Ironman Regensburg Race Report - my European Smackdown!
Executive Summary - My 4th IM completed in 11:14, something like 42nd out of 122 finishers in the M50-54 with another 2 DQ and 12 DNF. All morning rain, steep climbs and scary white knuckle descents. Definitely not my day, but even if I had PR'd it wouldn't have mattered because the European competition just kicked my butt up and down the mountain. But other than that it was a FANTASTIC race and I highly recommend it to anyone.
European vs North American IMs - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
The Good: The schwag was far superior to what I've gotten in the U.S. For starters, they give you a first rate quality backpack. I was sporting my 2010 IMAZ backpack and a Brit noted "Why...that's just rubbish!" And it was compared to this one! How about a silicon swim cap instead of latex; and a tech finisher's POLO shirt instead of a cheap T-shirt?!! How about a pre-race dinner on real plates with real silverware, with free-flowing beer in a bottle or a glass mug or Pilsner glass...and with many choices of pasta?!!! Free bike service at check-in; personal escort to set up; free full bike plastic cover in T1. The crowd support topped every other race I've done...sorry IMCDA fans...been there, done that and it's much better here. Take the 6 block finish of IMCDA, stretch that out 1 mile and run through it 4 times but in the center of the finest preserved medieval city in Germany...a world heritage site...and you'll only partly understand how great this race was. And despite the rain deluge every village on the bike course turned out like the Tour de France had come to town. Just unbelievable. And the bike course was entirely closed to vehicles...which allowed you to set up a much better line on the descents.
The Bad: No finishers hat! I paid 21 Euros to get a IMRG Headsweat `hat for my collection. No bike service available at the race check-in/expo area. The free service was only the day before the race, but there are several bike shops in the city if you can't do your own maintenance. I'm very adaptable to different foods, but for race morning I struggled to find the kind of carbs I generally consume. The standard European fare with meats and cheeses, eggs and sausage, etc., is OK for a regular day but not what I would have preferred in the 16 hours before race start. No wetsuit strippers...total bummer! Although I've never used special needs bags, they are not available at this race. Spectators can hand stuff to racers at a controlled zone on one place in the run and one on the bike, but since the bike course was entirely closed to vehicles getting your sherpa there and back would be very difficult. 16 hour cut-off...it's over at 11pm here and 16hrs 1 second = did not finish, not listed in the results!
The Ugly - There really wasn't anything to put in this category except the rain. It rained while I was setting up in T1 but that cleared the humidity out of the air and lowered the temperature to something better for racing. It stopped for the swim...go figure...then started right up when we were on the bike. I figure it rained steady for close to 5 hours which made the two descents out of the mountain almost frightening. I thought I would lose it a couple of times when I could not see around a corner and thus not judge how tight it was...forcing me to hold the speed down to 40mph on wet roads. My wife said she saw evidence of serious carnage of guys who had obviously wrecked and could not continue.
The Standard Report:
We left the states the Tuesday before race day, flew to Munich arriving 0750 Wednesday. Flew on United with my Pik-a-packworks softside case (which has been overseas before). It is designed to evade bike fees and does not scream bike like most hardcases. United charges $200 each way. I paid $50 coming over as an extra bag fee. We cleared customs quickly, picked up the luggage and were greeted by Nirvana Europe, a British sports travel service I booked through. At 0803 I was out of the airport and dropped off at the hotel by 9am. The standard approach to dealing with the time shift is to stay up all day. Since our room wasn't ready we checked our luggage and started on the tourist sites. Regensburg is the 4th oldest city in Germany, and the best preserved medieval city center (not bombed in WWII). Every street, every turn is a postcard picture of medieval architecture, but the most well known sites are the Old Stone Bridge (the first stone bridge built over the Danube along it's entire length) and the Cathedral of St Peter. After we checked in, I went for a 4 mile run...and felt like...crap. I built the bike back up Wed night then finally crashed sleeping 12 hours straight.
