Yep, fourth time on the start line in Port Elizabeth. The Zulu drummers, the crashing waves, the
steadily increasing wind, the rising sun.
The stage is set for an epic day, and an epic day it would indeed be.
For those of you who usually train with me you would have
noticed something, or rather a lack of something at training…. that being my
presence.
Chapter 1 – The thought process
Okay, so I want to quickly talk you through the thought
process behind doing this race. When I
say quick, I mean real time, cos this is actually how it unfolded.
1.
Jo qualifies for Kona in Malaysia – yeah!
2.
Pete shares Jo’s dream that we one day race
together there. Although he doesn’t think it is a high probability due to his
inherent lack of running ability.
3.
Pete sees SA is now a championship race and has
75 slots
4.
Pete knows the field strength there is not as
strong as in Melbourne.
5.
Pete sees once in a life time opportunity (see
point 2)
6.
Pete thinks “What if I drop to 90kgs, take on
the World’s hardest training program then roll the dice in SA?” It is a massive gamble, the training and
weight loss combination could do me in before I even make the start line, but
if you don’t try you never know.
Chapter 2 – The preparation
I want to make one thing perfectly clear, I did not train
with Sean Foster for this race for one reason and one reason only, I did not
want anyone else carrying any responsibility into this race other than myself
(and of course Joey). What I was about to attempt was idiotic, I have a very
well know dietitian as a client and when I asked her for advice she said “that
is the stupidest thing I have ever heard”.
I in no way encourage people to take this approach ever. Massive weight loss plus huge training is a
recipe for a potential health crisis. My
logic (if that is the word); I have never stressed myself this much in my life
so I reckon and can carry it off ONCE.
So that was it. My training plan? So who is the World’s most famous hard arse
coach? Brett Sutton. So I downloaded his 16 week elite level training
program and set about it. Four scheduled
days off in the entire prep, including the taper. MADNESS I TELL YOU!
I will not go into the ins and outs of the program here but
I have learned so much from doing it. My
understanding of the purpose of training has come on tenfold. I finally get it. I had to take three days off, over and above
those scheduled due to being TOTALLED, but that is okay. It is actually part of the plan once you get
to understand it.
I also have to mention here my partner in crime and loving
wife Jo. She looked after me so well
during this time, always telling me to sit down, not do too much, and letting
me focus on the training. She is my
entire world and this will be the last race we ever are separated for; that bit
sucked.
One final point, I know some people are going to be looking
at this and saying – “ah his race went to shit because he over did it and lost
too much weight, his power was down, he was overdone blah blah blah” – well
honestly, fuck you (oh swear warning!)
While this sport attracts some wonderful people it also attracts people
who think they know everything. Well you don’t know shit until you try, and I
tried. Oh, if this describes you, you
can leave now.
All my training metrics were great. I was swimming faster, riding with more power
and running faster and more consistently than ever before. I felt well balanced and incredibly strong.
Chapter 3 – Race day.
Verse 1 – The Swim – 58:11 – 5th in age group.
Win it
on the swim!!! The great thing about the
swim in SA is that it is hard. Very, very hard.
It is hard because due to the long rolling swell, sighting is almost
impossible using the buoys, you have to use landmarks which are miles in the
distance so hard to see. On top of the
long rolling swell is sort sharp chop, and underneath the long rolling swell are
SHARKS (only kidding – orcas ate all the sharks). Standing on the start line, drums beating,
dancers dancing, and all that is in my head is “execute your race”. You see, I made a deal with Jo, Hawaii qualification
was not to be the be all and end all of this race, if it was I was not to
go. So it was not, it was to be an
unlikely upside to a well-executed race. “Your race, your race, your
race”. Boom – the cannon goes off.
The race start is a short run into the water – as usual I
get left behind on this bit – I just don’t like it! But I had a plan I have been working on. I have used lots of open water session to
train a big burst of swim speed to get back to a lead pack and then settle in
behind to recover in the draft. Once I
was in the water and swimming I motored over the top of the guys who were ahead
of me, both figuratively and literally.
I made it to the lead pack by the first turn buoy at 300m. There were a few super fish off by themselves,
but I just let them go. So, part one of
race execution complete. For the next 25
odd minutes I just sat in the middle back of this pack – did not even sight. A real step forward for me in open water
skills. The pace was good, I pulled off
to the side every few minutes just to check I could not go faster myself.
Being a one lap swim we reach the far turn buoys, but then
disaster! As we round the second buoy to
come back, everyone, and I mean everyone goes off in a different
direction! The pack was about 6 strong
and we looked like a firework had just gone off, all pretty coloured hats going
in different directions. The swell was
now so big even the land based marks were hard to spot, so it was just a case
of “eerrmmm lets go this way!” I am by
myself now swimming in approximately the right direction – I see the others
from my pack at various intervals during the next 1.5k, all doing as I am
doing, sort of going this er way.
And then in one of those moments that can only happen in Ironman
I was overtaken, clearly a gun swimmer had missed the start and was now
motoring to make up time, oh hang on, he is doing BACK STROKE! Full on, no joke, back stroke. He turned to sight (yeah right) every maybe
10 strokes but the rest was on his back and he was flying. That almost beats the one armed guy who swam
a 58 minute with me in France – side by side for most of the swim.
