Teguise, Spain ironman 70F / 21C Overcast

Total Time = 12h 29m 8s Overall Rank = 589/1300 Age Group = M35-39 Age Group Rank = 147/275

This is an especially long race report from someone who always writes very long race reports. If you're into travel and/or food, you might find all the pre-race stuff interesting. Otherwise, simply feel free to jump down to the specific race event stuff. (There are a over 80 pictures in this race report so hit reload on your browser if you need to and be patient if my web server is slow, but having the pictures makes the report so much more vivid).

For many years, I had been promising my youngest sister that I would visit her on Lanzarote, which I'd been saying forever, but somehow almost 10 years passed and I never did it. When all of our family got together in the Virgin Islands last year, they all knew I was doing triathlons so I said maybe I'd do Lanzarote in 2008. Two days after finishing my first 140.6 race (Vineman in August 2007), I clicked the mouse button and signed up for the May 24, 2008 IM race in Lanzarote. I let my parents and my other sister, T, and her family know so we could all plan our trips. We would all be flying to Lanzarote first, I'd do the IM, and then we'd also go to Germany the week after the IM and visit T's husband's family.

Now, I had always heard that Lanzarote was a tough race, but when "tough" is just verbalized in a non-specific way, it doesn't really mean much - I mean, all 140.6 races are tough, right? So I started doing my research and found that the bike course had about 9000' of elevation. Okay, well, I had done one century that had almost that much elevation, so that didn't seem out of reach. Through further research, I later found out that there were 20mph winds on the course too (I'd later learn that this is because the north-northeast trade winds blow through Lanzarote). Uh, okay... I also heard there were currents on the swim. And then my sister told me that Lanzarote is a basically a desert island so there is no tree cover at all and the sun is intense. Okay, so now I'm understanding why this is billed as the toughest Ironman(-branded) race in the world.

So I knew I had to rev up my training, but this didn't really happen without some early setbacks. In December, I developed some major tendinitis during a very hilly ultramarathon. Once I had recovered from that and had brought my mileage up again, I tore my calf muscle in mid January and then a week later had a bike accident (biking back from a PT session of all things) where I bruised my knees pretty badly. I had pretty much stop my running for 7+ weeks and had to slowly bring up my biking again.

I managed to navigate through the recovery for these injuries and build things up. I did an easy (i.e. not very hilly) century in early March followed by IM Cal 70.3 in late March. From there, I kicked up my training to prepare specifically for Lanzarote. In my final build phase 5 weeks out from the race, I did my first double metric century. Four weeks out, I did a hilly double metric century and a marathon. Three weeks out, I did a hilly century and my last long swim and then I began my taper. Frankly, I was pretty tired after all of this and hoped my training was in the delicate middle ground between putting in enough training and overtraining.

Thursday, May 15 – T-minus 9 days
This is a flyday. It was more than a week out so that we would have adequate time to adjust to the time zone change (8 hours ahead of San Francisco) and to get acclimated to the weather.

Our outbound itinerary is to fly out from San Francisco to Frankfurt to Madrid. We then have an overnight (Friday) layover in Madrid (when I booked this through United, they claimed they couldn't give me the Friday evening flight to Lanzarote) and then on to Lanzarote in the morning (Saturday). We hoped that we would be able to check our luggage all the way through, but at check-in, we were told this was not possible. Travelling around with a bike case is as much fun as it sounds...

Our flight to Frankfurt is about 10 hours and relatively uneventful. I was sitting next to a guy who claimed to be a trumpeter for Santana for the last 18 years. He proceeded to consume about 8 small glasses of wine (he had a wad of drink tickets). He was friendly enough and then he slept as did I for almost the entire trip (DW wasn't able to pull that off) so the flight went very quickly for me.

Friday, May 16 – T-minus 8 days
The flight to Madrid on Lufthansa went uneventfully although they did have to apologize because there were using some new service to service the planes and they hand't packed any food...relatively short flight anyway, so no problem.