On Thursday I checked in and then went for a 90 min ride. I ended up doing an additional 20 mins after getting lost, and the total time was another 30 mins on top of that since I had to keep checking the map to figure out where the heck I was. But the bike was working perfectly, except I tightened my front brake after checking out part of the climb. Checked out a few tourist sites and looked for a place to eat downtown. Felt fine.
Not much to do on Friday. I ran another 4 miles and felt a lot better. We took a boat cruise to Valhalla (hall of the dead overlooking the Danube) to stay off my feet, but it did entail about a gazillion stairs from the river to the actual memorial. On the way back, I found a place to get a couple yogurt drinks for the night before the race (the biomarket on the finish street), Then I attended the pre-race briefing and dinner. Called it a day.
Saturday was off the feet day except for a short 7 mile ride. Although my bike worked perfectly Thursday I was now getting a freaky tick tick noise only when I applied force to the pedals. I couldn't figure it out, but the bike was riding smoothly. So I packed up the transition bags and off we went to the swim venue about 10 miles out of town (via race shuttle), I checked the bike again and the noise was still there. They had 4 free maintenance service at check-in so I had them check it out and they couldn't find anything so I crossed my fingers and got in line to enter T1. A guy comes up with some sort of checklist then I realize he's doing a frame/component survey. Next step was actual check in with a helmet inspection, brake inspection, and a photo of you with your race number on and your bike. Each athlete is assigned an escort to show your rack position, gives you a bin for your stuff and a full cover for your bike...NICE! You had two choices for your T1 bag...leave it at your bike or let them put it on a peg board before the changing tents. Since I intended to wear my EN tri-suit throughout the race, I left my bag at the bike. Went back to the hotel, napped, and then went to the pasta buffet put on by the hotel starting at 5:30 (close to 100 athletes at this hotel)...was the first there. Turned the lights off at 10:30 - stared at the ceiling, worried about my bike.
Race Morning - I got up at 1am and had one yogurt drink...noticed it was only 75 calories. Up again at 2am...drank my 2nd yogurt drink and ate a cliff bar. Up for good at 4am and hit the hotel buffet at 4:20am. Didn't find much here that was normal. Ended up eating one roll, one sausage link, and a scoop of scrambled eggs and a PowerAde. Would have killed for Cream of Wheat...should have brought some!! Caught the race shuttle with my wife...felt upper 60s and very humid. Starting setting up the bike when the first rain came cooling things down. Got into a long porta potty line, had 1 PowerGel with water then put on my wetsuit and turned in my morning/evening clothes bag.
Swim - the swim course was a complicated double U ... most turns of any race I've done. The pro's start at the same time but with a 20 yard advantage. I.e., they have an in-water start while we have a beach start. I'm pretty sure this lake (Guggenburger See) is a former quarry and the drop off is quick. The first turn is about 1K out to the right and I started to the far left to avoid the beating. I found some clean water early on and felt like I was swimming fast until about 2/3rds of the way in. At that point I started to feel unusually tired. I kept in the box, and kept rotating through various stroke tips but worried why I was tired. Came out in 71 mins despite slowing a lot in the last 3rd with many people passing me in the final straight. Then I walked to my bike...tried jogging twice but it wasn't there. There are no wetsuit strippers and they warned us that having your wetsuit further down than your hips on the way to the bike was a penalty...I have no idea what that was about. I walked the bike to the mount line hoping to catch my breath...T1 in about 5 1/2 mins. Saw my wife then got in the aerobars...couldn't breathe...so back on the base bars...right tricep started to cramp...back in the aerobars...repeat for about 5 miles. I took a Gu, a saltpill and sucked down 24 ounces of electrolyte drink right away, and by 7 miles I finally started to come out of the funk I was in.
