MY FIRST (AND LAST) IRONMAN
Everything started in a dinner with my friends. Four friends of the group did an Ironamn 70.3 last year and they wouldn’t stop talking about it during the whole year, and we said it would be nice to do one all together. And by the end of October 2023, we were all already registered. We were excited at first, but the more close to the race weekend the more nervous we were.
There was lots of things that were out of my control, the swimming, the transitions, the eating… There was a lot of uncertainty. The swim was okay for me, I swam a lot when I was a kid and I even played waterpolo for a couple of years, however, my first swim training I remembered thinking “Okay Pol, you should train more”. The bike part was the easiest for me, and to be honest I wasn’t event worried. The run part wouldn’t let me sleep.
The whole race is 1.900m swim, 90km ride and 21km run. We had to be at the start at 7:20am so we found ourselves having breakfast at 5:00am in the morning, we had to drive to the venue and get the last things ready for the race. At 8:10am we jumped to the water.
SWIM ( 1.900m – 37minutes )
I started swimming and I felt good, I was faster than the others and suddenly, after 1 minute swimming I felt I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see and I felt like trapped. I had to slow down, but I couldn’t because there were other athletes behind me who wouldn’t stop. It was really stressful and I had a feeling I’ve never had before, anxiety. I told myself, okay, calm down, focus on every stroke and keep going. I went to the left side of the course because it was more calm and I could swim without worrying about the others. Thats all I did until I saw the finish line, then I started thinking about the transition, everything I had to do, everything I had to take and the order I would do all of it.
I arrived to the exit platform and when I tried to jump out of the water, to my surprise I couldn’t. Luckily there were some people helping us, I thought, okay that’s it, I have it. But I didn’t, as I walked through the red carpet towards the bike I started feeling really dizzy, I thought I was going to fall, so instead of running I walked calmly. I had this feeling during the whole transition and when I started riding.
BIKE ( 90km +800m – 2h 34minutes )
I thought I couldn’t ride 90km like that, but I kept pedalling and after 10 minutes it went away and I started feeling better. From the start, the plan was to warm up on the swim, ride fast but save some energy on the bike and survive during the half marathon. The problem was that I didn’t know how much energy I had to save for the run. So, during the 2hours and 34 minutes of cycling I told myself to slow down, to save the legs for what was about to come… I didn’t do a bad time but I knew I could do way more. I would say I pushed more the first part and the last 30km I started to slow down even more, I was really worried about the run.
Before arriving to the second transition I felt I needed a toilet, so the plan was to change from cycling to running, going to the toilet and then do the run. And that is what I did, however, in the toilet, with the sweat, the salt and the hurry, I couldn’t take off the tri-suit, so I thought, its not that bad, I can finish anyways.
RUN ( 21km – 1h 46minutes )
I started the half marathon, and before I hit the 500m I realised I needed to go to the toilet, so I stoped at the next one, at 1,2km. I think I spent 5 or 6 minutes and then started running again. The first 2kms were a nightmare, I thought I wouldn’t finish, but I said to myself, let’s not stop, it doesn’t matter the time, just keep running. Step by step I felt better and started running faster. We had to run 2 laps in a 10km circuit, it was so long. But again, I started thinking about other things and I could keep up the pace. I stopped at all the food points to drink water and throw water to myself to freshen up the muscles.
When I saw the 16km sign I started to feel I already have it, so I pushed a little bit more. 17km, 18km, 19km, it was already done in my mind, so I pushed even more, I didn’t want to have a bit of energy at the end.
I finished in a total of 5 hours 8 minutes and 4 seconds. Now that I know the time, I know I could have cut 8 minutes very easily on the bike. However, I can’t be disappointed given the training I’ve done. I have to say I liked the whole triathlon world but for the next ones I will chose olympic or sprint distance, I think it fits me better and I am sure I will enjoy it a lot more.
MY GEAR FOR THE TRIATHLON
