8th July 2007 IRONMAN Austria

Ironman Austria race - 11:36.05

Swim (3.8 km) 1:11.04
T1 6.43
Bike (180 km) 6:08.22
T2 4:15
Run (marathon) 4:05.39

Very glad with the time and overall race. All sections faster than expected - particularly bike and run splits.

Swim: Felt easy and drafted other people well. Water was fairly warm. Pleased with split and great to be in contention a bit more after the swim section.

T1: Not overly quick - took time to apply loads of suncream which was v.necessary.

Bike: Went through half-way in 2:50h so there was lag but not too worrying. On reflection probably had some room for improvement in the bike leg, but I didn't want to overly hammer it as I wanted to keep some capacity for the run. I would aim to go 5:45h on this bike course without any further training. To gain full advantage, on the bike I need to look into aero wheels. Most other people had these. I took on board 1/2 a Powerbar and 1/2 banana at each aid station (every 20 km), 3 Powergels and approx 5 litres of fluids using water-iso-coke-iso system - this worked well.

T2: Ate some salted peanuts, a bit unorthodox, but these worked well as it had on a few rides to Hastings, and I didn't cramp at all during the race.

Run: Most pleasing section, but also most painful. Had 'difficult' stage in first half of the marathon but kept running throughout. Did one Powergel at 20km but found that I didn't need any other energy solids. Had orange segments and watermelon at each aid station after 20 km - this was brilliant and great relief in terms flavour.

Recovery: Lordy and Anna Z drove me back to Salzburg the following day. Pretty zonked for two days but no major muscle injuries. Toes in a bit of a nasty state but blisters healing well. 4 days later I'm back at work and feeling pretty mobile. Aim to do easy swim sometime next week and some walking this weekend.

Definately want to build on this result by targetting fast full and half-Ironman races in 2008. Would like to go sub-11 which would put me in contention for World Champs qualification. Need to work on biking fast and get marathon down to 3:40 which I think is very do-able.