Ironman South Africa Race Report

Is a blog still a blog when it is only updated every 3-4 months? Probably not, but I'll write this out anyway, because it was a pretty interesting trip and even if nobody else reads it, I'll want to. 

Where to even begin. Well, the training for this race was challenging, to say the least. I had decided this winter to tough it out and not go south at all, with the exception of a week in Florida in mid-January for a race - a HITS half in Naples that went very well and I quite enjoyed - and this particular winter, if you hadn't already heard, was brutal, to say the least. I've lived here for a long time and usually we get brief reprieves from snow and cold, random days where it is a little warmer and the sun comes out and some of the snow melts. But nope, not this time. It just kept on coming, and stayed bitterly cold. My car developed a speed wobble that I discovered was simply because weeks' worth of snow had packed itself into the inside rim of the wheel. Normally that would melt here and there, but nope, not this year. Coldest February on record. It also snowed every single Saturday night. I thought that particular month would never end.

But, training had to be done. Somehow in spite of the insanity I only had to move one swim workout (thanks to my gym for only closing that one time due to all of the snow) and due to an awesome foot injury that kept me from running for a couple of weeks I never had to move any run workouts either. In a way though it was sort of nice to actually have something productive to do in spite of all of the snow. And a reason to leave the house. Half the time it was like, "Do I really want to go outside when it's snowing and the wind chill is below zero?  Eh, not really."  That particular scenario was pretty common.  I spent way too much time in the basement on the trainer watching almost every single episode of The Office.

It always seems more difficult to tell if you are actually getting fitter in the winter. You spend so much time indoors and training alone, and when you venture out to run half the time you're worried about slipping on ice and snow and not even thinking that much about pace and heart rate, and you're layered up in warm clothes. But in spite of that, it did appear that I was more ready for this race than I'd been for any in probably nearly three years. The training had gone flawlessly until my foot decided to stop cooperating in the middle of February, so some things had to be modified for about the final 5 weeks but I did what I could there. 

So enough about that, a week before the race I flew over to South Africa. I left home at 7:30am on Sunday morning and arrived at the hotel in Port Elizabeth at I think 11pm there, or 5pm back home. That is a lot of traveling. Somehow it never actually feels quite as long as it really is, surprisingly. But to say we were exhausted would be an understatement.

This was my first time traveling to a race in a different country and in fact only my second time leaving the country at all, the last time being Ireland in 1999, when I would've laughed in your face if you'd suggested I do a triathlon. I honestly had almost no idea what to expect, but fortunately South Africa is pretty westernized and everyone spoke English. They drive on the left, their food is way cheaper, there's a lot of cricket and rugby on TV and they seem to have something against maple syrup, but still. There were plenty of American shows and movies on TV and there were Kardashians on the magazine covers. So, see? They haven't only ruined our country, but others as well. 

I slept fairly well the night before the race. All week we'd just been so tired and thrown off by being off 6 time zones in the bad direction, so any opportunities for sleep were usually good ones.  I was even kind of hungry for my breakfast, which never happens on race morning.  Walked down at about 5:30 in the dark and got everything ready to go. This race actually had more than one age group wave. The pro men went off first, then the pro women, then the first wave of age group men at 6:45 and then the rest of the men plus all of the women at 7.  This was I think my 18th Ironman start line, and in all of these races the only aspect that still sometimes gives me true pre-race anxiety is thinking about the swim start. I've been in some brutal ones. But the split start, even though there were still several hundred of us standing on the beach, still just took a lot of that away.

I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been this relaxed before an Ironman race. I had absolutely no pressure on myself. My foot issue training hiccup sort of took out any high expectations I may have had. The foot was tolerable, but I'd missed some really key training and had just kept things pretty easy in the final weeks I was running. I felt like I was in good shape otherwise though for everything else and had no concerns about having trouble getting through the race, barring of course unforeseen issues like mechanical problems, but it's a waste of energy to worry about those things.

It was a beach start, plenty of space, and I lined up right toward the front and as far to the left, which was where the buoys were, as I could get. The ocean had been in the upper 60s I believe which is chilly to start but really pretty perfect for swimming. When the cannon finally fired I walked purposefully toward the water rather than dashing in like a mad woman.  It's a long, long day, there's really no reason to dart into the water, and there was plenty of room so no worries about fighting for space.

