Ironman France - TriathlonFull Ironman

I had heard so much about Nice and the crazy swim start and how there is no room for most of the race. Well, I can tell you it's easily avoided. I just started at the back of the group (in the < 1h 18m), nice and easy, and i was swimming for 5 minutes before I even touched anyone. I've had more stressful sprint tris in australia with only a handful of age groupers starting. Yes there was a little jostling around the buoys, but I think if you just keep calm it's really not a big deal.

Recee the course better - swim out to the buoys and take navigation cues, as it was very hard to see the bouys and where exactly you were supposed to go. Though with such a big field, you wont go too far off course.

Someone stopped right in front of me on the bike, preventing my usual jump start, and almost causing a bit of a fall.

Nothing - I went slowly to keep HR down (it was still 160 when I checked it - the highest I saw all day) and I also took time to put in sunscreen.

I had a plan to go very easy on the bike. This was my first Ironman, and there were 2000 meters to climb, before running a Marathon in 30 degree unshaded heat, so I wanted to be conservative. A cray amount of people passed me in the first hour. I was seriously starting to doubt my plan, but I stuck to it. Eventually I started passing a handful, than more than were passing, and by the end I had caught most of those that passed.

Maybe push a teeny bit harder on the hills - just a tad. I would have hoped to pick up a handful of places on the bike, instead of losing almost 100. Still happy enough with the plan.

Decent transition - applied a bit more sunscreen also.

Nothing.

My plan was always to walk every aid station, and I started at the first even though it was within 1 k.
I think this worked well. I was able to run the whole course (all be it at a slightly slowing pace) and was relatively comfortable until the last hour, and that wasn't even soo bad. Very pleased with the run, as it's often my worst event, but I passed about 300.

Avoid the showers - nice and cooling, but they have puddles which soak your shoes. I stopped twice to wring out my socks in the first 10k. Instead just pour water on myself at the aid stations.

Walked for a couple of minutes. Sat down. Bad idea. Felt sick. Lay down. Felt much better. Nice girl gave me a foil blanket too. Managed to drag myself to Massage table after 45 mins, more resting and a lovely gentle massage. Managed to eat a little and get some water down. Was sufficiently recovered to ride bike back 2 ks to hotel with all my gear.


The heat on the run. In the swim and more-so the Bike, holding back as it was an unknown and I really had no idea what shape I would be in towards the end of the race. I really didn't want a death march Marathon - I wanted to cross the line feeling good and smiling.


As it's my first Ironman, I have nothing to compare it to except a couple of half IM's, and this was was better in almost every way,