Race Report: Mallorca 70.3

By Hugh Larkin

Well I started this race report on the plane… but as I delayed in finishing it off some other great Mallorca race reports came in so I thought about leaving it for another time… but then as I sit here with one toenail clinging for life and my ham-string feeling like it went one-on-one with a paint-ball gun, I decided they should have their say. Besides, I can’t DNF on a race report of all things!

Prelude

Around April, my mother was emailing my sister in Abu Dhabi saying “It’s been a long winter here”. Ha, she had no idea what a long winter really means … For the 18 Piranhas that had signed up to Ironman 70.3 Mallorca it had been a very long winter of training. Some had never done more than a sprint distance race (Andi), others had never done a triathlon before (Emer, Jenny) and for most it would be our first half Ironman distance race.

Training

Training for most of the group started a little patchy… then panic set it. A training equivalent of a crash course diet as people scrambled to get fit in time for May 10th. While I was determined to do well in the race and throw myself into the 6-day-a-week training, I didn’t want to become super-boring while becoming super-fit so my motto was ‘socialite first, triathlete second’. This meant several things – I was never going to update my FB photo to be a picture of me swimming, running or cycling and I wasn’t going to abandon non-tri friends or postpone my birthday celebrations. Unfortunately this also had the side effect of reducing some of my training (I was beginning to wish I had done more cycling at the weekends), getting a 5-day Achilles injury from attending a pub quiz and turning up for a VO2 treadmill test after a night in the Liquor Rooms and 4 hours sleep. Not pretty. But then other parts of training went well – my random-drinking-bestie told me that she was giving up alcohol for lent so that freed up Monday nights for Pilates and swimming. I was avoiding the bad deep fried foods and the ‘evil’ bread. Good Friday onwards I was an alcohol-free zone so now I was completely focussed on the race.

Down to the last week before Mallorca and the tapering was going well. Hard training was finished and I had started to pack (where “pack” meant a small pile on the living room floor consisting solely of a bike multi-tool and my bike shipping receipt). Unfortunately bad news struck on the Monday when I learnt that a close friend had died after his motorbike struck a car in Wicklow so instead of spending the days leading up to the race getting early nights and drinking water, I was meeting up with friends and celebrating his life with his favourite whiskey. Two days before the race now and instead of being in Mallorca getting acclimatised, I was at a funeral and subsequent festivities for some hard-core grieving. Besides the mandatory drinking at a country funeral, lots of bad food that I had previously judiciously avoided – white bread sandwiches, deep fried cocktail sausages, deep fried breaded chicken goujons. I was going to be carrying all this up the mountains of Mallorca. I did try to take on some of the pre-race advice, for example trying to stay off your feet the days before a race. To this end, I got myself a nice stool by the bar and tried to stay on it for the night. I didn’t even offer it up when I noticed an old friend had walked in the bar and was now pregnant. Previously a party animal she now clearly in a more settled frame of mind, proudly standing there her bump saying, “When are you thinking of giving this a go yourself?”. “What, get you pregnant?” I got a frown that a sober person gives a giddy person. I continued, “Well you look like you’re doing grand as you are but I could always give you a top-up”. A mutual friend scolded me and told me to “stop flirting with the pregnant lady” and swap seats with her.

I flew out the next morning from Cork on one of the three outbound Ryanair flights that I bought – not knowing when I would be free to fly out leading to some sporadic flight purchasing. From Palma our hotel (Astoria Playa, 10 min walk from start line) would provide a free transfer service. However it tends to go around the world making numerous drop offs and considering I was only landing at 2pm, the lovely Team Ro had chipped in to upgrade my bus to a private taxi. Cheers guys! Ironman registration was quick, and I didn’t bother with the mandatory race briefing (everything was in the PDF they sent out). Dinner in the hotel was great – a high standard buffet – would recommend. We all gathered at various times with varying levels of panic-strickness – everything from calm (Anne, Nick, Aileen), nervous (Andi), confident (Bernard, Dara) to panic-stricken (Jenny), tears (Jenny) and throwing tantrums (Jenny).

Buffet dinner in the hotel is above average. The desserts looked fab but given that I was racing the next day, I was unsure if I could have one bowl or two. Seeking nutritional advice, I asked the diners left behind what had Aileen had for dessert from the buffet? Rice pudding. A few bowls of that and we headed off to bed.

Race Day

The girls of the group were in the in the first wave so most of us were still eating breakfast while they headed off. After eating some of Aileen’s left over rice pudding (which wasn’t in the breakfast buffet, but nobody knew where she had gotten it from), the rest of us followed to pump up our tyres – deflated the day before to prevent blow-outs – lots of spare pumps left in transition, so no problem there.

