Agreed with the "Stay in the AC" part - just too hot, a few days in the heat will only drain you (and worry you!)
It's my 3rd time in Langkawi, for work not for race, here are some of my advices - copied and paste as below
http://www.asiatri.com/...y-guide-to-malaysia/ -
Ironman Langkawi used to be a traditional event in the SEA triathlon calendar, it was the only official full distance Ironman in the region from 1999 to 2010, when WTC (World Triathlon Corporation) announced the race would no longer happen in 2011. After a four year hiatus, Ironman Langkawi was back on the calendar in 2014, 2015 and this year will be the last edition of this race, taking place on November 12th.
Swim Course
The convenient location with minimal time zone difference and little traveling makes it the preferred Ironman event for many Asian based triathletes. The race however used to be known as “The toughest show on earth” due to the combination of its extreme conditions.
The article below will help you tackle the race day challenges and make Ironman Langkawi an enjoyable and successful experience.
Traveling & Accommodation
Flying to Langkawi Langkawi is only a quick flight away from Kuala Lumpur, so you are likely to have several options of flights to KL, but some guidelines are always useful.
Avoid the extremes: Unless you don’t have the option, no super early flights or very late ones. You don’t want to change much of your sleeping hours a few days before the race.
Take food with you: Airport food is often low quality, quantity and you don’t want to eat much of a junk food on race week as this can damage your confidence
Consider taking the whole day off training on your travel day: The usual airport routine is already stressful enough, if you are traveling 1-3 days out, consider taking the whole day off on the same day you travel
Accommodation An ironman is just a long training day with aid stations and lots of training buddies. On race day you want to stick to your usual routine as much as you can control without stressing about it.
Bring your food: Things that you like to have and is usually difficult to find at places. This could be your own coffee, fruits, and snacks.
Consider the option of paying a little extra for comfort: either by renting a car or staying in a nicer hotel. You’ve spent so much effort and cash on your training that a couple hundred bucks extra for the ironman will be a great investment. You don’t want to be walking up and down in the heat then sleeping in a not so comfortable place for the nights leading into your race
Night Before: Most athletes find challenging sleeping the night before. The good news is that it doesn’t matter much, if you are fit and well rested, adrenalin will take care of the rest. In fact just by thinking that the night before doesn’t matter much, should help you sleep better, but if you don’t carry on knowing that it won’t matter much.
The days leading to the race
Stay indoors This is also a KEY rule for race day. Don’t go out and train under the sun in the 3 days leading into the race, stay inside in the AC, train on early/late hours or indoors.
On training, unless you can’t run early in the mornings or evenings, you may want to do run inside on the treadmill, especially if it’s a KEY run session for you. Running at noon won’t see much of a quality session, instead you will be slowed down by the heat BEFORE your legs get the appropriated stimulus.
Final Taper The taper of an ironman race is all about maintenance of your fitness, while you freshen up. Do not stop training completely, your body will just shut down and tighten up. Understand also that INTENSITY is what will dictate your fatigue levels and not volume, going long and slow shouldn’t be a problem at this stage. Follow the plan guidelines.
Race Day
What equipment to use: SWIM:
No wetsuit swim means either you swim with a speedsuit and your trisuit underneath, or you go only with a swim suit and get changed in transition. Don’t use slow trisuits, especially the ones with pocket for this swim.
BIKE:
Go with a vented helmet, the comfort of airflow in a 40 degrees heat is worth the minute or two an aero helmet will save you. Take all your calories on the frame of your bike, NEVER behind the seat as you will lose it (aka bottle launchers). Make sure you have at least 3 bottle holders on you.
RUN:
Consider taking a water bottle on the run with you and refill at the aid stations, the extra hassle and weight is nothing compared to the comfort it will give you by having water on your at all times. A hat can be useful at aid stations to put some ice inside. Also throw ice inside your top and shorts.
Race Day Mindset Stay Confident Maintaining confidence in your training and race strategy in the final days before Ironman can be a challenge. As soon as you arrive at the race venue you bump into all those sponsored athletes walking around with the latest equipment, showing off their lean and vascular legs. Such sights can be quite intimidating to the first timer or beginner athlete. Remember “before a race everyone looks like a champion” – don’t let this hurt your confidence. Race day is a different story.
Another common thought on race week is: “I should have trained harder!” – You have already done the best you could. Perhaps you had to take a week off training due to work, family or health issues but those are situations we all face. Every single triathlete on the start line of an Ironman had to overcome some sort of challenge during their preparation so don’t worry, you are not alone.
Rational vs Emotional Keep your emotions in check on race day: don’t let them take over your race strategy. Adrenalin released in the first few hours of the race, with the type-A and competitive personality of each triathlete, plus the fact that everyone is well-rested and tapered is a perfect recipe for disaster.
The main mistakes happen in the cycling leg, especially during the first hours, when athletes are excited and forget a very long day is only just beginning. As a result, people start to race each other or just ignore their nutrition plan.
Another common mistake that results in an emotional, rather than a rational, approach is after a setback such as a flat tire or a penalty is that athletes tend to “make up for it”. Don’t. Stay calm and be patient in those situations instead. Ironman is a long race and you can slowly, over the next hours, catch up on the missed minutes. Please do not try to do it within the next 60 minutes.
Positive attitude it takes between 8 and 17 hours to finish an Ironman. That is a lot of time for everything to go as planned, especially considering the myriad of factors the athlete can’t control. It is very likely that something will go “wrong” at some stage during the race.
After I wrote an article about the mental attitude towards the race day challenge last year, several athletes came to talk to me after finishing their Ironman and mentioned that already in the swim leg their race wasn’t going as planned: they couldn’t see the buoys and went off course.
