The short story: Back in London after the Zurich Ironman on Sunday 27th I still think that completing an Ironman is a bucket-list-kinda-thing, but like most items on the bucket list you are supposed to do them once and then never again. I completed the 3.86k swim / 180k bike & marathon run in 11h12min which was much better than I hoped for. The location was great [beautiful bike course], the organisation perfect and Georg & I were very lucky to have awesome support all along the course. But I really struggled swimming in a crowd of 2’500 extremely competitive athletes all let lose at roughly the same time onto a 100meter beach & my stomach was pretty upset about the 2am breakfast followed by the unhappy mix of ‘macadamia nut / isotonic drink / coke / clif bars / soup / crisps / gummies / bananas / oranges’ during the race. In hindsight, I enjoyed the preparation way more than the big day. While this is rather cheesy, I found it was about the journey than crossing the line at the end of the blue carpet.

Robin [who is planning to start his trip around the world with a 1’100km bike ride Zurich to Hamburg] took some great photos of Georg & me, and you can see how the mood changed during the course of the race: http://wobin.ch/iron-man-2014-zurich/

Thank you loads for all your support & donations! Having raised more than £3k & having glimpsed at the front page of the newspaper on Sunday morning definitely prevented me from giving up early in the race.

Basil

    

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The long story

Overall:           11:12:06          [to put this in context: the winning time was 08:33!]

Position:          #693                of ~2’500 athletes

Swim:              01:25:12         

Transition 1:    00:06:01

Bike:                05:25:44

Transition 2:    00:08:01

Run:                04:07:08

In the run-up to the race I felt reasonably confident/ready, but I started getting nervous about my bike. It was rather silly of me to start playing around with the front derailleur 2 days before the race, so in an attempt to fix my tampering I tried to find a mechanic who could undo what I had done, luckily with less than 24h to go, the third mechanic i explained the problem to fixed it for me [at the very reasonable cost of CHF 25 & a bottle of Chateau Pontet-Canet]. In the afternoon we had to go and ‘check-in’ our bike and transition bags & we headed back home for a carbo loading fest on Saturday night heavy on bread, sweet potato, pasta & fruit. The fest continued throughout the night for me, as I couldn’t get back to sleep after waking up @ 1am, so I had my first ‘breakfast’ @ 1.30am followed by a second helping of sweet potato, focaccia & pasta @ 3am. Something to be said for a guilt free attack on the fridge.

Back at the shore of Lake Zurich before the break of dawn feeling very queasy we realised very quickly that most other athletes were in ‘race mode’ and very different from the crowd you would encounter at an average Olympic distance Triathlon in the UK. They definitely took the ‘Ironman is an individual sport’ from the race briefing a touch too seriously [case in point: there was only one guy of 2’500 doing it in fancy dress]. I made the strategic mistake of placing myself in the first row at the swim start in the naïve hope of just swimming away from the pack in wave 2. Right. That clearly did not happen. I swam off way too fast, ran out of breath, started breast striking and then the inevitable ‘lets check out the rest of the field’ moment: I look over my shoulder and see 1’300+ athletes swimming towards me [somewhat faster than me]. This was my first and only moment of ‘what the hell was I thinking? This isn’t for me. No shame in quitting. These people are mad’ was right there, after less than 500meters of swimming.

I arrived in the Transition area after 1h25, which was much slower than I expected [my Agoraphobia clearly did not help me swim in a straight line from buoy to buoy], but luckily I didn’t know my time as I decided not to wear a watch for the first bit. Changed into cycling gear, lost my sunglasses along the way and hopped on my bike [there was no sun all day & they were ridiculous looking super serious cycling sunnies, so not a loss from either function or fashion point of view]. I was keen to make up for lost time, went fast on the first flat 30k, clocked a 36km’h average, eat lots and for the first time during the race did I feel that I was going to enjoy the day. I enjoyed the uphill sections way more than the downhills [mostly because all these guys flying past me @ breakneck speeds made me think ‘definitely blue steel, not Ironman’], but think I had a big smile on my face for most of it. Finishing the bike leg in under 5h30 was much better than I anticipated & I got changed into running gear.

Feeling euphoric and starting the run way at way too confident a pace [5min/km for the first 12km] was one of 3 mistakes. The other 2 were: not to figure out the food thing properly [my stomach responded to the eclectic mix of food & drink with stomach cramps] & having seedsofpeace.org printed on a budged t-shirt rather than something that wouldn’t get soaked and cling to me. Much like at the Jerusalem Marathon, it felt like the locals were either indifferent to the event or slightly annoyed @ the hassle / bewildered @ why anyone would do this. But the support from the athletes friends and family was brilliant. Lina jumping up and down like a mad woman and running alongside me put a huge smile on my face every time. Do you remember the really annoying plastic vuvuzelas that were popular @ the last Football World Cup? Mini versions of them were handed out to supporters. The combination of children competing ‘who can make more noise’ & adults with various sizes cowbells did surprisingly not make up for the fact that I could not listen to my own music on the run.

The alcohol-free beer right after the finishing line tasted like the best thing ever, and the hot shower 5 minutes later was pure bliss. And I guess this is what an event like this does: In pushing your boundaries you reset the definition of normal. I am grateful for having been able to prepare/compete & finish this event, for having a wife that accepts the crazy in me that decides to sign up to these things and supports me so unconditionally & very happy to be able to cross IronMan off my bucket list. I still like endurance events and races push you closer to your limit than just doing crazy stuff on your own, but my next event will have to be much smaller with a more collegiate crowd. Fellowship amongst athletes is what makes events like these truly memorable, while seeing the guy on the bike in front of you urinate a-la-Tour-de-France while riding leaves a hint of ‘get-a-life’ aftertaste.  

Safe to say you won’t receive a fundraising email from me anytime soon J

The original story

First off: Sorry for yet another of my fundraising pages & although i am sure i have bored you to tears with Seeds of Peace many times already, please check out their work on www.seedsofpeace.org . 

Georg & I thought it was a good idea to sign up for the IRONMAN in Zurich this summer. And it looks like we totally underestimated the prep needed for this.  

My first real wake-up call came when i was talking to the spinning-instructor after my first 60mins on spin bike in the first week of January: I had no answers to simple questions such as: 'what bike are you riding?' [Dont have one yet] & 'How long was your longest bike ride?' [Dunno, maybe 15k?]

Am sure there are many more obstacles along the way, but my plan [for now] looks like this: 

2nd March: Run the 'Semi de Paris' in 1h35 [finished in 1h28, a little proud of that] 

21st March: Run the Jerusalem Marathon in 3h30 [finished in 3h48, hmmm] 

11th May: Financial Times London Cycle Sportive Medium Route [104km] in 4h [finished in 3h27 ole!] 

1st June: Complete the PruHealth World Triathlon London in 2h45 [finished in 2h22]

20th July: Complete the Cotswolds Olympic Distance Triathlon in 3h [finished in 2h22 again!]

27th July: Complete the Zurich Ironman in 13h [completed in 11h12]

12th October: Run London Royal Parks Half in 1h30

So please support me as i kick my own a55 through this. Merci