2021 IRONMAN Switzerland Thun

2021 IRONMAN Switzerland Thun

2021 IRONMAN Switzerland Thun

As I completed IRONMAN Western Australia in Busselton on December 1st 2019, I was pumped about having completed 4 IMs across 4 continents in 2 years as planned, and was on my way to achieve eligibility to apply to the 'IRONMAN Legacy Program' in 4 more years (keeping the pace at 2 IMs per year). This program allows you to apply for a 'legacy' slot at the IRONMAN World Championships in Kona (a dream race of one too many triathletes) once you complete 12 full distance IRONMAN races, and as long as you have not qualified directly to this race before on your own. For those oblivious, qualifying directly for 'Kona' is very hard, as you need to complete a qualifying IM race amongst the first batch of your age group (mine is 40-44 year-old athletes), which depending on the age group it can mean a finish time of ~9 hours (a type of race I usually complete in 13-14 hours). There are some (crazy) people out there who have the time, the grit, the experience, and the dedication to prioritise elite IM training with the aim to qualify directly. Kudos to them. Still crazy. But still Kudos.

At the same time, 2020 was rapidly approaching and it would be the year I would be moving away from youth and turning 4-0, and I wanted to celebrate with a filled and obscene racing calendar ... and that is exactly what I had planned for.

Original 2020 Pornographic Racing Season

I managed to get ballot slots (lottery slots) for 2 of the 6 Abbott World Major Marathons (Tokyo and Chicago, after having completed New York City in 2018), I wanted to continue my IRONMAN continent conquest obsession with a race in South Africa, I also planned for a beautiful race in Kona itself without it being THE Kona race (70.3 Hawaii, a half IM race sharing some of the bike course from the original Kona full IM race), and I managed also to get a slot for the most legendary annual full distance race of the 'Challenge Family' (Challenge Roth). A truly pornographic calendar, evenly covered around the world, with a symmetrical distribution across three different race formats ... all in all, to celebrate the rite of passage into being called 'Mr.' or 'Sir' or 'Ajoshi' (in Korean) or even worse ... 'Middle-Aged Man' or 'Regular Prostate Check Candidate'.

'Regarding the respiratory illness caused by a new coronavirus'

On February 17th, less than two weeks to kick off the calendar, the 2020 Tokyo Marathon was cancelled, with an email using the above yet mysterious title.

On March 13th, as things started to get stranger and stranger in the world, it was the last day I went to the office (btw, for an absolutely unnecessary reason), and as I was walking back home (I was already not using public transportation) I received the sad expected email with the cancellation of the IRONMAN African Championship, also two weeks before the second race of the aforementioned pornographic racing calendar.

On March 19th, UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson ('BoJo') announced his cabinet would be sending this coronavirus 'packing' in 12 weeks (LMFAO ... but I admit, I was rooting for him). On the same day, US President Donald Trump instituted a travel ban into the US for anyone who had been the previous 14 days in Europe (including the UK); a ban that is still active at the time of this writing (18 months ongoing).

Four days later, on March 23rd, BoJo announced the first major UK lockdown, asking everyone to 'stay at home'. DraconianAF. At least we were not being policed around like in Italy and Spain.

'Uncertainty' had suddenly become the name of the game ... can I go out for a run? ... can I fly to Spain? ... will I keep my job? ... will this race be cancelled too? ... when da f**k is this all going to end?

This sudden restriction in freedoms made me get excited about new concepts like 'virtual racing'. People had developed this highly inexplicable passion for toilet paper ... I mean ... I would prefer to ensure first and foremost that I get to eat FOOD that I can poop afterwards ... not too obsessed about how the bum cleansing part would happen afterwards ... I'll cross that bridge when it comes. At the same time, in retrospect, I could not have survived this pandemic without the new opening of an Asian supermarket 15min walking from home, where I would get excited weekend after weekend over bringing frozen Dim Sum home (a concept I would normally consider sacrilegious).

To avoid going over this nightmare we are all very much aware of, let me try to fast forward to our topic: Switzerland.

Star Wars: A new hope

With the advent of newly developed vaccines against COVID-19, and looking at how Europe managed to open up to travel during the summer of 2020 itself even without a vaccine and without much aftermath, I decided to bet on Europe for the still unknown 2021 Summer triathlon season. And with this I enrolled into a European inaugural event which promised to have spectacular course scenery: IRONMAN Switzerland Thun. Anything else, I left as an experimental phase towards the end of the year to try to mitigate the 'cancellation risk'. And then this more modest '2021 season' model came about:

Adjusted 2021 Racing Season

Still looking very good, and still trying to nicely and evenly cover the globe. But ... to make the story short: Switzerland got delayed two months into early September, Tokyo got cancelled again (and my slot gone to March 2023 ... FFS), and with Cozumel I decided to proactively defer to 2022 given that the UK had recently decided to put Mexico into its infamous 'red list', meaning I would have to quarantine in a government run hotel in the UK for 2 weeks o my return home for a whopping £2,000 price tag. Thanks, but no thanks.

