Lanzarote had been a tough day out, but I'd secured a decent finish of 12 hours 39, and had managed to run the marathon from start to finish. I had no muscle soreness after and had been in good nick. My hamstring injury would have to wait to be fixed, and by the time we left for Germany, I would have added a neck problem which restricted mobility to the left hand side.
We travelled to Hull and then took the overnight ferry to Rotterdam. From there, we drove to Bonn, where I would do a last minute leg freshener run on the Friday morning before leaving for Bonn, but would cut this short when I felt my calf stiffen. Worried about the run, we travelled to Roth for the registration at Triathlon Park, before settling at our Hotel in South West Nurembourg which was 20 miles from Roth and 25 miles from the swim start.
Raceday
Getting to the venue proved stressful. My race start was 7.30am and the journey was supposed to be no more than half an hour. After leaving at 5.15am and thinking we would have plenty of time, we discovered the traffic into the event was terrible and got parked up at 6.50am. A quick dash to transition and I just about made the start albeit in the next wave of 7.35am starters. My official time includes the extra five minutes.
Swim 1.30.11
This is a simple canal course and is a case of swimming from bridge to bridge. My swimming is not great, and I was still unesy from the morning rush, and I suppose I didn't settle into the swim until about 45 minutes in. By that point I was finding feet and saving energy. I was aware that I had been in the water a long time, and was not surprised when I got out and saw 1.30 on my watch. That's toward the back of my iron distance efforts but reflective of my current swim ability !
Bike 5.36.59
Given the calf issue and the frankly insane heat being experienced and forecast for the day, I deceided to dial down the effort accordingly. I would aim to keep around my watts average for the first loop, which included the brilliant Solarberg climb, and then as the heat intensified, play it by ear and see what I could come up with. I'd estimate lap 1 was about 2hrs 42mins and lap 2 in around 2 hours 54ish. It was what it was on the day, I came into T2 in 5hrs 36 minutes, calf protected, hot and bothered, but well salted up which had served me so well at Lanzarote.
Run 3.54.55
Onto the Marathon and how would be calf hold out. First couple of miles OK, I was up on my toes in the Alphaflys and to be fair the hamstring was giving me more to worry about as I could feel that more than I had in the weeks leading up. At mile 3 though, I had a calf twinge and thought that might be that. I stopped running on my toes, slowed down and shortened my stride which seemed to do the trick. I had relaxed into my long run training pace of c.9 minute miles and seemed to be able to tick over at that level - the calf pull threshold if you will ! Although hot, we were at least shaded in parts when we hit the towpath, and I managed to keep cool with water, sponges and on a couple of occasions, ice down the front of my tri suit, the kilometre markers flying by and I knew if I could get to 26 km which was the marker at the exit of the towpath, then I could run/walk to the end if I needed to. At said 26 km I was still moving OK, so km 32 was the next target which would give me just 10 km to go.
Into Roth, saw Heidi which was very welcome, and then just an out and back up/ down slope to Buchenback. Incredibly relieved to finish and the stadium was fantastic ! 11hrs 16 mins + 7 seconds.
Iron distance no.9 put away, some rest and physio now, and then ramp it up again for Ironman Wales in September which as I write this is just 9 weeks and 5 days away !
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