last weekend, i finished a race that's been on my bucket list for a long time: the inferno. it's a 4-leg multisport race around interlaken, switzerland: 3k swim, 100k road bike, 30k mountain bike, and 25k run. the extra 'infernal' challenge comes from the climbing and the altitude, and - this year, at least - the heat.
i had the worst winter i can remember - two crashes (one broken bike, one separated shoulder), 3 bacterial infections (2x antibiotics) and maybe (?) another case of covid. on the other hand, i had a great summer. i'm a teacher and had 6 straight weeks of pro-style life. training 2x/day, naps, lots of good food and sleep, and no injuries.
i'd thought something like 11:30 or quicker might be possible, initially, given how my prep went, i adjusted my expectations and mainly hoped to finish well. i had a couple of process goals, and otherwise wanted to just have an experience.
pre-race:
things sort of start the day before, when you need the better part of 6 hours to set up your 3 transition areas. it's a point-to-point race, so you need everything laid out in advance. swiss efficiency helps make this easier, but it's still a lot of ground to cover. it was made worse on friday by the 32-degree temps.
swim:
we took a bus to the start line and had a nice bit of time to relax and warm up before the start.
and then ... we were off! i was feeling OK about my swim in general, having had some OK training this summer. i found some send-out speed, moved through the chaos OK, and then settled in. my main swim goal was simply to save energy. i wasn't worried about pace and knew i could hold the main pack, and happily that's about what i did, at low cost.
sighting was tough, at times, since we were a straight shot across the lake at sunrise. there weren't really intermediate buoys, but plenty of kayaks and boats. it was also much, much more choppy than i'd expected. in training, jan van berkel (who's won this race a few times) told me to expect a current drawing us to the left. it sure did! i thought i was correcting to the right but not enough! i usually pride myself on holding good lines and having skill in the open water, but if i had it to do again i'd take a cleaner line.
i think i came out around 55 minutes.
road bike:
i knew i'd have a very slow T1, and i did. compression socks, gloves, arm sleeves . . . it was a dawdle. but i got going eventually and felt good on the bike. the first climb was 'only' about 750m vertical, but it came too early and i wanted to get into a flat rhythm first. alas. i also realized that i forgot my sunglasses about 5 minutes in, so it was going to be a very squinty day.
as usual the swiss climbed like mountain goats and descended like demons; i had plenty of time to reflect on the watts/kilo phenomenon. at ~183cm/74kg, i feel relatively big on these proper alpine climbs. but i also found myself making back lots of time on the flats.
three dark spots in a mostly beautiful ride were, unfortunately: a loose aerobar extension (thankfully, on the flats), that i had to stop to fix; the knackering feeling of these fast, technical descents always makes it hard for me to enjoy them fully; and by the time we started the (1300m) final climb, temps were in the 30s and it was getting tough.
throughout, my mantra was just to stay controlled and never push myself into the red. i think i more or less accomplished that: ate well, kept HR below 160, and was able to feel like i was mostly enjoying myself and the day.
rode a bit under 4:20, with 197watts avg and 221 NP.
mtn bike:
i felt good about hopping on to the MTB; i'd ridden the course previously and knew exactly what to expect. i had road shoes on my MTB, so really all i had to to in T2 was to put on my camelback and run out.
it's immediately into a 10% grade and you more or less hold that for a bit over a vertical kilometer. at a couple of points i stopped at farmer's water troughs to soak my kit and cool off. i tried to keep at my 100g/hour plan, but was also adding water at this point and a bit of caffeine. i only had to dismount for a moment on a 50m stretch of 25%+ loose stuff, which felt good.
the descent i knew would be a place i'd give up some time, but it went worse than i'd hoped. the issue wasn't my skill/daring, but mechanicals - shortly into the descent my saddle rattled itself loose. i hopped off to fix it and was on my way. a short while later, during the only technical section, disaster: snapped my (carbon) seatpost. i stared at it for a while and then . . . shoved it down into the frame a bit and carried on. finally, near the end of the descent, the saddle rattled loose again. one more stop to fix it and then onto the flats toward T4. all told the mechanicals cost me something like 10-15 minutes, but helped to cool my rotors as well.
