Race report 70.3 Ironman Geelong – how to race for fun

The race here in Geelong was always supposed to be the ‘easy going’ race. The race that wouldn’t matter too much, the race that would define my new base fitness and most of all, the race that was supposed to be a a lot of fun and that I should enjoy more than anything else. But how do you define enjoyment?

Enjoyment is personal I guess and for me being  competitive is definitely part of it. Or like Sven Kramer states it: ‘It’s about having fun, and I’m having fun when I’m winning.’ So taking Geelong 70.3 as an easy race seemed like an easy task, but when race day approached and we arrived in Geelong it got harder by the minute. When I saw the event being build up, the banners hanging everywhere and all the other athletes in town doing some last minute work outs, I simply couldn’t help myself but getting competitive. I started scribbling down some possible split times, studied the course more than I should and looked at last years result list to see what would be possible. This was kind of a reality check. The Ozzies are in the middle of their racing season and fit as hell. Even in top shape a very good ranking would be hard here, let alone in this kind of state of ‘ base level fitness’ (read; a nice number of easy going training hours -but more cups of iced coffee with whipped cream).

So, with no top ranking or PB in the cards I discussed a race plan with my coach Chris that would be challenging, but also realistic and definitely wouldn’t injure me or mess anything up in the build to more important races; I would start at a decently fast swim pace, bike conservatively at 220Watts average and run at a pace of around 4:20 per km.

Swim

The swim course in Geelong was a nice one. It was a triangle shape swim with only three turns. The first and last part were pretty sheltered in a harbor kind of place, the middle part was more like ‘open sea’. I was kind of confident I would have a good swim. I didn’t swim a whole lot since we had been on the road pretty much every day, but I did get some decent sessions in in Adelaide and Melbourne and my practice swims on the course (in wetsuit for the first time since Ironman Maastricht in August 2016) felt good. I was confident that I could go sub30 minutes without beating myself up too much.

Ehhh. Wrong. The swim was a shit show from start to finish. For some great reasons (which I don’t get) the organization had my age group Male 30-34 start as the final wave. Right after Male 55+ and Female 45+. This meant huge crowds on the course that we had to pass, since these groups do have a lot of relatively weak swimmers. Being in the final start wave also meant we started almost 45 minutes later than the Pro’s. This is not a big deal normally, but it was now; winds got stronger by the minute and by the time that we were out on the unsheltered part of the swim course the waves were big. I do not mean choppy. I mean waves. The combination with a lot of weaker swimmers in front of us was unfortunate. Quite a few of them were out there on the course, not even swimming, and just trying to orientate on the right direction all the time.

Due to the tough circumstances, but just as much because of very irregular swim training for weeks, I never found rhythm in the swim and saw a disappointing time of 32:40 on my watch when I finally finished the 1900m. Little did I know that none of the eventual top10 in my age group swum sub30…..

Bike

The bike course consisted of two laps of 45k. There were 2 short climbs per lap and a lot of exposed, open section in which the wind would be very present. Once on the bike I didn’t worry about my swim time (or overall time for that matter) any longer. I remembered myself that time was not so relevant this race and quickly I started to really enjoy myself out there. Every cyclist knows this feeling; You ride out in the open and it feels as if there is no wind at all. Your speed is nice and you know that there must be some tailwind, but it cannot be too much, right? You’re just having a good day. Until you make the turn. Bam. Full on headwind. This was exactly what happened here. The course was basically 50% soft-pedaling, and 50% full gas to even get the Garmin showing speeds of 30km/hr. Because I didn’t want the average speed to drop too much I decided to skip the soft-pedaling in the second round and held decent watts. For the total bike leg I rode much more Watts than planned; 243 avg. This was only good for 35,2km/hr avg so I guess I was out of aero position too much, and it was kind of a tough course after all. I must say I felt the ride in my legs while entering transition. Halfway in the second round we got some harsh rains as well and my body felt kind of cold. I didn’t feel really bad when I got of my bike, but I doubted that I could keep the projected run pace of 4:20 per km easily….

    

Run

The nicest part of the Geelong 70.3 course is the run. A two loop, scenic run through the harbor with awesome views. I ran the course in the week before the race and really liked it. It wasn’t completely flat (actually there was one pretty nasty hill in it), but it was a fast course.

I really like Ironman run courses. It is a cool feeling running on blocked main roads, and the crowds always make me run a little faster. This was no different this race. From the moment I ran out of transition I felt good. I always need a couple of kms to find rhythm, but after like 10km or so I started to realize that there was more in the tank than just running 4:20 per km. The body was fully warmed up now and I evaluated the risk of messing something up when going faster as very small. I decided to go for it. I checked my watch and saw that if I could increase the pace I could both run a sub 1:30 half marathon and finish in sub 4:45 as well. I liked it. I started running 4:10kms and this still was easy. Ok, let’s go 4:05. This pace felt very good. It was comfortably hard but I was absolutely flying by everybody that was on the course. I guess this is a benefit of being in the final startwave…. I passed a couple of guys from my own Agegroup as well and finished with a big smile on my face in 4:41 (10th in my AG) and a 1:28:30 half marathon!

 

Geelong was an awesome race. It was extremely well organized, and although the weather was kind of bad being Australian summer, it was super nice to race in Oz! I enjoyed the race and the whole ‘ training and racing for fun thing’ and love to continue this while traveling in New Zealand. Fitness wise I’m further than I thought I was and I’m very confident and excited to continue the build towards top shape for Ironman Barcelona 70.3 in May!