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