sluiper Posted January 26, 2014 Posted January 26, 2014 Nice day out there today. Sea was nice and calm, bike course wasn't very hot due to cloud cover and there was some drizzle on the run course. Compared to last year it was quite a bit easier. Very well organised as usual. Only negative was that the organisers decided that the swim warmup closed at 6:40, meaning almost no one could get a proper warmup. 5:50 for me, so better than I was hoping for.
kingalton Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Amazing race on a tough course, I only managed a 5:38, so 18 min slower than I wanted, but on that course for my first one, I am pretty happy.. Approximate splitsSwim 35minT1 6.5 min (crazy slow)Bike 2:55T2 2.5 minRun 1:58 That second lap of that run was torture.. Only thing which irritated me was the wankers drafting, not slightly, road bikes sucking wheel behind TT bikes on the downhills.. It's plain cheating.. One thing is clear, I am getting a TT bike for the full, the guys were flying past me on the way back on the downhills without much effort into the wind.. We'll done to everyone who completed it, great achievement..
Snytjie Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 A great race. I was there since Wednesday and it was interesting to see the whole thing coming to life. Experienced athletes always say you have to do EL for "the vibe" and I now fully agree: the whole city, the radio stations, even the locals putting it away in The Majestic's public bar are into the event and curious to hear how it goes. Unrivalled organization (at least compared to races I partook in) and the race day functioning was flawless. Only point of contention was the short warm up time as Sluiper said above, but it is a small matter. The legions of volunteers in both transition and at the aid stations ensured easy progression and I never wonder what to do or where to go. As far as my race experience goes: even though everyone knows that it is ranked as the second toughest 70.3 in the world and I certainly tried to do race specific training beforehand, I was still caught out by its difficulty. It also didn't help that my Polar decided to malfunction after the warm up and I then had to do the race without any info on effort... The swim was nice, and I even felt quite good coming off the bike. That is, until I tried to run: dead legs like I've never felt before, and within 1km I had to employ all my willpower not to walk for a while. I ran Bunkers twice before the race and felt quite positive about it, but race day saw me run-walk up it. As I had no watch I'm not sure about my time, but the clock read 7:01 when I finished. As far as I know that's from the start of the pros, so it puts me somewhere around 6:20. Time is really of academic importance only: the experience far outweighs the importance of whatever mediocre time I posted. There is no doubt that EL will be fixed on my race calendar for some time to come.
JGR Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 My build up didn't start well catching some food poising and having to go the ER and get on a drop for a few hours. 3 hours sleep and off to the airport. Spend the days leading up drinking loads of rehydrate ect and did some light training. Had a nice swim on the course the day before. Had the best night sleep ever before a big race and felt confident in the morning. I fumbled around with my watch after accidently pressing the wrong button but still managed to get out the water in 29mins, which was a big goal for me. Smooth transition and then had a good bike, taking 10 mins of my previous time. Got onto the run course after about 4hrs of racing and felt good the first few kms and then things went south very quickly. Major stiches and cramps hit and crawled home in a run - finished in 6h29. Mixed emotions about not building on the great start but happy with the swim and improvement on the bike. Not the first time this has happened - any suggestions out there? not enough training? nutrition? hydration? equipment. Lots of work to do before April!
mon-goose Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 JGR - must be quite frustrating but at least there were some positives. With the food poisoning it's difficult to guess if that was the cause or if bad training etc was the cause. I'd simply up my training a little, go for a few massages, drink and eat loads on the day
kingalton Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 My build up didn't start well catching some food poising and having to go the ER and get on a drop for a few hours. 3 hours sleep and off to the airport. Spend the days leading up drinking loads of rehydrate ect and did some light training. Had a nice swim on the course the day before. Had the best night sleep ever before a big race and felt confident in the morning. I fumbled around with my watch after accidently pressing the wrong button but still managed to get out the water in 29mins, which was a big goal for me. Smooth transition and then had a good bike, taking 10 mins of my previous time. Got onto the run course after about 4hrs of racing and felt good the first few kms and then things went south very quickly. Major stiches and cramps hit and crawled home in a run - finished in 6h29. Mixed emotions about not building on the great start but happy with the swim and improvement on the bike. Not the first time this has happened - any suggestions out there? not enough training? nutrition? hydration? equipment. Lots of work to do before April! Well done on pushing through.. It was tough out there despite the good conditions.. Having food poisoning is a huge setback. A bad race now is better than having it on the full, which I am sure is your long term goal.. I bombed totally in December at the rockman, running the 18km in 2:45.. Not lekker on the day, but I learned a lot from it.. You will do much better next time.. It's all part of the learning process..
