Stafford Tri Forum

Smiler

May 2, 08 - 12:08 PM

Smilers China Ironman Race Report

Smilers China Ironman race report

1 week to go
Arrived in Haikou : weather about 30°C, sunny and slightly windy.

Monday - went out for a 90k ride of the bike course, our guide was the legendary Ken Glah (done Hawaii 23 times as a pro). Course was slightly more rolling and windier than we had been lead to believe to be but all in all a really nice course.

Tuesday – Didn’t do much today, lay by the pool which was fantastic, its 40 metre long and not too cold !! In the afternoon we thought we would try to acclimatise our bodies to the heat so went for a run.

Wednesday – Much of the same, went for our first sea swim which was quite nice, did part of the bike course again and covered 60k and then a brick run straight after (everything felling great) – rest of the time we chilled out by the pool area.

Thursday – Did another swim in the morning and in the afternoon did a 45 minute run in the mid day heat again! Today it was confirmed that the Typhoon was definitely going to be hitting us later tonight & tomorrow!!

Friday – The Typhoon is now in full throttle, the sea is torrid, the palm trees are almost horizontal and all us athletes are walking around the hotel with the same look on our faces (could be described as bewilderment, terror, etc), but the thing that we all keep saying is “well at least were being forced to have a good taper.....” (triathletes eh, always trying to see the good side to a crisis !!!)

This evening it was the Athletes Welcoming Party – this should have been held outside overlooking the Palm Trees, Sea, etc but due to weather conditions was being held in a very grand ballroom in the hotel. Food was excellent.

Saturday – Typhoon has now passed…sea, palm trees & athletes are much calmer now. Nick & I did a little brick session: 30 minute bike, 20 minute run & 10 minute swim; got our transition bags packed, did some last minute checks to the bikes before racking and handing in to the transition area…it’s getting really hot now (talking about the weather temperatures!!). Final preparation was the race briefing, this was kept very short which I think we were all grateful for, so now the only thing to do was get some dinner and get an early night.

***** Race Day*****

Woke up this morning at 4am, put some clothes on and went down stairs to breakfast, it was fantastic not like other hotels I have stopped at on race day where they give you a few croissants & a bowl of cereal, this was a full buffet style breakfast as was served to us every morning (those poor kitchen staff must have been working from about 2am to get this done….amazing!). The atmosphere was very calm & quiet (the restaurant was playing some very soothing music !!!!). After breakfast we then went and got numbered up to avoid the rush, usually you have about 3 volunteers doing this job, but not here I had 1 person doing my left arm…1 person doing my right arm…1 person doing my left leg and 1 person doing my right leg (I know that the population in China is huge but I never expected it to be on this scale !)
4:45am – went back to bed
5.45am – got back up, Nick opened up his Birthday Cards (as it was his 39th birthday!), got all out kit together and went down to transition area to do the bike stuff (blowing up tyres, putting drinks onto bike, etc), then got changed into our wetsuits and headed down to the start……..(p.s. temperature already 35°C!!)

Bang and were off, they let off loads of fireworks at the start, but I think I was the only one to take a moment to notice them !!!

I kind of had a suspicion that the navigation might go a bit wrong on this swim as 4 out of the 8 buoys got lost in the typhoon and the 2 at the turnaround point were obscured by about 10 fishing boats that had to come to see what all the excitement was about. I got to half way on the first lap with not much problem and then it all went horribly wrong, suddenly due to the lead people swimming off course, lots of swimmers decided to turnaround and swim back….but towards all the other swimmers, suddenly I was faced with dodging athletes coming in every direction!!! There was a slight current that was pushing us all away from the finishing point, so it seemed an absolute eternity for me to get back to the beach to start my second lap. On the second lap I decided to try and navigate a bit better, which went OK for about 600m then I just got confused with which boat/buoy was the first turnaround point !!! little did I know that the excitement was about to begin……..on the way back to shore on my second lap I suddenly hit something very hard with my hand and my shoulders, it was a huge piece of ‘something’ about 1.5m round with shells & stuff living on it…it scared the hell out of me, then to follow that I got hit in the head by a dead fish (about 12” long) and then I was surrounded by lots of floating crab claws and crab shells….ahhhhh (this bought a whole new level to hyperventilating!!!!) I tried to calm myself and just as I was getting back into my stride was hit again by something, this time it was another swimmer who had gone a bit off course…..was I relieved to get out of that sea !!!

