My first Ironman
After riding 800km in the Smiddy Pyrenees charity bike challenge, with more than 12000m of climbing in five days, most people would consider having a break. A long break. Not so for Katrina Cousins – two weeks after her Pyrenees challenge, she decided she would participate in her first Ironman.
What’s an Ironman?
For those you do not know what an Ironman is, it’s the ultimate long distance triathlon challenge which involves the following – 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and 42.2km run (marathon). By the way, you only have 17 hours to complete this. The first Ironman was held at Kona, Hawaii, in 1978. Folklore has it that a swimmer, rider and runner were debating which was the toughest sporting discipline and decided to design their own challenge to find out. Whether or not this is true, Kona is the mecca of Ironman challenges.
Ironman Zurich
What made me sign up to my first Ironman? His name is Mark ‘Sharky’ Smoothy, the head coach at my triathlon club (UQ Triads) and founder of the Smiddy charity. He had entered into his 35th Ironman in Zurich and thought I should do so as well. Unfortunately for me, he had caught me on a good day. To be perfectly honest I had been considering to partake in an Ironman challenge in 2012, I train with a number of Ironman triathletes and the Smiddy 2011 Brisbane to Townsville challenge had made me think I could do it – the bike section anyway.
To put you in the picture of why this may not have been my smartest decision, I have only participated in five official triathlons before signing up for Ironman Zurich. I hadn’t even done a half Ironman or run a marathon. My secret weapon was determination (and a coach). For the last seven months I have been steadily increasing my training schedule, with my peak training weeks being over 20 hours or roughly 10km of swimming, 300km of riding and 40km of running. I had no life but I was fit.
Pre-race jitters
The lead up to my first Ironman was not the usual one. I had done the Pyrenees challenge and then stayed on in France to climb some more Cols, one being Alpe d’Huez with Phil Anderson and the other was Col du grand Colombier to catch stage 10 of the Tour with only four days to the race. Once we arrived in Zurich, the Ironman challenge was starting to get real and the nerves and doubts slowly crepted in. Also I was panicking in my practice swims due to inexperience with swimming in a wetsuit. What the hell did I get myself into?
I registered and received my bag with timing chip, swimming cap and race rules. Everyone racks their bike before race day and I spent the rest of the pre race day going over my race gear at least four or 10 times – swimsuit, wetsuit, googles, swim cap, bike clothes, bike shoes, gloves, helmet, socks, run gear, sneakers, cycle computer, heart rate monitor and ride nutrition (six gels, five bars, one protein shake). If I could, I’d put a strong espresso in there as well.
Race day
I got about five hours sleep before waking at 3:50am. I had my usual breakfast of muesli and strong coffee. As the swim doesn’t start till 7am, you have plenty of time to digest solid food. I took the excellent Zurich public transport to the race start, Landistasse, which is on the west side of the lake. Over night the weather had turned and was now lightly raining. I had a bit of chat with a fellow competitor Emily, also competing in her first Ironman, and then slowly made my way to the swim start. I caught up with fellow Pyrenees Smiddy riders – Sharky and ‘bad boy’ Jonny and Sharky’s friends – Marto and Watto. Typically in an Ironman swim start, all competitors set off at the same time. That’s over 1800 people swimming at once. This is also my worst nightmare. We wished each other well and took our advantage points. Mine being with the female competitors on the left side of the jetty. With Swiss punctuality, we were racing right on 7am.
The swim
As soon as I started to swim, I knew I was fine and just made my way to the left of the swim pack and tried to maintain my own free space. The water was a barmy 20.8 degrees, it was slightly clear and I watched out for the vicious swans that I had been warned about. The 2012 swim section of Zurich involved one 3/4 leg of a square, before we existed out of the water and over the island to be chip checked, and back into the water to compete one triangle leg within the same square. If this doesn’t make sense then look at the race map. I existed the water 1:24:44 after the start and yelled out a massive "woo hoo". I hate the swim. In transition, I had to made my way to the change room as I had decided to ride in a bike suit. Somehow I lost 10 minutes by changing and going to the loo.
