Triathlon | Applied Agnieszkology

Ironman Frankfurt – an uphill struggle against the sun

31. July 201931. July 2019
by Agnieszka

It’s been a month since I finished the hardest race of my life. It has exhausted me so much that it is only now that I find the mental energy to write about it.

I started to worry already days before the race, as the weather forecast relentlessly continued to predict extrem heat for the race day – 41 degrees Celsius. I know I’m not very good at handling heat – 30 degrees at Ironman Hamburg in 2018 was already borderline. I have very seriously considered cancelling my participation for the first time (I had a DNS twice in 2016, but I was so sick, that the start was not possible, so that’s a different situation). As if it wasn’t enough – I had a terrible allergy so I needed my meds, and I hate racing on meds, as I have the impression that they distort my body sensation (and I don’t mean it in any esoteric way). I was basically not sure if I’m going to start until I checked-in my bike the afternoon before.

I checked-in my bike though. The organization in Frankfurt is pretty terrible to be honest. Of course – it’s not easy with more than 3000 athletes. But still, waiting for the shuttle bus for more than an hour with almost 40 degrees outside is just not very funny.

Swimming

The night was really hot and I didn’t sleep well. I got up and I somehow knew – it’s not going to be my day… It was not surprising that due to the high temperatures the race was held without wetsuits. I trained for that and was prepared for that. What I wasn’t prepared for, was how the “rolling start” in Frankfurt looks like. Let’s just say – when 3000 people enter the water within 20 minutes, it’s very, very, very crowded.

At the first buoy someone from behind grabbed my legs and pulled me under the water to swim over me. I struggled to get back to the surface as the flow of swimmers uninterruptedly continued. I was out of breath and had to pause before I was able to swim again. After this experience I definitely prefer separate start for men and women. I have never experienced such reckless and dangerous behavior in the water, when starting in a women-only group. My swim time: 1:32:00. About 15-18 minutes slower than expected. It was a little annoying – I expected slower bike and especially run time, but I was quite sure, that I can have an acceptable swim. But – not this time 😉

Cycling

After a very long transition – I just was really slow – I was very happy to finally be on the bike. At 8:30 the temperature was still quite pleasant, with gentle wind so my mood was good again. Even the hills (800m per round) didn’t kill me (I’m terrible uphill and even worse downhill 😀 ) and I was able to smile for the camera while climbing one of them. It was not terribly fast, but I still managed to keep the average pace at over 30 kph in the first round. But then the second round came – and with it the heat. Terrible, terrible heat. I didn’t realize it on the first round, that there was basically no shade on the whole course. I probably wouldn’t have survived the second lap if some of the spectators at the course hadn’t offered a cool shower with garden hoses, especially as the water and isotonic drinks were not cooling anymore within about 15 minutes after the nutrition points. It was also a very good decision to leave my aero helmet at home and to use a regular bike helmet, so the cool water could find it’s way to my head. Not only the heat became a problem on the second lap. Also the wind became stronger and had nothing more to do with a cool breeze, instead it resembled rather a huge hairdryer, which was adjusted to the highest temperature level. It was quite sad to see so many people dropping out on the second round. I was not sure myself if I’ll be able to finish – sometimes I was doing little mental exercises, like basic maths, to be sure that my brain is still working properly. My final bike time: 6:37:19 on the prolonged course of 185 instead of 180 kilometers. I’m not a very fast cyclist, but a solid one, so the speed average of way under 30 kph was quite disenchanting.

Running

With the run part starting just after 3 pm, with the temperature still rising, it was clear that it’s not going to be a fast marathon. My strategy for the race was: go easy, but never walk, take your time at the nutrition stations to cool down properly. Luckily the organizers and especially the volunteers did a really great job. The distance between the nutrition points was just about 2 kilometers, so it was enough even for the slow runners. And there was enough drinks, sponges, ice cubes and showers during the whole course. I was going really slow, finishing in 4:50:55 (which is more than an hour slower than my normal marathon time and about 40 minutes slower than my expected Ironman marathon time), but I was quite sure, that I’ll not DNF. Surprisingly I considered the run easier than the bike part, didn’t cramp at all and even managed to overtake 300 athletes on the run.