Once we were in the airport, though, it was a bit of a mess. The short of it was that it was very confusing to figure out where to go to get our baggage and we ended up outside of the baggage claim area and had to find our way to the correct baggage area and back into the secure baggage area. This took awhile, but after some remedial spanish and much walking back and forth in the airport, we finally found our luggage. We went to the taxis, but none of them would be big enough to take our all of our luggage and my bike case. We did find a shuttle van service kiosk so used them. Fortunately, our hotel, the Hi Tech Arturio Soria, was only 10 minutes away from the airport.

The hotel was decent and is called Hi Tech because you get a Dell laptop (running all open source software) in your room with internet access. Cool. I was able to IM my sister in Lanzarote.

For some reason, the big toe on my right foot started to feel a little sore. This was a little odd since i've never had any issue with my toe before.

DW and I needed to get some real food so we went to the front desk to ask for a recommendation. They spoke english, but when she said the name of the restaurant, she said it so quickly we didn't understand. We asked her to repeat it and we still couldn't. I should have asked her to write it down, but we figured we'd wing it and see what we could find.

So, we walked around for awhile and didn't find the restaurant that was recommended and the tapas bars looked a bit intimidating to go into. We wandered back and within a block of our hotel, we saw a restaurant/cervecceria. Nothing in English. DW walked deep into the bar area and saw there was a seated restaurant area here. This must have been the place that was recommended to us, Cerveceria Gambinus or something like that. Fortunately, they had menus available in english.

It's 9:00pm or later or so, but this is typical dinner time for Spain and the restaurant gets busy. There's also a lot of smoking going on in here, something to which I'm not accustomed having lived in California for so long.

We asked the waiter for some recommendations. For starters, we had three - jamon serrano (spanish cured ham), cheese, and lomo (cured pork). We also had a bottle of Propiedad Rioja Riserva. This is a pretty rich start to a meal for me normally and not ideal taper week race food, but I love food and new experiences too much, so I chowed down.



For our entrees, the waiter recommended (via gesticulations and broken english) the lamb (he motioned on his hip to show which part of the lamb) and the fish in Spanish sauce (tomato, pepper based). We also order some artichoke hearts for some veggies.


For dessert, we had a creme brulee type dessert and he brought out some complimentary drinks for us which were similar to a baileys.


We're not back to the hotel until about 11:30am and we have our morning flight tomorrow to Lanzarote.

Saturday, May 17 – T-minus 7 days
In the morning, we have breakfast in the hotel and then take our shuttle to the airport. This flight to Lanzarote is on Spanair. I'm worried about my bike case and whether or not we'll get charged extra for that, but surprisingly, it's not an issue and we breeze through checkin. Once we board, we find out we were placed in business class which was a nice little treat for this flight. As we descent into Lanzarote, it's cool to see the island. It's quite volcanic (lots of rocks), desert (not many trees) island looking, that's for sure, but very cool to see.

At the baggage carousel, I'm the only one retrieving a bike case, so there aren't any other competitors on this flight at least, but then again, we're coming from Spain and it's easy enough for Spaniards to fly down to Lanzarote later in the week.

We grab our luggage and meet up with my sister G and her husband P. We go to the rental car area where I had a Seat Altea reserved (had to rent a Spanish car of course!) so that DW and I would be able to run around the island on our own and big enough to fit bikes in the back so we could do some riding.

We go back to my sister's house, which is a cute little place about 3/4 mile from the beach. I unpack my bike to make sure all is okay.

When I talked to my sister yesterday, she asked what I wanted to eat and I said paella since we were in Spain. She admitted that her paella wasn't very good, but that's okay. It was great for me and I appreciated the effort she made (because lanzarote is a basically a desert island and there are very few crops there, almost everything has to be imported).

We went for a short walk down to the beach/shopping area with the dog. Some pictures here.

Sunday, May 18 – T-minus 6 days
We spent the morning in the market in Teguise (which is different than the town of Costa Teguise where my sister lives) and then driving part of the Ironman course. There were yellow Ironman signs that made the route very clear to follow.