Ran through to transition to be met by 5 Chinese girls who were there to help me get ready for the bike leg of the race. I had already got my arms out of my wetsuit so just needed to get my legs out, I lay down and told the girls to pull my wetsuit off me, which they did with great enthusiasm…to much actually as they dragged me along the floor for about 2m (I had to finish getting ready myself as they were laughing so much they couldn’t help me anymore !!)

Bike……

Not much to say really just got down on my aero bars and pedalled away, the villages were absolutely amazing, like nothing I have ever experienced before, it was just so touching to have all the locals out cheering us on, the noise was deafening ! All along the course we had the volunteers in blue Hawaiian shirts, these were also accompanied by hundreds of police and army persons who all got into the spirit of the race and cheered as we went by, it was a very humbling experience ! The second lap was a bit more testing as the wind had really got up, so I just got myself as aero as possible, think I over did it a bit as I got a huge bruise on the inside of my knee where it was hitting the top tube of my bike! The only thing that went wrong for me really was trying to get gels at the aid stations, I don’t think it was made clear to the volunteers how important these were; they were really good at giving the drinks out but at every station I was shouting “Gels, Gels….” And they just kept holding up the drinks. In the end after riding through the villages on the second lap, I pulled over and stopped, pointed at the gels on the table and was then given about 10 of them (like buses…..). Finished the bike feeling really good and not experiencing that “I hate my bike” feeling, I had even managed to control my painful feet symptom, by not cycling in socks and when they started to get a bit sore, taking them out of my shoes and resting on top of them (I did this on the 7k down hill stretch as to avoid loosing my shoes !) . Got the bike dismount and dismounted only to find that my legs had forgotten how to walk/stand and I almost fell flat on my face !!!

Run…….

Got out of transition pretty quick for my standards and felt quite good. I was starting to wonder what was going on with everyone else as when I was coming in on my bike I noticed that lots of athletes were already walking on the run and figured out that this was actually their first lap and not second !!! I thought ‘this could be trouble!”, but tried to put it to the back of my mind and just concentrate on my running. The first 10k went pretty OK and just as I was coming up to the turnaround I saw Nick, he looked terrible, very ashen coloured and sweating really badly, he said that he felt like death and was finding it hard to carry on, I told him to push on and get lots of water & ice at the next aid station.
It was so hot, the route was not as shaded as we thought and the heat was so overbearing (all of you who know me, know that I don’t feel the heat……) it seemed hard just to breath at times, it was like being in a furness ! At every aid station I was supplied with copious amounts of cups filled with water, energy & coke, I was drenched with about 20 sponges at a time with ice cold water and filled my hat with crushed ice to cool my head and picked up 2 large pieces of ice which I held tightly in my hands. All the ice had completely defrosted by the time I got the to next station (that’s how hot it was). Luckily I had purchased some salt tablets the day before and was carrying them in my pocket as the aid stations didn’t have any. (I have to say that this saved me from cramping up big style!). One poor guy was in real distress and was shouting at all the athletes “have you got any salt, have you got any salt”, I said yes and gave him 2 of mine (I thought that he was going to pick me up and swing me round with joy).
Reached the 21k mark, saw Nick again and was really pleased that he was still in the race, he shouted “keep going Lou, I will wait for you here and we can run together”, I was really looking forward to this as I knew this would help both of us get through the run. Was really slowing at the point and was beginning to feel a bit weird.
Reached 31k and still hadn’t caught up with Nick !! I was starting to feel quite shivery and was getting goose bumps on my skin, I knew that I was starting to get either Heat or Sun stroke, so when I got to the next aid station, I took my time and got as much water down me as possible and got the volunteers to soak me with sponges, etc.
The next 12k were so hard; after running an almost pan flat course for 37k you have to go up 2 bridges, wow, that really hurts – I started to run up the first and cramped big style, so had to walk it. I managed to run the second bridge though and as I was going up it saw Nick coming down it running towards me. He looked a little bit better now and he shouted lots of encouragement, said I was doing great and that he would see me just before the finish. This really lifted me and got me focused on finishing the last 5k as strong as I possibly could. At 2K to go I started running through the main town area, it was great (apart from a guy shouting “keeping going on 2K left !!!!” …last thing you want to hear!) the noise from the crowds was incredible again and before I knew it I was approaching the finish chute. I could see Nick standing on the top of a little bridge (just before the finish line) and he was shouting at me to run faster as the clock was approaching 12hours and he knew that I wanted to come in less than 12. I ran as fast as I could (which probably wasn’t that quick at this point), he grabbed my hand and we crossed the line together (well actually this was Nick’s second time of crossing the line !). It was brilliant as I had always wanted a finishing photo of both of us together.

