The next morning we drove to Munich to collect Nicky and Jane from the airport, and Nicky appeared at arrivals clutching a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey with a glint in her eye, which was all I needed. We then headed straight to race registration – at which point everything suddenly started becoming quite real. It was, as expected, superbly well organised and took place in a huge village full of stalls packed to the rafters with lovely carbon bikes, energy products and all sorts of weird and wonderful contraptions designed to make you a significantly better athlete for just a few thousand euros. Having entered the registration tent, signed a piece of paper that increasingly felt like my death warrant, and collected a wheelie bin full of instructions, timing chips, bike stickers, kitbags and race numbers, the next port of call was obviously the official Challenge Roth shop. It is very bad luck indeed to buy any item of clothing that has the race name on it before you have finished the race, and even worse form to wear it, but it’s good to have a poke around and see if there is anything that you can buy with a clear conscience, so I opted for a bright red Roth towel and a pair of socks with the German flag on them, which should nicely confuse any timeshare sellers even more.
It was then back to the hotel for the favourite triathlete pastime of faffing, and I was able to pay forensic attention to all my kit, spreading it out on the bed and going through it piece by piece to make sure everything was in the correct bag, before unpacking it all and doing it again, then making up my energy drinks, putting the requisite number of gels in my bike and run bags, applying stickers to everything and adding my numbers to my race belt – before unpacking it all yet again and starting over. Nicky wisely goes out whenever I am doing this because I become the world’s most narky tit, and no matter how many times I do a big race I never, ever get any nicer to be around at this time. Once it is done, my mood improves slightly, but to watch me at these moments you’d think I was a scientist feverishly working on some new breakthrough for the benefit of all humanity instead of some middle-aged also ran about to do a race he’s not going to win.
The day before the race was spent having a very slow wander around Nuremberg in search of bratwurst mit kartoffelsalat – not too far or too fast in case we tired our little legs out with all that arduous strolling – and racking our bikes. If registration was where the coming challenge felt real, the act of putting my beloved bike into the transition area was where it started to feel very, very real indeed. This is also the first time you are exposed to the full enormity of what you are about to do, with thousands of other athletes all racking their bikes at the same time as you, proving that this is not just some solitary occupation but one you are about to share with a legion of others. All of those others, of course, have been training as hard as you have, if not harder. Bike racking took place a few miles from Roth next to the Main Donnau canal and involved leaving my pride and joy in its allotted space, staring at it for five minutes as though I expected it suddenly to race off of its own accord, letting the tyres down a bit so they didn’t expand in the heat and blow up, and then standing staring at my bike for another five minutes like I’d been hynotised by a boa constrictor. Once I had torn my gaze away from my bike, I began wandering around looking for where the entrance and exit were and counting the number of racks of bikes from the kit changing tent so I could find my bike when my ears were full of water and my mind full of dread. Roth has a split transition, which means that bikes and running kit are stored in different places, so it was then all back to Mark’s car to drive back to Roth to leave my bag full of running clobber, stare at it like a village idiot, wander round looking for the run exit etc, etc.
Once all this was completed, it was time for the biggest dose of reality of all – the race briefing. This took place in a huge tent in the athletes’ village, and was conducted in several languages at different times. The briefing in English was packed, mostly with Germans it has to be said, and it was where the race organisers highlight any information about the course that they think you should know, such as the right way to go, and the various crimes you can commit, which will result in punishments ranging from a two-minute penalty all the way up to being shot by firing squad. There are myriad different ways you can cop for a penalty in triathlons, including drafting (riding your bike in someone else’s slipstream thus gaining an advantage by avoiding air resistance), littering, undertaking while cycling, riding on the wrong side of the road (British athletes take note!), verbally abusing marshals and not having the front of your tri suit zipped all the way up to the top, thus running the risk of inflaming the passions of spectators by showing them an inch of your bare chest. Phwoooar indeed!
It was at the race briefing that we finally bumped into Steve Mac, whose hotel was bloody miles away in the opposite direction to ours. Steve gave us his own briefing about his preparations for this race, all the training he had done and, specifically, how much he was looking forward to ‘spanking’ me, a clear indication he had spent too much time living in Brighton. Once the race briefing finished, I had the usual feeling of being a condemned man. The admin had all been done, my bike had been racked, I wasn’t going to have time to do any more training and now we had been fully briefed, so we couldn’t claim any kind of ignorance. The race was coming like the Cuban missile crisis, except it was not going to be averted.
