This week it was Ironman 70.3 Luxembourg. As I mentioned in my last post, normally any Ironman or 70.3 event is a big one on my race calendar and has my full planning, attention to detail and all the palaver that comes with a big race. As this was inserted into the schedule as purely prep for Challenge Roth, however, it was somewhat overlooked. Given how I performed, maybe that’s the key to all my future racing!
To say I was untapered is putting it mildly. With the race (a little unusually in Sunday-centric triathlon circles) held on Saturday, Thursday saw me run 90 minutes of long intervals as well as a strength session; I didn’t actually train on Friday but did work all day and then drove 4 hours down to Luxembourg to just about make it to registration with 10 minutes to spare and then immediately rack my bike and put in my more or less empty bike and run bags. One big advantage of having done this a few times now is not panicking - the first few times, I was painstaking about prepping my bike before bike check-in and made sure my bags were packed to perfection… now, knowing it was a late start the next day and that I’d have loads of time to sort out my bike and bags, I just shoved it in to make do.
The late start left me with a nutritional quandary. I usually now just have a bulletproof coffee before racing but as my wave was due to start at 13:50, I knew that wouldn’t cut it. So I got up at around 8:00 and had eggs, bacon, sausages and a coffee then went back to my room to relax and start prepping.
I arrived at the transition area around 11.45 and had loads of time, as predicted, to set up the bike (as closely as possible to what it’ll look like for Roth which meant a little bento box on the top tube that I wouldn’t usually bother with for a 70.3 - in this case, it contained 1 x Raw Bite bar and 5 x protein pills… a bit empty but practice for Roth, as I said); for those interested, I also carry one bottle behind the saddle (containing 1 x scoop Generation U Can) and a Nathan AP Pro bottle on the aerobars. I’ve experimented with various set-ups and have discovered that I need the constant reminder of a straw near my lips to remember to drink enough water… the AP Pro is an excellent solution.
I met a couple of ATAC team mates in transition zone and then joined them in the athlete’s garden - a nice feature of 70.3 Luxembourg - essentially an outdoor pool and grassy area used for storing after-race bags, having a warm-up swim, and getting food, drink and the all-important finisher’s t-shirt after the race. With 25 minutes to go until my wave start, I pulled on the wetsuit to head into the pool for a light 15 minute swim and then made my way across the (closed-off) road and to the River Moselle for the wave start.
However, he then picked up the pace (as well as the swim turning against the slow movement of the river) and I found it hard going, definitely working harder than IM pace but, looking around me, we had dropped the rest of our wave quite a long way behind, so I had a choice to make: work hard and stay on feet, or swim solo and lose time. I opted for the first choice and it was a good one - I definitely had to swim harder than planned but the swimmer in front did a great job of navigation a not entirely straight forward course that was complicated by us having to swim through half of the previous wave who’d started 10 minutes ahead.
Swim time (1.9k): 25:30 (2nd in age group) - solid swimming and happy with this time and result, even if it’s some distance off my best 70.3 swim.
T1: Had a bit of a nightmare with my race belt (thought I was being smart but learned my lesson - couldn’t get it to click so just tied it around my waist) but an OK T1 in 2:31.
The middle 40k of the ride is everything that the first 40k isn’t - essentially, elevated and technical heading through the small villages vineyards of Luxembourg… lovely stuff and I really enjoyed the scenery.
*Lesson for Roth* I really love my Casco Speed Time helmet but, with temperatures now climbing up into the high 20s, I realized I should have removed the little stopper at the top of the helmet which acts as a vent block. More ventilation was most definitely needed. As, in my opinion, were more aid stations on both the bike and run courses - my only criticism of an excellent race.
My aim was to keep power to 300W or less even on the climbs, which there were plenty of, and to proportionately reduce power on the downhills and just focus on getting aero, which I also did. The ups and downs of the course were great prep for Challenge Roth although Luxembourg was much more technical… which also meant the bike wasn’t as fast as it might seem to be. Many of the downhills had tight hairpin bends or crossed village cobbles and speed bumps which meant I couldn’t take full advantage of the ups and downs. Specially after seeing a few ugly-looking crashes and a couple of ambulances speed around the course.
Again, I think that riding to power really helped this - as well as my chilled-out attitude maybe. Whereas I’m usually thinking in terms of overall speed and becoming frustrated with every slow uphill, I simply focused on the power numbers and didn’t think at all about how far I’d gone or what my average speed was (my Garmin was set up to show time, current power, lap power - I reset the laps every so often as the terrain changed considerably - and cadence).
