What was to be an excellent western adventure started on Thursday morning with a Virgin flight to Melbourne, followed by a few hours at the airport, before the flight to Perth. I had been told by a travel agent that Virgin were more bike friendly and this proved true, with Virgin not raising any objections to my wheel bag (which put me over the two bag limit), which was the subject of a demand for an extra $22 from Qantas on the return flight, despite Steve Baker’s best efforts to strike a deal for me on his Qantas gold card.
At Perth airport I was met by Wally, the driver of the bus arranged by Tritravel to take us to Busselton. It was a minibus with about six others on board, including the gravel-voiced bloke who called the Nowra race (remember him?), and Mitch Anderson, last year’s winner. Mitch is a nice bloke with plenty of good info and advice. Although I’m not sure about his answer to the theory about saving your legs on the bike for the run. Mitch says “that’s not what it’s about!” I nodded but quietly resolved to stick with the race plan and not go crazy on the bike. Mitch also had all the latest on the weather. He reckoned it was going to be 30 degrees and blowing about 20 knots.
At the race briefing they also expected a bit of wind on the day, saying that the water would be flat close in to shore, but a bit choppy at the end of the jetty, which is almost two km offshore. We were assured that an aircraft would be doing a pre-race fly over the swim course, to check for ‘marine hazards’, which everybody knew to be a reference to the noah’s arks. In the event that a marine hazard was sighted during the race, we were to shelter underneath the jetty, and await evacuation, which may take some time, especially if we were 2ks out.
As it turned out, race morning was sunny, cool and not at all windy. The sea was pretty flat and remained that way for most of the swim. There were no marine hazards to be seen. The pros started at 6 and the rest of us were set for 6.15. I was determined to do a better swim than I had at Port Mac and had adopted the tactic of overstating my swim ability a little (I put 1.10 for my estimate) so as to get into a start group closer to the front. As the majority of people seemed to go to the outside of the course I opted to hug the jetty. It was the most enjoyable swim I have ever had. Just under 2 km out into beautiful crystal clear 19 degree water and back, left turn, a hundred or so metres parallel to shore then into the beach for the finish. As I sat down in the change tent I was happy to hear the announcer say that 1.16 was on the clock. In fact I had swum a 1.16.05, more than 10 minutes faster than Port Mac.
Out on to the bike course and everything was feeling good. I settled in with a heart rate around 80% which is roughly what I held the whole way. The course was fast and flat, with virtually no wind. I had decided with Coach, on a target of about 5.15 which translated to laps of 1 hr 45, so I knew it was a fast course when I completed the first lap in about 1.37, still with a heart rate of 80% and feeling great. Things pretty much continued that way but in the third lap the lower back and the glutes were starting to hurt a bit. I wound up doing a 4.57 for the bike leg and was pretty happy to see not all that many bikes in transition. If I could run my target 3.30 then a time substantially under 10 hours was on the cards. If…….
It wasn’t looking all that good when my legs hurt on the run from the bike drop-off to the transition tent. I was disappointed with this because I didn’t think I had over done it on the bike. After a couple of km they felt a little better but by about the ten k mark it was becoming clear that it was not to be a good run. My legs were hurting and it seemed very hot. From about the 14k mark I was stopping at each aid station, sometimes having to get down and stretch out my glutes, which were aching, tight, an making it difficult to run at any reasonable speed. The stretching was quite effective in freeing up my run but would only last about 3-4ks before they were tight and hurting again. I kept ticking along between aid stations, trying now to minimise the damage and salvage a reasonable time. I finished with a 4.36 for the run, making an overall 10.50, which I am still pretty happy with.
That night I got a text from a friend who had done the race. She used to train in Canberra but now lives in Perth. It gave me a bit of a laugh, and captures the madness of the Ironman:
"I did sub 12 hours by a minute and ride of my life. Passed out after finish and needed drip but fine now. So happy."
The next morning it was back on the mini bus. This time there was no Mitch Anderson (who had done the fastest bike but been caught on the run by Shortis, perhaps leaving some doubt about his theory), but only a few other sore competitors. I made my way down to Fremantle to kill some time (the plane left at midnight), which I did by having coffees and watching Borat at the movies (quite funny but a bit bizarre), before catching up with Steve Baker at the Qantas club. All in all, it was a great adventure. If you’re looking for an Ironman next December (or a half in May) I would thoroughly recommend a trip west to Busselton.
Jerome