phew, got there!

the mysteriously changing run to the finish!

The run route had changed mysteriously and wasn’t what it had been on the map (supposed to be out towards the town centre with a bit of an out and back in the first half and a twirly loopy bit towards the end). So combined with this surprise change and the fact it was also quite hilly and that i was hobbling, i had no idea how to visualise it ( it became an out and back and back again after about 7k then a mile to the end). What was really doing my head in (and everyone else’s as i found out later) was that there were no distance markers! So there was no way of knowing where you were, what you’d done and how far still to go! Everyone was asking everyone else on the way – madness! Asking the marshalls was fruitless also as they all kept giving different answers which was so demoralising (especially when you’re having to walk it!). There was a strange bit round a park which you did at the end of each out and back and many people went wrong as they weren’t sure where to go and how many times! The rest of the run was mainly along a busy main road – not very exciting – and a bit along a canal and through some suburbs.
As it was quite lonely on the second lap (i still couldn’t run but was out-striding the other stragglers) sometimes I felt a bit daft walking along a main road wearing a race number. Most of the stragglers were smiling and supporting each other as we passed but there was one nasty guy who said to me ‘good luck hon’ sarcastically and laughed to his mate! That just made me even more determined to finish and anyway, he was walking!! The people of Bolton were very nice and supportive but at one point i got mobbed by a crowd of young hooligans who were surrounding me and trying to trip me up (quite easy really, i was having problems with kerbs never mind small bullies) riling me about walking when i should be running and one trying to leap on me presumably to grab my sunnies! As it got dark and i was still out there with only the shadows and the owls for company i was waiting for an official to jump out with glowsticks but none came. In fact scarier than the teenage bullies was having to walk along the canal path in the dark. There was an aid station just before the start of it and i asked them if it was safe. They seemed more interested in force feeding me power gels so off i went. Maaan it was scary! Pitch black and all i could think of was axe murderers leaping out of the shadows! I couldn’t believe they didn’t have someone at least going up and down on a bike to check the stragglers hadn’t fallen in the canal/been attacked by werewolves etc etc. At the end of the canal bit i couldn’t even find the pathway that took you away from it back to the road it was so dark! The park later on was the same – you couldn’t actually see the cones and tape until you fell over them!
Finally, after 8 last long miles of random bunches of marshalls/happy bystanders/cheerleaders telling me variously i was anywhere between 8 miles and 3 and a half miles to the end (but not in order – i got something like 8, 7, 5, 4and half, 3, back to 5 then four and half then only 2 then back to 3 – aaargh! how to mess with an irongirl’s already frazzled mind!!) i got back to a cone junction in the park i nearly fell over and could dimly pick out the vague shape of a person. He turned out to be one of the race crew/new guardian angel and escorted me through the last of the pitch black bits agreeing with me how crap the race was! Then he grabbed my hand and made me run towards to the finish line (pain blocked out then – i could NOT walk up the finish chute!!) and there i was, FINALLY – a long long day out and an embarrassing finish time of 16.30 something 33? 34? Don’t know just too crap! But hey i got round, there were several points where i thought i might not make the cut off and how awful that would have been!! The worst thing is i actually trained for this one! Anyway i am still 6 X Irongirl and that’s what matters ;-)
phew, got there!

bleak bike course

bleak bike course

exciting T1 wearing 100 layers, ha!

no wonder i was so slow with all those coats on!

no wonder i was so slow with all those coats on!

the neverending 180k bike

I was a shivering wreck getting out of the swim but was not the only one to leave the wetsuit fully on to keep some kind of ‘warmth’ until i got into the tent. The swim exit consisted of a sharp uphill giving way to an uphill path to T1 which was miles away and the path was hard to run on as the slithery mud was hard to navigate especially with numb feet . I grabbed my swim to bike bag and sat with a mass of shivering wet bodies in the tent and miserably considered my options. The ‘pull yourself together’ one kicked in pretty quickly but it was hard to act as i was so cold I literally had no feeling in my hands to open the bag! Error number Two (Error Number One was signing up for the darned race) was not to put a change of top in my bag, I stupidly thought my transitions were going to be so slick that i would only need to wear my tri suit throughout. Yeah right! But as i pulled on my winter cycling fleece over soaking wet tri top and the windcheater jacket on the top of that, i was really envious of everyone else putting on dry clothing.


exiting T1 wearing 100 layers, ha!

My legs especially my right calf and left foot were cramping up throughout the swim and i hoped that the pedalling would sort that out. I slodged through the mudfest (not ideal when wearing white compression socks) (to keep me warm, never mind the compression properties) oh and good luck to people who had attached their shoes to their pedals – the decision was against that, you really needed the welly boots to get to the mount line then hop on the bike! People were trying to get on their bikes at the line then slithering in the mud and falling off again! What a palava. After the slithering up the muddy lane where a mountain bike would most definitely have been useful it was straight up the steepest series of climbs of the bike course, so so much for having time to pedal out the cramp!
It was bleak out on those moors and once up the highest of the climbs it was down the only road that was downhill (and was only about 300m long) then the first of the real technical turns (if you don’t count the turn where a few people flew off their bikes almost into a lake) and then onto the rest of the 3 lap course. It was a mad course with so many twists and turns and mostly uphill with a bit of flat in between. I was surprised to see so much traffic on an ironman course by the time the 2nd and 3rd laps came round it was really busy on a lot of roads and cyclists were getting hemmed in by the cars and twice i had to unclip and stop quickly because someone had pulled up in front of me!! So dangerous.
no wonder i was so slow with all those coats on!