Die Schweiz. Le Suisse. La Svizzera.

After 567 days without travelling overseas, I was more than super excited to finally be able to do so. And this was my 4th time in this very strange country in the heart of Europe. They speak German but they say 'Merci'. They have the only 'squared' country flag in the world. A magnet for wealthy people: bring your money and we'll hide it; come here and we will give you a decent send off into the end of life; and also come here if you are ok with spending 10$/8€/7£ for a coffee in Starbucks.

I would be going into this race with enough training for survival mode. I hadn't swum in over a year for obvious reasons; I had to ration my bike and run training due to me being in between changing jobs; and I hadn't really raced since Busselton (Dec 1st, 2019). I managed to get an Olympic distance race under my belt 4 weeks prior (including a PB), but Olympic distance racing is just SO different from full distance.

The first few days in the country I spent at my friends' crib in the outskirts of Zurich. Adrian and Anne-Marie as usual excellent hosts, including a number of nice dinner/decaf/ice-cream sessions, and I managed to WFS (Work from Switzerland) on the kitchen table while little Ethan and I managed to discuss the differences between IRONMAN (the Marvel character), Spiderman and Batman; where he thrashed me and his father at the 'UNO' card game, and while I tried to answer his complex life questions such as 'are there any countries in the world where there are no people living in them?'. I also managed to rescue my 'Arepa' making skills for a nice pre-race Thun send-off dinner.

Then on Thursday evening, I was finally in Thun.

Three more sleeps and we would be back in action, after 645 days.

Swim. Schwimm.

A cold September morning in transition area at 5:30am. I managed to see all three pro stars walking around: British Joe Skipper, Swiss defending champion Jan Van Berkel, and the 4-time IM World Champion and local hero Daniela Ryf.

I had my AirPods Pro on all the time, blasting my curated 90s playlist while I kept preparing all my bags and the inaugural Elsa (my new bike).

The swim start would be in Lake Thun (Thunsee) just when the sun was rising, at 6:50am. For the first time in history, I was not feeling nervous, I had this 100% Zen aura all around me, just waiting for my turn to jump into the water whilst breathing the fresh morning air.

It was a race with only a handful of athletes (~1,000) which made it feel more special and intimate. I was also the only representative from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, so I felt a little bit of responsibility on my shoulders.

When I jumped into the water I remembered that I had forgotten to memorise the swim course beforehand ... well done, chap! ... so I would have to depend for the next 80-90 minutes on following others' feet in the end. At least I knew that it was a one-loop counter-clockwise course.

I managed to swim very nicely, at a relaxed pace and without any sort of classic water panic attacks, so I managed to swim in crawl mode 100% of the time. One arm after the other. Trying to keep body rotation on point. Breathing whilst keeping the head as flat in the water as possible. And I kept humming to myself a 90's one-hit-wonder 'Bittersweet Symphony' by 'The Verve' for the entire swim (the last song playing on my AirPods before I turned them off). Also, I didn't have many bodies to avoid or to clash with; most likely due to the reduced athlete quorum. This leg of the race is the most solitary by far and usually in the early morning; so a perfect moment for meditation.

Water temperature was perfect. Wetsuit was helping nicely with buoyancy. I could easily follow others. Buoys were clearly marked (yellow ones to pass, and red ones to turn left). Water was not too choppy. When breathing to a side or when trying to sight ahead for direction, all you could see were snow-peaked mountains surrounding the lake, with the sunlight reflected behind the mountains as it was still rising from the horizon. The sky had this unique pink colour. It became the most spectacular swim course I had ever done, dethroning IRONMAN Western Australia's Indian Ocean swimming-pool-like course.

Pornographic Swim

When I jumped off the water into the finish mat, my watch said '1h 7min' ... which made absolutely no sense ... that would have been a more than remarkable swim ... especially given the fact I hadn't swum for over a year. Therefore, I started my run into T1 with a false sense of accomplishment, which definitely helps during an IRONMAN.

Bike. Fahrrad. Velo.

Elsa was waiting for me, and as usual, it was very easy to spot her, as most of the bikes in the transition area were already gone into the course. I took a luxurious 11 mins for my T1 transition; mostly due to the fact that I like to ensure I'm properly sun-screened, wear my sun protecting arm covering (after having recently removed a couple of carcinomas from arm and face), my power meter is awake and paired with the bike computer, plus I had to make a cheeky pee stop at the portable toilet (as I refused to pee on top of Elsa, as I did with poor Shaqueesha back in Boulder in 2019).