Nutrition

I’m normally very disciplined when it comes to nutrition. I have a gel every 30 minutes with some water to flush them down and drink mostly isotonic drinks. During the second half of the marathon I also add coke. This plan didn’t really work this time. I was not really able to eat so I had to rely on fluid sugar early on. I have no idea how much coke I drank during the race, but it felt like at least 10 liters 😀 It was also very helpful that there was salt on all the nutrition stations during the run – it was really necessary.

Finish and aftermath

The finish was at least as emotional for me as during my first long distance in 2015. I had ambitious goals for Frankfurt – I wanted to finish in 11:30 and I knew that it would have been possible under normal conditions. Under the given conditions I had to reduce this goal to:

Don’t die
Don’t get into a hospital
Finish if 1) and 2) are not in danger

I managed to finish (in 13:12:07…), and I’m quite proud of myself. But I have never been so exhausted. I’m still regenerating and it’s taking me way more time than usual. Running is still very slow, I have to limit my swimming due tu costochondritis, only cycling works right now. I had quite a physiological and mental melt down in the weeks after the race and I’m still not really motivated to get back into training for the Berlin Marathon, which is in 8 weeks. If it were my first Ironman, it’d probably be my last. But it wasn’t, and I’m not a quitter 😉 But I’ll definitely not be racing Frankfurt again in the foreseeable future. My next race will be somewhere in the North (preferably north of the wall 😛 ), where such temperatures are very unlikely.

The Championship

6. June 20196. June 2019
by Agnieszka

First triathlon this year – and a big one: The Championship, a world middle distance championship of the Challenge series in Šamorin, Slovakia. I surprisingly qualified for this race with my 5th place at Challenge Herning in Denmark – the first time in my life that I qualified for something in sports at all 😀

We decided to combine it with a short vacation, stopping to visit beautiful cities on the way there and back. The first thing I did waking up every day was checking the weather forecast for the race day – and it was getting hotter and hotter.
We arrived the day before the race – registration was organized in a very efficient way, not so the bike check-in… But the worst information came during the race briefing: water is expected to be about 14 degrees Celsius so it’s not clear which distance are we going to swim. What was clear, was that it definitely will be a wetsuit-legal or even wetsuit-obligatory swim.

Swim

On the race day, the official water temperature was announced: 14,4 degrees in the Danube river, we’re swimming the full 1900m distance. Given the 25 degrees air temperature at 9:30 in the morning getting into the water felt like the ice bucket challenge… I start to swim, or at least I’m trying to, but I’m not really moving forward. The current is so strong, that I have the impression to invest all the energy into not being drifted away. The water is so cold and there marking buoys don’t seem to come any closer, I’m having a brief thought about giving up. Instead I focus on stabilising my breath and my stroke and start to slowly move forward. 1900 meters have never been so long. I don’t even dare to look at my watch. When I finally manage to get out of the water I see the degree of the disaster: 45 minutes (I swam both 70,3 distances last year in 38 minutes, was expecting 36-37 this year). But given that I was by far not the last one to get out of the water, it was pretty clear, it’s not me it’s the current. Still, just look at the mix of disbelief and disgust on my face :joy:

T1

T1 went well, without loosing any time, this time I grabbed the right bag (last year I had the wrong one and had to go back) and ran towards the bike. Still, I needed 5 minutes for the transition, as the ways were quite long there and included tricky stairs.

