Ironman World Championships Kona 2016 Race Report
Here is my race report for the Ironman World Championships 2016 from Kona, Hawaii – as always this is mainly for my memories but for anyone who is interested…
To participate at the World Champs you have to qualify at a preceding event and some of you will know I qualified in Bolton in the UK. I had finished 7th but was lucky enough to get a slot through the roll-down. Getting a roll-down slot meant that I felt a slight fraud for not qualifying outright and felt I had something to prove.
I arrived at the start of the race in the best physical and mental condition of my life and the small niggles of the preceding week had all been resolved. The few days of holiday in Maui had allowed me to relax and arrive for race week relaxed and calm. This was really important as Kona is a pressure cooker of testosterone, hype, anxiety and expectations in the build up to race day on Saturday. The Ironman World Champs is a big deal in the world of triathlon and the biggest event that takes place on the island. Incredibly people travel to Kona simply to be part of the volunteer team for the race – the ratio of volunteers to athletes is 2 to 1 and the organisation is impeccable – even the Swiss would be impressed!
At 4:45am on race morning I went for “body marking” where a team of volunteers applied my race numbers and then I headed to the bike transition to load my bike with fluids, nutrition and check my tyre pressure, etc. It was then I discovered that the extender valve on my deep rim wheels was broken and immediately my stress levels began to increase. There was a duty mechanic available but he could not fix the problem and so sent me to the larger mechanic team elsewhere. Stress levels are now very elevated! Fortunately these guys had replacement extenders to hand and told me to go and get some water and all would be sorted when I got back… I came back 5 minutes later and they had fixed the problem and I was good to go. Any other race elsewhere and my race would have ended before it had even started.
I went back to the room of the hotel (ideally located next to the start) and worked really hard to calm myself down and get back into “the zone.” I worked through my mental game again for the race – the images and thoughts I would use when things got tough – and was quite quickly back in the right place.
Catie and I headed to the start and kissed and said our good byes and I entered the water ready for the start. The swim start is a mass start of all men together with the start marked by a cannon. Generally the fastest swimmers (45 to 60 minutes for 3.8km) are to the right nearest to the peer and then the rest seed themselves from left to right. I had decided to start at the back of the fastest swimmers on the right. The thinking being that I might get some benefit from them in terms of drafting but that they would be so fast I would have clear water for a while before the hordes swarmed together at the first buoy.
It did not work out as planned! I was exceptionally calm for the start of the swim – my heart rate hardly elevated at all as I lay on my front, kicking my legs in a pseudo swim position to ensure a fast start. The cannon fired and then the brawl began. Kicking, pushing, punching, arms flailing – imagine a drunken pub brawl in the ocean. This went on for a long time but I just tried to stay calm as I often have a panic attack in these situations and I was working really hard to keep my breathing under control. During all this I hardly noticed the scuba divers positioned on the seabed just in case any of us went under! In the battle my watch got kicked and so I lost all the information about my swim pace so I had to just accept that and move on and swim based on feel.
After about 300m of swimming things began to calm down and I was able to execute my race plan. The course is marked by a series of buoys and my plan was to treat the swim as a series of intervals swimming from one buoy to the next. During each interval I would think about one of four aspects of my swimming which I had decided on before the race and if I saw some good feet to draft off I would. This worked really well and I felt strong, relaxed and happy during most of the swim. If I had started to suffer I was ready to draw on the inspiration of Maddy and Sophie’s Geneva swim but as it turned out there were no dark places to plague me on the swim. At the turnaround point I picked up my effort levels as planned and swam harder back to the beach looking to negative split the swim.
I exited the water feeling really good in a time of 1:07 which for me was better than I could possibly have imagined. I had planned on 1:10 to 1:15 so this was a really great start to the race. My transition was really fast too – two and a bit minutes and so I was onto the bike.
My dream time for the bike was sub 5:00 hours which would have meant riding at 36km/hr for the 180km although a more realistic expectation was 5:10 to 5:20. The bike course commences with a loop into town before heading out the lava fields on the famed Queen K Highway. I completed the first loop with an average of 36km/hr and my watts were easy to find and I was feeling confident. I rode up onto the highway feeling good and straight into a massive headwind for which Kona is famous. My bike speed dropped immediately and so I focused on trying to maintain my watts within my target range.
The ride then became harder and harder. It was now the hottest and most humid part of the day and the road passes through the black lava fields which represent the geography of the Hawaiian Islands. The sun heats up the black lava and wind passes across these scalding rocks to create a blast furnace effect through which you have to pedal your bike. As time went on I could not hold my watts despite being well fed and wall hydrated – I guess it was simply the heat and humidity taking its toll. I rode as hard as I could until the turnaround point 90km later. I headed back towards Kona and as everyone had said I cycled straight back into another headwind which just did not seem to be fair as I had battled one on the way out.