Finally, we dropped out of the hills and found ourselves back on the Moselle, to the south of Remich, but this time the course was a little more rolling, the roads weren’t the best quality and there was a solid headwind. Again, I kept to the numbers and soon found myself rolling into Remich and ready to jump off the bike.
Bike time (91k): 2:36:07 (now 22nd in age group). Really solid ride as I was definitely holding back a little (tho not a lot) and felt like I performed well on an at-times tricky course. To place it in context, the top three in my AG on the day rode 2:24-2:25, so it’s definitely not a quick course.
T2: straightforward and pretty uneventful, I pulled on socks, run shoes, my trucker’s cap and my Oakleys and shoved a Shake 33 chia gel pack into my shorts and headed out on to the pretty darn hot run course. 1:50
The plan was to start fairly easy and then pick it up if I felt ok. I ran the first 7km loop at just below my target Ironman pace and felt myself having to hold back to do that, which is a good sign for Roth. There were two guys from one of the waves who’d started before me who were a lap ahead (the coloured bands handed out at the end of each lap helped here) who were running the same pace so I tucked in behind them and allowed the invisible run elastic to control the pace. The second lap, I picked up the pace a little but started to feel the exertions of the day by now - especially in light of the heat. I was chugging down water, and sticking sponges down my top at each aid station. But I felt generally pretty good as I started the final lap. I knew that, barring any catastrophes, I was already going to run a half IM run PB but I decided to see how deep I could dig and really give it some… by the end, I was going well below 4:20/km which is really game-changingly fast for me at this point in a 70.3.
Finally, I took the final band and headed right instead of left into the finishing chute.
Run time (20k): 1:30:26 (now 25th in age group). The run was, without doubt, a good kilometer short but even a 1:35ish run would be a massive improvement on my 1:41 PR for the half marathon in a Half IM, so very happy with this.
Overall: 4:36:24 (25th out of around 200 in my age group)
I only wear my watch for the run so, when passing through the finish arch, I was shocked to see my overall time. A 5 minute PB on a course that was certainly not all easy and on essentially no taper at all. Very happy. The run was 11 minutes faster than I’ve run in a half Ironman before tho I think it needs a pretty considerable asterisk next to it as I clocked it as being 1km short. Even so, that’d have been a very good run for me. Finishing the race, however, it was like my body realised all at once how hot it was and my head exploded with pain. I stumbled along, got my medal and then poured bottle after bottle of water over my head to start cooling down. The athlete’s garden was like heaven - a cold shower, change of clothes, cold drinks and some chicken stir-fry - all enjoyed in the shade - had me feeling somewhat human again.
This was a very solid day and almost the best possible preparation for Roth. Firstly, in terms of the bike set-up, nutrition etc all going well; then there’s the specificity aspect with the hills and rolling terrain of Roth well reflected by the Luxembourg course; finally, right down to the baking hot conditions which could well happen on a July day in southern Germany.
In that respect, the time/performance itself was somewhat unimportant but I can’t deny that it’s brought me a lot of confidence. When banking hours after hours of training, you know of course that you must be getting fitter, but seeing it with times and performances always helps.
The confidence is not only high for Roth but for next year also, when I’d like to focus on some shorter stuff and maybe a couple of 70.3s again, to see if, when focusing on that distance, I can be genuinely competitive towards the pointier end of the field (i.e. top 10 in my age group). Had Luxembourg been an A race, for example, and I been tapered and rested, I think I’d have swum more or less the same, could have pushed at least 10W average more on the bike, and probably could have found a couple of minutes on the run by pulling the trigger earlier. With all that in mind, a 4:27 here would have got me 12th in my Age Group… so my goal seems extremely tough but realistic, as all goals should be.
To finish up this overblown, overinflated, overdue and almost over race report, two matters of business:
1. Would I recommend Ironman Luxembourg or race it again? Yes, absolutely. Great atmosphere, well organised and a solid course.
2. My nutrition… yes, being fat adapted rules when it comes to carrying less!
08:00: good portion of eggs, bacon and sausages with black coffee
12:00: black coffee from race village with 2 x little packs of butter (stolen from breakfast buffet) stirred in
Bike: 1 x scoop Generation U-Can, 1 x Raw Bite protein bar (like the protein flavor most and slightly higher fat v carb content), 4 x protein pills after 90 mins of bike
Run: ½ 33 Shake chia seed gel split at 7k and 10k (finished the gel at the end of the race), 1 x sip coke at 17k mark
So, four weeks to Roth, which means essentially another 2.5-3 weeks of hard training before the dreaded taper begins…