Ironman is all about overcoming obstacles. The challenges start with your training routine, how you manage your work and family commitments with those long sessions that take a lot of your time and energy. The training is 90% of the Ironman experience and is the biggest challenge. Race day is only the celebration of getting to the start line. You will still be tested during the event, be it physically or logistically, but with your Ironman determination you will find a solution and make it to the finish line.
Race Day Nutrition
While very personal and something that should have been tested in training several first, there are some basic guidelines that are never too far off from an ideal fueling strategy:
Carbs First rule is, do not eat anything for the first 15min on the bike, only plain water. Then minimum of 1g of kg per hour on the bike and 2/3 of that on the run. Maximum is 50% more of the above number. For example a 70kg athlete will need 70g of carbs or 280kcal per hour on the bike and 52g of carbs or 210kcal on the run. The max would be 105g of carbs per hour on the bike and 75g on the run.
Water: Aim for 700ml to 1000ml of liquids per hour
Sodium: Aim for ~1g of sodium per hour, you may need to supplement with salt tablets. Your gel and calorie mix will also contain some sodium, account for that.
More nutrition guidelines: If your mouth feels dry, pull back on the sodium and calories and add more plain water
If you mouth feels watery, add more sodium and calories
Race Day Pacing An ironman race is all about “who slows down the least!” – In fact, until you are on the last 10km of the run, you shouldn’t be feeling you are going ‘hard’ at any moment. If you do, especially on the bike, its guaranteed you will bonk and be forced to a very slow run.
I like to use perceived effort from 1 to 10, 1 being very, very slow to 10 being maxing it out, to help my athletes pace themselves during long events. The below guidelines will make your pacing strategy efficient and minimize the chances of bonking:
Swim: First 400m or so (first buoy) 4-5
Then pick it up to 6-7 until the end
Bike: First 15min 3 (yes, you read that right, very, very slow)
Then to the 60km mark, 4-5
60 to 120k, 5-6
120 to 180k 6-7
Run: First 1km, 4 (just find your legs)
2-14km, 5-6
14-28km, 6-7
28-42km, 7+ – At this point is likely you will either be feeling in control but already in a lot of pain, then just hold onto your pace until the end, pick it up a little if you can. OR you may be struggling a little, increase the effort to hold your pace.
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Run Walk protocol, a strategy for beginners & intermediate athletes Whenever I start to work with an athlete for an ironman race, the first question I ask myself is: “all going relatively well, am I 100% sure this athlete will able to run the run?” – Unless the answer is a very convincing YES, I get him on a RUN:WALK protocol.
This means for every so many minutes of running, there is a minute of walking. The usual numbers is 10:1. But what are the benefits of this strategy?
In training it means fewer injuries. Faster overall running. Faster recovery to other workouts. Enough benefits already.
In racing, it means that we avoid “bonking” on the last third or so of the marathon. The problem is that once you are forced to walk the run, your “perfect” race goes out of the window, and the pain will be so much that you shift into “just want to finish” mode and walk with your head down, without a plan to follow. But instead if walking is part of your plan, you can still hold that “perfect day” mind set until the end, this will give you extra strength and you will be able to tolerate the pain better.
Picture the two scenarios below:
Athlete 1 tries to run it all. He holds an average of 6’/km for the first 21k, then drop to 6’30/km for the next 11km, then bonk and walks (with a few jogging tentative that don’t go well) the last 10km at 4kph = 4h48’ Total Marathon time 2h18’ running + 2h30 walking
Athlete 2 is on a run walk protocol. He can run at 6’/km but with 1min power walk, it brings the average down to about 6’12/km. He passes the first 21k mark, just over 4 minutes behind athlete 1. Then overtakes him at about km 31, and finishes the run in 4h20 – a good 28min ahead of the athlete who bonked.
Types of run:walk protocol
For beginners: Set your chronometer and ‘lap’ it every 10min and 1min, also walk every aid station for fluids.
For intermediate athletes: You can walk the aid stations only if you have an half ironman run time of below 2h. Start walking 50m before the station and walk another 50m past. This lowers your hr and makes sure you absorb it all
Biggest challenge for both strategies is EGO – from the example below you will see most people ahead of you on the run and it will feel ‘stupid’ to walk while everyone else is running and there is the supporters too (am I going to walk in front of my family/friends? ;-)), but trust me, things changes rather quickly at an ironman and once you are forced to walk, it’s too late. Better to build that insurance of an extra quarter of a minute slower per km.
Recovering from an Ironman race in extreme conditions
How fast you will recover from Ironman Langkawi depends on several factors such as how fit you are, how many ironman races you’ve done before, how well you stay fueled during the event and how much you had to ‘dig deep’ on race day.
But a race in those conditions will take more out of you than you may think and while you may have more events planned for later in the year. Two things to consider is regarding immune system and micro tears. You can’t “feel” any of them but you can be sure that both were damaged immensely during the race. Not running for the first 10 days, and maintaining the training less than 40min will help you recover from it. I suggest you use the following recovery guidelines:
*10 days after the race: As many days off training as you want, but try to do something easy and short (<40min) every third day as it will help with recovery. No running.
*10 days following that: Running allowed again, aim to do at least 4 sessions per week, make sure you take 2 days off a week
*21 days after the race: Slowly and patiently get back on a short course plan, that will help recover your speed and strength that has been neglected for a while and set you up nicely for the remaining short course events in 2014.
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I hope the above will make your race a much more enjoyable and successful experience!
Enjoy your training,
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Vinnie Santana, Multisport Coach
http://www.ironguides.net * * * Your best is our business. * * *