We reach the final buoy to turn into the finish and my pack
reforms, again, all from different directions.
Perfect timing. I come out the
water 5th so all is going well.
I have not over stressed myself and 58 mins was great given the
conditions.
Verse 2 – T1
Now then, we all know me and my liking for taking my time in
transition. Well NO MORE!! I am now a
transition king.
·
Wetsuit down to my waist on the beach while
RUNNING
·
RUN to get by bike bag
·
RUN into the change tent.
·
Fully strip wetsuit
·
Socks on
·
Shoes on
·
Stand up
·
Helmet and other stuff in a carrier back inside
bike bag
·
Put all this on or in pockets while RUNNING to
bike
·
Get bike
·
Exit transition before I would usually have
sugared by latte.
Verse 3 – The Bike – 5:38 – 19th in age group
Regular readers will know how my bike started last year, the
sonic boom has just reached Jupiter. This time is very different. I am working to a defined power range. I aim to average 240 watts, max out at 290 on
climbs and keep the power up on descents.
This should deliver me to the finish line with minimal distress. The bike course in PE is simple. When the wind blows easterly it is a nice set
of tough hills for 45kms followed by 45kms of headwind on open road. The road back in (the one with the headwind)
is also rough. I don’t mean rough by
Australian standards, I mean rough by African standards. So rough, I run 10psi less in my tyres. If I
do not, I will surgically attach my saddle to my arse and shake my teeth out. It is so rough I hear Chuck Norris paid to
have some used to pave his driveway.
The ride is stunningly beautiful, amazing country followed
by wild coast. Which is just as well
because to be honest I am getting a bit bored.
Just fixating on a power number, but it is working, I am cranking
along. I am through the hills and now
into the wind, then it
happens and I am devastated. I see my
first bit of drafting EVER in South Africa, you can tell the Europeans have
arrived on mass for the 75 slots.
(Apparently I was not the only one who noticed). A pack of 6 have pulled ahead of me in the
hills but are now coming back to me into the wind. Poor babies, don’t want to
have to work into the wind with their poor leggies! I pull up to them and start to work my way
past. I am really angry about it, they
have ruined my perfect, honest race with their disgraceful cheating ways – AND
they are not even better than me at riding.
So as I am like, fully bored, I rip into each and every one of
them. Explaining in detail why they are,
and I quote “a fucking weak piece of shit” how they should “not do it if they
are too weak minded”. I like the word
weak better than cheat. That is the last
I see of those 6 on the ride, hopefully they had terrible days.
So that is the end of lap 1 – 2:45, same as last year,
similar conditions, have I overdone it again? Well frankly no, I feel great,
almost no leg fatigue, and feeling full of energy. Holding my power number. But we will soon see on the way out through
the hills again. Guess what? All good, hit the first climb, I sit on 290
with ease. With the rolling descents the average stays bang on 240.
All this time I have been constantly checking myself, “how
do I feel, am I going hard enough, am I going too hard, am I drinking etc etc”. At about 130km I start to feel a bit less
than great. I run through my checks and
realise I have missed some of my planned hydration (got distracted by a Monkey
– yeah Monkey time!!!!!) So I ease off a
little and get the Gu brew down me and some water. 10 mins later and we are
back in business. I round out my affair
with the hills and my average has gone up to 245 so I make a decision to ease
off on the way back in to say 230, I know this will cost some time but I am
going very well and I am willing to pay the 5 or 10 min price for some run
legs.
It is then the carnage starts to unfold in front of me, all
the people who have done a ‘Peter 2014’ are coming back to me, they are hanging
off their bikes, drooling, looking distraught, praying for mercy but the wind
is just getting stronger. I must have
overtaken 30 people in the last 20km of the ride. Me a slave to my power- them, slaves to the
wind.
New bike PB I think.
Verse 4 – T2
·
Hand bike over (Garmin already on wrist)
·
RUN to run bag
·
RUN into tent
·
Shoes off
·
Shoes on
·
Pick up carrier back with hat etc in it
·
RUN out of tent sorting everything else out as I
go
·
Exit transition before the even know I got there
Note – my T2 time, faster than my age group winner. Yeah baby you can laugh no more at my
transition prowess!
Verse 5 – The run - 4:39 – 46th in Age group
I am on the run and checking my pace in 5 km blocks. I have a plan based around these and BANG;
first target hit – a bit faster actually.
Then BANG; second target hit. I
am 10 km’s in and flying. It is going to
work – all my work it is going to pay off. I am running on air, I feel
incredible. Only three more blocks of
10km and I am home. 3:50 here I come.
“Captain”
“Yes Scotty”
“We seem to be developing a problem with the warp drive”
“Can you fix it Scotty?”
“I’ll see what I can do Captain, but the upgrades we have
made; they are untested in this time continuum”
“See what you can do Scotty, we have to keep this up”
“Aye captain but is she blows we’ll be done to impulse power
for at least three hours!”
