 |
In 1997 I read an article in Runners World about Eric Seedhouse competing in a deca ironman, and something appealed to me about the possibility of swerving to avoid tombstones popping up on the bike route; the result of hallucinations. At the time I had only just started running and hadn't even done a marathon so the article was cut out and filed away. |
|
Ten years on, with 6 ironmans completed, including the World Championships in Hawaii; the opportunity to compete in the first UK double seemed like a logical progression.
The organisers of Enduroman Arch to Arc triathlon (run Marble Arch-Dover, Swim the Channel, Cycle Calais to Arc De Triumphe) were putting on the double in Lichfield and I had secured a place.
Now there is quite a lot of material written about training for Ironman, and I had most of the books, but very little to be gleaned from the published world about how to train for double the distance, so I surmised that in the same way a half marathon is more like a 10k than a marathon, and a half ironman is more like an Olympic than an Ironman a double must be more like an Ironman than a deca. So I approached training in a similar way.
Fortunately Dave hadn't lost patience and was prepared to cycle with me through the Winter, building from 30's in September to over 100's by the Spring, where we added a few cyclosportifs. Running wasn't going so well, with an Achilles injury still preventing me from doing the training required, but the swimming suited me fine with the new John Charles Pool offering 3 hour sessions I took full advantage swimming the distance until it felt comfortable.
Come race day I knew I could swim the 4.8 miles in 2:45, I could cycle the 224 miles in 15 hours, and as for the run I had run a 3:15 at London Marathon and more recently 3:44 at Ironman Nice on less than 400 miles running for the year, so I would finish at least.
As with Ironman the biggest thing to get right is nutrition, plus for me I need to have psychological confidence boosters in training to help me believe I can do something. A two day 168 mile cycle to Cheshire and back would have to do for the distance on the bike, but by far the best session I did was with Dave about 4 weeks before the race. We drove to Skipton with the bikes, left the car and did a 85 mile ride ending up back home for about 10 o'clock pm, then some sandwiches, get changed and out with a head torch and Dave on the mountain bike to run into Leeds and along the canal to Skipton (about 34 miles). I ran exactly how I planned (run 12 mins, walk 3) and apart from some rough terrain in the last few miles making it difficult to run normally and a bout of the trots (I used my dirty pair of socks as I had forgot the toilet roll) we finished at around 3:30am. Now let me tell you there are a lot of ne'r-do-wells out on a canal towpath in the early hours so I was glad I hadn't done this on my own, mostly the loiterers were more alarmed to see two strange people out training at that time. The value of running at something approximating the time of night I would be running in the double stood me in good stead though as I could approach the whole event with some idea of how I would feel.
Race Day
My biggest worry was that this was an inaugural race and may suffer from glitches which could seriously spoil the day and so was reassured by the attitude of the organisers- Steve and Eddy. They were able to answer every question but also having both completed Arch to Arc they knew how to make the competitors feel looked after and they had a real involvement in giving everyone the best chance to complete, Steve even brought his own bike from home to lend to someone who had crashed so he could finish. The relentless cheerfulness of the marshals - I knew just how boring this would be for them made this a great race.
Our start was at 6:00am in a 25 metre pool. A lot of people had chosen to wear wetsuits, to help with buoyancy and speed. I am a bit of a purist and thought it unnecessary. While I was swimming Dave went out in the drizzle to pitch the tent alongside the transition area. He had worked out an excel spreadsheet of everything I would be eating on each lap of the bike and run, with room for alternatives if something suddenly felt like just the thing I needed. There was no way I was going to drink High 5 and eat powerbars all day, I had soup, pasta, cakes, tea, fruit, hard boiled eggs to name just some of the things.
The Runners world forum pirates had also turned out in force as there were 5 of us in the race. So when I exited the swim in 2:41 (running, well why not?) I stopped dead for some ready brek with syrup, prepared by Debbo in her camper van, a second breakfast, before heading out on the bike.
