Reefathlon Race report - 29 November 2011

The Reefathlon is definitely one of my top 5 favourite events on island. The timing of the Cayman Islands Triathlon, Reefathlon and Cayman Islands marathon worked really well this year compared to last year.

Just before the race start - Photo courtesy of Clement Reid


For those not from the Cayman Islands a more detailed description of the event can be found on the website: Reefathlon Event description

Basically the event comprises an all out 19 mile [30km] cycling time trial. Here is a snapshot of the route map posted on the website by the Cayman Islands Cycling Association:

Last year the Reefathlon was scheduled the weekend before the triathlon which is when most of the triathletes start tapering. Competing in the Reefathlon shortly after the triathlon this year was ideal.

I have pretty much been tapering since the 30th of October as I competed in the Cayman Islands Triathlon on the 6th of November and the Jamaica triathlon on the 13th of November. I thus felt confident going into Sunday's 30km time trial as the 40km bike leg in both the Cayman and Jamaica Triathlon's prepared me well for Sunday's all out 30km TT.

My good friend Marius and I shortly after finishing the 30km TT in tough windy conditions

 Of the four Reefathlon TT events I have competed in over the last two years I believe that Sunday's event definitely had the windiest conditions which made for a tough race. I could feel that halfway into the TT my legs were burning so I did not feel too confident being in the lead as time trialing is Jerome Ameline's strength. Jerome did 42min flat for the Reefathlon in May of this year which is a superb time.

I was aiming for a time of 43min and expected Jerome to beat me due to his time trialing strength. At the end of the day I managed to beat Jerome by just 6 seconds which I was very happy with as this is the first time I have won the Reefathlon TT event.

Coming around the bend at Frank Sound Junction - (Photographer: Clement Reid)

 I would like to say a big thank you to the race photographer Clement Reid for being able to use his photos on my blog entry. Clement's website can be found here http://clementreid.com/

Having a chat to my friend Marius and my wife Jana just after the race.

JAMAICA TRIATHLON RACE REPORT - 13 NOV 2011

Rose Hall, Jamaica Triathlon weekend 11-14 November 2011, November, 16 

(WITNEESSSS THE FITNEEEESSS)

Marius and I at race registration

My equipment all set up in the transition zone

 

3 Triathletes from the Cayman Islands namely Henry Streather, Johan Heath and Marius Deysel decided to partake in the 4^th annual Jamaica International Triathlon event held in November every year. The website for the event can be found here http://www.rosehalltriathlon.com/

To our knowledge, this was the first year that triathletes from the Cayman Islands travelled to Jamaica to compete in the triathlon in Rose Hall. Going forward it would be great to have more international and Jamaican triathletes compete here in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands and Jamaica Olympic and sprint distance triathlon events were only held a week apart from each other this year. The timing thus works really well as one could be dedicated to one training program and do two very scenic events within 8 days of each other. For triathletes keen to take part in the 2012 Cayman Islands Triathlon, you can find the details here:

http://www.caymanactive.com/triathlon-races/ci-triathlon

Synopsis of the Jamaica Triathlon course

We all thoroughly enjoyed the course. Unfortunately Henry got a puncture during the early stages of the bike course. The Jamaica Olympic distance course was definitely tougher than the Cayman Islands course as the bike distance measured 43km in Jamaica as opposed to the standard 40km. The run course was also significantly tougher than the Cayman 10km run course (Further details about the run course can be found close to the end of this race report).

The Swim & race start:

The 3 triathletes from the Cayman Islands

The race was scheduled to start at 7am on Sunday morning the 13^th of November. It did not take us long to remember that we were in Jamaica and that we were on “Jamaica time”, no problem mon. The race officials started the race at 7:20am and we were off for our 1.5km swim. It was a rather interesting swim as we darted off on a straight line into the sea swimming 750m out to the furthest buoy and swimming perpendicular to the shore. It got rather choppy close to the reef which was very near to the turn around point. I got a huge fright about 350m out into the swim. I saw a big black object moving around in the corner of my eye, initially thinking it was a shark. No one told us that they were making a documentary of the race so it ended up being a scuba diver taking video and photos from below.

 

Similar to the Cayman race a week ago I led the swim for the first 700-750m and then got overtaken by Ben Greenfield who eventually won the Jamaica triathlon and also very recently won the M30-34 age group at the ITU Long distance triathlon world championships held in Henderson, Nevada. As Ben came past me at about the 800m mark I decided to slip him in order to conserve energy. My plan was to overtake Ben about 100m from the swim finish but it required too much energy knowing that we had about a 300-400m uphill run towards T1. I exited the water about 3sec behind Ben. At this stage I don’t think Ben was aware that I was doing the full Olympic distance tri, I got the idea he thought that I was doing it as part of a team.

Exiting the water a couple of meters behind the leader

With my heart rate beating at about 175bpm I exited the water and proceeded uphill to T1 just behind Ben. I noted that Ben decided to swim with a Neoprene suit.

Swim split results: I recall looking at my stopwatch as I exited the water and noted a time of 23min (Similar split to the Cayman triathlon from a week before). My swimming times have definitely slowed down compared to 2009 and 2010. I attribute this to the decision I made in 2010 which was to swim less and run more. Checking the official online race results my time was 26:13 for the swim which included the time for the +-300-400m uphill run.

T1: I had a fairly quick transition (2^nd fastest overall) and overtook Ben in T1 as he took extra time to take his Neoprene suit off.

