Ironman Western Australia - December 2011

This will be fairly short as I really don't remember that much about the race. I do remember the flies - they were everywhere, there was no escape. Apparently the dung beetle population had dropped off so more fly eggs survived, and wow did they thrive. I crashed the hire car a couple of days before the race, no-one was injured but it was an expensive mistake that I tried to put out of my mind on race day. This was also the first time I had been weighed before a race (this is done for medical reasons - so the organisers and medical staff know if you have lost too much weight through dehydration and will need an IV drip). I was a little horrified to weigh in at 89kg - heavier than Cairns, when I wanted to be lighter. Weight matters in these events, I was 4 or 5 kg heavier than my Cairns race and you can imagine how you would feel running a marathon while carrying 5 bags of sugar or a bag of potatoes.

The swim goes around the 2km long Busselton wooden jetty and given I have issues sighting when swimming - so I end up swimming in the wrong direction - I thought this would help my time but I ended up slightly slower than in Cairns, I don't know why. The bike ride was three loops of 60km each, flat but only a couple of spectator spots to give you a boost, and hot and windy. I remember stopping next to my wife half way through and telling her I didn't want to do this any more, I was nearly in tears. She got me going again and I posted a slightly better bike ride time than in Cairns. I don't remember the run at all. I didn't cramp this time - I had become a convert to salt tablets. (There may be no evidence to show them helping with cramps but in my n=1 study, they work). I finished in 14h30m, 45 minutes taken off my time in Cairns.

I didn't say 'never again' but I didn't have any urge to do another ironman any time soon.

Times:

Swim	Bike	Run	Finish
1:47:09	6:40:51	5:48:06	14:29:07

Garmin stats:
Swim - none - I don't remember why not. I think maybe the Garmin 310XT had been flakey and I needed it more for the run, so I used an old Timex watch for the swim, my Garmin 705 for the bike and the 310XT for the run.
Bike
Run - you can see I started to run/walk from 30 minutes in showing a lack of strength/endurance. All good information to help me improve.