Berlin 70.3 Ironman

Ironman 70.3 Berlin, a bitter sweet experience. 

Following my marathon I just didn’t have the time I wanted to train for this event. For once not due to injuries but a never ending line of work commitments and a family holiday. My total bike mile building up to the event was 180km, which as those who do these sort of things will know is somewhat short of a weekends training schedule, let alone the entire schedule. However every cloud has a silver lining, I have no real expectations and I was just going to enjoy a long weekend with my best mate in what turned out to be an amazing city. 

Forecast was 24 deg, cloud and windy. Reality was clear blue skies, probably 27 deg and very windy. 

My wave is last to go and my plan is to swim behind the lead group, draft and do as little as possible, I could go quicker but the 4ish minutes I may gain will probably cost me 10+ on the bike. 1900m and 32 mins later I’m out of the water in 14^th (Category Place).  

On to the bike which was 3 x 30km loops mainly around a disused airfield, not very interesting and no shelter from the wind which is building steadily. It was hard and painful, made worse by getting a 4 minute penalty for drafting which I had to take in the ‘naughty box’ in front of the hundreds of spectators. I have to admit to not fully understanding the rules on this one but I was in the middle of a group of 15+ cyclist all overtaking each other, why I got pulled out I have no idea. I would hate to think it was because of my Union Jack seat!  

90km and 2.49 of cycling and I’m in transition 2, probably in about 60^th place, looking for my run bag which seems to have gone walkabout.  

Bag finally found, I start the run believing that I could break 5 hours (excluding penalty), I’ve just got to cover the 21 and a bit Km in less than 1.33. I’m well on target until about 10km and then the dreaded wall, which I managed to avoid at London, hits me full on (on reflection I think it was actually dehydration as I drank much less than I’d thought I had on the bike). I keep pushing but know it has slipped away and cross the line in 5.05 finishing in 31^st and second Brit in my category. 25minutes quicker than I had expected but just 1 minute over breaking the 5 hour barrier in terms of time taken. Gutted! 

There is vague chance I could qualify for the World’s in Las Vegas, they have allocated quite a few slots and being one of the last races a lot of the top athletes have already qualified. As they read the names out, they get to the last slot and there is only one person ahead of me, is he here, does he want it? Of course he is and of course he want is! So I miss out on a Las Vegas trip by 38 seconds and one place – or one stupid penalty. I’m not bitter. 

‘BUST’ (I’m guessing this is the opposite of BOOM Andy).  Still a great event and on reflection I did a lot better than expected.

Picture Caption…Oh the fun! (PPP equals PPP)

Jeremy.