The View from my Bicycle [COLUMN + GRAPHS + VASBYT RACE REPORT + IRONMAN RESULTS]

I'm not going to lie to you. After the half Ironman (now a MONTH ago - jeepers) I really didn't have a reason or an incentive to train. In 4 weeks I cycled 4 times. It's actually even shakier than that. A week after the half Ironman I did a tough 72km (on the Cyclelab route). After that I did just 2 spin sessions (something I never do) and a tough cycle race in the Free State. Take away the spin sessions and the race and I only went out and did a proper training session once. In 4 weeks. That's lousy.

But I can explain. See I'd achieved a longish term goal I'd set probably in December 2008. That was to go under 5 hours in the half Ironman. In the same week as that race it also dawned on me that the Ironman wasn't going to happen. Firstly because I felt I didn't want to deplete my bank balance by a hundred million dollars (and a few million extra for a late entry) and secondly because, with about 5-6 weeks to the Ironman I hadn't run more than 18km. The half Ironman proved at after 14km my legs cracked.

So it was a humility and reality check pulling out of the Ironman, but at the same time, left me without direction. I looked through the Nedbank running race diary and went online but couldn't find any imminent challenges or races. Ja, the Kremetart, but not a good reason to keep myself on the ball. Then there was a week of crap weather and I started letting it slip.

So I went into Vasbyt thinking I might do okay, especially after a decent ride in the Free State two weeks into 'retirement'. Surely I'd have some residual fitness left for VASBYT?

Short answer?

No.

Not after 75km. In fact I had a great race until 75km. The start was ridiculous. You do a horseshoe turn, a sharp u-turn - where you go down a narrow road, very tight run and then up a steep uphill.

After last year's race I was wise to the fact that the guys use the first 300 metres to break away, and they tried it again this year. Since there is no neutral zone it is easy to slip off the front because on the narrow tar trip that exits the starting ground if you have someone slow in front of you you can't get around them.

So I lost the 20 chancers who took off in the first go, but our group was good. Initially about half a dozen of us, we later sucked up a strong girls bunch, of which maybe 3 or 4 stayed with us. We also later sucked up a bunch of tandems.

I had looked at last year's stats and thought improving on those stats would be a snip. 33.7km/h average - bah. 154 average heart rate - must have been unfit. Plus I knew the course conditions, and knew about the initial tricks and climbs and the hard final 30km.

The graph below is from last year's VASBYT. Notice the high heart rate and steep climbs in the first third and the long steady climbs in the last third. Notice also how my heart rate falls off at the end (a sign of lack of fitness).


Cut to this year. Below is the first third again (after that my HRM only intermittently picked up speed and distance, but picked up heart rate and the graph is still fairly useful).
Notice the average heart rate is 153, maximum only 163 (last year 174). My legs were a bit stale from one of those few training sessions in the last 4 weeks - a spin session followed by a run. Look at the average for the first hour or so - 38km/h. Compared to the previous year: almost identical.



This is what I wrote last year:

On the very first hill I felt cold and tight and stiff, and the guys pulled away right away. A group of us chased them, but they slowly drifted away. Then at about 20km or so, if not sooner, two teams - guys in orange and guys in red, white and black - all with deep rims, all in good shape - cruised by us at high speed. I jumped on, and so did another guy in a white Eskom shirt. We motored. For a short while we all took turns working together - this is the beauty of cycling. It looked and felt like a team time trial, and those rims all parting the wind like blades.

Riding in this group I realised how hard the first bunch were going - the bunch that pulled away on the first climb. We sucked in the ladies bunch, and kept right on going. I think we only caught the bunch we'd lost in the 1st km at 50km - this was with very strong riders.

Last year we had the luxury of some very strong guys who basically shepherded us back to the leading group. So a lot of the speed and time was based on the work of others. This year, I did a lot of the work in our group, especially right in the beginning, and on a couple of climbs, flats and downhills. Also, we had a strong crosswind for a lot of the mid-downhill section where we left 2 thirds of our group behind. What was good was that I felt strong on the climbs despite essentially not doing any climbing for a month. VASBYT doesn't really climb a lot as Gauteng based roads go, but 690m is still not to be sniffed at. And a lot of that is right at the bitter end. Look at the graph below and notice how the green line starts to emerge in the last third.


It was about two thirds of the way up the biggest mother of a hill, that I suddenly ran out of steam. I mean I had been setting the pace and been busy right up front and then wham, I suddenly felt I couldn't keep up. Even slip streaming didn't help. I needed the hill to quit and there was still a long way to go. That's where I left the bunch and started limping home. Around about 70-75km. You go over a hill and then there's another monster. About five times I heard myself saying through gritted teeth YISSUS!

I was hoping to go under a time of 3:03 which was what I thought I needed to do. At 70km it looked like it was in the bag, but a few kilometres later I was hanging on for dear life. What made it all worse was I, for some crazy reason, hadn't had a single gu or energy gel. Instead I'd bought a roll of glucose sweets and had been eating 2 or 3 of these at the time the whole way. Unusually also I was riding with no GU2O since my girlfriend had thrown away the container (despite there being one last scoop left). So when I finished I was starry eyed with hypoglycemia. despite my worsening symptoms my sleep and fatigue numbed brain worked on the psychology that it wasn't worth 'wasting' a R15 sachet with 5km to go. Smart eh?

