So I did it, I swam 1.9km in the open Sea, I cycled 90km through a stunning and partly seriously though course and I "ran" 21km after that. That is called a Half Ironman, why did I do it? Because I can, but more on that later. So here is my race Report
I was nervous but not a nervous wreck, I knew I had done all the training I possibly could have done. I had trained for the last 5-6 month straight. I knew I wouldn't be fast but I hoped I had done enough work to finish this
I had started with hiring a coach and with that the training started.
I had put over 200hrs of training into this, I spent practically every weekend on the bike, regardless of the Weather, I was out on the bike on Saturdays and Sunday. I swam 3-4 times a week, same was true for running.I couldn't have done much more except maybe give me another year to get my Base fitness to somewhere where it needed to be.
Saturday morning, 3 hours before race start, Breakfast time.I was on Auto pilot , tried not to think about the whole thing, so I kept my mind busy with the swim part.
I would start in a Wave with all the other Girls, all 700 of them. And than they would release the Man later on in Waves, which gave me the hope that it wouldn't be too bad.
So here we are 3 hours later at the swim start, the start is at the beach, we have to run into the Water, I tried to be in the middle of the field really hoping I judged right enough and not too many people behind me would just swim over me.
And of we went, we ran into the water and started to swim, yes I got kicked every where and I also kicked quite a few people, still it wasn't too bad. After 200-300m it started to ease off and I had space to swim. So I just dug In, one stroke after the other and the occasional sighting.I'm pretty sure I swam all over the place, found myself more than once far out. Anyway suddenly the swim finish line approached and part one of the Job was done. So of we ran into transition and I had remembered where my Transition bag was.
Just to explain about this, we all ( over 3500 athletes ) received a blue and a red plastic bag. We needed to put everything that we needed for the bike part into the blue bag and the run stuff into the red bad
So grabbed my blue bag took my Wetsuit of, was wearing my trisuit underneath this so only needed to re apply some sun cream ( massive failure on that part ) get my feet dry and put the cycling shoes on and ran to the bike ( which was far far away ) .
Out we went, jumped onto the bike and had some near crashes with people who thought they were cool because they tried the version " I have my bike shoes already clipped in, so I can run bare feet through transition , jump onto the bike and get than into the cycling shoes".
Let me tell to everyone who has never done a Triathlon, to do that is an Art you need to know how to do this, I don't, so I don't do it. Unfortunately there are people out there who think they know how to do it and there is a good chance that they crash into someone while they desperately try to get their feet into the shoes whole they are cycling.
So avoided those Guys and took on the first kilometres.
My plan was to break the bike into sections, in my case I thought 3 Aid stations and I'm done with the bike section.
Here is how I passed those Aid stations.
First 20km, what a bliss, easy, flat spinning. Thought this is brilliant, I knew that later on a nasty long hill would come, but hey I had done my hills at home, in the rain and in the cold. So made sure that I took fluids and took some food in and than the first aid station arrived, they had only Water there but that was OK since we more or less just had started the bike section. Now I knew the hill would come soon and I saw the sign 7.7 incline over the next 5.5km , in that same second the sun came out in full force .
Let me explain quickly about the Weather, I arrived on Thursday, Weather was nice and warm ( not hot ) a bit overcast on Thursday.
Friday it was warm, really hot actually from I would say 12PM onwards.
Forecast for Saturday ( Race Day ) was really warm but I hoped that the heat would only come through again only at around lunchtime.
Which would have meant I would have passed that hill already.
No that wasn't the case at the bottom of that climb the heat came through really bad and I remembered now all my hill climbed from home with 3 layers of clothes on and still freezing.
This caused a big problem for me, I didn't dare to reach for my Water bottle since I needed all of my coordination just to stay on the bike.
And to top this of this suddenly my stomach became a problem, I honestly had expected that my stomach would act up at some stage but not after 25km into the bike section, that was far too early.
My stomach had been a problem during previous Events and also on my long cycling trips but usually only after hours of doing this stuff.
Nothing I could do about that now, was far to busy with the climb.
One more thing I need to explain, every participant has a so called bib number. Which is your race number printed on a piece of paper and you wear that race number on the back during the spin. In this event on that BIB is also your name and your flag printed ( I had the Irish flag printed on mine
So we were on the climb and endless other competitors passed me, I got from many of my fellow competitors a mental push, when they looked at my BIB, they often shouted "Go on Britta you can do this" , "Go Ireland " and when I heard " Go Belpark" I knew this is someone from the other Irish Triathlon clubs.
Oh yeah and thanks Hugh for reminding me, that he owes me still 2euros ( vital information on a climb where I just wanted to crawl into the shade )
Guys you all rock, thank you so much for this.
So we continue to climb and I really wondered when this will end, it would end after the next Aid station, by now I was dreaming of Coca cola, something they hand out on these events. I hoped that stuff would calm my stomach down, which it did at least for a while.
But I haven't finished with the climb yet, getting bored reading this?
OK climb is done, now the downhill section, scariest drive I ever done , driving down a steep serpentine on a small road with hundreds of very eager competitors.
I made sure that I stayed out of the way, which meant to take the inside of the serpentine, it felt sometime like a 180 degree turn.