Cycling

It was pretty clear that it will rather be a fast course – almost no elevation and not very windy conditions. The surface was mostly good as well. I reduced the nutrition frequency in comparison to the last year and it was a good decision – no digestive problems this time and a very consistent ride with constant 32km/h and a 2:47 bike split time (almost 10 minutes faster than last year). The course was not exactly spectacular, but yeah, the most spectacular bike courses are usually very hilly, and I’m unfortunately terrible when it comes to hills…

T2

I managed to jump off the shoes at the dismount line very easily for the first time (last year at the IronMan Hamburg I just managed one, the other clicked out, so I had to keep it on my foot and run with one cycling shoe through the transition…) and ran – barefoot on a very hot asphalt, as the carpet didn’t start immediately. Again – a long way to run, more than 500 meters. I had the impression of being quite fast, but the watch was showing more than 4 minutes for the whole transition

Run

There is only one word that comes to my mind when I think of the run – hot! The air temperature reaching about 30 degrees and almost no wind and no shade. Pretty exposed to the sun for the whole course. We were running 3 rounds on quite a strange course: while a short part of the course went along the river, the major part was happening in a horse race course, on grass and sand surface. The heat and humidity made it difficult at the beginning, I needed few minutes to stabilize my breath. I had just two gels and decided to fuel on coke during the majority of the run – which was a blessing to my stomach – no issues at all and also no feeling of being hungry. I finished the run in 1:59, finally under 2 hours

My total time 5:43:03 – not quite the time I expected, as I was aiming in about 5:30, but with the swim disaster – no wonder 😉 Now the most important thing is to keep training for the Ironman Frankfurt in 3 weeks

Triathlete on business trip

27. January 201927. January 2019
by Agnieszka

There are times in my job requiring significant amount of travel. While I generally don’t mind, especially when I travel to beautiful cities like Zürich or Hamburg, it always requires little more effort to keep up with the training routine.

Packing

The difficulties usually start with packing. I try to travel with cabin bag only whenever possible. It means that I have to fit running and swimming gear along some decent semi-business cloths. In winter the difficulty is the need of warm cloths that usually take space, in summer I usually get some space issues when I want to swim open water and have the wetsuit with me. Luckily for me, my job doesn’t require wearing formal suits, so for 4 nights I just take 4 blouses, 4 underwear changes and 4 pairs of socks and that’s basically it 😉 I still have plenty of space for my sports gear and some healthy snacks.

Food

Eating properly can also be tricky on a trip. One problem are the business lunches and dinners, but the bigger one might actually be the unstructured days with no proper food with a lot of temptations to eat fast food or unhealthy snacks. Why I don’t stick to any particular dietary “religion”, I still try to eat reasonably healthy. That’s why to avoid temptation I try to always have some nutritious snacks (pre-training carb snacks, post-training protein snacks, nuts etc). For people following a vegan, low carb and especially gluten free diet this might be even more essential than for a relatively relaxed flexitarian 😉

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Training plan

I always discuss a trip (especially a longer one) with my coach and try to plan accordingly. When I’m away for a week with a quite tensed schedule, there is no point of having an strenuous training planned for this week.

When I don’t have to take a plane or a train at 6 or 7, I try to fit a training in the morning before (I usually opt for cycling, as this is the most difficult thing to to on a trip). I always plan my running routes and check opening hours of public swimming pools or a distance to the lake in advance. Running is the easiest thing to do while travelling – you can run everywhere. When travelling in winter, I book a hotel with a proper gym, whenever possible – just in case the weather is really not inviting for an outside run. When travelling in summer – especially to Zürich – I try to book a hotel close to the lake, which is both great for running and swimming 🙂

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Flight and hotel

That might not be true for everyone, but for me flying (even short-haul) and sleeping in hotels (and interacting with more people than usual) are always negatively impacting my training performance. Nothing dramatic about it – but it’s just good to know it and not to overdramatize 😉 It’s just normal. But it’s still important to keep the training routine – not only because of the progress towards the training goals, but also to neutralize the additional amount of stress that an intense business trip might cause for some of us 🙂