It was a long, lonely and painful ride with my heart rate and watts on a glide path to levels which I would normally regard as being the most gentlest of warm-ups. For much of my time I would be on my own and then suddenly a group of 15 to 20 riders would pass me before I was left to suffer alone once more. It was not until close to the end of the ride that I realised that these groups were riding as a peleton shielding each other from the wind. Drafting on another rider is strictly prohibited by the rules but I saw few course marshals to enforce it. Speaking with a spectator later he told me that he had never seen anything like it. Drafting would mean that these guys will ride faster and expend less energy and be stronger for the run – so they were gaining a massive advantage over me.
With only 20km to go I thought to myself “f**k this” and jumped on the back of the next group that came by although I hung back rather than blatantly sitting just a few inches of the guy’s wheel in front. There was one small rider who literally just sat on a big German’s wheel and then kept looking over his shoulder to check for motorcycle marshals. I developed a severe and somewhat excessive hatred for this one rider.
The final kilometres ticked down and it had been an horrific ride – really draining and I could not believe that I was now going to have to run a marathon. I completed the ride in 5:24 which for me was disappointing but still within an OK range. In hindsight I should have been less honest and jumped on a wheel sooner but I guess I can take some moral pride from my ride.
My transition to the run went smoothly – someone takes your bike and helmet for you and racks it – normally you have to do that yourself. I was out on the run course. The course involves, like the bike, a loop through town and then a run along the Queen K highway out to the famous “Energy Labs” before returning to the finish.
The first few kilometres were surprisingly quick and I had planned to use the support of the crowds to raise my energy levels and bag some fast initial ks. This worked pretty well and then I turned right to climb Palani hill up to the highway – like many other athletes I walked this climb I was so tired and there was still 30 km to run.
Out on the highway with the searing heat and humidity they place aid stations every 1 mile. My plan was to walk each aid station and they begin with sponges dunked in iced water which you put under your hat and tuck into your vest to try and cool the body – the relief lasts about 2 minutes. I then would take two cups of water, some Gatorade and coke (which wasn’t flat – disaster). I could not face taking any solids at this point and so had to rely on liquids. It was at this point the stomach cramps began.
As soon as anything hit my stomach – especially the coke (which I could not do without) my stomach would convulse and whilst I was not quite doubled up with pain it was excruciating. I would then start running again and after a minute or so I would basically pass wind really violently which provided immediate relief from the cramp. I stopped apologising after a while as everyone else was making pretty disgusting sounds as well. I would then try and pick up the pace to the next aid station as best I could before having to repeat the same process knowing how I would have to suffer. I went through this cycle about 15 times. Needless to say it was not my fastest run.
One of the things Catie and I try to teach our children Tristan (8) and Amelie (6) in the importance of grit, determination and perseverance and not giving up. Prior to the race when rehearsing my mental strategies with Catie for dealing with challenges I had explained how when it got tough I would think of the example I was seeking to set for my children. There are two levels of “giving up” on an Ironman – there is just calling it a day and accepting a DNF (Did Not Finish) and then there is stopping racing and just getting to the finish line. I knew at the half way mark of the marathon that I would finish and so I had to run at race pace levels of effort if I were to show the grit and determination I ask of my kids. This I did.
Slowly the remaining kilometres ticked by and suddenly I was running down the finishers shoot and I had completed the Kona Ironman World Championship race course. Relief was the primary emotion as I came over the line. My final marathon time was 3:52 which was much slower than the 3:30 I had hoped for giving me a total of 10:32:52.
At the start of the race I had said a sub 10 hours would be my own personal gold medal time. Anything between 10 and 11 hours would be a silver medal and longer than 11 would be bronze. So it was a silver level performance. However my greatest satisfaction comes from knowing I executed my race plan with discipline and focus and I could not have raced faster or harder – this was the best time I was capable of delivering in the conditions and given my physical condition and I take great satisfaction from that. Most importantly however I beat the chap who came second in Bolton by 10 minutes thus dispelling any doubts I may have had about my right to be competing at the iconic Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii!
This has been a long and sometimes challenging journey to get here and I could not have done this without the support of Catie who has been brilliant as always – in particular giving me the space in the last couple of days to get my head in the right place, which has been invaluable. So many other people have played a role in helping me on this journey and everyone’s support has been much appreciated – thank you!
Expeditions 