We did some brief sightseeing at Lagomar, which is a house built into the volcanic rock. It was designed by Cesar Manrique, whose influence is present all over the island, and was originally built for Omar Sharif. I have pictures of Lagomar here

DW and I did a short run in the afternoon. We go with my sister and her husband to the airport to pick up my parents and my other sister and her family (great to see my nieces!). They flew to Germany first and were now flying from Hamburg. They, unfortunately, brought a chest cough with them. I'm hoping I can stay healthy enough to avoid catching it.

There were a handful of presumably German triathletes, as evidenced by their bike cases, coming off the plane too. They were all big and very fit looking.

We had dinner back at my sister's house. Had a good feast of lasagna, leek tart, and empanadas.

From the lower left corner - the head of my sister's husband P, my sister T, her husband M, my mom and dad, DW, and my sister G. Not shown, my nieces I and L.


Monday, May 19 – T-minus 5 days
DW and I rented a bike (a Trek 1500) for her from the Bike Station in Costa Teguise so we could ride parts of the course together. I also wanted to buy a floor standing biking pump because the little portable Road Morph I brought doesn't really cut it trying to pump above 100psi. We went to ride the major hilly section we drove the other day. The stretches we rode were from Teguise to Los Valles to Haria, Haria to Mirador del Rio, and Mirador to before Nazaret, which covers approximately miles 55-90 on the bike course.

Hills weren't super steep like we've ridding many times in San Francisco, but they were fairly extended and it was very windy. The roads were generally in good condition. There were a couple short sections that required climbing out of the saddle, but that was it.
After we reached the top, I went ahead since DW likes to take the descents very carefully. The descent down to Haria from Los Valles was pretty scary. There are some tight blind turns, but what was scarier was the winds. I geared out and would be in the aero bars, but in one direction (when the road was facing away from Haria, the gusts were very tricky and it almost whipped the handlebars/my front wheel away from me. At 35+ mph, that is quite alarming so the stretches facing away from Haria, i rode the bullhorns and towards Haria, I was okay on the aerobars.

Picture below of Haria and a short section of the winding descending road to get there.

I waited up for DW in town at a little cafe. There was a group of 6 other triathletes all dressed in their light blue team kit already kicking back. DW arrived and we used the bathrooms and had a soda. Several other triathletes riding the course passed by during this time. The guys in blue took off again and a little while afterward, we did too.

We continued on with the climb to Mirador del Rio. As you reach Mirador, you get a great view of one of the neighboring islands.

View from Mirador del Rio


The descent back down from Mirador had a very rough stretch of road initially, but afterward was very smooth for a long descent. This section of the race would undoubtedly be very fast and a good chance to recover with most of the climbing behind. The last bit of our ride today had a 3K climb up to Nazaret which was particularly nasty because of a very strong headwind.

In the evening, we met back up with the rest of my family for dinner. My sister had cooked some leg of lamb for us. Yum.

Picture of my sister G and her husband P


Tuesday, May 20 – T-minus 4 days
DW and I went out to bike another section of the course. We started in Uga and rode to Yaiza and then down to do the loop near El Golfo and Timanfaya and then on to Tinajo which covers approximately miles 12 through 37 on the course. Timanfaya is the national park with Los Montanas del Fuego (fire mountains).

The section down to El Golfo took us near the coast. Nice downhill with a tailwind (which meant return trip of uphill with a headwind...). Plenty of volcanic rock here.

Pictures of DW riding on loop near El Golfo




We returned back to Yaiza on the return loop and then headed out on the stretch to Timanfaya. This is a climb up with some strong headwinds. many other triathletes riding this direction and some flying by in the other direction.