The bike course was an out and back route of 14 miles to a village called Yoxall, it was pretty flat but with a headwind on the return I found myself hitting over 25 mph on the outward but slowing right down on the return, soon learnt that this was inevitable and I wanted to do each lap in under the hour so I just aimed for that. I also discovered that the time to eat was on the return so hung on to food for when the slowing conditions gave me time to sit up and get some food down. Food varied from soup, to chicken sandwiches. The hard boiled eggs were the business as long as I spat out the yellow bit which was just unpalatable. The day wore on with each return to the transition seeing a knot of pirates on entering the yard, who shouted to Dave so he could run across like a waiter with a box of food for me to choose from.
I was not seeing how other people were treating the race, but I think our strategy worked, other support crew were asking the competitors what they wanted, and expecting them to have a clear lucid answer which after 10 hours on a bike is not what you want to waste time coming up with. As it was I had forgotten all about my Mars milk, and the mochalattes, and hot chocolate I had stockpiled but neglected to add to the spreadsheet.
I also didn't leave the bike preferring to grab and go, I had figured beforehand that time could slip away if I messed around getting off and sitting down to eat. I also didn’t waste time with the toilets, it meant cycling with a shoe full of wee but saved time.
It all went to plan and I was really happy to work out that I would only have do two full laps in the dark. With all the lights on, some of them blinding you could pick out others as they approached. The penultimate lap was the worst, I was weaving about a bit trying not to nod off for about 4 miles and it is times like that that you can't afford to think about the 52 miles of running left. I got over that by getting up out of the saddle and pedalling harder, the different position maybe waking me up a bit.
The last lap was fine, so as with Ironman it was just a phase. Came in in the 15 hours I had predicted.
This was the only time I would sit down the whole race; I have to tape up my feet to prevent blisters which is a bit of an involved job, so had some coffee and a few mouthfuls of cereal while I was doing it. The difficulty now was that I was struggling to eat solid food, so as planned switched to my usual bananas, iso and coke with the occasional freddy frog sweet.
The run course was exciting, out of the sports centre grounds along a pavement for a bit up a short flight of wooden steps plunging into a forest which was marked out with tape and flashes of orange paint to highlight the tree stumps and roots, then after much meandering you came upon a pair of marshals sat at a low table who you shouted your number to, then down onto the road again and back to the sports centre. My plans of run 12 walk 3 had to be adjusted to run in good visibility/flat/downhill, walk on the trickier bits and inclines. I caught up with Arthur Puckrin early on, he is a veteran of deca ironman and he told me he had taken a fall in the wooded section. It meant that through the trees you had to concentrate hard on what was in front of you. I kept up a reasonable pace through the night, but with nine laps to go out of the 42 I was really struggling to stay awake again, I had a friend, Emma from the Forums and Dave coming with me on occasional laps but it got to the point where although the sun was up and it looked like being a good day I was unable to keep my eyes open was yawning continuously and weaving about. I tried to get Dave to agree to me having a lie down for half an hour but instead he gave me some soup which helped for a bit. I had also had continuous problems through the run with needing the toilet, everything I ate came through the other end within half an hour, I had given up, taking immodiums thinking I would let it take its course. Finally with a few laps to go Dave and Emma fed me coffee and three pro plus tablets which saw me through to the finish, I had been first woman (out of 4) from the swim onwards and so won, not that I was doing much dancing, I refused to move from the chair by the side of the course afterwards eventually managing to shift to the showers, whereupon I threw up. Curiously my sick only contained the mushrooms I had had in a meal on the Friday evening, I was expecting all sorts of rubbish.
My final finishing position was 14th out of 48 in 28 hours 36 minutes.
The satisfaction of completing this and feeling like I had found my niche has made the deca next year imperative. I was planning it the day after reviewing what worked well, what I would change, and how I would train.
Although I had a few tired spells it looks like I will have to wait for the deca to see my tombstones.
