2010 Double Ironman Race Report (Part 4)

Bike:

Urgh, the bike! This was the aspect that had been most worrying me. I knew I had massively improved my endurance at least on the bike but having only done 127miles previously I was worried I hadn’t done enough. I was conscious of trying not to push too hard on the bike as everyone had advised me how badly pushing too hard on the bike can affect your run. So I was fairly sedate on the first few laps coming in around 53mins a lap, stopping for a few mouthfuls of food and heading out again. I knew it was really important to eat and though I didn’t like eating whilst actually cycling, eating when I had stopped was not a problem at all. I had been worried about not drinking enough during a swim and I think this might have been the case as I was starting to get a thumping headache. However, my neck and upper shoulders were also really tight and I mentioned this to Mum at the end of the third lap. She told me I should see the physio who was on-site all the time and had said we should come to him at the earliest opportunity so he had a chance to sort things out before they got too problematic. I didn’t really want to come off the course after only four hours especially as I wanted to try and get 6 or 7 laps in before dark but Mum was insistent (clever girl!) and said she would just see what the process was for booking in with him whilst I was out on my next lap. It has to be said that whilst I was keeping reasonable speed I didn’t much enjoy lap 4, the headache was there, my neck was sore and my helmet straps had inexplicably worked loose at the back so it was falling down my face which didn’t help my neck as I was having to peer out of it.

As I entered the athlete’s village at the end of lap 4, Mum was at the entrance waving me down and saying I was booked into with the physio and was to go straight there. So, no time to argue! I headed into the physio tent and told Tim what I was struggling with. He asked me how long a break I wanted as he could do however long I said. I was tempted to have a good hour (or thirty!) but said just 5 or 10mins should see me ok. He first loosened the muscles in my neck and shoulders and then said he was going to release some of the joints as the whole of my upper spine was locked and it was no wonder I was in pain and getting headaches. After a few good cracks, I felt much better and that, combined with my first two ibuprofen to help with the headache saw me good for the next few laps. As I said, I had written Mum a list but I often found I didn’t want much of the sweet stuff (especially muesli bar type things) I had suggested and luckily she was brilliant and often had hot savoury stuff ready for me without any prompting!

By lap 7 it was beginning to get dark and when I stopped that time it was time for lights and my high vis vest. I hadn’t really felt cold at all up to this point. Looking at the Rev in the video last year I had worried I would start to get really cold as the temperature dropped but apart from changing my high vis gilet for a jacket I stayed in just my short sleeve cycling top all night without ever feeling really cold – we were so lucky that the rain was only really showers interspersed with periods of sun which actually got quite hot and they themselves had cleared by the time the evening came. The only thing that did make the biking difficult was the wind. It was one of those joyous cyclic winds that somehow appear to be in your face the whole time and it did definitely slow some of the sections down considerably. However, generally the weather held and I was just so glad we didn’t have the torrential storms they had faced last year!

I was so glad I had managed to get seven laps done before the night came as I knew that it was only one lap to go until half way and I had some good milestones to achieve throughout the night such as the end of lap 10 which would signify my longest ever cycle. In my head I broke it down into 4 sections of four laps and only ever focused on one segment at a time. I instructed Mum on the psychology of the segments and keeping me focused on just one part of the time. For example, I was excited to reach 8 laps as it was halfway but I told Mum to encourage me by saying stuff like, ‘brilliant you’re on your third segment’, NOT stuff like, ‘excellent one IM down only one to go’, which just focuses you on the fact you have another IM to do instead of just the first lap of a segment!!

I had never cycled in the dark before and hadn’t even had my lights on except in the sitting room so I didn’t know how well I would be able to see or if they would point in the right direction. I had various different attachments holding all my borrowed lights on but Carl’s uber-lumicycle light duct-taped between my tribars was actually all I needed. In fact I got quite a lot of abuse from cars who thought I was on ‘high beam’! A few of them flashed me to turn it down and one polite young man even yelled out of his car as he passed, ‘Turn your light down you flaming poof’ which amused me no end! J After the pain of the first few bike laps which was honestly the only time I felt, ‘Why on earth am I doing this, I just want to be at home’ I settled in and I quite enjoyed cycling at night. Psychologically it was easier aswell as I just said to myself, ‘All you have to do is cycle until the sun comes back up and you’re done’. Just thinking of that kept me going. I didn’t get cold and Mum continued to feed me good food – she handed me some chicken super-noodles around lap 9 which were certainly not on the list and I was sure I didn’t want but were amazing upon eating them – she’s a genius my mother! J I didn’t even really get tired through the night. I had a slight dip around 4am but by then I had less than two laps left and I knew the sun would be up in around another hour and that would make me feel more alert so I just plodded on and sure enough the sun did soon rise and I was onto the last lap. The marshals had been SO amazing through the night, they were like little beacons of joy – I just wanted to get to them each time! There was one random guy who appeared about half way through the night in a layby about halfway along one of the long straight stretches and began cheering us on, yelling and clanging a cow bell. I had no idea at the time if he was an actual official or just a random weirdo come to join other weirdos cycling through the night! I did later find out he was official and I thanked him for amusing me for a good few laps!

It was weird not knowing who the other people cycling past you were, you couldn’t shout out to people like you could during the day and I also didn’t know how the other girls were doing. I knew I had lead until the end of the eighth lap when I came in for some more physio but the girl in second, an experienced Danish endurance athlete overtook me at this time and I didn’t see her again after that. I also caught up with my friend Rachael a few times and I could see she was struggling on the bike. She said she had had awful nausea and couldn’t really eat and the pills she was trying to take for the nausea she was just throwing up again. A horrid vicious cycle to be in and though she was super brave and battled on as much as possible she finally withdrew off the bike in the early hours of the morning. Luckily for me and because of Carl’s super light, I didn’t feel I had too much of a drop off in speed through the night and cycled reasonably consistently. I didn’t enjoy the bike as such though it did have it highs but I felt strong and as happy as possibly throughout which was a blessing! One of the highs was my fiancé calling me from Afghanistan at 2.30am in the morning. Luckily I had just reached the end of the lap and was scoffing ravioli in transition. I was worried I would break down a bit speaking to him as I obviously miss him and was upset he couldn’t be there to support me and I was having to focus quite hard on staying positive and strong on the bike and I thought it might disrupt all that. However, it was just wonderful to speak to him and have him be able to be part of the race a little bit even from so far away and I was happy again for another lap of so!

Finally the last lap came! All in all I had had a good experience on the bike, nothing awful had happened, I didn’t feel bad at any point and had kept quite strong. As I said, I certainly didn’t love it and I was FULL of joy to get off the bike and out running but it really wasn’t the huge bogeyman I had made it out to be. Having the mantra of just ‘Cycle until the sun comes up’ really helped me as it had links with my new philosophy of stuff like this – the oft quoted saying, ‘This too shall pass’. And it did! And I gratefully handed in my bike to Eddie, wandered over to Mum and got ready for the Double Marathon!!

T2:

I had a plan that I wanted to get out pretty much immediately onto the run course and get two laps under my belt before changing into run kit. I thought this would give my legs the chance to get into run mode plus it would mean I only had 4 x 10 laps to get through. So I swapped my helmet and gloves for my trainers and hit the run!