#simulation day

Objective

To try and simulate racing conditions that will be experienced on the day at Ironman New Zealand

To test out the nutrition elements that I’ll be using on Ironman day.

Plan

Swim - 3.6km from St Heliers to Tamaki Yacht Club (Bays Swim Race)

Cycle - 5 hours (which depending on speed should equate between 130-150km)

Run - short run off the bike between 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Expectation

To test swimming endurance to ensure that 3.8km Ironman swim will be completed comfortably. To fully test out all nutrition elements on the bike - gels, Ems Power Bars, Perpetuem, Replace, water.

So this was the big simulation day I had been planning. I'd earmarked this day as the day for some time as it coincided with an ocean swim race and was exactly 4 weeks prior to Ironman so the timing was perfect. When I first started thinking about what I wanted to do on this day in terms of distances/times, my original thought was to a significantly longer run than the 45 minutes-1 hour that I settled on - somewhere in the vicinity of 2 1/2-3 hours. Upon taking advice from some people on various triathlon forums, I cut the run right back as their advice was there was no need to do a run anywhere near that long. Given I'm still a relative novice in this area, I did what they suggested.

The way the day was going to pan out was I drive to St Heliers, I would do the swim, meet Rochelle and the boys at the other end who would have my bike, bike for 5 hours and finish up back at the car I parked at St Heliers, and then go for the run. Easy as!

Given the rather rocky swim I'd had at Kohi on the Thursday prior, I was taking a keen interest in the weather for Sunday. Luckily the sun was shining, it was very warm, and the wind dropped significantly from previous day so I was pretty happy with that. It would transpire the nice weather would be a good and a bad thing!

Here is what happened:

Swim

A fairly sizeable number of people had entered the swim - well over 200. I approached the swim with a equal mix of confidence and nervousness as swimming that far isn't something that sits in my comfort zone even after all the swimming I have done. In fact I had only ever swum that distance in one hit once before which was when I did Ironman last time so it was still a big unknown.

Given the large number of people, I moved towards the back of the starting group. This was a self preservation thing more than anything as not being the strongest swimmer I didn't want to be at the front and have quicker swimmers try to go over the top of me. The initial stages of any swimming event is pretty willing so I didn't want to make it any worse.

Once the gun went and I was under way, my main aim was to not go out too fast and to keep a fairly steady pace. Where possible I was trying to stay just behind other swimmer's feet as being directly behind means you use less energy because you're in the draft zone so are "towed" along. I wasn't alone in thinking that so it was quite difficult to stay behind someone. Throughout the majority of the swim I was able to stick with a group of 5-6 swimmers who were of similar speeds so that was beneficial. One difficult element is to actually try and swim in a straight line between the marker buoys which is harder than it sounds as unlike in a pool you don't have a black line to follow. Therefore sighting (or lifting your head every few strokes) becomes critical so that you don't end up swimming further than you have to. I was having some difficulty with my sighting as the marker buoys being used to mark the course weren't very high out of the water so were pretty tricky to spot. (From what I heard afterwards I wasn't alone in that regard!)

With about 1km to go, the water started to get a bit choppy so made things tricky. The chop which was caused by the wake from passenger ferries heading for the North Shore and Waiheke and even though the ferries were a long way from the course, it was still an annoyance. I got through it and was happy to turn the corner and head for the finish line.

Overall analysis: My finish time was 1h20m which I felt was a little on the slow side so I was a little disappointed. The choppy water for the last km may have played a part in slowing me down - I don't know. One good thing was I learnt that even though the swim distance as listed on the website was 3.6km, the actual was 3.78km which basically meant that I had completed the same distance as the Ironman swim. Rating - 6.5/10

Bike

No rest for the wicked. Immediately after finishing the swim I met the family, got the biked loaded up and was on my way. The plan was to be on the bike for around 5 hours so with the weather being good I knew it was going to be a long hot day.

