Ironman Berlin 70.3

So here we are! Ironman Berlin 70.3 Done! 
The long awaited second race with the Ichiban Triathlon Team (click and Like it on Facebook)
We all trained hard for this race that´s a sure thing, but it was time to see who worked harder. Unfortunately I was a little under the weather so I knew before the start that it was going to be a tough day, and not starting was just not an option, not only for the Team, but because I got a surprise interview from Herbert Krabel from Slowtwitch ¨On the Road with Jano Soto¨ and after that not starting just didn´t looked good :)
(Click here to read the Interview)

Ichiban Triathlon Team / 2013 Ironman Berlin 70.3

The swim course was in the River Spree with an spectacular view of the Elsenbrucke Bridge and The Molecule man.. the gun went off! The swim went quite normal and I was trying to save some energy cause I knew I was in for a long day, the view of the bridge was plain beautiful and I had the time to think more than once how lucky I was to be doing this thing that I love so much in a place like this, I almost forgot I was racing. I came out of the water in 15th place of my Age Group and went on to the Bike.

Tempelhof Airfield Bike Course

I was feeling surprisingly good! My watts were exactly where I wanted them to be. The bike course leads through the city quarter of Neukölln to Columbiadamm at the former Tempelhof Airport. From there to Mehringdamm where the course turns and goes back to Tempelhof airfield. There are three laps to drive over on the airfield it was back and forth on the 2 super wide landing strips with three turns on each strip. This means there are 24 turns per lap or 72 sharp turnarounds! It sounded crazy and fun. And it was! I got to see all of my Team Mates! That part was pretty cool! What was kinda crazy was the strong wind that was getting stronger and stronger as the time went by, luckily I made friends with the wind in Kona. So at least mentally that part was covered. My 1st lap average speed was 37.44km/hr. In the second I saw my watts drop a little, I tried to get some food in, but there was something that was not right, I remembered I had a cold, and instead of forcing it I decided to go with liquid only. Second lap average 35.90km/hr, and then in the 3rd Lap I started to feel like crap! The pace didn´t dropped to much 35.38km/hr for a Bike Split of 2:25 that placed me in 11th place.

When I got to Transition 2 without even thinking about it I left my Sunglasses with my Helmet, that meant running without them... I never do that, cause Obviously I should wear them during the whole race, I owe that to my Sponsor Rudy Project, but I guess that the reason for that impulsive decision came clear after the first kilometer........ Or in this case came blurry........... I couldn´t see anything on my sides, I had tunnel vision, my head was about to explode, felt like I had a fire inside my brain. I tried to separate the pains and analyze what was really going on with my body, the conclusion was that even with the headache, my legs were OK, but when I pushed the pace and my breathing went deep I couldn´t help the coffin, so I tried to breath more times and don´t go too deep, my speed was not that bad, in the 1st 3kms I averaged 4:19min/km, and those 3 kms were the worst, I was almost sure I was going to faint at some point, but then the headache and the cloudy vision disappeared, my speed also vanished and started to drop, but at least I was able to keep a high cadence and never stop, even if my body wanted to just quit! I ended up running a 1:37 Half Marathon very far from what I had planned but at that point I was just happy to be able to cross the finish line.
Mentally this race was without a doubt the hardest in my life! I think that something very positive came out of this, it feels like I went over a border in my mind, or that I cross over a pain threshold , my 4:39 Total Time gave me the 10th place and 64th Overall.
The Perfect Race is something that is very very rare, some races can come close to it, and when that happens it´s an amazing feeling, but this year..... my races have been far from that. It´s specially tough when the training goes right and you have great expectations for the race, but in race day you just don´t have it.
So let´s go back to the drawing board and start all over again.
The Performance of the Team was Brilliant, Tommy Vonach won his age group with another superhuman performance in 4:18, Jenson Button smashed his PB by shaving 11 minutes and finishing with a speedy 4:19 that gave him a 4th place, Paul Ryman even with a flat tire did a 4:42, Andrew Gardiner broke the 5hr barrier with a 4:59, Dea Bess got a 6th place with her 5:07, James Thurston did an incredible 5:10 in his first half Ironman, Big Guy Fraser Thomson did a respectable 5:22 he keeps shaving kilos and now looks like a killer machine. Unfortunately Tom Dudden one of the fastest on the Team didn´t finished, he was also going through a Man Flu and used his head unlike others (me) and took the option to recover and get ready sooner for the next one.
Crossing the finish line is always very emotional, for various reasons, in this ocassion (after almost ending in the Medical tent) it was the Team Energy & Frienship that almost brought me down to tears. I don´t want to sound to cheesy or corny or whatever, but everyone in Team is very special individual! Specially The Girls! Jessica, Paola and Samantha didn´t race but they played a huge roll in helping us all to go through a tough race. Chris Buncombe was also there on the sidelines cheering on us!
ICHIBAN!!!