The Bike - the course is two loops of about 53 miles or so then 10K straight back to Regensburg. You don't have long after leaving the water before you start climbing a mountain pass. I would say it was about 11 miles to the top with about 10 miles of climbing and about 1 mile of total descending during the climb portion. I was using a compact crank with an 11-26 and went through every gear. As soon as I started the bike the rain came and stayed. There were refs everywhere but I only saw them whistle and warn people. I assumed that they were under instructions to keep the race safe in the rain instead of focusing on major penalties. But I looked at the penalty sheet that night and saw a lot of DQs and bunch of penalties. The DQs were all for stupid stuff that folks know not to do...MP3 players, cell phones, passing on the right, etc. Anyway, the rdie down the hill just scared the crap out of me. I passed a lot of people but was amazed at some of the top speeds I was witnessing on rain soaked roads. Your ability to descend and willingness to take risks on the decline were one of the factors on this bike course. I loved all the crowd support even when I didn't understand it. But I always caught...'Come on Paul, hop, hop, hop!' Heard that so many times. I would have liked to have maintained a 20 mph average on this course but had to let it go on the climbs to save my legs...ended up with a 5:47 split. BTW, there was a lot of wind except in the mountains where the trees blocked it. I had 4 power gels and 4 Rcctanes on my top tube...went through all of them and a half-banana on the bike course. Took powerade, coke, and water as well and went through all 12 S caps in my aerobar dispensers. I was one gel short of what I needed and missed that at the last aid station which was right after a turn...came in too fast. I swam with arm coolers under my wetsuit figuring it might get cooler which it did. A lot of people wore jackets or rain vests. Fortunately, it quit raining after about 90 miles or so, but it stayed overcast.
The Run - you rack your bike in the next available position, run towards the changing tent and they hand you your T2 bag just before. There are port´-potties before and after the tent. I hit one right before the tent, my only pee during the race...same as all others I've done. Hot or cold I just sweat out everything I drink. I brought my Garmin 405 since run was marked in kliks but decided against it and just ran by feel. And I felt like crap. I had one left hammie cramp at about 1 mile and just kept the pace down. After the 1st of 4 loops, I tried to pick it up but by the halfway, my calves were very crampy and my right calf wasn't working well. I decided to call it a day and just pack it in running station to station. I decided that success would be finishing faster than my IMCDA time since this was easily a tougher course and the conditions were much worse. I tried to enjoy the atmosphere of the run as much as you can when you wish somebody would shoot you and end the misery. So on the last lap through the city center I kept yelling to the crowd and the corner announcer that I was from Florida...while pointing to my Tampa Bay One hat...that got a great reaction. At the end you swing around the block onto a medieval street where all the buildings are about 4 or 5 stories and they have a grandstand set up to effect a tunnel. I was just a mid pack athlete here but the crowd went nuts. The finish line announcer doesn't do the Mike Reilly routine but he is multi-lingual so I heard... "and representing the United States of America...Paul Hough" I did not come close to my goals, but it was a very fulfilling expeirence that I would not trade for anything. I can't recommend the race enough!
Observation: I believe the competition here is better than in the U.S. When I asked my German set-up escort why the 16 hour cut-off, he told me that he believed the U.S. had more older athletes than they do here, and that the European competitors, in general are fitter. Because the cost of living is so much higher, I noticed that the bikes on average are not as blinged out as in the states. And at the level I was riding, almost half the competitors were on road bikes with aerobar extensions. I haven't seen that in the U.S. RunTri.com rates IM races by the average finishing time, but that assumes a similar demographic enters all IM races so that the difference is attributed to the difficulty of the course and the average weather conditions. Runtri does not take into account the fact that many of the European IM races allow less time (only 15 hrs for IM Frankfurt) and that the level of competition is greater. At least at this race, I felt like I was squarely in the MOP and would say that anything over 13:30 was clear BOP. So if you cross the pond to race, be sure to take any comparison based on time with a giant grain of salt.
Wierdest thing I saw - a Brit couple here for the IM, in their bike gear getting ready for a practice ride, but both having a pre-ride smoke first.