The course I chose for this day was a bit different than normal - in fact very different as it was basically a series of 20km laps up and down Tamaki Drive. Anyone who knows Auckland knows that Tamaki Drive is a nice piece of road that is dead flat and goes past some of Auckland's best beaches. Why I chose a multi lap course was I wanted a course where I could keep a relatively higher speed for a longer period of time and with it being flat it meant I would have to keep pedalling for longer and wouldn't get the micro breaks that you get on the down hill of a more hillier course. So I figured I would do between 6-8 laps of this loop which should bring me up to the 5 hour number I was aiming for. 

In theory it sounded good. Reality was quite different...!

What I hadn't factored into my thinking was that with the weather being so good, half of Auckland might want to go to the beach. And Mission Bay, Kohi, and St Heliers are 3 of the more popular beaches in Auckland so the crowds came...and with that came a lot more traffic on the road. It got to the point that at some points (around Kohi particularly) I was having to weave slowly in between cars who were stopped on the road. Not exactly in line with my plan to keep a higher speed!

Luckily the congested parts of the roads were confined to one part of the loop so for the rest of it I was able to move relatively normally. My overall pedal cadence (RPM) for the entire ride was 86 RPM which was about what I targeted although if you look at the workout file I'm sure it would show that it was higher in one part of the course and lower in the part where there was traffic.

In terms of food & drink on the bike, I was loaded up again with 1 bottle of Perpetuem, 1 bottle of Horley's Replace, 1 bottle of water, energy gels, and Ems Power Cookie bar. My plan was to stop at my parked can and re-stock the bottles and food at the half way point. I was particularly interested in the gels as they were new ones I hadn't used before but were the brand used on Ironman day so I had to get used to them quickly. For those who don't know, the gels are mini packets of a liquid substance that is good for an instant hit of calories and carbs and is more easily digested by the body than normal food. They're an acquired taste! I quickly discovered that these new gels had a pretty nasty after taste so I cut down the number I ingested than what I had planned. They're a big part of my nutrition plan so I've got less than 4 weeks to get used to them.

The time on the bike passed pretty quickly and the conditions remained pretty good although the wind did start to get up again...surprise surpise! Before I knew it, I was back at the car and getting ready to put the running shoes on.

Overall analysis: Total time on the bike - 4h47m27s. The traffic situation disappointed a little as I wasn't able to fully implement my original plan but I still ended up doing just over 130km and the average speed of 27.3km/h was respectable. The food side (gels aside) worked really well and I didn't feel like I was struggling at any point apart from the normal tiredness that comes with continuous exercise. No mechanical issues this time which I was rapt about! Rating - 7/10

Bike simulation data - http://tpks.ws/D4nr

Run

The run objective for this session was never about distance. With the long run I'd done at Ohope the week before, I knew that wasn't an issue. The goal for the run was to make sure that I had gotten the nutrition right on the bike so that I wouldn't have any GI (gastro-inte blah blah) issues. As I mentioned in the last post this is something you figure out pretty quickly on the run.

I only ended up running for 45 minutes which equated to just over 8km and the pleasing aspect was there were no issues of any kind. I had a couple of bottles in my water belt - water & Horleys - and I had some Sports Jelly Beans for that instant sugar hit, and I was careful to ensure I regularly took something in.

Overall analysis: There wasn't too much that could go wrong on this run as it was only a relatively short one. The main test in relation to nutrition was passed with flying colours. The only thing I was slightly concerned about was the pacing was still a bit quick. Given this is something fairly common amongst my longer runs, I may now need to re-think what my pace on Ironman day will be. Rating - 8/10

Run simulation data - http://tpks.ws/8nbR

Overall analysis of the day: Successful! The majority of boxes were ticked, and the entire day seemed to pass really quickly. The total time on the go across the swim, bike, run was just under 7 hours so it was a decent workout. Even though I was happy to get to the end, I definitely felt there was still more there to give which is a good sign.