So this is where things get interesting, and by interesting
I mean painful. I start to experience a
large amount of pain in my glutes and hamstrings. This is a first for me. Why?
Well up until this point in my triathlon career (yes career, you all
remember when I went pro for a while!) I
have not used my glutes or hamstrings for running. I have run essentially as a duck walks, which
means all the stress goes into my hips and quads. The nature of my training for this race has
fundamentally changed the way I run. My
feet are almost straight and I have developed hamstrings and glute muscles that
actually fire when I run. More on that
later.
I just start to slow down, I push and push and push and I
just keep fading. I switch my run walk
from 9:1 to 4:1 in the hope it will help me recover some pace but it does not
happen.
“Captain”
“Yes Scotty, I felt the massive deceleration WTF”
“Captain, text speak was never prevalent in Star Trek, the
trekkies will not like that reference”
“Quite right, I felt the massive deceleration, give me a
full report”
‘Well captain, the two new aft stabilisers have all but
failed. I can get intermittent low power
from them but if we push too hard they might blow all together. The dylithium crystals are still full and we
have full sensor capability. I can give
the warp drive one final push but SHE MIGHT SHAKE HERSELF TO PIECES!!”
“Do it Scotty, we have to know if the upgrades worked”
So I dig in for one last push at reviving myself and grit my
teeth and go for it, I sneak under 5:30 pace for about 500m but then its total
leg failure, staggers, not able to stand, utter leg fail.
“Fuck it”
“What was that Scotty?”
“The warp core has imploded captain, we are down to impulse
power”
“What does that mean Scotty”
“It means captain that if you want to keep going I am going
to have to come up there and stick knives in your arse and backs of your legs,
or you can walk it in”
“Get your haggis-eating self up here Scotty, we are pushing
on!”
I was up to 21kms now, just under two hours but I knew. Struggle town, population… 1. But I was not here to just finish, I was here
to push myself and keep pushing. But it was now to salvage a mental race rather
than the physical performance I was after.
And so I kept pushing, everything I had.
Why? Well Before the race I was
scared. I was scared that I did not have
the mental capability to push through a race again. In IM Los Cabos, I pushed all day, it was by
far my best mental performance. In SA
last year I did not, In Malaysia I did not (but had never intended to). I did not know if I could do it again. Like this entire prep and race, I wanted to
answer the question.
So I answered, I pushed and I pushed and I pushed. For those of you who have seen me cross the
line, I am sorry for the lack of ‘Gun show’ or wavy hands, but I was
destroyed. I even had a bit of a speed
wobble over the line. Then I sat in a
chair for a moment and was sad. Sad for
a dream not fulfilled, sad all the effort not yielding the result I
wanted. But then I raised my head up and
this tiny girl who had been assigned as my “catcher” (would SO not have worked)
put the medal around my neck and said “Well done, hardly anyone else has finished!” She was right, you see well over 80% of the
field were still out there, I was 46th in my age group out of over
350.
My 5km Splits worked out like this:
1.
25:50 -awesome
2.
27:17 - awesome
3.
28:19 – not quite as awesome but still awesome
4.
29:49 – see 3
5.
31:46 – okay let’s see if we can get this back
6.
34:51 – oh dear
7.
41:40 – this hurts, loads!
8.
39:50 – shoot me now!
You see here is one of the traps of my triathlon life. The people who I hang out with are World
class amateur athletes. Even World
champion podium getters, Kona racers. It
is a simple fact that I do not have the talent for triathlon they have (actually
the running part, I can do the other two!).
It is also most likely a fact that I have only dreamed of bettering
myself because I hang out with them. And
better myself I have. It is very common
for people to do what I have done; fail to qualify and then just give it all away. Well not me.
Maybe the Big Island is out of my reach, but so what? So are the
Olympics and I don’t lie awake at night because I will never make them!
I have learned so much over the last 17 weeks, and changed
so much. I am excited about taking the
next step forward in getting the best out of myself but most of all I want to
enjoy the journey each race brings with it, sprint, olympic, half or full
ironman. I am going to race a lot more
in the next couple of years at all distances.
No, not duathlons. No, not ever.
I am going to take what I have learned I am capable of and build on it.
But remember, when I am out there I am racing ME, not you. Unless I win.
Now to fulfil a promise and put some kg’s back on. I have to get back to Clydesdale weight to
win some medals, not that it is all about medals, or racing people, or
stuff……….
A few big shout outs for the last 17 weeks.
My fabulous wife Joey, obviously for buying into this and
being proud of me. We shall never race
apart again.
JVW for being a hugely positive influence on both me and
Jo. Also he has forgotten more about
open water swimming than most people ever know. That is probably an actual
fact.
Sean Foster for always being there as a friend and mentor.
The MTC/FLUID MOVEMENTS/TRI FITNESS coaches and athletes who
we hang around with and keep us constantly entertained, and for laughing with
me. With me, right?
“Captains Log, star date 6:6101042015. We have been in space dock for a few weeks
now and Scotty has worked on the upgrades.
He says they may have failed as they were new and being used in a way
they were not used to. He says if we
continue to work on them they may stabilize and the warp engines would remain
functional for an extended period.”
