IM Austria: A day of "hop, hop, hop" and whote tri shorts
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Race day did not start well for me. I had some food poisoning and was getting stomach pain and cramps that woke me up. I tried to eat a banana in the hopes that it would stop me up but that didn't work. As a result I was up an hour earlier than I wanted at 2am. The only thing I could keep down were bananas so I ate 4 of them to get enough calories in.
The day came and it was cold! I regretted not at least throwing in a fleece hat. In an effort to lessen the load I totally skimped on a lot
of stuff I normally bring for a race like warm clothes and my compression gear. I totally regret not doing that but it's lessons learned for next time!
I get to transition at 5 along with Tim (from local tri club) and people from the travel group. I do my thing with the bike and special needs and then we walk to swim start. I was so cold I put on my swim cap to keep my head warm. I looked like a goof ball but I already did as I had three shirts on.
I wish I had a camera for the swim start as there were three hot air balloons and it was so cool! The swim start is off a public beach,
but public beaches in Austria are controlled admission so you have to pay to go in so there's turnstiles and coffee shops and paid changing rooms etc. ( but obviously not on race day).
We take a look at the course for the buoys as there are two locations you can start from. It is a water start but you can start on the
little beach. I get separated from the gang so I'm by myself. I compose myself by looking at the buoys and telling myself where to
swim to. It is 1400 meters to the first buoy then a left to the other buoy (maybe 300) then we veer to the start of the canal. That canal is
something else. It's the width of a one lane road and it's shallow and there's rocks and docks on either side. It's a little word because the spectators are so close to you. I was dreading the canal swim and figured that it would be a scrum for the 800 meters you swim in it. But I was lucky in that I only encountered the pushing and attempteddrowning a few times. One guy was pulling on my legs and I go to kick him in the face but then a calf cramp seizes me up and I have to turn and side stroke for a couple of minutes until it goes away. The canal was also very muddy which when you add in hundreds of people swimming through it just churns up all the mud. I can't wait to get out. Plus I could feel cramping in my tummy during the swim from my bout of food poisoning.
I finally get to the end and check my watch, 1:20 which surprised me as I thought I was swimming really slow. I think it's tied with my
fastest swim time from Placid. After I get out it's about a two block run to the beginning of the transition area. The swim exit is at the
Linder Hotel aka Swiss Cheese Hotel (because it looks like a hunk of Swiss cheese to me) and you basically have to go from the back of the hotel, through a passageway and cross the street to the parking lot across the way. I knew it was going to be a long transition time.
I grab my bag and head into the tent. It's not that big and it's packed. I had heard that it is coed changing tents so I was resigned
to changing in front of men. I find a nice corner and begin to sort my stuff out. I ignore all the naked men around me. I'm almost to the
point of taking my bikini bottoms off when I notice one small section that says 'women only'. So I grab my stuff and go there to put my
bottoms on!
I head out on the bike and off I go. My first plan was to count the number of bikes that pass me. But they are coming so fast and furious
that I give up. That's a problem when you come out in the middle of the pack of the swim but you're a back of the back cyclist. I then
decide to play a variation of the name game. I'm going to look at people's race numbers which have their first names along with the
number. I'm going to see what the most popular name for each country. Andreas is very popular for men in Austria along with Wolfgang, and surprisingly Norbert is too! Monika is popular for German women as is Andrea.
I also noticed an amazing number of white tri shorts on mostly men. White is not a color that anyone should wear, especially when you are going to spend a significant amount of time on a bike. Every pair of white shorts I saw had stains on it that I tried to not think about.
The bike course is the most beautiful and scenic I have ever been on. There's mountains and plush and green meadows. Flowers and cows and horses. The people who live on the course make a party out of therace. They're barbecuing and drinking and cheering you on. The main cheers are 'hop, hop' which is German for 'go, go'. There are also cheers for 'super' and 'bravo'. When people see the country I'm from, which is listed on the race number, they also chant 'USA'. It's nice to have people on the course, especially when you're on the second loop and everyone else is done. It gets kind of lonely out there.
The weather is perfect for the bike, cloudy and cool. The sun does come out when I do the 2nd loop and I can see how it could get hot.
There's no shade on the bike and luckily we had a day where it was 10 degrees cooler than normal. As I'm heading out on the first loop, I see the cyclist in front of me on the only portion that we overlap. These people are moving fast! They were already done with the back loop when I'm just heading out. The bike course is a figure 8 if you place the 8 on the side or like an infinity loop. The two big hills
are located on the top portion of the left side and the bottom portion of the right side. Those hills are not long but they're steep!! I
think I was going barely 4 miles per hour on them. There are people cheering you on while on the hills. The spectators are so close and one even comes up and gives me a small pat on the back. At Ruptiberg, which is the longer series of hills. There is a deejay and a blow up arch for a soft drink company.