The bike course

As one exits T1 you proceed up a very steep hill in order to exit the hotel property in order to get on to the main road. As I overtook the leader in T1 I lead the race for about the first 3-4km on the bike course. The bike course consists of 2 laps which are not of equal distance. After reviewing my Garmin file I noted that the bike course end up measuring 43km which is what another triathlete measured as well.

The bike course can be described as fairly flat with rolling hills which makes for a fairly fast bike course but as the road runs parallel to the shore the head and crosswinds during certain sections of the bike course made it rather tough.

About to enter T2

Bike split results: I end up posting a bike split of 1:09:30 for the 43km route which equated to an average of 37.1 km/h about 1km/h slower than my bike split average for the Cayman triathlon.

Marius Deysel did exceptionally well on the bike course posting the 5^th fastest split of 1:14:37 and this only in his 2^nd Olympic distance event.

T2

Nothing much to report on in T2, just the usual.

The run course

Exiting T2

Wow, where do I start with the run course. The run course could more accurately be described as an “Xterra off-road trail run”. Due to the fairly tough nature of the run course I would describe the Jamaica triathlon as a hybrid triathlon, somewhere between an Olympic distance triathlon and an Xterra triathlon.

As one exits T2 you proceed downhill on the same 300-400m section you head up with to T1 after exiting the swim.

Once you get down to the beach approximately 0.5km is spent running on beach sand which was rather exhausting. After about  1km from T2 you proceed through a gated area into an off-road section where most of the run course takes place. It rained quite a bit throughout the night before the event which resulted in puddles and muddy sections on the run course which had to be navigated.

As with the Cayman Triathlon I found the last half of the 10km run very tough, predominantly due to the heat and humidity. I started walking through the aid stations to drink water and just trying to cool down by pouring water over me. As the run course is a two loop run course it was nice to be able to see fellow Cayman triathletes and friends Marius Deysel and Henry Streather (After puncturing Henry decided to complete the run course as training for the Cayman Islands half marathon taking place on the 4th of December 2011 – www.caymanislandsmarathon.com

Run split results: I ran about 4min slower in the Jamaica triathlon than what I did in the Cayman triathlon a week earlier. The run course was obviously tougher than the Cayman triathlon due to the off-road nature of the run course and I felt more fatigued than the weekend before. I end up posting the 3^rd fastest run split of 48:49. As usual, I end up losing most of my time to the leader during the run. I conceded about 6min to the leader during the run. Congrats to the overall race winner Ben Greenfield for running a 42min 10km on that tough course.

Overall race summary:

Posing for a pic with my wife after finishing 2nd overall in the olympic distance

All and all the 3 Cayman triathletes really enjoyed the course. We felt that the organizers of the race did a great job of keeping us safe during the swim, bike and run. We were relieved when we heard on the Saturday before the race that the bike course would be closed off  which protected us to a large degree from the vehicles on that main road running between Montego Bay and Rose Hall. One area I feel where the race organizers can improve on for next years event is to notify the triathletes by way of email or the website as to whether bike check in would be mandatory on the Saturday before race day. I was not too happy when I only found out on the Saturday afternoon at the race briefing that I had to have my bike checked in by 6pm.

Taking some time out a couple of hours after the race.

 The course descriptions on the website could definitely be scanned in/posted in higher resolution as the maps were way too small to read online. The course descriptions on the website should also be aligned with the actual routes on race day.

Thanks Jamaica for an excellent long weekend filled with adventure and a great triathlon experience.

Jamaican Triathlon results in today's Jamaican Observer newspaper

We had an awesome time in Jamaica over the long weekend. Got back yesterday morning and feels like we moving between apartments or something. It always feels like a logistical mission travelling abroad for a triathlon but so worth it.

I am planning to do a detailed race report about the Cayman Islands 2011 triathlon as well as the Jamaican Triathlon this last weekend. I placed 2nd in both races which I am really happy about.

There was an article in the Cayman newspaper yesterday which can be located here:
Heath made champ Acker work harder

And here is the article in today's Jamaican Observer newspaper about Sunday's triathlon:

The Jamaican International distance triathlon

I will do a detailed blog post with videos and pictures over the weekend.

I also really like this video that really places the Cayman Islands on the global map:

Welcome to the Cayman Islands

Peak Week 1 leading up to the Cayman Triathlon

Only 15 days to go to till the Cayman Triathlon and I am just about to finish Peak Week 1. I am finding it harder to get up for workouts in the morning than what I did earlier in the year so I just end up doing my workouts in the afternoon which is fine as the volume of training is much less now than a couple of weeks ago.

I am looking forward to taking some time off training during December but I would still like to carry on running during December as it is one of the "coolest" months of the year in the Cayman Islands.

After a disappointing 10 mile bike time trial on Sunday I am feeling more positive about my level of running fitness after a great 5x5min interval run session at Zone 4 pace this evening.

Easy recovery day tomorrow and looking to support my wife Jana during her 13km run in preparation for the Cayman Islands half marathon on the 4th of December 2011 http://www.caymanislandsmarathon.com/. Nope, I am not planning on doing a 13km run tomorrow as a recovery session. I am planning on a very easy 1h bike ride on my racing bike and will pass Jana at stages to drop off drinks for her during her run. She is pretty excited for her long run in the morning as she just got her brand new Asics Kayano's this week which Addie picked up for her in Miami (Thanks Addie).

If all goes well, I will be in Rose Hall, Jamaica in 3 weeks time with my wife and our friends Marius and Lara in order to compete in the Jamaica olympic distance triathlon. The race has been marketed pretty well in the US edition of Triathlete magazine. I know that two years ago Greg Bennett actually won the race so it seems like a couple of pro's come down from the States every year to compete. Certain sections of the race will take place on the property of the Iberostar hotel where we will be staying for the long weekend.

