On Sunday I raced my first Ironman….
I had a 3 week break in October, so coming into Ironman Western Australia I was concerned I hadn’t done the work required to pull this off in one piece..
Pre-race nerves were high….when I say nerves.. I mean to say I was packing myself…
Race day rolled round way to fast and I found myself drinking my chocolate milk at 3am in the morning ( it was a 5:30am race start ) thinking what have I got myself into..
Diving into the unknown is always a little scary…
Once I was down at the swim start the nerves actually started to ease and then when I entered the water I was fine… swimming felt good and started to relax… I think being around 1500 nervous IM starters before hand was freaking me out….
A few mintues till the gun and all the pro starters were standing in hip deep water….The gun went off and it was business time with the usual suspects taking the lead out in the swim ( Pete Jacobs and Luke Bell ) The pace was steady until we hit the turn around at roughly 2k when Pete put in a big surge…and I was caught off guard being at the back of the lead pack. I started to kick hard to bridge the gap…Unfortunately for me a few feet/calf cramps and swimming with my feet bent like I was running caused me to lose the front group.. Lucky for me another group was coming along not to far behind. I swum the rest of the way to shore with them. Existing the water a little over a minute down on the lead guys.
Was on the bike I must have thought I was in a sprint race , because I went out hard and soon realized I had left my biking legs back in the hotel and then started to suffer.. this was all in the first 5k of the bike… ( I laugh now ) .
At the time however I wasn’t overly excited about the fact I was struggling to stay with the cyclist I knew would be near the front off the bike…In the end I had to admit defeat and ride my own race.. the pace was a bit to hot for me and the lack of time trailing was showing.
I proceeding to settle into a pace I could sustain for 180k.. I rode most of the ride with Scott Neydeli for company.
Coming off the bike i was scared as I had no idea what the body was going to do.. Cramp, vomit, poo, puke, shut down, or go like a cannon ball on heat… I was hoping to the later option… I went out of T2 at a pace I thought was manageable. Trying not to let the crowd wind me up to much , although the laps through town were great, hearing the crowd cheer for you was an awesome feeling and It made the pain go away for about 1KM every lap..
The first 30K was pretty good I held onto a smooth-ish rhythm .. the last 12 K was PAIN.. I was holding close to the same pace but it was hurting a lot more… ( I was so happy at this point that I didn’t go out any harder at the start of the marathon or I would have been paying a big price for it ) As it was I managed to hold on a cross the line with a 3:15 marathon and a time of 8:50 on my IM debut . To top it off I had my friend and voice of IM call me over the line ( Mike Rielly ) it
Was a moment I won’t soon forget..
A few first for me done and dusted..
First IM and First Marathon ( first time I have run over 30k actually )
I don’t know if I’ll be back for more IM races soon , but it’s nice to have the first one ticked off. I just have to work out how to go 8:30 for my next one now…. Pain is the only option..
I’m back in Perth now, relaxing having a few beers and doing not much of anything… until next week anyway.
I’ve piped on long enough… Until the next time
Guy
PS: thanks for all the messages.
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