average (average!) temperature was 30 degrees for this leg, and it was a grind. no power meter on my MTB, but it was about 2:25, and an average of 135 bpm. i handed off my MTB and was happy to be rid of it.
still, i felt OK about starting to run and was still in pretty good spirits. a nice quick transition, and then . . .
run:
into the run, my main goals were to run stechelburg-lauterbrunnen, and winteregg-murren. otherwise, the goal was to keep moving.
i actually ran strong out of T3, and felt excited to be running. i was struggling to get soft flasks into my running pack, which was annoying the hell out of me, but overall it was nice to be on the hoof. my HR was surprisingly high, but legs were strong. after 5k of solid pace we immediately began the grinding. i opted to powerwalk the uphill to winteregg, but noticed that at that gradient and heat, my HR was still plenty high walking.
it was on the first big stretch of climbing that i started to feel my belly going off. gassy, and not feeling much like eating. i resigned myself to it and - like all of us, eventually - switched to coke. the powerwalking uphill continued and i was consistently able to run the (brief) flat sections. the crowds through murren were amazing - a car-free village where we run straight down the main street in full view of the beautiful peaks.
after that, things got worse. my mood deteriorated a bit and clearly the odd cup of coke wasn't enough for the effort of climbing a 3000m peak. i never stopped walking, but the negative thoughts crept in and it felt like more of a slog. at times it was scrambling hands and feet up the rock and my internal monologue was a bit tortured by that point. 11 hours in! throughout it all my legs always felt good - never cramped or anything - but the tank was completely, completely empty. eventually, my bloody-mindedness won out and i shambled (nervously) the final exposed ridgeline to the end in something like 12:45. i was absolutely done.
avg HR 126, avg pace 10:55, average power 226. despite the altitude the average temp was 25, and the total gain was a little over 2km.
that's that! i benefitted a lot from the advice i got from duncan shea-simmonds, jan van berkel, and gordo byrn. but above all i absolutely couldn't have done it without my wife. the logistical load on her was huge, running two toddlers around on trains/gondolas/busses and then mopping me up at the summit. you really, really can't do this stuff alone.
recovery so far is strangely fine - had a great swim on monday and fine little run tuesday - maybe the lack of descending helps!
the post-race video has some cool images, and it's pretty great of them to turn it around in a few days!
____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan
http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/
i had the worst winter i can remember - two crashes (one broken bike, one separated shoulder), 3 bacterial infections (2x antibiotics) and maybe (?) another case of covid. on the other hand, i had a great summer. i'm a teacher and had 6 straight weeks of pro-style life. training 2x/day, naps, lots of good food and sleep, and no injuries.
i'd thought something like 11:30 or quicker might be possible, initially, given how my prep went, i adjusted my expectations and mainly hoped to finish well. i had a couple of process goals, and otherwise wanted to just have an experience.
pre-race:
things sort of start the day before, when you need the better part of 6 hours to set up your 3 transition areas. it's a point-to-point race, so you need everything laid out in advance. swiss efficiency helps make this easier, but it's still a lot of ground to cover. it was made worse on friday by the 32-degree temps.
swim:
we took a bus to the start line and had a nice bit of time to relax and warm up before the start.
and then ... we were off! i was feeling OK about my swim in general, having had some OK training this summer. i found some send-out speed, moved through the chaos OK, and then settled in. my main swim goal was simply to save energy. i wasn't worried about pace and knew i could hold the main pack, and happily that's about what i did, at low cost.
sighting was tough, at times, since we were a straight shot across the lake at sunrise. there weren't really intermediate buoys, but plenty of kayaks and boats. it was also much, much more choppy than i'd expected. in training, jan van berkel (who's won this race a few times) told me to expect a current drawing us to the left. it sure did! i thought i was correcting to the right but not enough! i usually pride myself on holding good lines and having skill in the open water, but if i had it to do again i'd take a cleaner line.
i think i came out around 55 minutes.
road bike:
i knew i'd have a very slow T1, and i did. compression socks, gloves, arm sleeves . . . it was a dawdle. but i got going eventually and felt good on the bike. the first climb was 'only' about 750m vertical, but it came too early and i wanted to get into a flat rhythm first. alas. i also realized that i forgot my sunglasses about 5 minutes in, so it was going to be a very squinty day.
