After my debut in Ironman distance races last year in IM Florida with a 7th place, I was really looking forward to do a another Ironman this season to find out what was my progress. My goal for this race was to get a better classification than in IMFL and get another slot for Hawaii, but this time to bring it to Portugal 
I travelled to the US on August 18th for the Timberman Triathlon in New Hampshire. There weren’t any races going on here and me and my coach thought it would be a good race to finish the last cycle of hard training before IMMOO. After my 5th place at Timberman I flew to Madison WI on the 24th where I meet my first host Sheila Barmore, a wonderful person, that hosted me for a few days and arranged me homestay for the remaining days very close to her home.
Sheila showed me the IMMOO bike loop the next day in a ride, and my first impression was that this course really drains your energy, the typical “rompe piernas” as the Spanish call it.
After a few days at Sheila’s, I went to Charlie and Dotty Ricker’s place, where I stayed most of my stay in Madison. I had more free time now that I was tapering so Dotty and Charlie showed me around the greater Madison area, which was very nice and kept my mind away from thinking about the race. Finally the Schuppe´s (Brenda and Scott) were my last host family for the race.
Being there for such a long time gave me a chance to really know the bike course and I did lot of brick workouts around the bike loop. That was a good advantage for me since with so many twists and turns, up and down, it’s nice to know what comes next.
My race day started as usual with a small meal at 4 am followed by a “put race nutrition together” session. Sheila picked me up at 5am with some other guys (John, Jay, Peter Kotland and kattie) and we went to the race site. When I arrived I remembered that I had forgot my most important tool for Ironman racing, not my wetsuit, not the googles, not the chip, it was my HRM chest strap that I forgot back home! I was completed stressed for doing such a stupid thing but Sheila came to my rescue and told me that she would get me one for the race. So I went to the transition area to pump the tires, drop the special needs bag, etc and hope that my chest strap could be in its place on time. Fortunately Sheila got back in time with the strap so I gave her a huge hug before entering the water for a warmup. The morning was fine, it was a bit warm for that particular time of the day which could mean that it would be a hot day.
Before the start every pro athlete was trying to get a good spot and I could only hear “back off guys, back off, behind my shoulder and the yellow buoy!!!” and then coming from nowhere… BANG, the race started!
My swimming is much better than last year and I was feeling well in the first lap, just some abdominal pain but nothing serious. In the beginning of the second lap I saw in my left hand side a blue cap meaning that Petr Vabrousek was just there at my side which meant that I was indeed having a good swim. I was swimming at his side after the two turning points when coming from nowhere, BANG I had a close encounter with a slow swimmer. From then on I never saw Petr again until late on the race. I had a great swim anyway, 54:18 and 44th place overall was a huge improvement compared to the time I did in IMFL. It was transition time and a long one, coming up from water to the 4th floor to the transition area through the helix was long, and I took almost five minutes to complete the transition and it was one of the fastest T1 times.
Onto the bike and after coming down the helix again I was in the middle of some age groups and the odd bike path that we had to go through was a bit narrow for so many cyclist (I wonder what happened when the bulk of the pack went trought it). I tried to bring my heart rate down in the first minutes of the ride and at minute 15 I started pumping calories and water. I felt great in the beginning of the ride and was passing a lot of guys but there were some crazy AG’ers that were way too fast for the beginning of the ride, but that was only for some kms. By the time I reached Verona (the start of the 1st loop) I had Andreas Wolpert close to me and I asked if he knew the time for the front guys and he replied “ too much for us” and I laughed a bit with him. By the middle of the first loop I was already riding alone somewhere in 15th place when I got my first split of the day when a guy in the middle of the crowd and apparently well informed told me that I had 10 minutes to the front guy (which I thought was Jonas Colting). I was loosing too much time but I was still feeling very strong so I didn’t panick and was still passing some guys time to time especially on the hardest climbs. By the end of the first loop i took one split on my HRM and it showed me 1h:46m which was a good pace for me. By that time I was riding 11th overall and went through the awesome Verona crowd, that makes you feel like you’re riding a Tour de France stage. At the start of the second loop I passed Jared Berg and a few km later Chukie V. By that time I thought that I was riding a bit too hard since I was riding already in the top10 and my gap to the front didn’t grow too much (13 minutes) according with the splits I had, but I was feeling very very well so I sticked with my new race plan that was riding a bit more aggressively on the bike rather than my initial one that was riding easy and running fast. I started laping some AG that made a bit more difficult to see if someone is right ahead of you. I finished my 2nd loop in 1h:46m witch was the same as the first one but with a bit more windy conditions.
In the start of the last back section I started to see someone riding in front of me and I was gaining time very quickly. When I went by him I was able to see that it was Petr Vabrousek. I tought that this was DA man to run the marathon with. I went by him but when I looked back he wasn’t even close so I kept going to the transition. Up the helix again and I really blazed trough the T2 in 1m:39s feeling great for the run. I finished the bike in 4:49 (for a course with 1800 meters of elevation gain) wich was about 5-10 minutes faster than what I had in mind, now was the time to see if the new plan paid off.
I started to run feeling very well and was running with Jan Strangmuller for a couple miles when he dropped back, at the same time Petr Vabrousek catched up to me and we started running together. It was a bit hot (around 85F from what I was told) but it was fine for me. Petr was getting splits from his czeck coaches and was translating them to me so I knew that we were gaining time on Harju very quickly. At the turnaround points I had som small cramps so I ran a bit slower to recover and was always able to get back to Petr. I ran almost the 1st half marathon with Petr but I started to fade before half way point when he started to run away from me. I was still running well but I knew that that would change in a few miles, it really started to hurt around mile 18 when I had the feeling that if I did a different movement other than the normal running I would have a cramp. With about ¼ marathon to go I had to answer a call from mother nature, probably 1-1:30 was lost but I knew that I was safe in third place and I would never get back to 2nd. Last miles I was really exausted and only heard someone yell “go Sergio” “go Portugal” coming from the huge crowd but I was too focused in getting to the line. I just had no energy left in the line no even for a smile for the great result I had just accomplished. I finished the marathon in 3:00.31 and the race in 9:00.30 in 3rd place. I went straight to the medical tent where I laid down for some time before going to the anti doping control.
I stayed in the race site almost till the end waiting for all my friends to arrive and chating with some other athletes and when I got home and tried to sleep the best I could do was about 2 hours. The next day I went to Menona Terrace again to get my slot and to the awards banquet. I’m extremely happy to be the first Portugues qualified for Kona in the Pro category and one of the few that raced Ironman Hawaii.
I would like to thank everyone who helped me during my stay in USA. Hasan Duymazlar (back in NH), Sheila Barmore (the Homestay captain!), Charly and Dotty Ricker, Brenda and Scott Schuppe, all my hosts that did everything possible to get me to the starting line in my best shape. Thanks guys, you were incredible!
Also my sponsors, Profile Design, Fuel Belt, Renn Multisport, Rudy Project and Tufo tires. And my supporters, Gold Nutrition, Xterra wetsuits, Hypoxico and Masil.
Finally the guys from my team back home that were glued to their computers watching the race all day, for their support during training and for being my friends. Especially smartasscoach for telling me for the past 3 years that stuff like this was possible, and that after every good race tells me “This is only the beginning…”.
Now I´ll take a short vacation, 2-3 weeks, and then it’s back to training to prepare one of my dreams when I started triathlon back in 2001: Racing Ironman Hawaii
Sergio Marques