The third bike lap seemed to take Forever it was really the never ending bike lap. I couldn’t believe i’d been on the bike for over eight hours when i was aiming for six and a half and i was happy to finally get to the line and give Mr Felt away (sorry mr felt but at this point i would have gladly handed him over to absolutely anyone who would have him!)
I made the bike cutoff by only 30 minutes i think that’s probably a reverse PB but felt a bit better later when i heard that many people didn’t make the cutoff. I sat dismally in the transition tent and chatted to the other girls who were discussing why the hell we were doing this (see – my transition plan had totally gone out of the window!!). I traipsed through the mud again and trotted up the lane actually feeling fine and happy to be free of the bike but was a bit concerned about what felt like a pulled hammy. I only got about 500m into the run when my right leg seized up completely and i thought oh damn now what??! I stretched and walked a bit and then tried to trot off again – the annoying thing was that i’d found my running head and i was so feeling fresh and not at all fazed by the 42ks ahead but the damn leg kept seizing up and forcing me to walk. About 5ks in the pain moved down the leg and i ended up feeling like i had a knife stuck in the side and back of my knee and in my ankle and i was fine walking but running hurt like hell and in fact just wasn’t happening. I hadn’t suffered through the worst ever swim and bike to bale now so i decided to plough on regardless but just power hobble the best I could!

shivering before the start

a grey looking swim course

So finally after leaving the bikes and bags we looked like we’d been mud wrestling and walked back up the lane that the next morning would be the first road we would ride on and hoped that they might try to clean it up a bit as the general opinion was we may be better off with mountain bikes. From there we went to the briefing in the Reebok stadium and i met the American guy who does all the Ironman announcing and is a great character and never forgets me and gave me a big hug, bless. The briefing was quite amusing as no one really seemed to know what was going on with the course and the parking/transport to the race and the majority of people stayed behind for Q&As as there were loads! One guy asked if he could leave his car in the race car park until Monday and he was told yes and he said well that’s good because it’s stuck and i can’t get it out of the mud! Ha! The race organisers seemed to be thrown by the weather which i think is a bit strange as if you are organising a big race in the north of England whatever the time of year surely you would have a contingency plan?? Or at least expect some rain??
Race morning dawned early and the holiday inn ironpeople were down at 3am scoffing breakfast in nervous silence. It’s at that point that you start asking yourself serious questions as to what the hell you were ever thinking signing up for an ironman – in my case in signing up for yet another one! We ended up getting a taxi which was the best manoeuvre as there was no race parking at the venue due to the Glastonbury fields and the other option was to drive to the reebok stadium and then get bussed from there which was a bit messy and then you had to still get your car back later or the next day anyway.
So it was more lovely mud sludging back to the transition area to set up the bikes (for people who have read my previous race reports, this time i didn’t bring my broken pump and roll of sellotape to fix it together i just asked some random guy who was busy with his own bike to pump up my tyres as i had a broken pump and i was a bit pathetic anyway on race morning!) . Mr Felt was ready despite being a bit huffy about his scruffy race feet, and we hung about next to him acquiring a fine range of new nervous pals until it was time to remove all the layers and put on the wetsuit over the mud. We were then corralled together like the cows that evidently normally live in the transition area and were shuffled down the lane towards the swim start with people getting their shoes sucked off them by the black mud stuff as we went. It was revolting and freezing. I ended up having to throw my flip flop things away as they were beyond hope of ever being wearable again.

a grey looking swim course
Mind you, the reservoir that was the scene of our swim was even more freezing. I spent the first ten minutes having a panic attack at the cold and literally not being able to move at all or get my face in the water – so much for the line of attack.! I was on the front line but couldn’t breathe or move my frozen limbs!.I heard of at least one person that got out because of the cold so at least i didn’t do that though it did cross my mind. I sort of expected that i’d warm up a bit at least as the swim went on but i just got colder and colder and colder and if the swim had been any longer i swear i would have had to have been fished out. So much for my hoped for PB swim time – even my ‘worse case slow time’ went out the window - great start then! Other people later said their times were also slower due to the current (didn’t notice that) and the theory that the swim was longer (well i guess it always seems that way!) i didn’t notice anything except for the cold and the increasing loss of feeling in my limbs so i guess my focus was taken up totally on the small matter of finding some way of keeping on going before i morphed into Iciclegirl.

on the way to rack the bike!

a bit of mud!