All that was left to do now was to slink away with the thousands of others and try to get a decent night’s sleep, which is easier said than done when you know what’s coming in the morning. Firstly, there is the sense of impending doom to dog your sleeping steps, then there is the fact that you are full of food, having been carbo-loading for three days, and finally there is the fact that you are trying to get to sleep at about 7.00 p.m. while the rest of the world is out there living their everyday lives without knowing or giving a monkey’s about what you are up to the next day. The good people of Nuremberg were going about their Saturday night business and saw no particular reason to do it any more quietly than normal. Dropping off to sleep while I could hear people laughing and joking in a foreign language was about as easy on my ears as Jedward singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – or indeed any song in the entire history of music. As I lay there listening to the sounds of happy people, I really, really envied them. They were not facing what I was facing, because they had the good sense not to put themselves in this stupid, stupid predicament. Eventually, I fell asleep somewhere between 9.00 p.m. and 10.00 p.m., 11.15 p.m., midnight, 2.00 a.m. and 3.15 a.m. I always sleep fitfully before a big race and this time was no different. There was nothing in particular waking me up except my own mind doing mental cartwheels, and each time I awoke and saw that it wasn’t yet 4.00 a.m., I went back to sleep with a sense of enormous relief that my impending execution had been stayed. Until, of course, the moment when the clock flicked over to 4.00 a.m. and the alarm didn’t go off – which didn’t matter in the slightest as I’d been awake and staring at the thing since 3.35. Race day had arrived.
Getting up at 4.00 a.m. is like rising from the grave and is done just as silently. Nicky was also awake, getting up with me to travel to the race with Mark and Jane, so we vied for the bathroom with me getting first dibs for once on the grounds of how arsey I would be if I wasn’t treated as the most important human being in the universe. Breakfast was a box of crushed cornflakes brought from home and some suspiciously watery milk purchased from a nearby delicatessen before I returned to the bathroom to try making a strenuous attempt to ‘lighten the load’ before we left, thus avoiding the horror of the race day Portaloos. This is, of course, futile because, as any triathlete knows, you only get the urge to go to the toilet once you have been fully zipped into your skinsuit and wetsuit. The car journey to the start was conducted in almost total silence with Nicky and Jane staying quiet, well used to what a pair of snapping turtles Mark and I both are on race day mornings, quite capable of starting an argument out of thin air. First light was just breaking at the transition area over 2,000 bikes and a dirty great canal.
&nb
sp; By now tempers everywhere are fraying with the sound of bickering interspersed with nervous farting. We meet up with Joe and Julie and pose for some pre-race photos, mostly, I later learn, because we, and particularly I, look like a bunch of twats dressed up in track suit bottoms, slip on shoes, German flag socks and a beanie hat. We are then told to ‘sod off and cheer up’ by our wives and dispatched into transition to begin fiddling with our bikes. After pumping up my tyres and handing my track pump to a somewhat reluctant Nicky, I spot Mark running around trying to sort out a problem with his front tyre. Fortunately, bike mechanics are on hand, although queuing up for their attention as the clock is ticking down to your race start is about as enjoyable as having your pubes ripped out, knitted into a scarf and then wrapped around your neck to strangle you. Joe, meanwhile, is walking around in his usual state of semi-bewilderment, already clad in wetsuit and hat because his wave of swimmers is off before ours. I embark on the obligatory pre-race ritual of suddenly bursting for the loo as yesterday’s bratwurst mit kartoffelsalat decides that it would like to leave me behind. I am left musing that the person at the ITU who insisted tri-suits should have zips at the back has never been a triathlete, because if they had been they’d know that trying to unzip yourself inside a European Portaloo that looks like it’s been subjected to a dirty protest is about as easy as trying to carve a miniature crystal unicorn with your feet while sat on a bouncy castle.
Joe enters the water, turns to me, makes the sign of the cross and disappears into the murky deep. Mark is still running back and forth, so I wander over to where Nicky, Julia and Jane have stationed themselves on the canal bank to say a final ta-ta. Nicky has secured a good spot to watch us swim and come out of the water and is currently engaged in defending it with the same ferocity as the regiment at Rorke’s Drift, shoving any would-be space invaders down the bank and almost into the water. This is a reminder, if ever I needed one, of why I married her. A big cannon goes bang and Joe’s nightmare begins, while the next phalanx of swimmers is called up to the start line. The wave after that is mine, so it is time to cross the timing chip mat and enter the water. May the Lord have mercy upon my soul …
Chapter 13
I am standing waist-deep in the waters of the Main Donnau Canal near Nuremberg in Germany. I am clad in a neoprene wetsuit, swim hat and goggles. Around me stand people dressed exactly the same as me – hundreds of them. Suddenly there is a loud bang, which is the start cannon for the wave in front of mine. There are so many swimmers in the canal that we are setting off in waves of a few hundred at a time – and mine is next. Some of us are standing near the edge on the sloping bank, others are bobbing about in the water, while yet others stay sitting on the bank silently listening to the power ballads being pumped out of the massive speakers attached to the bridge behind us.
When I can’t put it off any longer, I glide into the water with all the grace of a windmilling bag of bones, select my starting position to keep the majority of the wave of swimmers on my right-hand side, kick the nearest Frenchman as hard as I can, fart about with my watch to make sure it is working and then lurk like a wallowing hippo waiting for the cannon’s roar. Inevitably, my mind is wandering all over the place and I am trying manfully to get some kind of focus, repeating to myself ‘Don’t be so worried, you tart. This is the bit you like best. You’ve trained hard, raced well, and have avoided being mown down by a shithead in a van. You are here for your pleasure, so enjoy it!’ Yeah, right!
