Ironman 70.3 #20
I read somewhere that doing an Ironman is 90% mental and 10% and while I’m not sure if those percentages are correct I do believe that being able to complete one requires you to have a significantly stronger mind than it requires you to have strong physical fitness.
Over the past weekend I completed my 20th 70.3 race, or for those not so initiated with triathlons that’s a half Ironman. While I have done only 1 Ironman the 70.3 is my favourite distance, a 1.9km swim, 90km bike and a 21.1km run (half marathon). I didn’t actually know that it was my 20th race until the night before when I started counting the different races I have done and realised it came to 19, the next days would be 20. This gave me a level of confidence heading into the event given that I hadn’t been training at my best but knowing that I had done 19 previously and that I’d been in worse shape and completed them before I took this as positive, this contributed to a positive mindset.
Before I get into it let me quickly give you a run down of the lead up to this event. Since around about July 2023 I had been struggling with plantar fasciitis, it was a pain and meant I could do minimal training, on top of that I was getting mixed advice about how best to treat it so it wasn’t really going away. It wasn’t until January 2024 that I finally started running consistently and pain free and so had to start my build up from there. In March I did the Mooloolaba Triathlon which was okay and I managed to run the 10km pain free (well serious blisters but no plantar fasciitis). Riding on the other hand had been doing alright, in November I completed the Can 4 Cancer bike ride which was 300km+ in over 3 days so I had a good base. The last thing, and one that played on my mind the most was that the rear brake didn’t work properly on my bike, yeah yeah just get it fixed, the problem is it’s a unique bike with a unique brake and so no one can really fix it (long story) so leading into the race I was in two minds, try and get by with minimal rear brake, or ride my standard road bike. What made this decision worse is that it had been raining the past few days and so maybe there was a need for brakes. Anyhoo I decided to go with the time trial bike, it’;s my favourite bike and even if I would struggle with braking I felt that it would give me a slightly better bike split overall… oh yeah and I hadn’t ridden it for more than 2 months.
Okay, so race day… Standard wake up early at stupid o’clock to get to transition, it had been raining pretty consistently over the last few days so the ground was like a bog, surprisingly I didn’t feel overly nervous, I think because internally I kind of had the mantra of “I know I will finish” and I hadn’t really put pressure on myself to achieve a particular time.
Swim was terrible, which is probably reflective of the fact I had been doing minimal swimming. Whatever I tried to do I just felt like I couldn’t get into a rhythm as well as I felt like I kept getting lost. I also put a bit of this down to the mainframe I was in, I was really concerned about going to hard on the swim and feeling it in my legs on the bike. My time ended up at 43 minutes which is about 10 minutes off the fastest time I have done over this distance and about 7 minutes slower than what I did during my PB race, but the positivity was that I got through and didn’t feel too bad.
Out onto the bike and this was the part of the race I was most nervous about, would I hold up and how would my bike be without really having a rear brake. I used to think Port Macquarie was a flat beachside town until I had to do a triathlon there, there is nothing flat about the first 12km of that bike course. The good news was that while the road was wet it wasn’t raining and so I largely had taken the brake issue out of my head other than on a few of the steepest of descents. Rounding out lap one of the two I actually felt pretty good, I could see my average speed was gradually increasing and my legs weren’t getting too fatigued. One thing I had done differently for this race was different nutrition. I normally struggle to eat during a race but for this race I was using Maurten in my drink bottles and I also used the Maureen gels. For some reason these seem to have a better consistency in them and don’t make me feel bloated so I will continue on with them.
Lap 2 of the bike was all about feel, making sure that I could continue to have a good pace but keeping in mind that I still had to run. One of the problems I have had before is cramps in my quads in Port Macquarie due to pushing too hard on the rolling hills, I also kept this in mind knowing that I was always going to ride a slower time than what any PB was. I ended up with a time of 3 hours and 6 minutes, which is about 26 minutes slower than my PB over this distance in a race and 21 minutes slower than what I did in my PB race. To put it into perspective that was in Western Sydney (Penrith) and elevation was only 199m of vertical compared to 1026m, that’s pretty significant.
It’s always pleasing to get off the bike, by and large it means that if you have a problem you can just walk AND it’s the last leg, so the motivation of the finish line is just infant of you. I ran out of transition dodging the puddles to make sure I didn’t get my shoes wet, saw the kids, gave a wave, I was feeling positive.
Through the first 5km I was averaging around 4:50/km which is much faster than what I had planned but it felt comfortable, I definitely wasn’t pushing it and so decided to just roll with it as long as it felt good. While the run course is relatively flat there is one sort of hill, not much of a hill but it climbs 30m in just on 900m, so its kind of a long grind. Lap 1 you hit it pretty fresh coming in at just after a kilometre, however on lap two its at around the 11 kilometre mark so you definitely aren’t fresh. I decided to take it easy and not push it, I was still had the fear I might cramp up so didn't want to be on struggle street for the remainder. Post the hill I was averaging just on 5:00/km so I was still pretty content but for some reason I just couldn’t get the pace to where it had been without it taxing my legs, I ended up settling for around 5:20/km which seemed tolerable.
Mentally I was feeling strong, I still hadn’t walked, the legs were holding up and I really only had the 5km out and back section to complete. This actually proved to be pretty difficult to get my head through, in my head I knew I’d finished, I was feeling alright and the finish was so near, but there was also part of me that didn’t want to take the foot off the gas and still maintain a decent time. My pace fluctuated a little but I continued to push on, I heard the finish line commentator and new I was done, for once I was actually able to run down the finish chute feeling good, I think I even had a smile as I crossed the line.
My overall time was 5 hours 45 minutes, my PB is 5 hours 14 minutes which was on a flat closed water swim course. My overall run time in the end was 1 hour 48 minutes and 39 seconds, I say the seconds because the fastest I have ever run is 1 hour 48 minutes and 36 seconds. I felt stoked, that was probably the best I have ever run in a 70.3, admittedly I had taken the bike a little easier than I probably needed but this race wasn’t about PB’s, my first 70.3 post pandemic and post injury had been done, I was finally back in some shape and feeling good about my fitness. my 20th 70.3 race, whilst not being my fastest was probably my most enjoyable I have done :)