meeting up with ironbuddy Carole and racking the bikes and bags

The next day, Saturday, i met up with a fellow ironman buddy, Carole, who I’d met in Austria. She had been staying at the same guesthouse as me (see extensive Austria report on my blog for details of that) with a bunch of her mates including one who knew Angus who trains with me in Dubai (small world and all that but won’t go into that now). So she also booked into the Holiday Inn so we could hang around together and provide some moral support. It was nice to have a friend to kick around with especially when it was a bit of a drag out of town to the race venue and good to have a navigator.
An aside here but the Holiday Inn guests were a curious contrast of a series of wedding parties over the weekend and Ironpeople. So in the lift or the lobby there’d be people in their finery holding glasses of wine and someone with a bike and wearing wellies or mud splattered legs. It was like there was a glass wall between us as the two contrasting bunches of people were so at polar opposites to the other. One evening myself and Carole could barely stifle our giggles in the lift as this trussed up champagne bearing couple looked at us with such disdain.
Anyway back to the Saturday, after brekky and a good catch up we went to check in our bikes and when we got there we were turned back by a ferocious marshall type person who said we’d have to come back at 6pm because the mashed up field car park was closed because of the waterlogging. We said stuff that and along with a bunch of other increasingly stressy pre IM race day triathletes drove past him up onto the narrow lane and found a space, shoved the police cone out of the way and stuffed the car half way up a grass verge. Other people were doing the same. I mean who was going to come back in the evening before the race to rack the bike and bags??!

When we got nearer down the lane between the campsite and the transition area/expo returning ironpeople were warning us to take off our shoes to wade through the mud!! They were not joking. The queue to check in consisted of people standing knee deep in a particularly dark sticky smelly combination of churned up mud and cowshit and holding aloft their precious bikes and bike/run bags. It really was very smelly a bit like standing in a sewer. Nice. Taking the bike over to the transition area (see pics)
a bit of mud!
on the way to rack the bike!

was gross, people who still had shoes or wellies on were losing them into the quicksand type mud and we were sliding and falling about trying to keep upright. Mr Felt was so not impressed cos his shiny zipps were not so shiny anymore and were covered in mud by the time he got racked so he was bit sniffy with me as i think he thought it was affecting his modelling career. What a diva.

IMuck part two: registering and Mr Felt stars again!

So off i went to register and the field the expo was in was like a quagmire and so was the campsite next to it. Everyone from the UK was well prepared and had brought their wellie boots so it looked a bit like the Glastonbury of triathlon except there were no bands and no one was drunk (yet). Not that anyone could even get a nice hot cup of tea and an iced bun as the mobile cafe things weren’t open (and this was the Friday before the race so the main day for registration!)
Mr Felt went to have a crucial piece fixed which cost 2 pounds then they charged me another 15 pounds (about 135AED) for attaching it – couldn’t believe it! (Then later on when i came to pack him up i discovered that the idiot overcharging mechanic had tightened the pedals so much (or glued them??) that not even the combined force of my parents’ neighbours who are quite handy could get them off! They are stuck on for life i think! ) So we grumpily trudged back across the quagmire where we went to look at the kswiss stand (not much to see at the expo, just kswiss and a TriUk marquee, bit crap compared to other races but good when you don’t have much money left!)
Mr Felt was in his element at the k swiss stand as he got very admired and had his photo taken a lot. He likes this. People think he’s a top end bike just cos he’s wearing his borrowed zipps (but don’t tell Mr Felt i said that...). the kswiss people asked us if we’d done any modelling before (cos we were obviously so natural at it ;-) lol) i said yes but as the 2007 2XU model, not wrapped in 5 layers of clothing and covered in mud. Not quite the same.
mr felt being admired by kswiss people

Ironman UK! part one - getting there!

IMUK 09 race report by Julie (Irongirl) (well sort of)

So, my reasons for doing IMUK (it’s a choice that needs justifying!!) were to combine doing a race and seeing my family and also as an Irongirl from the UK I have to do one in the UK , right?? Not that i was overkeen from the offset as i am a real warm weather person and hate swimming in the cold. Especially when you know that when you get out of the arctic water it’s not going to be much warmer outside!
So as usual for the UK in summer, the plane landed in Manchester in the rain, i drove to Bolton – in the rain and the next day drove to the race venue (bit tricky to find) – in the rain – the parking (which you had to pay for) was in a field about half a mile away from the expo (also in a field) (in the rain). Well when i did Austria 70.3 in May the parking was also in a field however this is north west England and anything can happen with the weather and usually does. And did.

pics of the little beach house - well the view from!

view from my front door !

my front door! this was about 5am and thick humidity!

also early, beetle in the humidity

too tired to write the words, more another time...loads to update on!

frustrations of no internet and having the lergy

me and the stay warmer socks

still having problems finding internet i can't believe that in this day and age i am so unconnected! On saturday i finished the race report for liverpool and was so pleased with myself for getting it done, was about to upload it and.....it vanished into cyber space!!!! how very very frustrating :-( was so not happy. Since i have been back from the UK i've had some silly flu thing that's just dragging on and on and has been keeping me from precious training time and the lack of internet ahs prevented me from just getting on and keeping up with stuff! what to do without a blackberry - i'd have no idea what was going on!! Hopefully soon i will re-do the report and even sooner can shake the lergy and get back into training :-)

the swim

the 'elite' wave swimming in liverpool's albert dock. i'm at the back somewhere but not right at the back yessss!!

a shorter race report this time, reflecting shorter race (just wait until ironman!!)