So, off we went. I don't remember getting hit very much when we were starting, there was a lot of space. A few waves but nothing terrible. The swim is one loop, swim out, 90-degree left turn and swim very far, then 90-degree turn, 90-degree turn, swim back and in.  Let's just say that there weren't really enough buoys. And they were the same color. So sometimes you'd look up to find the next one and you might see one in the distance, but you weren't entirely sure if that was the next buoy you were supposed to be swimming for or if that would take you across to the opposite side of the swim course.  It wasn't that bad on the way out, and I still had some swimmers around me. But once I turned to swim back in, I don't think I've ever felt so alone on an Ironman swim course before in my life. four or five times I stopped completely to just look around and try and figure out where I was, and sometimes I couldn't even see another swimmer. I could always see kayakers and support paddlers somewhere, but it was pretty unclear whether or not I was actually on the swim course anymore. I had thought that it would be a pain with the wave starting in front of us and I'd run into a wall of slow swimmers, but it really wasn't an issue. I passes some here and there, but everyone was so spread out.

It got really rough out there with the waves, and it was impossible to find a nice crest of a wave to look out and see the next buoy, because there were dozens of others between you and what you were looking for, obscuring the view. So, I just kept swimming in the general direction I thought I was supposed to go and figured that eventually I would be able to see better where I was supposed to go.

And of course I did eventually get on course and figure it out, especially once I was close enough to see the pier that marked the end of the course. I had absolutely no clue what my swim time was as I saw no clock and didn't wear a watch, and I was pretty shocked to see 1:07 when I fully expected that after probably swimming three miles it would be closer to 1:15 or 1:20, but whatever.  For reasons never explained, for some reason we had to keep our swim caps on our heads until we got to the showers after a beach run, and we were not allowed to take off our wetsuits past our waist until we were actually inside the change tent. Why? I have no idea, just one of the nuances of international competition, I suppose.  Transition was quick and painless and then it was time to bike.

Again, I was thoroughly relaxed. I also really had no major doubts about my bike fitness going into this race. That, plus the fact that I was leaner for this race than I'd been in a while, and there were lots of hills, left me feeling pretty good about how it would go. We had driven the course a few days prior so had some idea what to expect. There were plenty of hills and plenty of beautiful scenery. And monkeys. Definitely my first time doing a bike ride where I saw monkeys just kind of hanging out by the side of the road.

The ride starts out fairly urban on some wide city streets with plenty of civilization, like McDonalds and KFC. I saw more KFC restaurants in South Africa than I've seen anywhere in the US.  I started out riding maybe a little harder than I should've, but I hate the beginning of these rides because there are so many more people around me, especially with a wave of men in front of us who'd had a 15-minute head start.  I also started drinking a lot. It wasn't especially hot there, probably topped out maybe in the mid 70s, but clearly I had been training through ridiculous cold winter so some extra fluid wouldn't be a bad thing.

Eventually things got a lot more rural and the hills began. There were some long ones, and the downhills to compensate didn't help much because many of them had very sharp turns at the bottom that required going very, very slowly or launching off a cliff.  I chose the first option. We also sort of alternated between riding on the right or riding on the left. I had been concerned about left-handed bottle swaps at aid stations, but they had those positioned really well, during very slow sections, so it wasn't a problem. And some of them were on the right anyway. The pavement was also quite often very, very rough. Which made it just a little bit more uncomfortable, but you don't have much choice there aside from just getting through it.

Another added challenge for the day was the wind. We had expected it anyway, but it certainly didn't help speed. But I knew going into this that it was going to be a challenging course, and it was going to be slower than normal, and all I could do was keep pedaling and deal with it. By the time the first loop ended I rode through town with no other people so I felt pretty good about how I was doing. I caught some more guys coming out of town but by about mile 70 I was fairly alone, which can be good and bad. Nice not to worry about other people, but it gets somewhat lonely out there. As much as I enjoy biking, it always gets to a point where it just becomes uncomfortable to be on the bike. My neck was hurting, my wrists were hurting from gripping the handlebars too tightly over all of that rough pavement, the balls of my feet were hurting from so much pedaling, I was just over it. And knowing that on a flatter course like Texas I would've been finished a whole lot sooner also didn't help. But, finally I finished the ride. My nutrition all went down smoothly, I drank 13 bottles of fluid, and I remained upright with no flats. 

