Race report Ironman 70.3 Switzerland

Triathlon Forum
1

Since I asked you to guess my time (http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=5081086;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread ), I feel I owe you a report, here you go:

Here is the short summary of the race.
Swim 28.27
Bike 2.30.03
Run 1.29.48

Total: 4.34.53

Here the longer version
Lead up:
Saturday went to do the bike check-inn and registration. Also brought my wetsuit to do a short swim and get used to the water temperature (61 F), find some sighting targets etc. Luckily I happened to be there when the official course reconnaissance started so I joined. We swam about 1k, stopping about five times for various tips and tricks. I noticed I was always towards the front of the pack, so I decided I will get to the front line in the race as well. This somehow calmed me down a lot.

Evening went well, I slept ok, little trouble falling asleep but didn’t except anything else. Got up at 5, ate, took my bags and drove to Rapperswil.

It was incredibly beautiful morning, from top of the hill, the views down to river valley covered in light fog, the snowcapped alps colored red by the rising sun, air still, felt really lucky for quite a few things in my life.

Got to the site, almost had some feared parking trouble, but managed to convince a guy to let me in the press/vip lot. Went to put bottles on the bike, packed the transition bags and figured out the way to find my bike.

People were lined up 10 long for the bathrooms, the venue is at hockey stadium, so real bathrooms. Seemed to be a problem mainly in men’s bathrooms, so decided to use ladies instead, deposits are rather similar I presume, so should work, right?

Then hung around, eventually putting on race wear and wetsuit. Small warm-up, then some standing around. Listened some mildly amusing jokes about mid-life crisis wave from the announcer and into the water we went. Some 350 of us.

Race:
I positioned myself on the front as planned, threaded water for 5 minutes or so, asked the guy next to me if he could please swim in about 25 minutes so that I could draft him, he answered sure, but I’ll do about 24.

Horn went off, the guy next to me actually went off quite fast, so I decided to follow him, at around 800m I felt he was slowing down and I also felt there was another guy who was going straighter since our distance from him varied quite a bit and he was closer to the buoys. So I decided to switch feet, had to squeeze in a bit, but after that I just followed, nice straight ride, some trouble once we caught up with the previous starting waves but nothing serious. And I have the right to swim over them, right?

Felt like nice comfortable swim and seems like 1.30/100m is really my cruising speed in a wetsuit, it was same in the 50m pool when I tried it few times. Another thing I was really happy with was a neoprene cap, really kept my head warm and comfortable, so I did not feel at all light headed when I got out of the water.

Time: 28.27

Transition was a quite a long hike, I also took my time drying my feet and putting the socks on carefully. Still a bit slow, could be improved.
Time: 4:37

On to the bike, felt really good from the beginning, course was really crowded, so passing lots of people. Noticed heart rate was quite high despite the low effort, likely residuals from swim and transition
.
Pro peloton overtook, they really didn’t hold 10m distances between the bikes, although would be difficult on such crowded course when constantly overtaking. My HR started to come down and we hit the first hill. It is quite steep, I felt good and just cruised it up, really didn’t push at all. People were really struggling, that must be a long day for them…
After a short descent on the next climb 2 more pro’s came past, but just, I was very tempted to follow them, because my pace felt so easy, but decided to keep to my own plan.

Only one lady pro passed me not sure who, I believe it was Ryf (went to do a 4.00.14), she took crazy risks on the descents, at least where she passed me, but I guess that’s her job….

Otherwise quite uneventful, lots of people to pass, lots of really nice bikes (this is Switzerland), towards the end the wind picked up and last 10k was against a really strong wind.

I noticed climbing seems to be my strong suite. I compared my times to the best of my AG and their climbing times were similar or even slower, they mainly gained on the flats. So question of effort I believe, once I get more confidence on the run, I believe it will be possible to follow them more closely.

Time: 2.30.03

Transition went well, the run already felt good there.
Time 1.58

Run started nice, my plan was to aim at 4.30/km pace and slow down if it went below 4.15 and accelerate if above 4.40. Again people were starting fast and going past me, but that did not last very long, after 3k most of those people came back. I felt little tight on the left leg, like a small cramp, but thought it’ll go away, which it quite soon did. I found a tall guy going at 4.30 pace and followed him from 4-8k which was against the wind, then in the small uphill section went past him (asked him how he was doing and never saw him again). Did the stairs, which were fun, no problems.