In brief it was great and once we got going i enjoyed every minute. The emphasis there is on the 'once we got going' maaaan it was cold! It took me a lot of bravery to peel off the layers and climb into the wetsuit and i thought i would be warm in the wetsuit but hell no! i was freezing! and so was everyone else. We were standing at the swim assembly waiting for the pre-plunge briefing just shaking with the cold. The great british summer, huh!

newsflash!! The new bargain basement wetsuit and i are friends! wahey! it's so much better, more pliable and doesn't try to strangle me and i can move my arms. Not sure if it had the effect of helping me to swim faster this time as by the time we started i was a frozen iceberg and wouldn't have noticed if someone had stuck a knife in my arm, but hey at least i didn't suffocate from the wetsuit this time, just from the cold water and icy arctic breeze whipping over the water. Nice.

So, we got into the water for the 8am start. Bl**dy cold but hey we will be off soon. Not to be, we were kept there waiting for 10 minutes! we were as blue as our hats! There were 30-something in the 'elite' age group start and only 8 were girls. I had googled them all and they were all fast but they were also all ages from 17-19 age cat to 45-49 so a good cross section. I was not the only frozen competitor, everyone was getting worked up with being left in the water for so long and were getting rather riled and starting to shout at the canoeists and man with the tannoy. Once we started it took me a while to realise i was moving as my limbs had gone numb, i tried to follow some feet but they were all too fast for me after about 150m but i kept tabs on a small group just in front of me and didn't let them get away too far. I actually loved the swim once we were actually swimming and it was over too soon! And there best thing was that there people behind me still, yesss!!

flipping cold up north!!

me and mr felt wearing tons of layers and still absolutely freezing!!!

'summer' in the uk!!!

a lovely summer's day in england

how can anyone live here??! it's Freezing!! Yesterday went for a longish run which was awesome in terms of scenery (my parents live right on the coast and it's so fab for running) but in one direction the wind was so fierce i kept getting smacked in the face by my pigtails and it was like running the wrong way on a fast moving treadmill. The waves were steel grey and smashing onto the beach and there was so much sand on the roads that the cars were driving on the pavement! This morning me and mr felt went out for a spin and i was so cold my ears hurt...heck how are we to survive tomorrow??!

off to cloudy chilly breezy but green UK

supposed to be the other way around but that must be in 'advanced blogging'..... Two: landing in green UK

One: taking off in sand blown desert

So after the usual packing on the way to the airport palava (i was still half packed from my last trips so that makes it easier!) and Mr Felt was being fought over by my villamates who got to take him apart so i just left them all to it, though whether leaving a bunch of boys with a beer in one hand and an allen key in the other is a good idea i'm not sure but was too tired and too much to do to really worry! Met up with a client of mine at the airport who was off to cyprus to do his own tri camp weekend and then off to the plane which was packed. Am always surprised so many people want to fly to manchester ha. Flight was a bit turbulent which made me a bit twitchy after the recent air france crash, but got distracted with movie watching, yay - the only time i get to watch movies and with flying a lot lately i'm so up to date! We landed rather bumpily and there was a big *bang* and everyone collectively inhaled - god knows what that was but a least we were on the ground by then!! Had to wait for ages for mr felt to get off the plane, don't know what he was doing, probably too cold for him to bother getting off, then there was the usual stupid airport posts and narrow slamming security door debacle to contend with, and a snooty security man who said i had to navigate a a double set of narrow no-turning-back doors by myself which involved a bit of nifty bike bag shoving, trolley dragging circus type maneouvres. Then was another hire car drama as europcar had no car and was supposed to wait for hours for one to come in and ended up with some very nice hertz people who didn't take up my entire credit card limit. And i slept an unbroken 9 hours which was wonderful and haven't done that since 1972 it seems and the other good thing is that my new cheapo wetsuit is here and it's SO nice and pliable and soft and it goes on and comes off without battling and being strangled and bullied by the damn thing and ending up with bruises. It just remains to see if i can swim in it!

mr felt returns

So i whizz off to pick up mr Felt and he takes ages to get ready. He's such a girl sometimes. Meanwhile I amuse myself by causing havoc amongst the staff and customers of wolfis, great fun! Turns out that Mr Felt wasn't just preening and admiring his borrowed race feet in the mirror but needed a new rear shifting cable which needs time to stretch! Flip he's falling apart more than his owner!! Said have no time to ride him properly before the race...heck it's only an olympic, a bit of 'fun' ...yeah.... :-@

Almost 10.30pm and just home and have to be up early again - quelle surprise, lots to pack into tomorrow! Bees want shorter flowers and more honey!! Or is that more flowers in the day, would be handy. What am i on about??!! need to sleep!!!!!

all BACK on track!!!!