Picture of DW at the entrance to Timanfaya


The road headed up to Timanfaya


Once you get up near the top, the road between the peaks becomes a big wind tunnel so there are strong headwinds here


We rode down the other side, paused for awhile at the road that heads up to the Visitor Center, and then continued on to Tinajo (all of which was still part of the course). We took a rest at Tinajo and had some coffee. And then turned around and headed back to Uga.

After we get back, I go for a short run (3 miles) and then DW head down to the Villa where my parents and T and all are staying. There's a pool here so I take a quick dip.

In the evening, we had dinner out at a Spanish restaurant in Teguise. It's a big production for all of us (8 adults, 2 kids). We went relatively early (7:00pm) and by Spanish standards, this was very early and we were the only ones in the restaurant for the next couple hours. We started to each order starters and entrees. G and P were the last to order and the waiter told them that we had already ordered a lot of food so she didn't order any starters. When 6 starters came out, they were not small. We all shared so we all tried everything.

Salad


Pulpo (octopus). This picture also shows the salted potatoes which are one of the very few crops grown on Lanzarote. They go great with the mojo sauce shown in another picture below.


Mojo sauces (foreground), peppers (blurred in background)


After the starters, none of us were "hungry" although we weren't yet full full. That would be cured once the entrees came out. One of the specials they had was ox, so I had to try that (nice light, pre-race fare, huh?). We all try to order different things so we can all try each others food so we all get plenty to eat.

DW's filet mignon (left) and my ox steak (right)


More entrees


Salted prawns


Even though we were stuffed, we ordered dessert, because that had a Lanzarote specialty - bienmesabe, which translates into "tasty to me" and is a pudding/ice cream made up of honey, almond cream, eggs, and rum, topped with a nutty sweet sauce.



Another late night for me. Going to need to start focusing on getting to bed at an earlier hour.

Wednesday, May 21 – T-minus 3 days
I wake up and I can feel the congestion in my ears, which is the first sign for me that I'm coming down with a cold. Ugh. Probably the one that T and M brought from Germany. It's been pretty impossible to avoid sharing germs since we're all playing with the baby. My folks give me some antibiotics (they're both retired doctors and have a full stash).

Worse, my toe is feeling worse. It's more swollen and I'm it's painful to put pressure on it so I'm limping around to compensate. No more running for me this week. I'm hoping my triathlon doesn't become a duathlon or just a swim...

DW decided to do a little sightseeing instead. She really wanted to see the Cesar Manrique house. Cesar Manrique was a local artist who had much influence to insure that the way things were built out on the island were integrated into the landscape. His home very much embodies this. Some pictures are avaialable here.

DW and I also then went down to Arrecife to check out the town and do some shopping. Some pictures around town here.

We had lunch in cafe just off of Calle Real. DW had the octopus in vinegar and I had a prawn sandwich which had the prawns with boiled egg, a mayo kinda of sauce, and white bread (ugh).

Afterward, we headed over to Club La Santa where registration was located. This also gave us a chance to drive other sections of the course that we hadn't yet seen such as Tinajo to La Santa, La Santa to Farmara, Farmara to Teguise which approximately covers miles 37-54 of the bike course.

At registration, we get our chip and ironman bag filled with all kinds of stuff. Race stuff included our numbers, caps, laminated number for my bike, race instructions and program, and warm up and transition bags. We also received an IM Lanzarote towel and mug and stickers, and Puerto del Carmen (the town where the race is held) t-shirt and cap,

They also had a little store, of course, to buy other ironman stuff. I bought an IM Lanzarote cycling jersey. Good thing I tried it on before buying because I actually had to buy an extra small! in fact, according to the weight chart, XS was for 136lb up and I was even below that. I'm a shrimp. I wanted to buy a tri top, but they didn't have any at this ad hoc store, but had some in the sports shop of the club, which of course, wasn't open until later, but would be open all day tomorrow when we were back for the race briefing. The race expo was medium sized, but I didn't have anything that I really needed to buy.

As we were passing through La Santa earlier, i saw a bike shop, so we stopped off here to buy a bike pump. Gee, only 30 euros (approx $45) - such a bargain, but didn't have much choice since I didn't want to rely on whatever pumps were available at the race start (okay, this was the exception and was something I did need to buy).