I am also looking forward to following the Xterra World Championships on Sunday. I will definitely be rooting for the South African Caveman Conrad Stoltz to take the win. Lance Armstrong will also be taking part and after his 5th place finish at the US Championships he will definitely be in contention for a top 10 finish.

I am glad that I took my phone along on my run this evening as I managed to snap this picture at sunset time.

Race report - Cayman Islands National 10mile time trial

This is just a quick blog update and an attempt to start blogging more regularly.

Seconds after the race start

The Cayman Islands National 10mile time trial took place on the 16th of October 2011. A link to the photos taken at the event can be found here: http://www.caymancycling.com/national-10-mile-tt-2011.html

Overall I was disappointed with my race performance yesterday. My time was 23:25 which was 1min and 24seconds slower than my time from the 2010 National 10mile TT championships. I have to add that the weather conditions was rather atrocious compared to 2010. About 5min into my TT rain was unleashed from the sky together with gusts of wind that made it rather scary riding with the S60 wheel in front and a S80 wheel in the back.

With two olympic distance races fast approaching during November I was concerned about taking risks on the wet roads yesterday. I had a bike accident on a wet road during November 2008 and since then my confidence has not been the same cycling all out on a wet road.

I reviewed my Garmin data this evening and compared my stats from this years time trial to last year's national time trial. What I found was that my average heart rate was actually 1 beat per minute higher than last year's TT but my max heart rate was 4bpm lower.

Overall my TT ride was good enough for a 3rd place overall in the open division which I was fairly happy with but know that I am going to have to put in a huge effort during the Cayman Islands Triathlon in 3 weeks time to achieve a new personal best of 2:12 or faster.

Receiving my award for 3rd place in the Open division

Ultraman

The Ultraman World Championships

After still being on a high from finishing Ironman Switzerland just over 5 weeks ago I cannot help but wander what the next event or challenge would be.

Fellow triathletes here in the Cayman Islands have been asking me when I will be doing my next Ironman and I do not really have an answer to this question at this stage. I find that training for an Ironman requires so much time and dedication that it just works better for me to do an Ironman once every two years while doing olympic distance and half ironman events in the years I do not compete in an Ironman event. In this way it also give me adequate time to focus on my weakest discipline or areas identified where I can further improve for my next Ironman event.

I came across two Ultraman websites this evening and cannot help to wander what it would be like to compete in this event. I definitely still have to do some more reading up about the Ultraman World Championships and how to go about being invited for this event. Here are two good websites on the Ultraman event I have found:

Ultraman official website

Ultraman - Wikipedia version

Definitely an event to ponder and think about for future years.

My Ironman Switzerland - Official race photographer pics

I was rather excited this morning to finally order and receive the download link for my Ironman Switzerland race photos taken by the photography company Finisherpix.

Here are a couple of my favourite pictures from the race:

Getting a pic taken at bike checkin the day before the race

Out on the bike course on my new Felt B2 pro 2011.

The end product after 15 weeks of hard training. Getting the race splits I more or less wanted on the swim and bike and a much better than expected race split than expected for me on the run.

Bellagio, Italy

Staircase in Bellagio, Italy (Lake Como)

After Jana and my recent trip to Switzerland and Italy I have picked the picture above as one my most favourite pictures taken with our Nikon D3100 SLR during the Italian part of our trip in Lake Como Italy. As one sets foot in the harbour in Bellagio there are a couple of staircases leading to shops and restaurants in Bellagio but really liked this staircase as it definitely plays the part of a staircase in a quaint but very popular Italian village.

Stroke and Stride Series - Race 1

Tomorrow is the first Race of the Stroke and Stride Series.

Event details:Stroke and Stride - Event description (Click on the link for a description of the event)

A video describing the race series can be found here: Stroke and Stride video explaining the race series

After taking a month off to recover from Ironman Switzerland on the 10th of July I am expecting that tomorrow's race will be very challenging as the race intensity is totally the opposite of how I raced at Ironman Switzerland.

Racing the Ironman a month ago required a much slower and consistent pace than what is required for tomorrow 's event.

I am expecting to redline during the run portion of tomorrow's event as first race consists of a 400m all out swim followed by a super hard 2 mile run.

A write up of the action expected at the first Stroke and Stride series tomorrow can be found in this week's Cayman Islands Compass newspaper: Athletes gear up for the Stroke and Stride challenge  (Click on the hyperlink to be taken to the news article.)

Ironman Switzerland - Race report 10 July 2011

Race morning

I am finally getting a chance to wrap up my race report 3 week after my second Ironman race in Zurich on the 10th of July 2011. Most of my race report I was able to write during my flight from Zurich to Johannesburg and the flight from Johannesburg to New York.

Race day started as usual with my alarm clock going off at 4am in the morning. Jana and I got out of bed and started getting ready for breakfast which was being served downstairs from 4:30am especially for all the triathletes staying in the hostel.

Shortly after waking up on race morning

We stayed in the Youth hostel about a 10min walk from the race start. Luckily 90% of the people staying at the youth hostel were triathletes and the other 10% were other random guests which meant that it was rather quiet the night before the race and there were not too many party animals around. I managed to sleep about 4.5 hours which I considered to be sufficient for the night before a triathlon. It is usually on the Friday night before a Sunday race when it matters most to get a decent night of sleep.