fanievb Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 A great race. I was there since Wednesday and it was interesting to see the whole thing coming to life. Experienced athletes always say you have to do EL for "the vibe" and I now fully agree: the whole city, the radio stations, even the locals putting it away in The Majestic's public bar are into the event and curious to hear how it goes. Unrivalled organization (at least compared to races I partook in) and the race day functioning was flawless. Only point of contention was the short warm up time as Sluiper said above, but it is a small matter. The legions of volunteers in both transition and at the aid stations ensured easy progression and I never wonder what to do or where to go. As far as my race experience goes: even though everyone knows that it is ranked as the second toughest 70.3 in the world and I certainly tried to do race specific training beforehand, I was still caught out by its difficulty. It also didn't help that my Polar decided to malfunction after the warm up and I then had to do the race without any info on effort... The swim was nice, and I even felt quite good coming off the bike. That is, until I tried to run: dead legs like I've never felt before, and within 1km I had to employ all my willpower not to walk for a while. I ran Bunkers twice before the race and felt quite positive about it, but race day saw me run-walk up it. As I had no watch I'm not sure about my time, but the clock read 7:01 when I finished. As far as I know that's from the start of the pros, so it puts me somewhere around 6:20. Time is really of academic importance only: the experience far outweighs the importance of whatever mediocre time I posted. There is no doubt that EL will be fixed on my race calendar for some time to come. And most the the volunteers are school kids
Adrian Fogg Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Typical EL weather struck on Sunday all 4 seasons in one day. But what a beautiful morning to start of with. The ocean looked like a mirror. I take my hat off to all you entrants. The look on some of the contestants faces on the run section was gruelling, I'm sure there are ALOT of sore bodies today. I have now put the Ironman 70.3 on my to do list. I sat at the end watching the winners come in aswell as a lot of contestants, the whole vibe, experience, WOW South Africa & East London be damn proud of this event. :clap: I have watched the SPORTS NEWS to see if there was coverage on it, sadly I have not seen anything. Only Algoa FM this morning had a chat to the winners James & Jody. Once again well done to all the contestants. p.s the WIND is pumping here again today
JGR Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Typical EL weather struck on Sunday all 4 seasons in one day. But what a beautiful morning to start of with. The ocean looked like a mirror. I take my hat off to all you entrants. The look on some of the contestants faces on the run section was gruelling, I'm sure there are ALOT of sore bodies today. I have now put the Ironman 70.3 on my to do list. I sat at the end watching the winners come in aswell as a lot of contestants, the whole vibe, experience, WOW South Africa & East London be damn proud of this event. :clap: I have watched the SPORTS NEWS to see if there was coverage on it, sadly I have not seen anything. Only Algoa FM this morning had a chat to the winners James & Jody. Once again well done to all the contestants. p.s the WIND is pumping here again today There are highlights on Blitz and im sure supersport will package together something in the next few weeks.
JGR Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Well done on pushing through.. It was tough out there despite the good conditions.. Having food poisoning is a huge setback. A bad race now is better than having it on the full, which I am sure is your long term goal.. I bombed totally in December at the rockman, running the 18km in 2:45.. Not lekker on the day, but I learned a lot from it.. You will do much better next time.. It's all part of the learning process..Thanks! What did you do differently? more brick sessions? Maybe I pushed to hard on the bike .....
kingalton Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Thanks! What did you do differently? more brick sessions? Maybe I pushed to hard on the bike ..... The thing I learned is to try find the balance between going slow enough on the bike to have enough for the run and still doing a decent time on the bike... I am now getting coaching with Matt Trautman at MyTrainingDay.. Very structured training. Maybe try get a coach to assist you.
Snytjie Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Major stiches and cramps hit and crawled home in a run Not the first time this has happened - any suggestions out there? not enough training? nutrition? hydration? equipment. Do you mean muscle or stomach cramps? For what its worth: the only time I got serious stomach cramps was when I took too much of a particular brand of nutrition and my stomach seized up as a result...
ADe Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 My build up to the 70.3 was really good. I had a great 2 week taper and felt good to go. My swim was really good and I entered T1 after 36 minutes. I took T1 too easy and had a chat to a guy next to me and the volunteer assisting me with my bike bag. This year I took the first 45 km on the bike easy and still felt good at that point. The wind on the way back was really strong and I had to work much harder than planned. I entered T2 at about 4 hours of race time which meant I needed a sub 2 hour half marathon for a sub 6 which was exactly the pace I trained for months. My legs felt amazingly strong and I kept my pace for about the first 10 km. Then out of nowhere I had this all too familiar pain on the side of my right knee. I had ITB problems on my left knee before going for surgery but never on the right one. From that point on it was a run walk rub run affair. I crossed the line with lots of pain in 6:08. Not quite sub 6 but still 50 minutes better than last year, so I am really happy with my time. I am just worried about this ITB nonsense especially with full IM coming up.
clyde79 Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 Amazing race on a tough course, I only managed a 5:38, so 18 min slower than I wanted, but on that course for my first one, I am pretty happy.. Approximate splitsSwim 35minT1 6.5 min (crazy slow)Bike 2:55T2 2.5 minRun 1:58 That second lap of that run was torture.. Only thing which irritated me was the wankers drafting, not slightly, road bikes sucking wheel behind TT bikes on the downhills.. It's plain cheating.. One thing is clear, I am getting a TT bike for the full, the guys were flying past me on the way back on the downhills without much effort into the wind.. We'll done to everyone who completed it, great achievement.. I hear you bud, I was in exactly the same boat. The return bike leg was frustrating as I just couldn't keep the same pace as the TT bikes into the wind. I am also toying with the idea of getting a TT for the full but I am worried there isn't enough time to adjust. With essentially just 8 weeks of hard training time left do you guys think one could get suitably comfortable on a TT / aero bike having just trained on a road bike?
Red Zone Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 Bit the bullet and entered 70.3, going to shoot for a solid 5:15 - 5:20 (probably a bit optimistic but you got to set the bar high) just using it for a warm up for the big guy in AprilJob done, slap bang in the middle of my prediction, good day out, swim and T1 could have been 4 mins quicker together which would have been nice, but happy with the way things went. I feel like my legs have gone 12 rounds with a heavyweight boxer. No rest though only 10 weeks to Ironman
sluiper Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 With essentially just 8 weeks of hard training time left do you guys think one could get suitably comfortable on a TT / aero bike having just trained on a road bike? Most definitely. More than enough time to adjust. I ride mostly road and will only do 3 or 4 sessions on the TT before a race.
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