Ichiban Triathlon Team / 2013 Ironman Berlin 70.3

Ironman 70.3 Hawaii Race Report. Plus Lavaman and Ironman 70.3 Oceanside :)

I know, I know..... 
I owe you a few Race Reports... So here we go, 3 Race Reports in one Blog Post:

The Excuse:
After the Monster Half Ironman everything went so damn fast that I didn´t really had time to even write a small race report.. The training became serious after seeing how much I needed to work in my run, it was all about training and we also had guests in our home. Anyway.... I trained like a madman and everything went well, no serious injuries luckly, just a little tightness in the legs but nothing my Normatec Boots couldn´t fix.

Lavaman Waikoloa 1st Place (10th Overall) March 24
The first serious race was Lavaman Waikoloa. Considering that most of my training was aimed at Long Distance I think the race went pretty well... Actually I think it went Awesome! I came 10th place Overall with a very strong field, plus ahead of me there were Only Pros! I think only one Age Grouper came ahead of my in 9th. A field this string is usual for this beautiful race.
The race was won by Chris Lieto, Benjamin Williams came in 2nd and Tim Marr took 3rd place. I won my Age Group and obviously I was very happy to crack a Top Ten.

Ironman 70.3 Oceanside 11th Place (124th Overall) March 30
The next day I was already flying to California for Ironman 70.3 Oceanside. This race was a more important for me since I was racing with and against all my Team Mates from ICHIBAN TRIATHLON TEAM (click and ¨Like¨ on Facebook) They all came from all over the world, Japan, USA, UK, Monaco etc... And since we all keep track of each others training is like a very friendly competition in parallel with the Race itself.
I was a little worried about the water temperature because I was using a Sleeveless wetsuit, I´ve never felt good with full sleeves and everyone was saying that it was very very cold, and when you hear this from the Brits that are used to gruelsome weather you can´t help it, you worry about it..
The swim went quite well, a lot of traffic due to all the wave starts but nothing to worry about, no Hypothermia at all, actually I was feeling hot towards the end of the swim. I came out of the water in 27:40 and went on to the Bike leg. I loved this course, it´s hard and true, so not too many drafting cheaters around, I was feeling pretty good and fast, but when the big hill came I realized I forgot to change my rear cassette, I didn´t had the gears I wanted to have so I could keep a high cadence the whole time. I didn´t suffer the hill but I had to grind slowly and I knew this was going to hurt my run... And it did...... I came in 9th position with a 2:34 wich is not bad for Oceanside. I started running 4:20min kilometers (7min miles) and felt quite good, I was hoping to hold that pace for the entire run and maybe even speed it up the last few km´s but after 16kms (10miles) I started to pay forgeting to bring the correct gear for that hill. I couldn´t hold the pace and I had to slow down a little bit.. the last 5k my average came down to 4:49min/km (7:45min/mile) I finished strong with a 1:34 Half Marathon and I cramped inmediatly after crossing the line which left me a good feeling of giving it all and doing my best.
The rest of the Team did incredibly good, we had the chance to show the following:
¨WE ARE NOT HERE JUST FOR THE COOKIES AND COFFEE¨
Ichiban Triathlon Team Results:
Tommy Vonach:   Total Time 4:22:01 Div Rank 4th Overall Rank 56th
Jenson Button:      Total Time 4:29:00 Div Rank 5th Overall Rank 78th
Tom Dudden:       Total Time 4:32:59 Div Rank 7th Overall Rank 90th
Yu Yumoto:          Total Time 4:39:31 Div Rank 18th Overall Rank  117th
Jano Soto:            Total Time 4:41:07 Div Rank 11th Overall Rank  124th
Andrew Gardiner: Total Time 5:12:15 Div Rank 65th Overall Rank 382th
Fraser Thomson:   Total Time 5:36:20 Div Rank 112th Overall Rank 746th