Most Ambitious guy´- I met an American from Vegas who decided earlier this year to do all IMs. This was number 5 and Wales would be 6 for the year. I only gathered that he traveled extensively for his job and money was no object. He hardly trains since he's either recovering or tapering. Wrap your head around 6 IMs in one year!
Special congrats to - Robin Sarner, Kevin Hill and Yasko Howell...my IMRG compatriots. We came, we saw and we leave as Iron men and women! Congrats to all of you!
Comments
Paul,
This is one of the best RR I've read. Makes me want to go out and sign up for a European IM! Sounds like you had a lot of fun too.
I checked the times for the M40-45 and they were ridiculous. Something like the top 19 were under 10:00. Intense!
Congratulations on a great race!
Matt
That descent would have been brutal in the rain. Sounds like you executed like a pro!
Paul - No better place to learn than the home of the uberbikers. Anotehr brick in your foundation for Ironman success.
But NO HAT??!! Culture shock.
Thx for the positive feedback all. I forgot to mention that after all my worrying about the bike, it didn't make a peep on race day...go figure. To prove that it did happen here is a bike photo and a finish photo. It's hard to see in the compressed photo, but the high detail version clearly shows the rain and the spray coming off my wheels, although even here you can see that the roads are wet. In the finish photo I'm signalling that it's my 4th IM.
Congrats. Awesome report and sounds like an incredible experience. Kind of got some goosebumps reading it as I am signed up for Challenge Roth next year and am sure will have some similarities. Well done.
Congrats on having the big Euro day. Those fans are awesome. How do you rate Nirvana? Hotel, etc.?
I've tried to figure out what the difference is between them and US fans and I think it's because there are so many people there without personal connections to a specific athlete. They're there truly spectating the spectacle, really appreciating the efforts of all, and they make sure it's a celebration.
Brian, Roth is very much like that. You will have a blast. You will have zee goosebumps feelinks! (German race announcer at Roth)
I stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott which was about a 10 min walk from Race Check-in/Expo/T2. Nirvana put up 70 of their athletes at the Courtyard so they were especially responsive. The hotel provided a meeting room for people to keep their bikes in and had constructed a front wheel stand for 40 bikes. If you wanted to keep your bike in your room the hotel gave you a large plastic sheet (no charge) to put on the floor. The hotel restaurant was excellent and opened at 6:30pm nightly. But Nirvana requested they set up a pasta buffet for Saturday night and open at 5:30pm. Likewise, breakfast started at 6:30am each day, but Nirvana had them open at 4am race day. They had a lot of clout due to the numbers they were supporting.
However, from a sheer location standpoint, if I was travelling again I would try to book at the Sorat Inn. I went by a couple of times and believe it is probably the best situated between T2, the finish, and the city center...I stuck my head in their lobby and it looked to be very nice. I would not recommend hotels in the medieval city center...too hard to bike from the hotel on the cobblestones until you reach a paved road, and a little too far from the finish and expo areas. Plus, I don't even know how you reach some of those hotels by car (e.g., the Roter Hahn) because the streets are so narrow. Note: the finish is about 1/2 mile from the expo/T2.
nice job paul. don't have much to add to race report. darn scary downhills on the rainy bike. we had a nice recovery week in umbria, italy. and the fast competition. last year I would have been 12th. this year 39th. I really liked the bike course (except for the rain). The ascent was fun into the village (oompa band) and then the flats in farm country. the four loop run was really neat. over the danube several times. cobbled streets. great fans (hop hop hop. Suppa Robin. etc. ). We stayed at the Maxmillian Hotel which was a fair race location but great breakfast and lovely place.
paul. that is cute and fun. post the pic with you in the vest.
We stayed at Goliath hotel which was just around the corner from the Cathedral and truly enjoyed our stay there. It was about a little over 15 min. walk to T2. The hotel had no issues with bringing our bikes to the room, every stuff spoke very good English, and their breakfast was awesome. There were several other participants staying there, and the hotel had the race day breakfast available at 3:30 for us.