Another fab morning of high energy classes and happy smiley people, love it love it! Especially the new bodypump release (70) it rocks!! Went light on the weights in pump and later went to see the magic osteo/physio man who's also a triathlete. Basically my back was so jammed up from all the jumping around i do i was overactivating my lower back and that's why it got upset. A bit of being beaten up and yanked around later followed by a session in the pool and i am back to normal! Well 'normal' in the context of being me anyway. So that's a relief. Just got to find time to pick up Mr Felt from his mini break and we are on countdown to the weekend. Am looking forward to the race but stressing a bit about missing training while i'm there, although hopefully i can escape to do some nice scenic runs.

next race is a week today!

mr felt with borrowed race feet

So got up this morning with a bit of a toothache type pain in the back but hey i had 4 classes in a row to teach plus a meeting to go to plus some other running around then attack practice then another 2 classes and the tri squad training so no time to worry really. It's actually worse when i stop am just concerned about teaching bodypump tomorrow but am sure will be caught up in the energy of the class so won't notice! Then go to the physio to get straightened out! Getting a bit concerned that this olympic tri is taking up essential IM training time! Not long to go! Long run tomorrow early if i don't seize up overnight so had better get some zeds! Mr Felt is on a sleepover at wolfi's bike shop he was so excited about that he didn't even give me a backwards glance when i left him there, he's got a bit of a reputation for keeping the other bikes awake all night so had better go and get him back tomorrow he needs his pre-race wheels up time before he gets put in his box.

June update, next race is round the corner!

julie's serious triathletes ready to train.....


....maybe not so serious then..! whose feet are those??!


Since i got back from Austria i swear my feet (not the ones in the pic!) have not touched the ground! It's been a full on whirl of manic days! Last week was particularly challenging - some crabs in a bucket to deal with (which in its own turn-on-its-head way (see- everything relates to the feet in the pic ;-D)! is a good sign). I suppose! Sometimes, though, rising above it all takes way too much unnecessary energy that could be better spent elsewhere!!

Every (late) night i got home last week there was a row of boys (my villa mates) in the lounge at the infamous Villa 79 avidly watching animal planet which was fascinating (animal planet not the boys - well actually they were when they reeled off the whole cast and goings on of the 'days of our lives' meerkat series - i was quite impressed with the seriousness with which they relayed that information!) There was a bit i saw about a kingfisher who fed off these amazing fish who had the fastest reaction time of any creature on the planet - of course the kingfisher kept missing his potential dinner. I didn't get why the bird didn't go for something slower he could actually eat and wonder how the species survives...there has to be a life lesson in there somewhere!!

How did i get from training/racing to animal planet??!

Yesterday felt like the first day off i've had in a while, and that 'day off' involved getting up at the witching hour to go cycling. Seriously i feel quite refreshed after that 'day off' though :-). Only a week to go until the Liverpool Olympic, hope everything holds together this week in the lead up. i get a bit paranoid the week before a race as i usually do something stupid like fall off my bike/down a hole (real or imaginary)/off the stage during a superman haha, no really!! So i need to be bubblewrapped but it's getting a bit toasty for that! Today tweaked something in my back during bodypump now that's one i haven't done before! The back track was a killer and not just cos of the weight on the bar which i couldn't do anything about being the instructor. darn it! will be ok tomorrow i'm sure! Another busy week kicks off tomorrow, after today not being so bad (in my mad world anyway ;-O). Big party going on in my garden full of diving people...ahhh it's always drinks again at villa 79...i'm off to bed!

austria 70.3 episode twelve - beyond the finishline

the danube river - i cycled up one side and back on the other

tri bikes the day after the race! (not really)

my 'cool down' route

my borrowed touring bike

Ah so, peaceful post race sleep...actually far from it, brekky was spent discussing how all of us were so pumped from adrenaline and fatigue no one could sleep so we should just have got up and had a cup of tea. We spent a happy obsessive few more hours pouring over the results, then i borrowed a bike from my gasthoff owners and went off into the bright morning armed with my ipod, book and a picnic, intending to meander happily about in the sunny day. I ended up cycling almost 60k quite accidentally but hey it took me all day and it was such a lovely way to spend a day. Cycle tourism is huge in austria and the cycle paths are well set up and are just so inviting and pleasant to pedal along. Mr Felt really didn't mind being left behind he said he knew i wasn't cheating on him with another bike as he is obviously vastly superior and he spent the day with his wheels up, chilling.

Ah, so what's next and when?? bring it on!! :-)

austria 70.3 episode eleven - the run!

compulsory post race beers!

me and my go faster pigtails!