Too much caffeine?

Jessy, Fraser, Paola, Jano

Ichiban Triathlon Team

The 2nd Excuse:
After Oceanside we spent a couple of days in Los Angeles and then we went to Mexico for 8 days, I didn´t trained much so when we came back to Kona I felt I needed to catch up for the what was coming next: The plan was to start preparing Challenge Roth and in the way race Ironman Honu 70.3 and Berlin 70.3. Easier said than done.

Ironman Hawaii 70.3 June 1st Kona Hawaii.  7th place 39th Overall
This is my 5th time doing 70.3 Honu, the way we call it in Kona.
I´m proud to say that I always choose hard races, competitive and hard, but Honu is on its own league, I think I can say this is a damn tough race, maybe one the toughest races in the WTC circuit.
Well.. after saying all this, this year it was by far the toughest conditions in 5 years, and from what I hear it was the worst ever!
The swim start is always super violent, and this time there was no exception, the Pro Wave started at 6:50 and 3 minutes later all Male Division....In total we were 1800+ participans, so lets say 1500 Ultra Competitive guys!
I´ve been swimming a lot and I felt confident to be able to start very fast and then hold a good pace, and I think I would have been able to do this if there was water to swim in.... for the first 400 meters there was no water at all... Only a sea of arms, legs, elbows and backs! TOTAL CHAOS! Awful! just after the first turn buoy it started to get better, but in overall the swim was hard for everyone, the times were slow. I came out of the water in 30:48 but since I passed a few Pro Girls towards the end I knew that it was not a bad time.
I jumped into my Bike and as soon as I started riding on the Queen K I knew the wind was going to be Terrible and Cruel on our way up to Hawi, I also saw I was in a pretty good position! after the first turnaround I saw that after the Pros there were not many Age Groupers. Startting the climb up to Hawi I saw I was Spot On! The Wind was Howling! I passed more guys and in the turnaround in Hawi I was up there in the Mix, Craig Alexander was crushing everyone in the field and maybe 5 minutes ahead of the next one, but after that we were all spread apart by 30 seconds more or less...
The wind was not only stronger than usual, this time it decided to change and give us a demostration of how mean Madame Pele con be, headwind all the way! My 2:33 Bike Split was good enough to get me to the start of the Run in 35th place Overall. I know perfectly this course, and it doesn´t get any easier, I started to run conservative because I knew what I had ahead of me, grass, steam, hills, heat, more heat, and at mile 10 the Horrible Hells Kitchen! a 2 mile stretch of Mini Energy lab out & back to Hell... So I was trying to keep control to be able to unleash it towards the end... I was running 4:20min kms and feeling incredibly good, but this time my mistake was taking it too easy, when I passed the 7 mile marker I saw I was going to easy! WAKE UP JANO!  I screamed to myself! what are you doing? Crap! I won´t be ale to get back those minutes lost. In the intent to save it a think I lost focus for a while. So I got my initial pace back of 4:20´s and I passed Hells Kitchen unscratched! It´s incredible and even funny to see the faces of the guys at that turnaround I think that at that point of the race no one expects to get any harder!
My Run split for the Half Marathon was 1:39, maybe not what I wanted but considering the conditions of the whole race I was happy with my race... 7th place in my Age Group and Better than this was being 39th Overall with 20 Pros starting the race!
50 hrs later I was on a plane to Europe, next is Ironman Berlin 70.3 June 16, another race with my mates from Ichiban Triathlon Team.
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