My bike shoes aren’t triathlon shoes – so makes it difficult to slip on with a flying mount… (as the shoe doesn’t properly stay open) but I decide to experiment by selotaping the tongue of the shoe in the underside to hold it open and prevent my foot catching the tongue when I slip my foot in. Was meant to practise this a few times when I got to Mallorca but that never happened. I leave my shoes rubber-banded and selotaped and cross my fingers for a safe mounting.

Swim

My target time was 34 minutes – an average time for Mallorca. A packed start line for an 8:25 start… no swim training could prepare us for the melee … people seemed a little too eager… kicks and punches and a lot of people swimming several different directions – which made sighting harder as you had to sight both the buoys and a route around around people… feeling lazy and unenthusiastic about the swim I let my tendency to go left take over – which isn’t the correct thing for a clockwise swim course (of turning right). Somewhat hypoxic, that along with the rumour that my bike in transition will be replaced by a unicorn, there was a rumour that a mermaid had laid swim hats along the bottom of the swim of the ocean floor (only 1-2 meters below) but I never saw them.

While I can complain that the guys were a bit too punchy in their swim stroke, in the women’s they were pulling on each other’s limbs to get past each other and gain a speed advantage. I guess boys will play rough but girls will play dirty.

Half way through the course and now we were beginning to meet some of the previous wave members (that went into the water at 8:15)… some of whom appeared to be doing the breaststroke, one girl (from the 8am wave) was just stopped… I never quite figured it why but she didn’t appear to be in any distress.

Exiting the water – I see a 34 (coming 322 / 461) on my watch – I was quite surprised I managed to keep to that time… Later I saw I had done a 2.05km swim – must focus harder on the next race… 150m could be 3 minutes off my time. Up the corridor, plenty of support, I hear one girl shout out “Go Sexy Hugh”, and we both get a laugh out of it.

Bike

Grabbing my bike, I run barefooted with shoes attached to the bike. Doing a flying mount my selotaped shoes go on well first time and unrehearsed. My target power is 190 W (81% of FTP) and target time is 2:50 (from BestBikeSplit.com). Given that the girls had gone in one wave at 8am, most of them would have a 25 head start on the bike. It proved to be a very sociable system – blokes will (on average) be faster cyclists so over the course of the cycle, you’ll get to meet most of the girls. Add on the fact that everyone had their race numbers on with name and country – there was plenty to talk about – and obviously the most banter every time I met an Irish girl. On the ascent I befriend a Thomas from the UK who was going at a similar pace to myself and grand aul chats ensue… He tells me about his ex Jessica that’s also doing it and sure enough we meet her about 10 minutes later. Thomas has climbed the mountain before so was able to advise me on the false tops and the “true” top at the Repsol Petrol Station – handy to have someone en route when you arrived too late to do the recce yourself. On to the descent and I’ve watched videos on YouTube on how to descend – things like following the line of where you want to go with your head and watching the cyclist in front of you to help gauge a corner. As Thomas has done these downhill switch-backs before I suggest he go on and I’ll follow. We weave through 4 or 5 turns together, but the next one proves a bit more difficult. There’s already another cyclist on the corner taking it wide & slow and I follow Thomas’s tight racing line into the same corner. He brakes first and I start to break, he starts to skid and sure enough I start to skid too. Thomas starts to go off the road (luckily one of the few that had a forest on the other side – all the rest were big drops), I release my rear brakes and just about manage to get around the corner without (mostly) colliding with the other cyclist. I look behind to shout “Are you OKAY?” as I watch Thomas weave between the trees. I turn my attention back to the road in front. My new BFF is gone forever.

Steep descent with switchbacks taken a bit slower, the course takes a new route for 2014. Around a town and down some very Irish looking roads… followed by what we nicknamed San Francisco hill. Look out for a left turn with an immediate steep ascent. Stand up on your pedals and take it – it’s only 30 seconds long (if even). Now onto the flats, and perhaps an hour to go… a bit of wind picks up and my right ham string starts to throb in pain. This has only ever happened during track work (never during a cycle), and the physio had prescribed a number of strengthening exercises to combat it – all of which I had neglected in the last week. Another possible cause is that I had never spent that much time down on the aero bars before… (which puts a strain on your ham string in theory?). When you ride in groups you rarely ride in aero, so the extra untrained strain on the ham string may have caused this. Lessons learnt are to spend more time in aero position and don’t give up your physio exercises. Every 6 or 7 revolutions I give a little yelp of pain as the pain turns sharp. Quitting the race after I get back from the bike section goes through my mind several times. A friend had texted me the mantra “Mind strong, body strong” the night before as it helped her through childbirth and I was reciting it now. Coming into the final 5 minutes of the bike I try standing on the pedals to relieve the pressure and it gives some temporary relief (until I sit back down) although I’m pretty sure physio’s would advise never to stretch an injury. T2 couldn’t come quick enough, but I don’t know if I can run.