So onto the run! and as this was now weeks ago and it's old news i will keep it short ;-). Basically i loved the run, i felt amazingly springy right from the first stride - love that feeling! i didn't let any girls at all overtake me woohoo! I was quite thirsty by then so i did stop off at every aid station (every 2k) and grab some water/electrolyte and coke towards the end. What i took on and the amount seemed to be spot on anyway and i had bouncy feet all the way. Run time was 1.43.33 which i was happy with. All in all despite the baaaad T1 and the other bits i'm critical of, i still took 21 minutes off my March 70.3 time and this course was tougher, so i was generally happy!

I love that finishline experience though it seems to pass in a blur and all you want to do then is swop notes with someone! In keeping with the rest of the austria experience there was a bit of a wander to the recovery tent, i stopped off in a big queue on the way to get my street and bike bags back and then sat on a bench in the sunshine regrouping my molecules and just relishing the whole experience of it until i felt balanced enough to join the food queue. Even so i wasn't hungry, post race the hunger never catches up until later on! Chatted to some random people, the girl in the flouncy frock was one of them. everyone in the recovery area was still in their tri suits and she was in the flouncy frock...i will always wonder if she raced in it! Went back to the gasthoff and spent the whole evening swapping tales with my race buddies. I think we all managed two vases of beer each before fading. We sat in the courtyard and enjoyed the long spring evening and laughed at my 7 minute transition hahaha not ;-Z and various other things that had happened along the way (Eric was very unfortunate as he got into a crash at the bike dismount line - some riders flew into him and two others and he was concussed and taken out of the race) and we spent a Lot of time analysing everyone's results on ironman.com!

austria 70.3 episode ten - the bike!

The first part of the ride was along the 'autobahn', flat but a little against the wind (used to that though!) . My left calf had cramped up getting out of the darned wetsuit and i was hoping that would ease off before we hit the first hill! After that stretch of road we were onto the country roads and the scenery got prettier and greener, just so lovely, though i was glad i had seen it from the bus the day before as on the day really you just focus on catching the bum in front of you (some not so pleasant - who thinks White is a good colour for bike shorts???? nooooo!!!). Soon it was time to climb the first hill through the vineyards and since on this hill i was soon down to my lowest gear i thought heck what will i do on the big one, but time to worry about that later! Everyone slowed down and was bunched together but that hardly constituted drafting, we were just in our own zones. I was just trying to get ahead of 'Carletto' who either had a nervous tic or had a wasp in his ear and was bugging me big time shaking his head around, i just had to get past him! Once up and over the hill it was up and down through some tight roads through the villages - those moments that you have flashbacks about post race but don't have time to really 'see' during the ride. After that it was through more green green a bit up and down until we got to the long flat part that took us along the Danube river, how amazing. The uphills and the flat stretches were the parts i found myself overtaking other cyclists (unfortunately not in my age group!!). I felt great riding along the danube stretch, i was fired up from climbing the first hill and my legs felt full of energy and strength. I even found jesus....and overtook him ;-) ! mr Felt was loving whizzing past all the cervelos with their zipp wheels - his favourite pastime. We eventually turned off from the Danube and judging by the stack of chucked water bottles it was time to climb! A long and slow grind in the sun up and up round a bend in the road, then another...Actually i really enjoyed this bit. Again it was a crowd of cyclists bunched up as far as you could see, but everyone silent apart from huffing and puffing and the creak of pedals turning as we just focussed on getting on and getting up there. Right at the top (where it got just that bit steeper) there was an aid station and a bunch of people cheering us on tour de france style which was fab and lifted the draining energy. People were a bit wobbly at the top where they tried to balance new water bottles with bananas and breathing and finding new gears and finding their legs so you had to watch out for unbalanced bikes as you found your own legs and gears over the top and onward. The climbing was not totally done with as there was an awful lot more of up (despite the profile map showing a nice trailing off soon after). But these hills were a lot shorter. Most of the triathletes were very proficient at descending and cornering at speed, skills that i totally lack, but i can't really complain as i was so stoked at myself for being able to actually stay on the bike going downhill! The 14% descent sign struck terror into my soul but it was a bit like jumping off a cliff into an icy pool - i sucked in a sharp terrified lungful of air and mr felt just went for it...i don't think i will ever be great at flying downhill but at least i can now do it :-). It was soon enough back into St Polten and into T2. I thanked the bike gods for no mechanical problems (apart from the chain falling off after an over zealous gear change after a descent and sudden uphill). I was 8 minutes slower on the bike than i wanted but not too bad considering all the uphill bits.

austria 70.3 episode nine - the bike!

After the T1 palava it was off out on the bike course which was Gorgeous and well worth doing the race for! The weather was perfect -dry, bright and sunny, around 26-28C throughout.

austria 70.3 episode eight - the swim!

Apparently most of my stories are punctuated with 'and then' so here we go...