I usually have cooked oats made with water on race morning but we did not have a microwave in the room so I had Weetabix with water instead together with a slice of brown bread, a banana and a 350cal bottle of Ensure. I usually avoid dairy products on race morning and go vegetarian the day before the race to try and reduce any possibilities of stomach problems during the day. I had suffered from very painful stomach cramps during the marathon of my first Ironman I did during 2009 and therefore I was super careful of my nutrition on race morning and during the race this time round as I knew that I could do all the training in the world but if I messed around with my nutrition plan it could have very disastrous consequences on my race plan.



My bike covered in plastic (Plastic covers sponsored by Scott)

After breakfast, I proceeded up to the room again, double checked my transition bags and headed down to transition just after 5am. It rained fairly heavily during the night before the race. Luckily most of the triathletes were able to obtain free plastic covers for their bikes from “Scott bicycles” at the Expo area the day before so we were able to cover our bikes with these. I proceeded to unpack all my hydration, nutrition, biking and running stuff next to my bike and double checked my tyre pressure again.


Meeting up with fellow Cayman triathletes just before the race start.

At about 5:50am I headed out of transition, met up with Jana and saw Michael, Dave and Tony briefly (3 of the Cayman triathletes) about 30min before the race start. I slowly but surely put my wetsuit and heart rate monitor on, went to the bathroom again and checked in my “finisher’s bag” containing the clothes I was going to wear once I got to the finishers tent after the race.

At about 6:40am I zipped up my wetsuit with the help of Jana, took a dip in beautiful Lake Zurich to get my body used to the water temperature and swam about 50m out and 50m back. I got out of the water, had a banana and a GU gel with water to make sure I get my pre-race nutrition in.

Posing for a pic with Jana minutes before the race start

At about 6:50am I greeted Jana for the last time and took my spot on the starting line on the shores of the beautiful Lake Zurich or Zurichsee as the locals seem to call it. The Swiss anthem started playing and one could just sense and feel the energy in the air. The gun went off at 6:55am for the Pro’s to start.

Race start 7am and the swim leg


At 7am the gun went off for the official start of Ironman Switzerland. I started more to the right of the mass group start to avoid most of the usual kicking and bashing. As swimming is my strongest discipline in a triathlon I am usually able to finish in the top 60 out a field of 2000 triathletes which helps to keep out of the mass chaos which usually unfolds when 2000 hyped up and tapered triathletes unleash their energy at the sound of the race gun going off.


I kept the first buoy in focus and did a fairly steady sprint the first 200m of the race to try and get to a strong group of swimmers which I could draft for the remainder of the swim. This plan did not work all to well. As the swim course was rather wide, I found that most of the swimmers were fairly spread out up to the first buoy which was about 600m out. From the first buoy onwards I managed to draft one or two swimmers but found that they were changing direction too much and tried to overtake them. The swim course consisted of two laps of 1.9km.

I found that most of the triathletes started the swim too fast as I kept on overtaking swimmers throughout the duration of the swim leg. I remember looking to the left and right while I was breathing during my swim and thinking, wow this is such a beautiful lake in the middle of Zurich. The sun was still sitting fairly low in the sky and I could see all the beautiful houses built close to the shores of the Lake. It crossed my mind once or twice to stop and admire the view but I had business to take care of.

Jana spotting me with the Nikon 300mm zoom
 lens during the first lap of the swim

I completed the first lap in 28min which I was pleased with and calculated that I was on target for a swim split of about 57 minutes which was right on track for me. At the race briefing on the Friday before the race the officials said that the first lap would be slightly longer, say 2km and the second slightly shorter +-1.8km but this did not seem to be the case as my second lap was about 2min slower. This finding re the swim course route seems consistent with what other IMCH triathletes experienced on race day.


The competitors start the second lap of the swim by crossing over a small island in the lake which has a timing mat placed in the middle of the island. I dived into the water again after crossing over the timing mat not wanting to loose the swimmers right in front of me. I aimed for the orange buoy in the distance but found it tricky to swim straight as the swim course was very wide. I managed to keep a steady pace on the second lap and focused on using my arms more and conserving my legs. In the back of my mind I was just thinking, don’t overcook it as I still have a long day ahead of me. I swam 55:58 at Ironman South Africa 2 years before and knew that time was too fast as I went anaerobic during that swim and could actually feel my legs cramping a bit during the 2nd lap of that swim two years ago. I thus held back slightly during my swim in Lake Zurich and aimed for a 58min minute swim. I eventually exited the 3.8km swim in 59:11 and was happy with the time as it was within seconds of the time I aimed for. My age group and overall placing for the swim leg can be summarised as follows:


Swim results


Swim split 59:11


Age group position M30-34: 10th out of 227 [Seeding index = 4.4%]


Overall position: 63rd out of 1600 [Seeding index = 3.9%]


All in all I was happy with the swim portion of my race. It was not a PB for me but planned on not swimming as fast as I did in South Africa in order to conserve more energy for the bike and run disciplines of the race.

T1 (Transition 1)

I entered into transition with my wetsuit down to my waist, sat down and managed to get my legs out of the wetsuit with little difficulty as I applied Vaseline around my ankles before the race start. I clearly recall that I was feeling rather drunk in my head for a brief moment while I was sitting down trying to get the wetsuit off. I guess it must have been due to my body being in a horizontal position for an hour during the swim and then all of a sudden I was sitting in a vertical position.