Time was now completely out of the window and I just tried to stay on the job at hand, next Aid station. Now the flat part of the spin finally arrived, I desperately tried to re hydrate and drank as much as my stomach would allow, I also tried to eat but managed to get only a few Jellies down and half a banana
The flat part was really nice except for the heat, somebody must have switched on a giant hair dryer, warm /hot wind from the front, nice.
The last 10km felt very long my right food hurt really badly , every time I pushed down I had the feeling somebody was stabbing me with a big needle but otherwise legs were really OK.
So I knew this is manageable as long as I don't miss the cut off time.
Finally transition arrived I put my bike back onto the rack, grabbed my red Transition bag, put on runners and tried to top up sun cream ( another major failure )
My run plan was to run mostly and walk at the Aid stations, we had to run 3 loops and on each loop there were 2 Aid stations, so I needed to pass 6 Aid stations.
Which were roughly 3.5km apart, not far right? Wrong, 3.5km in 30 Degrees boiling heat with a stomach by now so flimsy that I just hoped I stayed together in one piece ( yes I saw people crashing down with heat stroke ) . So took it step by step, I think I was mostly able to run on the first lap but I'm not too sure about that,memory here is a bit unclear,fact was that I had to make a decision on the second lap,which was fully walking the rest or risking to get a heat stroke,walking sounded good.
So walked from Aid station to Aid station, were the volunteers just poured the Water over us too cool us down, I tried to grab cola cola and bananas which seemed to be the least stress on my stomach. So one portaloo break later ( it is amazing by how much people reduce their hygienic standards on these events but let's not dwell on that ) and my last loop started on the last 2km a American caught up with me and we chatter for a bit, told him only 2km left and we are done, he asked me how much is that in miles and this was at that moment a very though question. Took me probably by 30seconds to a minute to give the correct answer.
So last Aid station arrived and I had 2 corners left, earlier on I had told myself that I would walk through the finish line since I had walked most the half Marathon, not a chance suddenly I was running, I was able to jump up to reach a charity bell ( every time the bell rang 1 euro was donated to charity). I'm pretty sure I was grinning like a maniac after I crossed that finish line. Not so sure that I want to see those finisher pictures.
Next Day I calculated that I did this race on 4 gels , a packet of powerbar jellies, 1 cookie and possibly 2- Bananas and one or two oranges. I burned quite a few more calories
This was my Race report, now follows my charity request and the reason why I'm doing this.
So I would like to ask you for just 1 euro for the Irish Alpha1 foundation, feel free if you want to donate more but I would be over the moon if you could donate 1 euro.
So what is Alpha1, let me explain the Amateur version
Your body produces Alpha1 in your liver, it releases it into the bloodstream were it protects your lungs.
If you happen to have inherited a couple of rubbish genes from your parents than your are either a carrier or full blown Alpha.
Symptoms widely ranged but most common is COPD/ Emphysema or liver failure .
Is there a cure, no cure,. Organ transplant is for many the last chance
Is there a treatment?I think there is, problem is it is really expensive so nobody really recognises the treatment.Here is were the Irish Alpha1 foundation is coming into play again, they are a small organisation but they have done loads of research which hopefully will help with the treatment
I'm so called carrier, which means I inherited one bad gene from my parents.
When I was diagnosed in my teens with this, I was told no risk just don't smoke. I had seen what Alpha1 can do it was not pretty, so I ignored it for the next 10-12 years but than I just couldn't ignore any longer, because I was constantly sick. I had one chest infection after the other.
So I started digging a bit and it turns out the message had changed for carriers: now it said mild to moderate risk of lung disease, probably no risk for liver disease.
At this moment the message is getting revised and it sometimes states now risk of liver disease . It was found that a large amount of liver transplant patients are carriers
Anyway I was down, I was fully convinced that when I turn 40 I would be on Oxygen supply.
Now the Irish Alpha 1 foundation picked up the pieces and they thought me 2 things, know the disease understand Alpha1 and get every year a thorough check up. That's what I did and still do. I got a break from the infections ( funny this coincides with the smoking ban in Ireland ) and I started to exercise and I haven't stopped doing exercise since than.
One selfish site note here, I'm symptom free according to all the results and this is something I do not believe any longer and I'm not complaining just an observation:
I usually need to put in twice the amount of work for cardio exercise to get the same result as somebody in my age group who just stopped smoking.
I know this is something my Prof will not investigate , he is far too busy to help Alphas with acute lung and liver disease, not an Alpha carrier who just finished a half Ironman
So now comes the real problem about this, when I was diagnosed it was thought to be a extremely rare disease. When I first came in contact with the Irish Alpha1 organisation it was already realised that it is not so rare as they thought, now it's known as the rarely diagnosed disease, there are loads of undiagnosed Alphas out there, so what usually happens suddenly somebody in his early 40 starts to get out of breath when they climb the stairs, usually 7 years later and 10 Doctors later that person finally gets an answer. By that time that person has irreversible lung/ liver problems
Second problem Alpha1 deviancy is these days connected with a full host of other health problems:fibromagilia, thyroid issues etc etc
So if you gotten this far , here is my link to my charity page:
Irish Alpha1 foundation
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