as usual the swiss climbed like mountain goats and descended like demons; i had plenty of time to reflect on the watts/kilo phenomenon. at ~183cm/74kg, i feel relatively big on these proper alpine climbs. but i also found myself making back lots of time on the flats.
three dark spots in a mostly beautiful ride were, unfortunately: a loose aerobar extension (thankfully, on the flats), that i had to stop to fix; the knackering feeling of these fast, technical descents always makes it hard for me to enjoy them fully; and by the time we started the (1300m) final climb, temps were in the 30s and it was getting tough.
throughout, my mantra was just to stay controlled and never push myself into the red. i think i more or less accomplished that: ate well, kept HR below 160, and was able to feel like i was mostly enjoying myself and the day.
rode a bit under 4:20, with 197watts avg and 221 NP.
mtn bike:
i felt good about hopping on to the MTB; i'd ridden the course previously and knew exactly what to expect. i had road shoes on my MTB, so really all i had to to in T2 was to put on my camelback and run out.
it's immediately into a 10% grade and you more or less hold that for a bit over a vertical kilometer. at a couple of points i stopped at farmer's water troughs to soak my kit and cool off. i tried to keep at my 100g/hour plan, but was also adding water at this point and a bit of caffeine. i only had to dismount for a moment on a 50m stretch of 25%+ loose stuff, which felt good.
the descent i knew would be a place i'd give up some time, but it went worse than i'd hoped. the issue wasn't my skill/daring, but mechanicals - shortly into the descent my saddle rattled itself loose. i hopped off to fix it and was on my way. a short while later, during the only technical section, disaster: snapped my (carbon) seatpost. i stared at it for a while and then . . . shoved it down into the frame a bit and carried on. finally, near the end of the descent, the saddle rattled loose again. one more stop to fix it and then onto the flats toward T4. all told the mechanicals cost me something like 10-15 minutes, but helped to cool my rotors as well.
average (average!) temperature was 30 degrees for this leg, and it was a grind. no power meter on my MTB, but it was about 2:25, and an average of 135 bpm. i handed off my MTB and was happy to be rid of it.
still, i felt OK about starting to run and was still in pretty good spirits. a nice quick transition, and then . . .
run:
into the run, my main goals were to run stechelburg-lauterbrunnen, and winteregg-murren. otherwise, the goal was to keep moving.
i actually ran strong out of T3, and felt excited to be running. i was struggling to get soft flasks into my running pack, which was annoying the hell out of me, but overall it was nice to be on the hoof. my HR was surprisingly high, but legs were strong. after 5k of solid pace we immediately began the grinding. i opted to powerwalk the uphill to winteregg, but noticed that at that gradient and heat, my HR was still plenty high walking.
it was on the first big stretch of climbing that i started to feel my belly going off. gassy, and not feeling much like eating. i resigned myself to it and - like all of us, eventually - switched to coke. the powerwalking uphill continued and i was consistently able to run the (brief) flat sections. the crowds through murren were amazing - a car-free village where we run straight down the main street in full view of the beautiful peaks.
after that, things got worse. my mood deteriorated a bit and clearly the odd cup of coke wasn't enough for the effort of climbing a 3000m peak. i never stopped walking, but the negative thoughts crept in and it felt like more of a slog. at times it was scrambling hands and feet up the rock and my internal monologue was a bit tortured by that point. 11 hours in! throughout it all my legs always felt good - never cramped or anything - but the tank was completely, completely empty. eventually, my bloody-mindedness won out and i shambled (nervously) the final exposed ridgeline to the end in something like 12:45. i was absolutely done.
avg HR 126, avg pace 10:55, average power 226. despite the altitude the average temp was 25, and the total gain was a little over 2km.
that's that! i benefitted a lot from the advice i got from duncan shea-simmonds, jan van berkel, and gordo byrn. but above all i absolutely couldn't have done it without my wife. the logistical load on her was huge, running two toddlers around on trains/gondolas/busses and then mopping me up at the summit. you really, really can't do this stuff alone.
recovery so far is strangely fine - had a great swim on monday and fine little run tuesday - maybe the lack of descending helps!
the post-race video has some cool images, and it's pretty great of them to turn it around in a few days!
____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan
http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/