Back at my sister's house, we had some Filipino BBQ that my parents had prepped the day before. I had mentioned to everyone how I needed to start getting to bed early so we all had dinner early at about 7:00pm.


Thursday, May 22 – T-minus 2 days
Today, my toe is feeling really swollen. i started taking some prednisone and ibuprofen to reduce the swelling, which both seem to help.

For lunch, we're all meeting up at Timanfaya to eat at the restaurant there at the visitor center where they cook the food with volcanic heat. DW go there before everyone so we can take the bus tour to see the park (everyone else has already seen it). All pictures of the tour are here.

A couple other highlights of Timanfaya - there's a hole in the ground here that they throw in dry grass which immediately bursts into flame


One of the guides pours water into a hole in the ground and 5 seconds later, it shoots out as a geyser.


Here's a pit that's part of the foundation of the restaurant! it's just a hole with grill on top and they use this to roast whole pigs!


Here's one of the other grills that they use to cook chickens with the volcanic heat.


We have lunch in the restaurant. I order the sardines for my starter and some local salted fish for my entree. In the U.S., when I eat sardines, they come from a small tin (i.e. they are small).

my sardine starter...


my entree...or what's left of it


After lunch, DW and I need to head back to Club La Santa for the race briefing. There are race briefings being held in english, spanish, german and french. Obviously, we're attending the one in english. I look around the room. I'm pretty sure I'm the shrimpiest guy here. I also only see two other asians (one male and one female).

The race director is the one who gives the race briefing in english along with the aid of a powerpoint presentation most of the information was the same info on the web site and in the race program. There was useful info that he covered though that was not in the race program. First, he showed the bike map with the locations of the bathrooms/WCs on the course. Second, he showed the layout of how transition would work. He mentioned how long the transition area was (300-400 meters!) and how they wouldn't have carpets down because the winds keep blowing them around so he did not recommend using bare feet unless you wanted to burn them. Third, he described the drafting distance. 10m for other cyclists was no surprise (esp. with all the winds), but there was also a 35m draft box for cars. makes sense given how windy the course is. lastly, he explained that on each lap of the run, we'd receive a bracelet for each lap.

After the race briefing, we went to the sport shop and I ended up buying the IM Lanzarote tri top, cycling shorts, and a T-shirt. Gotta love that exchange rate and the high pricing to begin with on ironman gear...

last night, I had read in the race program that if you used medications including an inhaler for asthma, you had to register with the doctor, esp. since if you were randomly selected for drug testing, you would test positive. i tried to find the doctor, but of course, he was out. I also didn't have a note from my doctor (mentioned in the race program) anyway since I didn't know until then that I needed one. Oh well. if worse came to worse, I could provide documentation after that fact that I have a prescription for it.

DW and I headed back to my sister's house. No one else was there. We decided to go for a short easy bike ride. Went fine, although we ended up meeting up with the rest of my family afterwards (while we were still on our bikes) so I ended up doing a lot of walking in my cycling shoes and my toe didn't really appreciate it.

For dinner, my sister made me some pasta. I think everyone else ate cheese, jamon serrano and other meats, and other leftovers. It was an early dinner again for my benefit so that I could get to bed early.


Friday, May 23 – T-minus 1 day
Just one more day to go...DW and I took this time to do some sight seeing. My brother in law, P, had some connections and obtained a free pass from the chamber of commerce for us for all of the island's sights. First, we went to Jameos del Agua which is this underground pool of water which has these albino crabs which were uplifted from deep within the ocean thousands of years ago, but continue to live here. This locale was built out to be integrated with the environment with the influence of Cesar Manrique. Pictures here.