I brazenly assumed I would get to meet all of the girls except Aileen from our team during the cycle but this wasn’t the case as I couldn’t seem to track down Anne or Jenny… maybe they pulled out I (again) brazenly ponder… Turns out they’re just very good cyclists. I clock in a time of 2:54 at 194 Watts, just 4 minutes behind what I wanted. Division Rank: 257th out of 461.

Run 

I did try one or two calf stretches on the bike before reaching T2, so now it’ll be put to the test. I jump off the bike and laugh at my own inability to run straight or at speed. I’m also a member of a running club so while I’m happy with an average performance until now, this is the section I need to prove myself on. When you explain a half-Ironman to a runner as “1.9km swim, 90k cycle, half-marathon”, all they hear is “blah, blah blah, half-Marathon”. My standing in the club will be measured against my time for the half-Marathon. As my friend has told me, “they [the girls] won’t respect you unless you can beat them”. I think the respect rule is probably opposite for the boys. So now was the time to really push it. Exiting T2, I set my watch to the Virtual Runner mode which is set to a 4:15 min/km pace (it shows you how far ahead/behind of your schedule you are) for a projected race time of 1 hour 30 and kick off. Now I’ve done two half-marathons before, so part of me expects to see the same enthusiasm at the start of the run as I’ve seen in those two races – fresh faces and great comradery all around. I get out onto the course and I’ve never seen such misery before. It’s 28 degrees, 2 minutes past noon and even the outdoor thermometer on the chemist is overheating and showing a reading of 38 C. People are walking at the 1km marker. I reach 3km before things start to go wrong for me. My stomach is sloshing around (even though I only drank according to thirst on the bike) and I want to puke – possibly from the gels which I took – one every 30 minutes. I’m confused as to what has gone wrong here. I’ve taken loads of gels before without any spontaneous bottom explosions, and I had done a number of brick sessions as part of my spin classes. However (and possibly the lesson to be learnt here) I had never done a long bike ride with gels and then gone out running – even though it was on the Dig Deep training plan… I think I was busy that weekend :-\. Or it could be the dehydration causing me not absorb the water (the original plan was to drink loads of water in the week leading up to the event – even when in Ireland).  Or it could have been the previous few days’ festivities.  Or a million other reasons go through my head.

My watch is showing me I’m slipping away from the target time….  But any time I run a little faster I want to puke a little more. I try to keep the spirits up as I finally catch-up on Anne. I have no idea what conversation we exchange as I’m delirious and pukey – I’m sure it was some compliment about my fine fitting tri suit. Going through my head I remembered Percy described the run as 3 laps of 7km…. The first half of the 7km in the sun and the second half in the shade… Sounded simple. One full 7km lap completed and I’m thinking, “where’s that f**king shade Percy???”. DNF goes through my head again and again – this is painful… especially when the watch shows how much you’ve slowed down and your target time is out of your grasp. Second lap in and every water station is a desperate bid to sip a tiny bit of water followed by drenching every part of me as much as possible to cool down. Outside one hotel there’s people with buckets of water who will throw it any on athlete that gives them the nod (which I do at every pass). I’ve also needed to pee for the last 30 minutes but if I stop I may not go on. Given that I’m now wetter than when I came out of the water, I realise that if you pee…. *just* a little bit…. Nobody’s going to notice. Turns out I wasn’t wrong. Memories of childhood come flooding back. 

Third lap in and I have no clue what’s going on. I’ve run past our hotel three times and never even noticed. I’ve run past Petrina’s sister three times and even though we discussed at Pet’s birthday that she’d be there in Mallorca, I don’t recognise the lunatic shaking a Galway flag. My heart-rate should be 165-170 BPM for the run but it’s fallen steadily throughout. I pick up my 3rd lap arm-band and begin desperately looking for the turn off for the finish line. I’ve seen several Ironman finisher-picture-fails and even though I’m delirious & pukey I have the sensibility about me to look good for it… Running up the finisher’s shoot, I take off my sun visor and glasses, stop my watch one second before the line and go across the line looking great.

After being handed my medal I try to walk again and it’s not happening. I do a limpy hobble over to the massage queue. Run time of 1:42 – 186th out of 461 – about 10 minutes slower than what I wanted, but not a DNF (just about).

Overall Time: 5:20:31

It takes a day to recover from the misery of the run so Saturday night out doesn’t really happen, but Sunday night makes up for it. As I look across the dance floor with Jack Daniel’d tinted glasses, not even the worst dance moves can take away from the pride I have for the whole of our pseudo-family that made it to Mallorca. Good luck with the rest of your season guys!

Roth boys… Prepare to be chicked! 🙂