The bike
The bike leg is my time to shine. I love the bike but I am a true cyclist and there are no time trial bars, time trial helmet (which I call the sperm helmet) or carbon rims for me. Also I can’t afford this stuff as I was holidaying in Switzerland! I came out of transition and onto the main road which leads into the centre of town and onto the east side of the lake. The bike leg of Zurich is a two lap loop which include two climbs on the east side, one named "the beast", and one minor climb on the west side called "heartbreak hill"and involves over 500 spectators cheering you on. There are 5 aid stations within the one loop and various sections have local spectators. A competitor will consistently hear the chant "hopp, hopp, hopp", "super" and "bravo". Along the course there were also cows in the paddock, several brass bands, men with lieder hasten carrying big cow bells and the Lindt Chocolate Factory – we were riding through a postcard setting.
The bike leg was "super" until the big black clouds broke around the 45km mark. I now had to ride the rest of the 135km soaked. The main thing in the bike leg is to find the balance between going at a race pace which you can maintain but will still allow you to do a marathon off the bike. You also have to eat at the right time. Too much will slow you down, too little will put you in the red zone or "bonk". I tried to maintain a 30km/hr average but got away with 27km and finished the bike leg within 6:25 hours and after five gels, four bars, 1.5 bananas, two cokes, two waters and one protein shake. I still wanted a strong coffee!
The marathon
As I said before, I have never done a marathon but I had trained well and have run 42km in two days for Warwick Pentath and I wasn’t too worried. I felt relatively fine in transition but as soon as I started to run I knew this leg was going to be tough. The first 5km was marked with lower back pain. As the lower back pain subsided it was then replaced by quad cramps at the 13km mark. Now an experienced triathlete might initially rest and try to contain the cramp. After nine hours of racing, I was not capable of rational thought. My thought was to keep on running and hope that the pain would go. Guess what, it didn’t.
The run section of the Zurich Ironman is 4 laps of a twisting and turning run course that would make any GPS product do backflips. To ensure that you actually do these converlutaed laps, competitors are given coloured armbands. This seems harmless enough but you soon get to hate people that a) pass you and b) have more colour arms bands. At the 20km mark and with two arm bands, Jon passes me with four armbands and is only 1km of finishing. I wished him well and kept my true thoughts to myself.
The last 21kms just kept getting slower, And to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t the only one. It was now getting late into the day and it had also started to rain with a smattering of hail. I had to force done the gels every hour and was now craving anything savoury. Why don’t they make curry flavoured gels?? On the last run turn, I realised I wouldn’t go sub 13 hours. Damn my transition fluffing around. I came into the main arena with my four armbands at just under 13:10:00. I made it look like a strong finish and crossed over the line and welcomed the fact I could start to walk now instead of run. I got my towel and medal whilst being wrapped in the tinfoil sheet. I then caught up with Marto and Watto’s lovely wife’s who took a photo of my finish before I made my way into the athletes tent for some savoury pasta. I then had a hot shower and massage.
What’s next?
I had 5 hours of running pain to seriously think about why people do Ironmans. I concluded that these people were truly insane and maybe I didn’t belong here. Then after the race I caught up with Sharky, Marto and Watto. We shared our pain and started to talk about what we would do next. Mostly it was about sleeping and eating. We also laughed and just enjoyed the moment of finishing and becoming an Ironman (or Ironperson). After recovering in Zurich for two days (may I add that the weather in Zurich was exceptional EXCEPT for race day), I was slowly coming around to the idea that I might just do another Ironman. However, I might try a half Ironman first!
Next challenege – 70.3 Canberra half 16 Dec 2012.
When not on her bike Katrina Cousins is an environmental consultant. She enjoys a glass of red wine and as a proud Victorian her love of The Bombers has not diminished despite living in Queensland for some time.