The aid stations are different as they offer actual 20 ounce bottles of Coke and two kinds of water, both tap and mineral water. They also don't offer gels except at one aid station. I stick to my nutrition plan. Water for the first half hour and then alternate between Infinit and Power bars and Powerbar chews. I aim to get around 230 calories an hour and lots of water in between. I know I need to drink more because of the diarrhea so I fill up aero bottle with water at every other aid station (which is every 20 kilometers). My stomach is protesting a little so I make sure to drink plenty of water to settle it. I must have consumed so much water as I've never peed so much on the bike before.
I follow my race plan which is to stay in first gear for the first hour and they go up to second gear. eN refers to your power zones as
gears. For my first gear it's 111 and second gear is 117. I try and hit the that number even on the downhills. The roads are perfect and
they block off the entire course except for a portion of the road leading out of town and the road leading back to transition site.
My ride is as smooth as can be although the wind really picks up for me on the 2nd loop. I do notice that I catch up to some people who passed me on the first loop. 
I also was passed by Marino Vaneoecker who set the world record in an Ironman race that day. He passed me at about 4:48 in the race. I felt like I was standing still when he blew by me. I think he finished the bike in a little over 4 hours. His final rAce time was 7:45.
My ride time is 7:31 which is what I was expecting. It's my 3rd fastest bike time for an ironman.
I start the run after changing, and I feel really good. I'm sticking to a 12 min pace for the first 6 and then hope to either maintain that
or go to 11:30s for the rest of the way. I'm also walking through the end of the aid stations for about 30 steps. My stomach starts
protesting but I eat some Rolaids and that seems to help.
I'm running well for the first 11 miles then I notice that I can't run anymore because I can't bend my right knee. I've had this happen to me before and I know this means that I won't be able to run. Plus I have Wisconsin to do in 9 weeks and that was my real A race. I didn't want to mess up my legs to the point where I wouldn't be fit for it. I was very disappointed because my goal was to run the entire marathon for once and the way I was feeling, I felt I could. But I know that I can walk pretty fast. I set off and manage to pass a few people who were walking. The run course is a long windy route that passes the Ironman city four times. It winds through the towns of Krumpendorf and Klagenfurt. The Klagenfurt portion is neat as it takes you through the square and you see all the outdoor cafes and the people eating and drinking. Plus, there is a bell they mount by the square that you can ring. Every time a person rings it the Hipo company (bank) donates one euro to charity. I decide I'm going to ring it on my last lap. Good thing I waited because it took me 5 tries to get it. The bell rope was too high for me to reach by standing and I had trouble jumping and kept missing the little pull. The announcer asked me if I needed a chair and I said no as I was going to do it. I finally did it and he called me a very determined woman.
I had not been paying attention to the time and thought I was going to finish after 15 hours. When I was within 4 kilometers of the finish. I heard some woman pass by that said she had a chance of finishing under 15. I ask her the time and she tells me it's 9:30 pm so I realize that if I pick it up that i could finish under 15 which was my secondary goal. If I couldn't PR, I wanted to come in under 15. I start the run walk thing. But can not go very far with the run but I figure every little bit helps. When I get to closer to the finish line, it's so
dark no that it's hard to see. I start running with my right leg on its toes as that was the best way I could maintain a decent pace. I
see the finish line and start down the chute. I look up at the time and it says 14:57 and I'm elated. I came within 2 minutes of my PR
which is good considering this was a hilly course and Florida was not. Run time was 5:47, pace a little over 13 minute miles.
There were over 2300 participants with over 2200 finishers, almost half being first timers. There were only a little over 400 women.
Because of the perfect weather conditions a lot of people set personal bests that day.
I have to give a shout out to the other ENer I saw on the course. I think her name was Margy! It was nice to be able to give some EN love that day.
Comments
Way to stick with it and finish the job! Congrats! And about the white tri shorts, super common here in Denmark although I share your sentiment. Fusion is an awesome Danish brand that makes tri clothes, and for some reason their white shorts and trisuits are quite popular in Europe.
@Brad: Thanks!
@Adam: Yes I did notice that Skins, the major brand I saw on the course was pushing a lot of white in the shorts and tops. I even did see one brave female wear white!
@Paul: I have no clue what caused the food poisoning as no one else from the group dinner had issues. Luckily I had Immodium and prescription medicine that I took to curtail the runs.
@Nemo: I was so happy I spotted the womens only changing room section, although I would have changed with the men if I had to. Looking back, it was smarter to do everything out there (but putting on the shorts) with the men as they had 90% of the changing tent and you actually had space. You just had to avert your eyes.
@Dave: I took a non-stop from JFK to Vienna and then caught the train out of Wien Miedling train station to Klagenfurt. I did do the land-only package with Ken Glah's Endurance Travel so they picked me up from the train station at Klagenfurt, but I did everything up to that point on my one. I can give you all the details if you want, just PM me. This was such a great race course that I want to go back sometime so maybe we can persuade other ENers to do this!
nice. looking foward to Hop Hop in regensburg.