Then we went to Mirador del Rio (not on our bikes!) and went inside. pictures here. We then went to the Jardin de Cactus. Pictures here

The main thing we had to do for the race prep today was to go to Puerto del Carmen for the bike check in and bag drop off. In my T1 bag, I packed a towel, my race belt and number, my sunglasses, my socks, cycling shoes, cycling shorts, 3 gels, and 3 bars (helmet would be with the bike and I was going to forgo gloves). In my T2 bag, I had 3 gels, 1 bar, my day-glo yellow pearl izumi visor, and my running shoes. I wasn't doing a special needs bag. My bike was outfitted with my new profile designs aero bottle (the one with the new lid) and two spare C02 and a tubular on my flatwing. I had the Zipp 606 wheels (404 front, 808 back) on the bike which I bought new for this race and other windy races (way too hilly and windy for a disc wheel here and I thought my 808 front would have been too deep for all the wind).

We drove to Puerto Del Carmen trying to make note of how long and what exists to take to get there. Transition was set up at the west end of Avenida de Las Playas (avenue of the beaches) and extended for quite awhile along the avenue. There was a bike check to check to make sure handlebars were on tight, brakes worked, and a helmet check.

Racks for transition bags were set up like below. After coming out of the water, you're responsible for grabbing your bag and then running to the changing tent. Volunteers would take your bag from you on your way out of the changing tent.


Bike racks were set up as shown below. Because the bikes were spaced out, this meant the transition area was very long - 300m-400m or so just for the bikes! You weren't allowed to keep anything on the ground near your bike. everything had to be in your transition bags or on your bike. There were a lot of different brands of bikes that I've never seen before. Mostly tri bikes, but a good percentage of road bikes. No disc wheels. Two handicap racers, which I believe are the first for this race.


The run up from the beach was also pretty lengthy with a pseudo shower setup in the middle.


I realized my transition times were going to be way longer than usual. I was worried a little bit about all that running, esp. from the beach with no footwear because of my toe.

After all that, we headed to the water spa (also courtesy of free passes from my brother in law) back in Hotel Teguise. My other sisters and M were already there. Then it was back to G's house.

I took a little time to do some last minute race prep. I tape up my toe (hoping for the best) and shave my legs


My brother-in-law, P, wanted to make me a special meal before my race. he made paella negra, which is a black paella which gets its coloring from the squid ink. He also made a regular paella for the non-seafood eaters. i actually ate the leftover pasta my sister made yesterday before I sat down to eat the paella, but the paellas were both quite good so I ate a good amount of both.



By 8:30, we were done with dinner and it was time to go to sleep..

Saturday, May 24 – blastoff
The alarm goes off at 4:30am. We want to be out the door no later than 5:15am. I have some toast with honey, some yogurt with bran/fruit cereal, and a banana. Oh yeah, I have a mug of coffee...have to have my coffee.

I put on my race clothing, my zoot/gu tri top and shorts. In my warmup bag, I have my swim cap, goggles, water bottle, a gel, and my pump. I also have my wetsuit of course. Based on water reports (I actually did not do any swims myself in the water here), I figured I'd be okay without a neoprene cap or earplugs.


DW and I are soon out the door and everyone else will follow about 1/2 an hour behind.

In Puerto del Carmen, we end up having to park about 10 minute walk away. It's dark and everyone is converging at the transition area. I first stop at the bathrooms since I can see the lines are getting long already. After that, I head straight to my bike to pump up my tires. Seems like most of the other racers brought their own pumps as well. Seems like everyone is quite fit. i take off my sweats and put them in my warmup bag and then drop that off.

I put on my wetsuit halfway. It's about 15 minutes from the start so I grab a cup of water, down a gel, and then head down to the beach.

The race director asked us to self seed ourselves based on our swim times. The pros are in front of the green banner right at the water's edge. Behind the green banner are those expected to finish in 65 minutes or less. The "slow" swimmers (race directors word) start behind the yellow banner. I expected to be "slow" based on my IM Cal 70.3 time (35 min) so I lined up behind the yellow banner. I ask someone to help me zip up my suit and we wait for a little bit before the start.



none for me!