Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Goal time 40mins.
Good swim. Didn't feel all that difficult. Sighting was pretty good as buoys were bright yellow. Was cloudy at the time so sun wasn't an issue. May have been a slight current, but not really noticeable.

Nil.

Walked from water to T1 while taking off wetsuit. Came off pretty well, just stuck on one ankle.

More practice getting out of wetsuit.

Goal time 3 hours.
Target hr zone 3. Hr monitor not working at all for first 12km - had to go by RPE and feel. Plan was to go easy for the first lap so I tried to hold back. Headwind heading out.

These hills were definitely harder than I anticipated, so it took a little bit more out of me than I would have liked.

Lost a Powerade bottle towards the end of lap one, so had to modify my nutrition/hydration a little to make sure I got enough calories in.

More hill training! More bike training in general. Didn't do as much as I had planned in the last few months.

Once off the bike I walked to where I needed to go. Figured I could use the time to bring my heart rate back down and re-focus for the run.

No.

Goal time 1:50.
Goal pace was 5:12-5:36/km (z3 pace). Managed this early on. Really started to feel tired at around 12km mark. Noticeable pace drop off. Had a gel at the next aid station and this seemed to pick me up a bit.

Huge cramps at 15km. Both hamstrings and quads. Stopped for around 1min until they settled then walked it out. Started jogging and more cramps again 16km. Pace was a lot slower from this point to the end.

Hard to say if more run training would have made a difference. I think I went too hard on the bike, and paid for it.

Longest run in training (apart from a half marathon) was around 18km/1hr 50min. Would have liked to make it to 20km/2 hours at least once if not twice.

Massage and bit of a stretch.


The hills on the bike course - need more hill training. More bike training in general.

Slow run time was due to putting out too high an effort on the bike, mostly due to the hills being harder and greater in number than I had anticipated.

Cramps - never cramped during a race before - also never raced or trained for this long continuously. Very salty all over my clothes - need to investigate salt tablets in future, in addition to more electrolyte drink???

Hydration was good - peed once on bike and once on run.


Volunteers were awesome! 2 aid stations per lap on bike - I think this was enough. 6 aid stations on run (double sided), so approximately every 2km. This was enough too.

Road on the bike course was terrible! So many potholes and uneven parts. This made it very dangerous considering the hills. This is the only reason this race isn't a 5.