All I can say on reflection is that it was a really tough race which we all thought going into it would be a very fast course to do. No Ironman is ever easy but I can safely say (and I think I speak for every single athlete that did it) it was the hardest thing I have ever put my poor body through……..definitely taking my 2 weeks rest now…The End

Roofman

May 2nd, 2008 - 12:36 PM

Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report

Fantastic lots of love from

Who's going to qualify for the worlds at the goldcoast 09?????????????????

Ferrous Fools Long Day Out

May 2nd, 2008 - 2:15 PM

Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report

Really interesting and informative report ( may crib that weeks build up work 'as my plan'

...

oh, and an astounding, astonishing performance,

but best of all, lovely to see how you both 'work' and dovetail so well together

bald brummie

May 2nd, 2008 - 3:06 PM

Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report

Good read, well done to you both, must have been incredibly tough in that heat.

Was it the case that some swimmers may have cut the swim distance short in the confusion ?

Found the bit about the 5 chinese girls and the crabs a bit "deja-vu", but i'll not go into that now.

The Sigster

May 4th, 2008 - 7:12 PM

Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report

Fantastic to read both your reports and so proud of you both! You really show the spirit of the sport and it's great to see how supportive you are of each other...
Sigi x

Author	Comment
Smiler May 2, 08 - 12:08 PM	Smilers China Ironman Race Report Smilers China Ironman race report 1 week to go Arrived in Haikou : weather about 30°C, sunny and slightly windy. Monday - went out for a 90k ride of the bike course, our guide was the legendary Ken Glah (done Hawaii 23 times as a pro). Course was slightly more rolling and windier than we had been lead to believe to be but all in all a really nice course. Tuesday – Didn’t do much today, lay by the pool which was fantastic, its 40 metre long and not too cold !! In the afternoon we thought we would try to acclimatise our bodies to the heat so went for a run. Wednesday – Much of the same, went for our first sea swim which was quite nice, did part of the bike course again and covered 60k and then a brick run straight after (everything felling great) – rest of the time we chilled out by the pool area. Thursday – Did another swim in the morning and in the afternoon did a 45 minute run in the mid day heat again! Today it was confirmed that the Typhoon was definitely going to be hitting us later tonight & tomorrow!! Friday – The Typhoon is now in full throttle, the sea is torrid, the palm trees are almost horizontal and all us athletes are walking around the hotel with the same look on our faces (could be described as bewilderment, terror, etc), but the thing that we all keep saying is “well at least were being forced to have a good taper.....” (triathletes eh, always trying to see the good side to a crisis !!!) This evening it was the Athletes Welcoming Party – this should have been held outside overlooking the Palm Trees, Sea, etc but due to weather conditions was being held in a very grand ballroom in the hotel. Food was excellent. Saturday – Typhoon has now passed…sea, palm trees & athletes are much calmer now. Nick & I did a little brick session: 30 minute bike, 20 minute run & 10 minute swim; got our transition bags packed, did some last minute checks to the bikes before racking and handing in to the transition area…it’s getting really hot now (talking about the weather temperatures!!). Final preparation was the race briefing, this was kept very short which I think we were all grateful for, so now the only thing to do was get some dinner and get an early night. *** Race Day* Woke up this morning at 4am, put some clothes on and went down stairs to breakfast, it was fantastic not like other hotels I have stopped at on race day where they give you a few croissants & a bowl of cereal, this was a full buffet style breakfast as was served to us every morning (those poor kitchen staff must have been working from about 2am to get this done….amazing!). The atmosphere was very calm & quiet (the restaurant was playing some very soothing music !!!!). After breakfast we then went and got numbered up to avoid the rush, usually you have about 3 volunteers doing this job, but not here I had 1 person doing my left arm…1 person doing my right arm…1 person doing my left leg and 1 person doing my right leg (I know that the population in China is huge but I never expected it to be on this scale !) 