Since my Heart rate Monitor was on the blink, erratically picking up distance and speed probably due to a direct hit on icky bit of crumbling and convoluted tar, I asked passers-by how far. Amazingly everyone said something different. 37km to go/15km to go/5 -10km to go/20km to go. At the finish a guy told me we'd crossed the line at 3:00. We started in the same bunch apparently, but I later checked and my start time was 7:01. It was now 10:05. I tasted the bitterness of defeat. Despite the exertions of last year, fatso me from last year had cycled faster than leaner (and supposedly meaner) me. During the writing of this column it turns out that actually I'd been mistaken. I didn't do a 3:03. I did a 3:04:45 with a lot of help from a strong group that escorted us. This year, we were that strong group. And I'd done a 3:04 - virtually an identical time.

I do take comfort that I rode far more decently than last year.

When I reached 60km I said to the Eskom dude that I was fast approaching my endurance limit - that in the next few km I'd have to start gritting my teeth. Even I didn't have any idea how true that was. If you'd been watching from above in a helicopter it must have looked quite interesting, if not funny. I'd cruise down on the downhills ahead of the pack (this is the original spoedvark bunch fortified with the time-trial team) and so build momentum up the drags, which I was finding to be getting tougher and tougher. Then on the drags almost all the guys would slowly drift by me, but by the time we reached the top, I'd be at the back, but still in touch.

I don't know how many times it happened, but it happened a lot. I realised once again just how much heavier I am than these guys. I mean there's no way it's just a question of being more aero on the downhills.

At about 70km I just couldn't stay in touch, and then I went backwards badly, and quickly. Up until then my average was about 36km/h.

In the bar afterwards one of the guys I rode with said they had finished in 2:48. I told him I only had legs for about 70km, and that I'd fallen off on that long savage climb. I'd like to come to VASBYT with more sleep next year and legs for the FULL EVENT. Third time lucky.

Ironman

'I'm relieved, happy and extremely tired'

Two new champions were crowned at the fifth running of the Ironman South Africa in Port Elizabeth on Sunday when rookie Marino Vanhoenacker of Belgium and Lucie Zelenkova of the Czech Republic won the respective men's and women's titles.

Vanhoenacker, a veteran at 32 of nine Ironman races and with this his fifth victory, broke the course record of eight hours 18 minutes 23 seconds set last year by Briton Stephen Bayliss, with a new best time of 8:17:32.

I wonder what happened to Tissink?

1.19pm

Raynard Tissink is still not speaking to anybody about why he pulled out of the race, although organisers believe it is due to heat exhaustion. A number of professional athletes are walking because of the heat.

SA homeboy Raynard Tissink has withdrawn and taken off his number after stopping at an aid station.

After three races where he was unable to defend his 2005 title, Tissink, who was in third position after Brad Storm and Marino Vanhoenacker, has officially withdrawn from the race after stopping at an aid station. It is not clear what the problem was, but it was reported that he was drinking Coke.

Read about my Half Ironman 2009 here.
Read about my Ironman in 2006 here.

About a week or ago, maybe a week and a half Alex reminded me that this weekend was VASBYT. While my weight has dipped below 80kg for the first time in a LONG time, I left my training volumes too late for the Ironman. I only hit double figures in January, although I had a great 16 hour week in Feb, and tapered nicely after that. I was very happy with how quickly my body improved in strength as I started losing weight - in swimming, running and with some nice results, in cycling. The problem you can see is the low mileage of the last 3 weeks. In fact this week I would have done only 4 hours were it not for the 4 hours I did on Saturday (3 hours of racing plus running and swimming an hour. So I'd like to pick those numbers up.


I do take heart that these numbers (above) while not fantastic are still way up, at least double from same time last year (below).



In 2008 I was averaging a paltry and pathetic 4:11 a week. This year it's up to 8:38 average with the current week slightly above that. I mean to keep it this way. The week ahead I'd like to get to 10 and try to keep it there (at an average of 10 hours a week).

Today my brother did the Ironman in a credible 1:01 swim, a 5:51 bike and a 4:15 run for an overall time of just under 11:07. Nively done CJ. I'd like to be able to compete with that next year. I've run at 3:51 marathon, but would still need to do a lot of work. Would be nice to go a 10:45 or even just under 11. So that's my early goal for 2010, but first there is the half Ironman in East London in January, the half Ironman here in early March next year, this year's duathlon season and then next year's triathlon season. I will probably go for a good time in the OFM. 94.7 is a bit iffy. Hated it last year so will see how I feel closer to the time.

VASBYT was a good race in the sense that it was a warning - relax much more dude and all your hard work is going to slip out the door. Want that to happen? No. But then I have been running a lot, and still want to channel a lot of my training that way. I realise though that I need to keep cycling in the picture, and through winter that's easier said than done. What I need to do, and you is take heed from the picture below. Good luck.