At Ironman South Africa my T1 split was 4:03 and I was looking at doing a slightly faster T1 time this time round. One of the things that took a bit long during my T1 transition was trying to get my arm coolers on. I decided to wear arm coolers during the bike leg as it was a fairly technical bike course with some fast descents. I therefore thought to myself if I had the unfortunate event of falling on the bike course at least I would have some protection on my arms and hands as I was only wearing a tri-suit which offers limited protection during a fall. I exited T1 in a time of 3:39 which was 24 seconds faster than at IMSA and overall happy with how T1 went.

Bike leg

Wow, what can I say about the Ironman Switzerland bike course. In short, I found the bike course to be challenging, very scenic and technical in nature.

IMCH bike course profile

I had a look at the bike course profile beforehand and noticed that the first 30km was fairly flat. After T1, I was happy to get on my bike and start cycling especially because I got my 2011 Felt B2 pro frame only 3 days before the race so it felt like I was pretty much was riding a brand new bike.

I used the first 15min of the bike course to settle in to the new horizontal position on the bike to make sure that my stomach adjusts going from a vertical to horizontal position after the hour long swim. After 15min into the bike course I started my nutrition plan and made sure I stick to it fairly religiously. I averaged about 35km/h for the first hour and then the fun and games started once I got to Feldbach where I encountered the first climb. Luckily I was already familiar with the climbs that unfolded during the next 30km’s as Pam, Michael and I rode the hilly section of the bike course on the Wednesday before the race.

My nutrition plan during the 180km bike leg was to drink one GU gel per hour with water for the last four hours of the bike ride. For the first two hours of the bike ride I used two bottles of 350cal Ensure I diluted with water and drank the liquid food in small sips about every 15min or so (Thanks to Dean Gaffigan for providing me with some valuable nutrition advice). For hours 3 - 5.75 into the bike course I ate small portions of bananas which I obtained from the aid stations and I had one powerbar I think about 4 hours into the bike course as I recall that I started to feel slightly hungry by then.

From a hydration point of view I stuck with water and orange Gatorade that was offered at the aid stations. I have been reading a couple of articles on hydrating appropriately recently and it comes down to the fact that thirst is still an excellent indicator of how much fluid to drink. Trying to drink based on a formula gets to complex and can be severely affected by weather conditions on the day.

From a pacing point of view I kept on telling myself to hold back during the first 90km of the bike course. As I usually find myself in a top 70 position after the swim I am always amazed as to how many “uber-bikers” there are out there. Looking at the results online about 250 uber-bikers must have overtaken me during the bike course. The depth of cycling talent in Europe was evident on race day. I guess it makes a huge difference to regularly be able to incorporate climbs and rolling hills into one’s bike training.

As I did all my training in preparation for IMCH in the Cayman Islands I did not have the advantage of doing hill training. To try and simulate the hills I did a couple of hill interval sets on my Schwinn spinning bike by turning up the resistance as much as I could during training for interval periods ranging between 4 and 8 minutes.

The bike course consistent of 2 x 90km laps. I definitely found the climb called “The Beast” to be the most challenging section of the bike course. The beast was a climb that took me about 15min to climb. I end up setting up a heart rate limit alarm on my Garmin for the bike course as I kept on thinking what Deano said “Don’t try and be king of the mountains on race day”. It was not as easy as I thought keeping my heart rate below 150bpm on the climbs as my heart rate alarm sounded a couple of times on the climbs.

It was one thing climbing up the hills but another thing descending. It was unfortunate to hear after the race that there were a couple of crashes out on the bike course and that a couple of triathletes had to be taken to hospital to get treated for their injuries they sustained.

After getting through the hilly section of the bike course on the first lap I followed the route along Lake Zurich to heart break hill. Wow, what a great experience heart break hill was on the first lap. It was the closest experience I have had to what I have seen in the Tour de France where spectators line the street on both sides and closing in on the cyclists shouting words of encouragement “hop, hop, hop”! All throughout the bike course I did not know what the words “hop, hop, hop” meant but apparently it means “Go, go, go”!

Pic of me climbing up Heartbreak hill on Lap 1

I saw Jana my wife for the first time at about the 80km mark of the bike course which was great and very motivating. I can always hear Jana’s voice stand out between dozens of other voices when Jana shouts words of encouragement.

After the first 90km lap I checked my lap time and it was about 2:48. I was slightly despondent after the first lap of the bike course as I could see that my average was slower than I was hoping for but under-estimated how tough the hills were going to be.


Since Ironman South Africa in April 2009 I set a goal for myself to complete an Ironman in a time of sub 11 hours. During my long bike rides during the weeks leading up to the race I was always on target to do a bike split of about 5:25 but end up doing a bike split of 5:38 on race day which is was happy with as it end up being a 12 minute improvement over my bike split of 5:50 at Ironman South Africa in 2009 and on a bike course I consider tougher than IMSA’s bike course. At this stage I was however slightly doubtful that I could finish in a time of sub 11 hours as my slower bike split meant that I would need to run a sub 4:15 marathon which represents a time 25min faster than what I ran for the marathon at IMSA in 2009.

After my slower than expected bike split after 90km I decided to just stick to the pacing plan and that was to complete the bike leg still feeling that I can run afterwards. I just kept on thinking to myself that the section where I could gain or lose most time would be during the marathon.

The highlight of the 2nd lap out on the bike course was seeing Jana at Heartbreak hill which was about 174km into the bike course and close to the end. She was there to encourage and motivate me a couple of km’s before heading into T2. There were far fewer people supporting at heartbreak hill on the second lap. I guess the reason for this was because weather conditions were busy deteriorating. The weather forecast predicted rain showers during the afternoon on race day.