And then on the way to the swim start my timing plan - which up til then had been perfect - was hampered by lack of portaloos and people (guys, no chicks in my Q except for me) taking Forever! In the end i was giving them cut off times or none of us would have got to the swim start in time. By the time i'd got to the swim start, the pre-race excitement had turned into dawning terror, particularly as the dreaded wetsuit and i had a pre-swim standoff. As i miserably clambered into the horrible thing, the 2XU guy appeared from nowhere and helped to yank me about and then evaporated. Am not sure whether he was a figment of my imagination or whether he was real and his brief for the day was to grope people in 2XU wetsuits! Flung my street wear bag at a blokey in an army uniform, later i wondered whether he was actually the right person to give it to or whether he was just out walking his dog, but hey, i got it back at the end. And then had a bit of a moment where i couldn't find how to get behind the metal gate things to join my fellow wetsuit, red swim hat clad wave, found it, got in and did a perfunctory warm up and then re-stretched the neoprene around again as instructed by imaginary 2XU groper. We were off! but after about 2-300m the wetsuit demons tried to clamp my lungs and drown me and i had a 'i can't breathe/move' panic attack, shook off the demons and got going again, but heck, the julestar really can't swim in a wetsuit! I feel as aquadynamic as an octopus with all its legs tied together in it. So i lost time and useful feet getting through the first lake, trotted the 200m over the bridge to the next lake and started to feel a bit more settled by but was desperate to get the suit off. That's Another Story as in addition to my dismal swim time my T1 time was laughable (see later for more comment on this :-Z) as the suit then decides it likes me after all and refuses to come off. Next time i will put scissors in my bike bag and cut the damn thing off. That will make an interesting YouTube video!!

austria 70.3 episode seven!

mr Felt, locked in, loaded up, looking mean!

Race morning kicked off with 4.30am brekky at gasthoff bohm, everyone a bit quiet and guzzling nervously. Drove to race venue, luckily had left plenty of time in case i got lost again, was glad i did as parking took forever. It was a bit chilly and drizzling at this point. Went to prepare Mr Felt...this is the bit i have been told not to tell anyone about - my not so secret any longer pre-race strategy!! On the morning of a race my nervousness seems to manifest itself into an inability to not be able to inflate my tyres - whatever i do the air just comes out! So i usually get someone to help me, and so as not to appear Totally pathetic i have a Strategy. Some time ago during a flight my bike pump got broken - it works, but looks appropriately damaged. So i claim that it's just broken ('oh no!') and get some passing unsuspecting person with their own pump to inflate my tyres for me!! It has worked every time so far, however having admitted this i may become known as the Girl with the 'Broken' pump and people will just ignore me and snigger, or maybe i will ask the same person and they might say 'didn't you have a broken pump at that race back in 2005?' haha!

Anyway i got some poor frazzled guy to sort out Mr Felt's race feet, gave him a pat (mr Felt, not the guy...maybe i gave them both a pat in my blur of churning nervousness!) and headed off on the long trek to the swim start...

austria 70.3 episode seven!

the swim finish!

the second lake, the day before - very tranquil...

where's my bag???!

After all the bike course viewing, bike and bag packing and checking in etc, there was only half an hour to go before the briefing! So much for visions of lounging around on the grass in the sun reading my book. After the briefing there was a huge wait for the pasta party to kick off and when it did it was like a scrum to get to the trough (pasta!). It was good practice for the swim start anyway.

Race morning (yes we are finally there!)...damnit am out of wifinet time...more later ;-) ah the suspense!!

austria 70.3 episode six!

mr felt and his rivals

mr felt wasn't too keen on the 'david beckham' felt

bike bags in the austrian sunshine

bag 915 stands out purely because there aren't any twigs or ribbons tied to it!

So the afternoon before the race was taken up with a lot of walking about to different places hanging bags up and checking bikes in, all at different places. With it being a big race it was more like an Ironman with all the bags and check in procedures, not like the singapore 70.3 where you just plonked everything by your bike. I thought i fuss over mr felt when i abandon him to his rivals at his place but there was a girl in the next row to me wearing a very flouncy frock who seemed to be polishing her cervelo. Mr Felt doesn't think much of cervelos so even he thought this was excessive. I left him to psyche out his rivals and he gave me a look which meant in tri bike speak 'don't flippin' well be last out of the water' and i went off across 5 miles of grassy field to the run transition to leave my shoes.

austria 70.3 episode five!

the swim start flags in lake one!

the swim start, no mistaking that!

The triathletes staying at gasthoff bohm. we were summoned for a photo the evening before the race. We were all great mates by the time we left, ah who says this is an individual sport?!

austria 70.3 episode four!

So i was staying in a guesthouse (Gasthoff Bohm)around an eventual 50 mins drive away from St Polten, the race venue. Initially i was a bit concerned it was a way out but the roads are so pleasant in austria and the stereo so good on my rent a car that i didn't mind so much! Also the guesthouse was lovely and there were lots of triathletes staying there and the owners were great people and mr gasthoff bohm was also racing. The first evening in austria i had dinner with an Italian triathlete whose mama kept phoning him to see if he was ok! (ok generally i think, not checking to see if he was ok having dinner with me...then again..!)