I thought, I’ll keep to this pace until 15k and then see what I have left. Looking at the splits, didn’t quite work that way, seems like 7.5-14 were my fastest splits, but no big slowdown and kept it under the goal pace all the way.

Steps for the second time were interesting, going up was no problem, but the downhill afterwards felt like on the verge of cramping, but that passed quite quickly, anyhow, interesting to have such rhythm breakers during the run.
There were lots really fast runners in the race, my AG winner did it in 1.13 and some of these people passed me, feels unbelievable people can hold that pace for longer time….

Anyway, I also pushed a bit towards the end and felt strong coming to the finish, really nice race.

Time 1.29.48

That was my first half marathon, so clad I did push in the end, to go under 1.30.

Total: 4.34.53

So that was it, my first real endurance race, really happy about it, now onto bigger and better things. End of August Challenge Vichy, full distance, goal <11h ?

2

Great first race! Congratulations. You should be able to drop that bike split quite a bit and still run well, I think!

3

Funny that the men’s bathrooms were more crowded than the women’s. Again great race though and kudos to you for being able to hold back on the bike.

4

Not bad at all…nice job!!

5

Funny that the men’s bathrooms were more crowded than the women’s. Again great race though and kudos to you for being able to hold back on the bike.

Probably just numbers and womens bathrooms might have more stalls and most people try to take care of the more serious business before the race…

My sub 11h goal didnt seem to elicit much of a response, so lets try this, end of August sub 10h ?

6

What’s the course like? With consistent training sub 11 should be a certainty and sub 10 relatively doable.

7

What’s the course like? With consistent training sub 11 should be a certainty and sub 10 relatively doable.

It should be a fast course, conditions (heat, wind) permitting. it has 25% less total elevation change on the 180km than the 70.3 had in 90km.

I have some nice bike volume planned, like cycling to northern Germany ~1000km in 4 days on the way to summer vacation, then traditional over the Alps day etc… I expect to get total of close to 4000k’s in the next 3 months.

I also have been carefully increasing my run volume during the spring, so I should be able to put more miles in running as well. So far the max has been 1 x 54k/week and 5*<40k / week. This is gain is the biggest weakness, although the half went quite well.

Swimming I am not really worried about, but I will get the standard 4-6k’s per week plus as much OW as I can bear during my vacation (we have a summer house on a lake in Finland). This seemed to be enough to be fop in the quite competitive race (top 2% in AG, top 4% overall including pro’s)

8

Your swim and bike are definitely on track. For the run just try to build up to running 50ish km per week on a consistent basis. You don’t really need so much more than that with the huge aerobic base from all of the cycling but you do have to get used to being on your feet. Maybe just aim for higher frequency, you can easily add a few more k’s by doing short transition runs after biking.

9

Very nice effort! And as to your goal in Vichy (without knowing the exact details on the course), definitely sub-10!!

For your reference I did Rapperswill as well this Sunday in 4:25, had a puncture and three mechanicals, so could maybe have done 4:15 on a cleaner day. Last year I did sub-9 in full Ironman, and plan/hope to do so again in Frankfurt in five weeks… so with 4:31 in Rapperswill you should definitely be able to do sub-10… take it easy on the first 20k run though :wink: And best of luck!

10

Very nice effort! And as to your goal in Vichy (without knowing the exact details on the course), definitely sub-10!!

For your reference I did Rapperswill as well this Sunday in 4:25, had a puncture and three mechanicals, so could maybe have done 4:15 on a cleaner day. Last year I did sub-9 in full Ironman, and plan/hope to do so again in Frankfurt in five weeks… so with 4:31 in Rapperswill you should definitely be able to do sub-10… take it easy on the first 20k run though :wink: And best of luck!

Thanks for the nice reference and sorry for the bad luck.

Unbelievably fast times 4.15 etc…Lots of really fast people out there.

11

Great race. Next time skip the socks for the bike course. So train on the bike without socks. Not sure what the course is like at Challenge Vichy, but that entire region has rolling hills, but I’d still think that sub 11 is easily possible and close to 10 would the a conservative outcome.

12

Great race. Next time skip the socks for the bike course. So train on the bike without socks. Not sure what the course is like at Challenge Vichy, but that entire region has rolling hills, but I’d still think that sub 11 is easily possible and close to 10 would the a conservative outcome.

Really? I’ve done sprints without socks (also the run). But if I put socks on for the run, I dont really save much time, so what is the idea behind ?

13

You’re feet will likely be dry after the bike. That’s been my experience.