One unforeseen change was made to the bike course about a week before the race which resulted in the bike course distance changing from about 178km in 2010 to 181.3km in 2011 which added a good 5min to most triathletes bike split.

Bike results

Bike split: 5:38:54 (New personal best)

Age group (M30-34): 67th out of 227th [Seeding index 29.5%]

Overall: 382nd out of 1600 [ Seeding index 23.8%]

T2 (Transition 2)

I was really happy with how my second transition [T2] went. I had a fast transition of 2:09 which was about 4min faster than my T2 transition at IMSA 2 years ago.

The marathon

In training, I did a couple of 5km runs after my long bike rides which paid off on race day. I knew that I would feel strong during the first 5km of the marathon based on what I experienced in training but I also knew that from past experience that I would need to hold back considerably during the first 30min of the marathon in order to give my stomach a chance to settle in again after being in a horizontal position for the entire bike course.

I needed to make a quick pit stop for a No.1 in the first couple of km’s of the marathon. I thus decided to wait until about 25min had past which would force me to bring down my pace to a halt as I always feel strong during the first 5km. This strategy worked well as I can easily run 30sec per km faster than what intended during the first couple of km’s. After the quick stop, it forced me to reset my pace to the intended race pace of about 5:45min/km.

The marathon section of the course consisted of 4 x 10.55km laps. In my mind, I was thinking and calculating that if I could do each lap in an hour it would put me on target for a 4h marathon which would be more than sufficient for a finishing time of sub 11hours.

I saw Jana at about the 15km mark for the first time during the marathon. At that stage I told Jana that I was feeling strong. My longest run in training in Cayman was 27km and 2.5hours in duration. I knew I had endurance up to that point but was not sure of what would happen afterwards.

I read a very helpful article Caroline Cahill posted a week or two before the race which dealt with how to approach the pacing in an Ironman marathon. In the article it went on to explain that one should divide the marathon in two parts. Part 1 being km’s 1-26 and part 2 being km’s 27- 42.2 which comes down to dividing the marathon in exactly half from a “perceived exertion” point of view. The article explained that one should run the first section of the marathon at a pace you feel you could build on during the 2nd part of the marathon.

I end up adopting this marathon pacing strategy explained above on race day and it worked well for me. I held back during the first half marathon and ran a time of 1:57 which I was very happy with. I figured that if I could keep up this pace and build on it I could possibly run a sub 3:50 marathon which would be incredible for me.

It was from about 18km mark into the marathon that the weather conditions started taking a turn for the worst. It started raining heavily and spectators started looking for cover. The temperature must have been about 23 degrees Celsius at that stage which was great for me as I run much much better in cooler weather conditions. During the marathon section of Ironman South Africa it was reported that it got as hot as 35-36 degrees Celsius which really messed me up.

I was fine with the rain but it was when the lightning storm broke out that I started to get worried. I could hear the delay between the lightning and subsequent thunder decreasing as the rain clouds moved over the city of Zurich. I got really freaked out about the 25km mark into the marathon when I saw a lightning bolt and only counted 1.5 seconds until I heard the thunder which meant that the lightning strike was only about 400-500m away from me. I thought to myself, this is great. I am on my way to a personal best Ironman time and now the race director is most probably going to close the course due the athlete’s being in danger as a large part of the marathon course meanders through parks next to Lake Zurich with plenty of tree’s around.

I just kept on praying that the lightning storm would pass and clear up before it gets even worse as two people were killed by lightning in Zurich earlier in the week when they took refuge under a tree when a lightning storm broke out over the city.

My hydration strategy during the marathon was to drink coke and water to quench my thirst and my nutrition strategy was to eat a combination of pretzels, slices of orange and that was about it. I remember Dean Gaffigan saying to me that he races best when he is slightly hungry. This approach during the marathon end up working well for me too as I never felt bloated. I had very slight stomach pains every now and then during the marathon but they disappeared it never really turned out to be a problem.

I think one of the main changes I made to my nutrition strategy that worked very well was to limit my total intake of GU gels for the day to 5 gels of which none of these gels had caffeine in them. I thought to myself if one cup of coffee affects my stomach, how much sense does it make to consume eg. 10 caffeinated gels on race day.

I recall seeing my training partner from the Cayman Islands namely Michael Stomps during the marathon. I was not sure if Michael was ahead or behind me as I thought that Michael must have nailed the bike course. It turns out that Michael could not find his rhythm during the bike leg and at that stage of the marathon Michael was behind me on the course. I eventually hit the 30km mark and I thought to myself, wow if I can keep this going I am heading for a sub 4 hour marathon which I would be super happy with as I consider running to be my weakest discipline.

I end up keeping up the pace during the last half marathon and tried picking up the pace considerably during the last 8km’s which I did to a certain extent but could feel that exhaustion was slowly but surely setting in.


Pam out on the run course.

I got to about 35km’s into the marathon and remember seeing Pam who was another triathlete competing in IMCH from the Cayman Islands. Pam told me that she had a bad experience on the bike which was sad as to hear as Pam trained very hard for the event.



At about the 40km mark I realised I was aiming for a sub 10:40 finishing time. I crossed the finish line in 10:36 experiencing pure elation for the last 50m before crossing the finish line. Weeks of hard training had paid off which I was so thankful for as so many things can go wrong during an Ironman.

I was also so happy with the end result as I had a very rocky start training wise to the 2011 season and seriously thought of withdrawing from IMCH a stage earlier in the year.