The next morning i trailed round hardware shops trying to find an adapter plug as i'd brought the wrong one! so couldn't charge anything up. Luckily i have 2 phones (one no. that everyone has and one that not everyone has, aha! am just so important ;-)! so i could use both until i later discovered some Brits staying at the same guesthouse so i borrowed their adaptor - handy! I went to find the race venue and it took me nearly 2 hours!! I found St Polten ok but took the wrong exit off the highway and ended up driving around aimlessly for an hour wondering what the german for 'race venue this way' is. There were no signs except for a few Ironman posters fluttering from lamposts. I eventually found it, stressing a bit about how i'd ever find it again and then spent the rest of the day traipsing round doing stuff - so much for resting! The race is so huge (2400 competitors) and very well organised as it would have to be with so many people but the downside of that is it is very spread out with 2 lakes to swim in and two transition areas. So i registered, got Mr Felt tuned up, found the lakes, found the two transition areas, chatted to random people at the expo, stared at the map of the bike profile in the info tent and got a bit worried, signed up for the bus tour of the bike course, went for a swim in one of the lakes (after being punched in the jaw by the wetsuit..i am not joking, we hate each other :-Z ). Was exhausted by the time i got back to gasthoff bohm!

The next morning I went for brekky early as i was going on the bike course tour. (see above for pics of bike course and random people who had no idea they'd be appearing on my blog, ha!). Met a dutch guy called Eric who was also up early to go on the bus tour. He claimed he knew how to get to the race venue so we went in his car so i could see the way. Turned out he wasn't too sure either and we ended up driving the scenic route but at least we did get there slightly faster than i had the day before. Coming from 'flat' countries we were both very interested by the austrian definitions of 'flat' and 'hill'. A while into the journey we were told by the race director man that we hadn't got to the hills yet - haha we did laugh - until Eric wryly commented we wouldn't be laughing tomorrow! I was so glad i saw the course for 2 reasons: (1) i got to see the gorgeous scenery i would be riding through the next day - really i recommend this race just for the bike course, it is so so stunning it is such a joy to ride through and (2) i got to see just how the bus struggled up the hills and the 8% - and more alarmingly - the 14% descent signs. Yikes!

austria 70.3 episode three!

First off on a race trip, you have to get there, and the physical journey is all part of the bigger journey! Travelling with a bike can be quite an experience depending on the airline and the airport. I swear airport designers do not have people with luggage in mind when they do their airport designing jobs. Steps and tight corners to negotiate, narrow elevators, silly post things stuck in the ground which are just a few inches too close together to accommodate a passing bike box on a trolley, fellow passengers making quips as to what's in the bag, and ferocious check in staff who seize the opportunity with glee to charge you excess baggage while allowing the person beside you on with a set of golf clubs and a whole lot of scuba diving equipment with hardly a comment. Anyway Emirates now have a bigger luggage allowance, yippee, so no problems there this time. Had a joyous air steward person attending my row who couldn't believe no one was drinking 'what's wrong with you lot, it's free booze!' i pointed out it was only 8am but he didn't seem to see my point! Landed in Vienna, picked up the hire car, headed off to the car park armed with the knowledge i had to drive 100ks away from vienna but had no idea in which direction or what the name of the town was i was headed for. Then my phone bleeps - the flipping car company had blocked 900 euros off my card! I only have a low level credit card anyway for car hiring/emergency purposes only so that was all my funds gone. fab! Decided not worry about the minor detail of suddenly having no access to money and instead focus on finding my way to the guesthouse. Luckily Austrian roads are very well sign posted so even blonde pigtailed girls can find their way. Mr Felt was happy to be out of his box and the travel bandages off and resurrected into a bike shape (see pic above).

austria 70.3 episode two!

So, Austria 70.3 was supposed to be a training day in preparation for IMUK, which has now turned into a 'training day' - more about why another time. The week before austria that original training day intention turned into a 'go get it girl' day. I thought austria would be good preparation for the UK in that it could be chilly and wet (it wasn't) and hilly (it was). I really wanted to challenge myself on a hilly course to see if i could climb and if i could get over my fear of descending (see 'julie's triathlon demons' below for more on this!). It has taken me 8 years but with a bit of magic dust chucked at me on a recent Hatta-Kalba ride I am starting slowly to get over the fear! Good quote coming up: 'a lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could'. I guess it's a lot to do with trust but I was wondering if I could do the same painfully slow hanging onto the brakes for dear life teeth grinding descent (this IS the improvement by the way!) when out there on my own. You will have to read on to see if i could!

Austria 70.3 Episode One

So this (eventually) will all be about the Austria 70.3 (see left). i say eventually because i seem to have hand written vast pages of notes about it but haven't yet got round to writing about the race itself so it may be better to read about it in episodes (that's the way i'm typing it up anyway as with my random internet access at home i'm roaming around Dubai with pc and pics and the aforesaid swathes of notes and it may take Some Time). i thought this was the finish line haha i hadn't read the bit about the stadium finish (see far left) at this point. They were just building the stadium finish when i took the pic (day before) on the day it looked nothing like this there was carpet and people running around all over the place as you went through it 6 times in the end, i was very confused by that when i started the run i thought i'd missed the point and was heading for the finish - quickest half marathon time ever!