got closer to shore I could see the canal entrance. Swimming in the canal was class. The speed you get when there’s so many people going the same direction in a pack is fantastic. The crowds are really cool too. I’d never swam in front of a crowd like that before.

Only little imperfections about my swim, I lost my goggles last week and my new ones leaked a bit, had to empty them 3 or 4 times. Also, I breath to the right, wheras in the lake, all the bouys are to the left, and then in the canal, the main crowd is to the left. Minor things really.

Came out of the water and saw the clock in front of me, 1:05 – couldn’t believe it. In a pool I was about a 1:14 swimmer, figured the wetsuit/crowd would make some difference but not that much. Anyway, happy days, onto the bike.

Bike
Plain and simple, my bike is sh1t. It was bought on the bike to work scheme as a commuter bike 2 years ago, and it probably should have been upgraded, but I never got around to it. So I figured I was always going to be up against it on the bike. In the transition, my bike looked completely out of place with all the carbon bikes.

The bike course was one of the main reasons I’d picked Austria, as the surface has a great reputation, and has a nice amount of hills. My bike (see above) can’t match the TT bikes on straight line speed, but I’m more than capable of putting them to shame on the uphill sections. The first thing I noticed about the course was that there were no distance markers. I don’t have a bike computer so had no clue how fast I was going. I had 30k/hr in my head as a good target, and had probably averaged 27-30k on most of my training runs which includes traffic/lights etc.

Starting off on the bike I got a bit of a rush of blood, and probably went out too fast, looking back my first 25k was 36k/h. The back side of the course then has the hills, the first one to Faaker See was a drag but nothing too taxing, then came St.Egyden which was my favorite part of the course. Not marked as a “climb” (about 2km of 5%), the atmosphere here was sensational. Real Alpe D’huez feel, people shouting, loud music, girls in bikins, everyone drinking at 10am, great fun. Then comes the famous climb, Rupetiberg, which is divided in two. The lower half is steep. Not that you’ll need any special gears or anything, but it burns the legs, the top half is only tough because you’ve done the bottom half. It’s short tho, reckon it’s probably 10minutes in total. DJ’s at the top are great for spurring you on as are the crowd. The rest of the course is fine. At 90k I got my first real time check. 2:45 – faster than planned, but was feeling great. Second lap started raining for a bit, they type of heavy rain that hurts when you’re wearing lycra. Second lap was a little slower (probably due to wet descents really), 2:49.

Total bike was 5:35 – I was hoping to break 6hrs.

The bike course is great, some patchy surfaces, and some deep manhole covers, but 99% of it is lovely and smooth anyway. NOT flat though, as a lot of people were complaining about. Also, drafting is everywhere in IM. I saw marshals just driving alongside packs of 10-15 cyclists not doing a thing. It didn’t look like they even had a notebook to take numbers if they wanted to enforce anything.

And finally, the ISO drink they give out is very watered down. It’s basically diluted orange cordial, not very isotonic.

Run
At this stage I was well ahead of where I was expecting, so much so that my girlfriend had trouble tracking me down at the points I told he to watch out for me at. Getting off the bike I had no idea what to expect, were my legs going to work, was I going to be walking a marathon? I figured at that stage I could walk and finish inside 17hrs, and knew that if I bettered my worst ever marathon (4.10) I’d be inside 11hrs. First few k’s through the Ironman area was fine, loads of shouting. The loop out of town is a bit boring. My legs were working anyway which was the main thing. Stopped at every aid station to get water/iso/gel and whatever else I could get into me, as well as dousing myself with wet sponges to cool the body.

The other side of the lap took you through town, which was great. It’s probably only 1km section, but it’s lined by people outside bars/cafes drinking, cheering you on. There’s a big screen set up for the World Cup which was showing the Ironman, and you had to run right through the centre of that which was packed full of people for the afternoon.

First half of the marathon went okay, completed it in 1:52 but beginning to fade. Figured I’d have to start taking more breaks on the second half. The heat was beginning to get stuffy aswell at this stage (it maxed 25 degrees during the day). By the time I got to about km 24 or so I needed to take little 15/20 second walk breaks every km. I ran to the km marker then took a walk break. Sometimes I’d power on and get 2k done. At this stage I was having trouble eating or drinking anything. Tried a few salted crackers, bits of orange, coke, anything they were giving me really. Eventually at about 30k or so I said sod it, lets just get to the end. As we headed back towards town for the last time about 35k I got a second wind. I knew I was going to break 11hrs now, which I didn’t really consider pre-race. The crowd through town really carried me, and out along the canal, knowing I was only a few k from the end I was flying.