So, now time to run. Oh, always the wild card for me these days. I was a runner once, and maybe someday again if I can string together enough consistent months of it without injury or something else I will be again, but I'm definitely not there yet. So I knew this was just going to be about getting through it rather than racing it. Not that I wasn't basically going as fast as I could at the time, but it wasn't going to be fast. My legs also felt pretty wrecked from that brutal 112 miles, but once I get to the marathon I don't even care anymore really, I know I can walk if I have to in order to finish.

But, I didn't really have to walk much. One very different thing on this course as opposed to US courses was that the water was served not in cups but in sealed plastic bags you had to bite the corners off of. When they described this to us in the pre-race meeting it sounded like it was both stupid and annoying. But once I actually tried it out on the course it turned out it was actually way better than losing half a cup of water down your shirt like we do it back home. Bite a little bit off, and suck it all down, don't lose a drop. Also, if I did this one again I'd take one or two with me for later on longer stretches between aid stations. Because the first half of each of the three loops had plenty of aid stations, and the second half had closer to 2 miles between them. Or, way, way too long. It was like torture at that point.

Not a whole lot to say about the run. I just kept on moving forward, got passed by a whole lot of people, and kept trying to figure out a way to make my hands stop feeling all puffy and swollen. The on course drink was Gu, and I don't think there was enough salt in there so I was low. I kept eating bananas although I skipped the boiled potatoes they were also offering.

One other weird thing I experienced in this race that I've never experienced anywhere else, I was hungry on the run. Like, really, really hungry. Normally I'm forcing down nutrition and don't want anything, but at any given moment during that marathon if anyone had offered me a pizza, I would've gladly accepted.  I don't think I've ever had an Ironman race where I stomached all of my race nutrition so well, either. Just absolutely no moments of race gut or cramping or feelings that I couldn't stand the thought of another gel. For whatever reason, that all went really smoothly.

I already explained the aid station situation, but the run course was really pretty flat which was nice. A few inclines here and there, that seemed more and more like mountains on each subsequent loop, but that was it. Crowd support was great, and the aid stations, when they weren't too far apart, were mostly pretty good. Although some seemed to be missing certain things, and one only had Red Bull for some reason. 

For the first time in a couple of Ironman races, I was on the bike course longer than the run course, so at least there was that!  I actually picked up the pace for about the last two miles, because it was flat or downhill, because I was thirsty and those last aid stations were really far apart, and because I was hungry and wanted to be done soon. Also I was annoyed that as I looked at the kilometer markers and tried to convert them to miles and compare with my Garmin, it became clear that the run course was long.  By a half-mile when I looked afterward. Like we need that. The bike seems to have been about a mile-and-a-half short, but you won't hear me complaining about that.

Just before it got dark, I crossed the finish line of I think my 17th Ironman. I had no idea of my time because I wasn't sure what time the finish clock represented but I didn't really care, I was just glad that I'd finished and that it wasn't terrible and that for the first time in a long time I ran most of the run, even if not that fast.  I had my finish line catcher who took me to get my dry clothes and finisher shirt and then she asked me where I wanted to go. Normally at the end of these things I feel so horrendous that I don't know what will make me feel better, whether lying down or food or water or what. But this time my answer was clear: FOOD.  Luckily that was easy, and in short order I'd had pizza, a chicken sandwich and a fudgcicle.  It was perfect.

So, that was that, another Ironman in the books, first international race. I would certainly recommend this one to anyone and maybe someday I'll even do it again myself. But first we need to erase my memory of the insanely long plane rides. Wow, Africa is far. And huge. On our way over we stopped once in Africa briefly, and where we stopped in Africa was actually closer to the US than our final destination on the same continent.

So that was quite the kick off to the season. Nothing big on the horizon for now, just sticking with a bunch of local races over the summer, I think. But this was a pretty good start.