This was the leg of the race I was mostly concerned with. It would be the hilliest IM bike course in my record (2,200m of total accumulated elevation; vs. 2,000m in Norway; 1,200m in Boulder; 1,000m in Taiwan; and 450m in Western Australia). Luckily there were no crazy super steep hills, but the constant 'climbing and climbing' did show up, along the two 90Km laps. But with climbs you also have downhill sections, which I tried to leverage by taking Elsa to a maximum of 52KPH, if I remember correctly (which of course involves pedalling on a very high gear while going down the hill). I love love love love love the electronic shifting feature of Elsa. It was extremely useful during this hilly course. I'm not sure how I managed with mechanical shifting before. It is similar to thinking how I managed to live without a mobile phone back in the 90s.

Do you remember those Microsoft Windows XP default / pre-built background pictures and screensavers, which showed green hills under blue skies, where both the green and the blue were so powerful and ridiculous that you were sure those were photoshopped after the picture was taken? ... well, on this day I confirmed that my suspicions were wrong all along ... Bill Gates had actually sent photographers to the Thun area to populate their new upcoming Windows version. Mein Schweizer Gott!!! ... other than the eventual cow poo smell, this was the most pornographic bike course I had ever taken, dethroning the one-loop bike course from IRONMAN Norway in Haugesund. You were constantly looking at beauty all around: cows with bells on their necks, more snow-peaked mountains, ultra lush green hills everywhere (including Heidi running with her grandfather), a perfect blue sky without a single cloud, and I noticed many roads that had been re-asphalted the Friday before the race (e.g. flat, pitch black and perfect for race day).

Whereas on the first lap I was singing out loud due to my false sense of pride for the seemingly fast swim I had just completed, to my fresh legs, to the beautiful surroundings I kept witnessing after every turn, to the nice 20C temperature of the morning, etc, etc, etc. ... on the second lap things turned a bit sour. Temperatures started to rise quickly (maybe 26C with a steady steady burning sun), my lower back was doing its usual nagging (I had to keep standing on the pedals to stretch my back every once in a while, especially after long uphill stretches), I started to feel I could faint at any moment and wishing that bloody '180Km' mark would approach ASAP. I did acknowledge that I went to Switzerland with an 'express' training for that race, and I was prepared to suffer, but that 'zombie' feeling might have also been triggered by an experiment with nutrition / hydration during the bike course.

'Stupid Carlos!!!!! Why are you testing new things on race day???? WTFFF????' ... that is what you are probably thinking (or saying out loud) as you read this ... Thing is, I had rehearsed (during training) a new strategy to try to avoid my classic stomach issues on the IRONMAN run, by using a powder manufactured by the Swedish company Maurten, that promised to tackle this issue by using a type of carbohydrate which is absorbed via a different stream than usual carbs. Problem is, I had only one bottle cage on Elsa, and I completely forgot to get the second one (as I had with my previous bike). Therefore, I decided to use that single bottle cage for my nutrition Maurten mix, and then stop at every aid station (~every 25Km) for multiple sips of either water or isotonic drinks, as well as to top up my Maurten fuel bottle (which only needed water to mix). Bold last minute decision. The Maurten mix definitely was much easier to drink than my regular molotov cocktail as it had a milder and nicer flavour, avoiding the feared 'flavour fatigue' from the classic fruity gels and drinks.

Could my new nutrition plan have been the culprit of my 'zombie' feeling? Or was it the one-bottle-only policy? Or was it my 'express' training? Or was it that it was a bloody hilly course (remember: 2,200m)?

There are so many factors that can play with your performance during a long distance triathlon like IRONMAN.

One funny note with Elsa was that I noticed when I checked her in (the day before race day), that there was a slight misalignment between the front wheel and the handle+aero-bars. When you were cycling with your hands on the handles it didn't feel really different. However, when you were on the aero-bars, your arms were clearly pointing slightly to the right whilst you were cycling at high speed on the road. Imagine that during 180Kms, or when at 50KPH.

Anyway ... 7 hours for a 180Km course with 2,200m of accumulated elevation. Comparing it with my previous IRONMAN races, I'd say: not bad at all.

Run. I mean, Walk.

I had never never never never never never never never. I mean, I had never arrived onto T2 as f-ed up as I did during IRONMAN Switzerland. Not only was it hard to walk with my bike (as it usually is the case), but I was having slight trouble with breathing and feeling very weak overall.