At about 500m from the end there was an aid station where I even stopped and cleaned myself up for the photos! There were about 5 people around me so I hung back and left them go through, as I wanted the finishing chute to myself. Eventually turned the final corner, and saw the blue carpet, the big screen, the stands, the lights, the cheerleaders, a camera following me down the chute, it was amazing. There may even have been a little tear. I had a look around for my girlfriend but couldn’t see her with the size of the crowd (later found out she was there anyway). I got the finish line and heard the amazing words “Mark, YOU, ARE, AN IRONMAN!!!”.

Unfortunately some plonker who finished about 20 seconds in front of me persisted in standing about 1m past the finish line for about a minute for photos so he’s blocking my finish line photos. Minor problem really!

Finished the marathon in 3:53 which was only 14mns slower than my marathon PB. Nicely split too between 1:52 and 2:01 for each half. Total time 10:44 which was well inside my target time of 11:30 so absolutely delighted.

After the race I went to the tent, surrounded by people hobbling, getting massages, getting hooked up to IV’s, others being taken to hospital on strechers, and somehow I felt fantastic. Grabbed some food and my tshirt , and some beers and went out to meet my girlfriend. Packed up the bike and went back to the finishline but it started raining so went to a pub on the route instead. Had a great night out afterwards in one of the Irish bars in town, before finally hitting my wall at about 1am after 3.8k swim, 180k bike, 42k run, 7 pints and 2 jagermisters

http://track.ironman.com/newsearch.php?y=2014&race=austria&v=3.0&athlete=canning

EC1000

Shedite27 wrote: »

After the race I went to the tent, surrounded by people hobbling, getting massages, getting hooked up to IV’s, others being taken to hospital on strechers

You paint such a lovely picture of ironman racing........

beertons

Very inspirational, well done.

Rawhead

Well done. Two fantastic times. Has me all pumped up for Frankfurt on Sunday.

tunney

IVs after an Ironman are meant to be epic. Recovery is cut to a fraction of the time.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

tunney wrote: »

IVs after an Ironman are meant to be epic. Recovery is cut to a fraction of the time.

No doubt they are a huge help to rehydrating and recovering quickly but they are fair from epic!! Not nice being in the medical tent.

Well done lads at the weekend, super results. Enjoyed that report Shedite.

Come on NT put down the beer & ice cream and stick up a race report.

Shedite27

Brooklynn Nutritious Stockyard wrote: »

Come on NT put down the beer & ice cream and stick up a race report.

Think NT is driving home (possibly via Frankfurt this weekend), so could be waiting a while!

miller82

tunney wrote: »

IVs after an Ironman are meant to be epic. Recovery is cut to a fraction of the time.

I had three bags in Austria last year and was still shot to shiiit the next day

Rawhead

tunney wrote: »

IVs after an Ironman are meant to be epic. Recovery is cut to a fraction of the time.

Think I'm going to go with Shedite's recovery plan....

csmi

Congrats & well done to all. My hubbie was doing it but unfortunately had a bike crash and a big fat dnf & 5 broken bones in back which will heal with rest. It seems to be straight forward. Ironman ever contacted me to let me know this has happened until I started trying to track him down. They messed me around for hours and it was rather stressful. On a positive note he had a great swim and delighted with that & is on the mend. It was a great day as a supporter:-). All going well he will give it a shot Nxt year.

johnruns

csmi wrote: »

Congrats & well done to all. My hubbie was doing it but unfortunately had a bike crash and a big fat dnf & 5 broken bones in back which will heal with rest. It seems to be straight forward. Ironman ever contacted me to let me know this has happened until I started trying to track him down. They messed me around for hours and it was rather stressful. On a positive note he had a great swim and delighted with that & is on the mend. It was a great day as a supporter:-). All going well he will give it a shot Nxt year.

Ah that's terrible bad luck crashing hope he recovers quickly and think its great he is already thinking about next year best of luck with it.