4:45am – went back to bed 5.45am – got back up, Nick opened up his Birthday Cards (as it was his 39th birthday!), got all out kit together and went down to transition area to do the bike stuff (blowing up tyres, putting drinks onto bike, etc), then got changed into our wetsuits and headed down to the start……..(p.s. temperature already 35°C!!) Bang and were off, they let off loads of fireworks at the start, but I think I was the only one to take a moment to notice them !!! I kind of had a suspicion that the navigation might go a bit wrong on this swim as 4 out of the 8 buoys got lost in the typhoon and the 2 at the turnaround point were obscured by about 10 fishing boats that had to come to see what all the excitement was about. I got to half way on the first lap with not much problem and then it all went horribly wrong, suddenly due to the lead people swimming off course, lots of swimmers decided to turnaround and swim back….but towards all the other swimmers, suddenly I was faced with dodging athletes coming in every direction!!! There was a slight current that was pushing us all away from the finishing point, so it seemed an absolute eternity for me to get back to the beach to start my second lap. On the second lap I decided to try and navigate a bit better, which went OK for about 600m then I just got confused with which boat/buoy was the first turnaround point !!! little did I know that the excitement was about to begin……..on the way back to shore on my second lap I suddenly hit something very hard with my hand and my shoulders, it was a huge piece of ‘something’ about 1.5m round with shells & stuff living on it…it scared the hell out of me, then to follow that I got hit in the head by a dead fish (about 12” long) and then I was surrounded by lots of floating crab claws and crab shells….ahhhhh (this bought a whole new level to hyperventilating!!!!) I tried to calm myself and just as I was getting back into my stride was hit again by something, this time it was another swimmer who had gone a bit off course…..was I relieved to get out of that sea !!! Ran through to transition to be met by 5 Chinese girls who were there to help me get ready for the bike leg of the race. I had already got my arms out of my wetsuit so just needed to get my legs out, I lay down and told the girls to pull my wetsuit off me, which they did with great enthusiasm…to much actually as they dragged me along the floor for about 2m (I had to finish getting ready myself as they were laughing so much they couldn’t help me anymore !!) Bike…… Not much to say really just got down on my aero bars and pedalled away, the villages were absolutely amazing, like nothing I have ever experienced before, it was just so touching to have all the locals out cheering us on, the noise was deafening ! All along the course we had the volunteers in blue Hawaiian shirts, these were also accompanied by hundreds of police and army persons who all got into the spirit of the race and cheered as we went by, it was a very humbling experience ! The second lap was a bit more testing as the wind had really got up, so I just got myself as aero as possible, think I over did it a bit as I got a huge bruise on the inside of my knee where it was hitting the top tube of my bike! The only thing that went wrong for me really was trying to get gels at the aid stations, I don’t think it was made clear to the volunteers how important these were; they were really good at giving the drinks out but at every station I was shouting “Gels, Gels….” And they just kept holding up the drinks. In the end after riding through the villages on the second lap, I pulled over and stopped, pointed at the gels on the table and was then given about 10 of them (like buses…..). Finished the bike feeling really good and not experiencing that “I hate my bike” feeling, I had even managed to control my painful feet symptom, by not cycling in socks and when they started to get a bit sore, taking them out of my shoes and resting on top of them (I did this on the 7k down hill stretch as to avoid loosing my shoes !) . Got the bike dismount and dismounted only to find that my legs had forgotten how to walk/stand and I almost fell flat on my face !!! Run……. Got out of transition pretty quick for my standards and felt quite good. I was starting to wonder what was going on with everyone else as when I was coming in on my bike I noticed that lots of athletes were already walking on the run and figured out that this was actually their first lap and not second !!! I thought ‘this could be trouble!”, but tried to put it to the back of my mind and just concentrate on my running. The first 10k went pretty OK and just as I was coming up to the turnaround I saw Nick, he looked terrible, very ashen coloured and sweating really badly, he said that he felt like death