As I left T2 for the marathon, and as I approached the first aid station, I saw everything on the table: water, Gatorade, Red Bull, Cola, oranges, nuts, warm soup ... and EVERYTHING looked disgusting ... my stomach was already giving me the signals and I hadn't even finished the very first Km of the run ... I did force myself to drink the Cola drink, as it was one of the few new things you see on the run course aid stations ... and I say 'Cola drink' because that thing was not Coca Cola nor Pepsi ... it was a really disgusting substance ... God knows what cheap poisonous Cola brand they used on the race. Obviously, and needless to say, never my lips touched that Cola again.

And then it happened. Just after 6.5Kms, I was feeling like crap, my body did not want to eat anything anymore, it was a hot day, and then I succumbed to the classic ominous long long walk. I knew I had to walk for the next 35.7Kms, and doing quick math in my head using my classic 9 min / Km fast walking pace, it would take me about 5 hours and a half to get to the finish line. The mother of the f-ing goat!

This was the fifth time in my life I was doing the 'run' section of an IRONMAN race. Out of the three disciplines this is the one I am not a sh*t. Usually on shorter distance triathlons (Olympic and 70.3) I always score much better than the average on the run course. However, after 5 long distance races I still haven't managed to fix this problem. For some reason, on my first one (IRONMAN Norway) I did very decent marathon numbers, and had to stop only for a bit. So obviously this has become a classic huge disappointing section during my IRONMAN races.

A three-lap course, passing next to the finish line about 6 times before being able to run through it at the end, and so the painful mentions through the speakers of so many people being called 'Matthias, you are an IRONMAN!' ... 'From France ... Gerard ... you are an IRONMAN!' ... and I still had hours to finish the job. Also managed to see people who seemed to be in much worse physical condition than me but mustering through the run while running (not walking). I did try a couple of times to start running again, but the machine stopped me shortly after every time. All this adding to the disappointment. The run segments during the IRONMAN have become a moment of dark thoughts, of planning to quit IRONMAN racing, etc, etc, etc. However, I have yet to see me remembering any of these dark promises after a race. If anything, I end up booking the next race in the following 48 hours. Classic.

At least it was a very nice run course, passing through a running track, a castle in front of a garden, a number of cool-looking pedestrian bridges, the classic European town downtown segment with cobblestones on the ground , another segment next to the pristine water, etc, etc. However, IRONMAN Boulder still has the reign as the best run course for me so far.

As it was getting dark on my third and final lap, a Swiss girl volunteer did a short segment with me and we had a nice conversation (to help make it shorter). I also had the chance to quickly meet the legend 'Luis Alvarez' while on the running track section, a Mexican athlete in his late 50s (I think) who was completing this IRONMAN # 180 that day, and he has done every single IRONMAN race that has ever been at least once, so it is not uncommon to see Luis on inaugural races such as Thun (we coincided once before in the inaugural IRONMAN Norway race).

So finally, at 10:00pm, after a 6-hour fast walk and with a nagging pain in my left knee, I was crossing the finish line to receive my long awaited medal, along the classic disco-like heavily lit final red carpet.

Avengers: The Endgame.

CLEARLY ... they had reduced the length of the swim to 3,000m. I must have been deep in my 90s playlist while they announced this, I guess. So the 1h 7min timing makes perfect sense now.

After the finish line I tried to eat something, but the event-provided dinner was pretty sad, plus I couldn't really stomach anything. I think my body wanted to eat, but my brain kept saying 'disgusting! disgusting! Disgusting!'.

At the same time EVERYTHING was closed ... even McDonald's (WTFFF) ... I had plans to order 3 large buckets of fries and two McFlurrys ... that I could eat. However, I had to resort to stealing my Airbnb's host Swiss Chocolate Movenpick Ice Cream from her freezer. But ... I did get her a brand new bucket the next morning and put her right back in her freezer.

I couldn't leave town before doing a number of insta shots with the medal and the classic Thun surroundings, after which I took a train straight into Zurich airport, and au revoir Le Suisse!

Bed. Bath. And Beyooooond.

With Tokyo cancelled and Cozumel deferred, and with the European triathlon season rapidly coming to an end, I wanted to find a way to save the end of the racing season. And the answer was right in front of my nose: Europe (travel allowed) + Autumn Run (not Walk) = (non-cancelled) European Autumn Marathons.

At the time of this writing (fingers crossed, and knock-on-wood), I will be toeing the start line at the Hackney Half Marathon (late September, close to home), the Munich Marathon (early October), and the Marato de Barcelona (early November), at which I am aiming for a PB (Personal Best), which I got in New York City in 2018 (3h 41min). So the run-specific training starts right now.

The 2022 racing calendar is getting some pornographic features already, but due to the still reigning uncertainty, I don't want to jinx it.

That's all folks! Until next time.

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