Analysis of my marathon result

Marathon split: 3:52:19 (New personal best by 48 minutes)
Age group result: 77 out of 227 (Seeding index 33.9%)

Overall result: 428 out of 1600 (Seeding index 26.75%)

Overall Ironman Switzerland result

Total race time: 10:36:15 (New personal best, improved my time by an hour compared to IMSA in 2009)

Age group result: 49 out of 227 (Seeding index 21.59%)

Overall result: 286 out of 1600 (Seeding index 17.88%)

Overall approx 1600 triathletes finished the race, my understanding is that about 1900 triathletes started the race.

Finally, I would just like to say a huge thanks to my wife Jana Heath for supporting me so much over the 15 weeks before the race by cooking such healthy meals and always picking me up or dropping me off somewhere for training sessions.

I would also like to thank my parents Ernie and Elize for always supporting me in whichever passions I pursue in life. I especially want to thank my Mom for all her prayers during the day of the race and for always taking such an interest in my triathlon training.

Ironman Switzerland race week report (Week leading up to the race in Zurich)

I am finally getting a chance to write my race week report at 1:15am (Plane time, if there such a thing) on the flight from Zurich to Johannesburg after an awesome 12 day holiday in Switzerland and Italy.

Our holiday started off on the 2nd of July flying in from the Cayman Islands to Miami and then Miami to Zurich with Swiss Air. Jana and I arrived at Zurich airport approx. 11am on the 3rd of July and were really glad to have arrived one week out from the race as we were jetlagged as hell and had a stressful time behind us moving apartments in Cayman the couple of days before due to unforeseen issues with the landlord.

Jana and I then proceeded to take the inter-region train from Zurich Airport to Unterterzen close to Walenstadt in Switzerland (Pic on the left of the train ride to Unterterzen and pic below of Lake Walensee where we stayed for 5 days)). Wow, what a gem of a place in the heart of Switzerland about a 1.5h train ride South East from Zurich. Steve and Pam came to meet us at the train station to help us with our luggage which we were grateful for. We really enjoyed our time with Steve and Pam for the 5 days we spent at Resort Walensee as we shared a 2 bedroom apartment. Thanks to Steve and Pam for finding this great spot. We chilled for the remainder of the Sunday and did our best not take an afternoon nap in order to adjust to the new time zone as quickly as possible.

Monday morning came and we all managed to sleep very well during the night. Everything was going great until I assembled my bike on the Monday morning. I especially bought a torque wrench to assemble my bike as some of the screws such as those located on the seat post and handle bar can only be tightened to certain newton meter torque limits. The seat post clamp had a max torque limit of 5-7nm and I tightened it till 6nm. Not that I heard a popping sound or anything but the next moment I thought that my heart was going to stand still as I noticed the seat post clamp section which is integrated into the frame had split right down in the middle and into a section of the frame. Once I saw this I knew it was going to be a big issue for my upcoming race. For some reason I felt fairly calm about the situation as it was a good enough reason to get stressed out.

To make a long story short, Jana started googling and got hold of the main Felt dealer's contact details in Switzerland. I proceeded to call Peter from Felt. After explaining what happened and explaining where in Switzerland I was situated Peter informed me that they would replace my Felt B12 2009 frame with the Felt B2 Pro 2011 frame.

As the B2 Pro frame was a far superior frame with the Bayonet 2 fork I had to pay in a fair amount but knew it was my only option to get my bike sorted for the race. I was rather ecstatic when I received my new bike. We just happened to be situated about 5km from Suso bike shop which was a Felt dealer. As Felt is an American brand, dealers cannot be found in abundance in Switzerland and therefore felt very blessed to have located a Felt dealer so close by. After various phone calls and exchange of emails with Peter from Felt it was arranged for the components and groupset to be rebuild on to the new bike the Thursday before the race. The bike mechanic from Suso bike (Roland) end up being very talented and did an excellent job of rebuilding my new bike as I had no mechanical issues on race day and the braking and gear transition was very smooth. (Pic above is of me and the bike mechanic Roland just after I picked up my new bike from Suso Bike).

I jumped a few days ahead explaining the whole frame issue above. From the Monday to the Thursday before the race we spent some quality sightseeing time in Walenstadt, Lucerne and Zurich. Michael Stomps, came to pick Pam, myself and Jana up on the Wednesday to go and explore the bike course which was a very valuable exercise as we heard there were a couple of climbs and technical descends. Michael made a good call in that he recommended we ignore the first flat 30km's and proceed to ride the climbs starting from the 30th kilometer.

Michael, Pam and I got out of the car in Feldbach, got on our bikes and started with the first ascent. At this stage Jana was thrown into the deep end as it was the first time Jana had to drive on the other side of the road using a GPS in a foreign country. Thanks Jana, you did a great job of driving behind us most of the time and meeting us safely in the town called "Egg" on the northern side of Lake Zurich.

After completing the first ascent after Feltbach we end up getting lost for a bit until we found ourselves at the start of the steepest and longest climb of the bike course called "The Beast"!!! It soon became apparent why this climb was called "The Beast". I end up spinning up the beast at a fairly high cadence to see how I would fare taking a more efficient approach climbing up the hills as opposed to adopting a lower cadence and killing my legs more than I should for the run. While I climbed up "The Beast" I was rather happy that I fitted the 12-27 cassette to my rear race wheel a couple days before leaving Cayman as I managed to spin up the hill more easily and efficient.

After completing the climb up "The Beast" we descended down to the town called "Egg" where we met Jana and decided to get lunch. Wow, what can I say about eating out in Switzerland, ridiculously expensive and the portions are small. We ordered some sandwiches but the portions end up being too small and expensive that we had to eat bananas afterwards to reach ample sufficiency.