and was finding it hard to carry on, I told him to push on and get lots of water & ice at the next aid station. It was so hot, the route was not as shaded as we thought and the heat was so overbearing (all of you who know me, know that I don’t feel the heat……) it seemed hard just to breath at times, it was like being in a furness ! At every aid station I was supplied with copious amounts of cups filled with water, energy & coke, I was drenched with about 20 sponges at a time with ice cold water and filled my hat with crushed ice to cool my head and picked up 2 large pieces of ice which I held tightly in my hands. All the ice had completely defrosted by the time I got the to next station (that’s how hot it was). Luckily I had purchased some salt tablets the day before and was carrying them in my pocket as the aid stations didn’t have any. (I have to say that this saved me from cramping up big style!). One poor guy was in real distress and was shouting at all the athletes “have you got any salt, have you got any salt”, I said yes and gave him 2 of mine (I thought that he was going to pick me up and swing me round with joy). Reached the 21k mark, saw Nick again and was really pleased that he was still in the race, he shouted “keep going Lou, I will wait for you here and we can run together”, I was really looking forward to this as I knew this would help both of us get through the run. Was really slowing at the point and was beginning to feel a bit weird. Reached 31k and still hadn’t caught up with Nick !! I was starting to feel quite shivery and was getting goose bumps on my skin, I knew that I was starting to get either Heat or Sun stroke, so when I got to the next aid station, I took my time and got as much water down me as possible and got the volunteers to soak me with sponges, etc. The next 12k were so hard; after running an almost pan flat course for 37k you have to go up 2 bridges, wow, that really hurts – I started to run up the first and cramped big style, so had to walk it. I managed to run the second bridge though and as I was going up it saw Nick coming down it running towards me. He looked a little bit better now and he shouted lots of encouragement, said I was doing great and that he would see me just before the finish. This really lifted me and got me focused on finishing the last 5k as strong as I possibly could. At 2K to go I started running through the main town area, it was great (apart from a guy shouting “keeping going on 2K left !!!!” …last thing you want to hear!) the noise from the crowds was incredible again and before I knew it I was approaching the finish chute. I could see Nick standing on the top of a little bridge (just before the finish line) and he was shouting at me to run faster as the clock was approaching 12hours and he knew that I wanted to come in less than 12. I ran as fast as I could (which probably wasn’t that quick at this point), he grabbed my hand and we crossed the line together (well actually this was Nick’s second time of crossing the line !). It was brilliant as I had always wanted a finishing photo of both of us together. All I can say on reflection is that it was a really tough race which we all thought going into it would be a very fast course to do. No Ironman is ever easy but I can safely say (and I think I speak for every single athlete that did it) it was the hardest thing I have ever put my poor body through……..definitely taking my 2 weeks rest now…The End Email: louise@staffordtri.com Website:** http://www.staffordtri.com
Roofman May 2nd, 2008 - 12:36 PM	Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report Fantastic lots of love from Who's going to qualify for the worlds at the goldcoast 09?????????????????
Ferrous Fools Long Day Out May 2nd, 2008 - 2:15 PM	Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report Really interesting and informative report ( may crib that weeks build up work 'as my plan' ... oh, and an astounding, astonishing performance, but best of all, lovely to see how you both 'work' and dovetail so well together
bald brummie May 2nd, 2008 - 3:06 PM	Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report Good read, well done to you both, must have been incredibly tough in that heat. Was it the case that some swimmers may have cut the swim distance short in the confusion ? Found the bit about the 5 chinese girls and the crabs a bit "deja-vu", but i'll not go into that now. Email: j7jse@hotmail.co.uk
The Sigster May 4th, 2008 - 7:12 PM	Re: Smilers China Ironman Race Report Fantastic to read both your reports and so proud of you both! You really show the spirit of the sport and it's great to see how supportive you are of each other... Sigi x Email: sigihansen@excite.com