A week ago Sunday I did my long race of the year, ironman Frankfurt, my second full ironman event.
My start was not auspicious - 8 minutes before the gun went off for the swim, a fellow triathlete tried to zip up my wetsuit and then sheepishly handed me a broken off zipper. It was a disconcerting sight, but I simply did not have time to be too distressed, I just ran to the official tent to see if someone could fix it - pins? tape? but the officials merely suggested that I swim without a wetsuit which I knew with absolute certainty would not work for me. So I plunged back in the water at the last second and begun swimming from the back of the pack with an unzipped wetsuit. Swimming 3.8k in an unzipped wetsuit did not prove to be the end-of-the-world despite the discomfort, friction, drag (and I suppose as usual for me I looked really stupid). The more pressing challenge was the massive wall of swimmers in front of me because I started at the back. I expected to be kicked in the face at the start, but I was battling crowds throughout, and had my goggles knocked off twice, both times in the second lap. Somehow I passed much of field and was pretty happy with my 1:16:02 swim split.
Four years ago, on a sweltering Tokyo July day I read teammate Mika's Ironman Switzerland race report and I felt so baffled and (admittedly) disdainful that she could drop out of a summer bike race because of cold. Last Sunday I felt like I might need to drop out of the bike ride because of cold. The other 2,500 triathletes at Frankfurt however did not seem to be having too much problem with the rain and wind during the first 90k of the ride, but I found myself shaking like a leaf (and i was wearing arm warmers while most guys were just wearing singlets). I kept wishing for uphill sections which allowed me to warm up a bit, and I kept dreading downhills. Finally at around 90k the sun came out and my pace picked up above 30k per hour. The countryside was beautiful, I felt great and i grew confident that I could realize my goal of breaking 6 hours. But then somehow I slowed dramatically on the final 20k of the ride.
After that my run was just a mess. After a weak start I picked it up to 5 minute pace around 5k to 15k, but then I just deteriorated into a death slog.
My overall time was 11:50:28.
I kept trying to keep in mind the advice teammate Chris always told me - "it does not matter how much you actually train, what matters is that you believe in your training". Well, hmmm, self-delusion can only carry you so far - in retrospect it appears that I had done good training for the short, fast running 5k time trial I did 10 days earlier. I always intended to do minimalist training for the Ironman, but then incorporate longer bike and run training in the month or so before Frankfurt, but in the end it seems I repeatedly cut my longer workouts short.
After the race our friend Stephane emphatically said to me "for us guys after doing the Ironman distance, of course we never have desire to go back to a shorter distance like a half-ironman". I just looked at him kind of blankly thinking, "Huh, wtf? All I have been thinking about is how much I would prefer to do a half-ironman."
The Ironman race was really just an excuse to travel to Germany with my bike where I have enjoyed cycling up Rhine to Cologne and visit teammate Matthias, then down to Augsburg to visit teammates, Joachim and Christiane where I did interval workout with their running club and cycled through the Bavarian countryside.