To make a long story short, we proceeded to race registration in Zurich where we managed to register rather quickly and avoided the masses of competitors usually encountered on the Friday and Saturday before the race. I think we all became a bit more nervous after registering, seeing the finish line and transition area set up. We all bought a couple race memorabilia items at the expo area and guess we put some more pressure on ourselves to finish the race as it would not help much buying "Ironman Zurich" kit and not finishing the race. After registering we checked out "Heartbreak hill" quickly which was a rather short but nasty climb which would be repeated twice on race day due to the bike course consisting of 2 x 90km laps.

The exploration of the bike course above took place on the Wednesday. As explained a bit earlier, my bike was rebuilt on the Thursday in Walenstadt by Suso bike which I was immensely happy about. During the day we decided to chill out, do a couple of short taper workouts and enjoy Resort Walensee and Flumserberg for the last day before relocating to Zurich for 3 nights.

Friday morning was spent taking care of the usual admin tasks that goes part and parcel with travel. We checked out at Resort Walensee and took the train to Zurich - Wollishofen station but because of all the triathlon equipment I had to travel with it always makes travel harder.

We checked in at the Zurich youth hostel on recommendation of Johann Prinsloo whom had done Ironman Zurich a couple of years earlier. Thanks Johann for this recommendation as the rooms were clean, the hostel had a great location as it was only about a 10min walk to the race start and we were able to sleep fairly well the Friday and Saturday night as the hostel was occupied by approx. 90% triathletes doing the race so not too many late night partygoers out and about that kept us awake. On the Friday before a triathlon I usually take the day off completely so had no race workouts to do.

At 2pm on the Friday there was a compulsory race briefing to attend which was in English. The German and French race briefings were at 1pm and 3pm I think. It was great to bump in to the triathletes from Cayman for the first time in Switzerland at the race briefing. We had a fairly large contingent of triathletes from Cayman competing in Ironman Switzerland, 8 altogether. The triathletes from Cayman were as follows:

• Dave Bennett

• David Dinner

• Caroline Cahill

• Johan Heath

• Justin Plenkewicz

• Pam Travers

• Michael Stomps

• Tony Watts

After the race briefing I was rather hungry and had to get something to eat. I knew I was going to consume rather large portions of pasta on the Saturday so a "Bratwurst" sausage seemed rather appealing which Michael found hilarious as it is definitely not the best pre-race nutrition. I think it will have to become part of my pre-race nutrition eating plan from now on as I had no stomach problems on the Sunday.

After the race briefing Jana and headed back to the hotel, chilled for a bit and started getting ready for the "Welcome/pasta" party which was held at a small castle like looking structure at a location called Albisgutli. The welcome party was very enjoyable; we were welcomed with Erdinger alcohol free beer (Boring triathletes). We then proceeded inside the venue where a four course meal was served. While we waited for the welcome party to start, the flags of the various countries represented by the triathletes were rolling by on a PowerPoint presentation. Michael and I managed to get a quick photo with the Cayman Islands in the background. We left the party at about 9:15pm and Michael and Vera were kind enough to drop Jana and I off back at the hostel before Michael and Vera headed back to Lucerne.

On Saturday morning I woke up with some definite signs of pre-race jitters. Jana and I proceeded down to the ground floor of the hostel where they served fairly decent breakfast, much better than the American processed breakfasts. My good friend Rudolf from South Africa (A 2x Ironman SA finisher) tried to call me while we had breakfast. I just missed his call due to some network issues and called Rudolf back. It was great to hear Rudolf's voice as Rudolf specially called to wish me good luck for the race. After the chat with Rudolf I felt more chilled out again and finished my breakfast. Jana and I then proceeded up to the hostel room where I had to some final packing and preparations to do for race day.

One of the things I usually do on the Saturday before the race is to put brand new tires on my race wheels to do all I can to avoid punctures. I proceeded to do so which took a while and then packed all my race gear to test out all my equipment during my final pre-race day workouts. Wow, what a mission it was to do a total of an hour's training the day before the race. What was meant to take 1.5 hours end up taking about 3.5 hours as I forgot that they had an Olympic distance race and junior triathlon events on the Saturday which made it rather impossible to do a swim on the race course, not to even talk about riding on the bike course or running on the run course. I end up feeling guilty taking so long to do the pre-race workouts as Jana end up waiting for me all that time as she had to keep a watchful eye over my equipment while I was out doing the short sessions. Down at the transition I managed to see "Macca" a.k.a Chris McCormack who is the current Ironman World Champion. It would have been great to get a photo with him but there were so many people trying to do the same.

Jana and I went back to the hostel at about 2:30pm or so. We chilled for a bit and then I did some final equipment checks on my bike before checking in my bike in transition between 4:30 and 5:30pm. To relax a bit and avoid pre-race jitters Jana and I took the tram to "Old Town" section of Zurich to wonder around and take a couple of photos. We headed back to the Wollishofen area close to our hostel about 7pm. It was great to have a quaint little Italian restaurant situated diagonally across the road from our hostel. I usually go vegetarian the day before the race so I had pasta with sage filled with spinach and some cheese. It was great to receive good luck and well wishes call from my brother Eric and Natalie just after I finished supper. Jana and I went back to the hostel after which my parents called on Skype to wish me all the best for the race which was great as my Mom said that "she just had a good feeling about this race" which was a really good sign for me and it put any pre-race jitters I had at ease. I end up sleeping for 4.5h on the Saturday night which is pretty good for the night before a race.

For my full race day report please check the separate report/blog entry to be posted in the next day or two.