BOOM!
Schwimmen.
At the moment the cannon goes, all nerves and thoughts evaporate in an instant. All that matters now is getting my head down, my arms up, and getting one final dig at Jacques Cousteau. My normal swimming style is to breathe every two strokes and sight (look where I am going) every six so that I don’t zigzag too far off course and swim into a bank or a boat, which I have seen done before and which made me laugh so much that I snorted sea water up my nose. As usual it is some time before I can settle into my favoured pattern because the first few hundred metres involve trying not to get booted in the face and wondering why everyone else except me seems to be unable to swim in a completely straight line. Consequently, I am sighting every two strokes instead of every six and trying to find a patch of clear water. Soon it comes as the people who have started off too fast fade and die and I surge forward like a scrawny version of Free Willy. Unfortunately, it isn’t long before those of us at the front of the wave are swimming into the back of the wave in front of us, so we have to keep our wits about us to ensure we don’t swim over the top of anyone – unless we were doing so on purpose because we are bastards, of course …
The swim is a single lap that heads up the canal for about a kilometre before reaching a turn buoy, then comes back the other way for two kilometres, around another buoy before an 800 metre dash for the exit. I know I am going well because I have swum through the wave in front, and the one in front of that, which contained Joe somewhere within its seething ranks. The fact that I have avoided getting into any bunches at all and haven’t made any kind of contact with a single other swimmer makes me seriously think I am on for a PB, so when I round the second turn buoy I strike out for the swim exit like a man running up his drive to escape Jehovah’s Witnesses. Exiting the water is never a graceful affair because you have just spent an hour lying down, and your sudden decision to get up causes all the blood to race out of your head and into your feet. I have never managed to look good coming out of a swim yet, and this is no exception as I clutch and claw at the carpeted slipway, trying desperately to get upright while looking even vaguely cool. As I run out of the water looking like a well-polished scrotum, I glance at my watch, which declares that I have completed 3.8 kilometres in 59 minutes, not a PB, but under the magic one-hour mark again and enough to make me grin like some kind of simpleton. The run through the changing tent is conducted with ruthless efficiency by everyone concerned except me as I spend five minutes flinging unwanted arm warmers and rain jackets all over the tent in search of gels to stuff in my pocket and my most precious possessions in the whole world, my pack of Jaffa Cakes. Then it’s out into the big, wide world of the bike racks to retrieve my baby and head for the hills.
Fahrrad.
Everything has its downside, as the man said when his mother-in-law died but they came after him for the funeral expenses, and one of the downsides to me having a very good swim is that I am being passed by the stronger cyclists in the first few miles of the bike course. It always takes me a few miles to get going and the start of any Ironman cycle feels weird as you slowly dry out after your swim. I can only liken the vaguely grubby feeling you get as akin to travelling on an Inter-City coach. The bike course at Roth has a reputation for being fast, with few hills and lots of long, flat sections. Chrissie Wellington, who remains inexplicably popular despite how rubbish she made the rest of us look before she retired, made mincemeat of the course a few years ago, which helped to cement its status as one of the fastest bike rides on the Iron circuit. Of course any course is fast if you are good – and not if you are not …
The Roth course is a two-lap affair through the Bavarian countryside and several Swiss-chocolate-box villages. Right from the word go, I find the route to be far lumpier than I was expecting. In previous Iron races I have always tried to have a good look round the bike course, even if it just means driving round in a car. This time, we hadn’t bothered and, while the course isn’t throwing up any major obstacles, I am growing disheartened quite soon into my ride, realising how slowly I am going and how many rolling hills there seem to be. I am now feeling really, really flat and not at all like I had in my warm-up races. I’m not particularly tired and nothing is hurting, I just don’t seem to be able to get going at all. Luckily I have a number of differences between UK and German cycling to distract me:
1. The German road surfaces are as smooth as silk.
2. Every village has a loudspeaker playing power ballads.
3. The crowds love you, which makes
a nice change from being howled at by hostile, large people whose only physical achievement is exuding enough body heat to keep a chair warm.
The other thing that distracts me is anticipation of the famous Solarberg climb. It is not especially steep or long and the views from the top are not spectacular. What makes it so special is the MASSIVE crowd that gathers there and lines the road ten deep either side, leaving you a narrow tunnel to ride through. As I approach the foot of the climb, the crowds begin to thicken and the roadside barriers begin to get narrower. I see a solid wall of people ahead of me so prepare to swing right to follow the road round – only there is no road to the right, and I watch in genuine disbelief as the rider in front of me disappears into the smallest gap imaginable between two people in the throng. It is my go next and as I get nearer the gap opens and the crowd swallows me up. I am inside a tunnel of bellowing Germans clapping me on the back, throwing beer at me and screaming that I am ‘Zooper Marteen’. This is honestly the most fun I have ever had on a bike and I grin my way up the climb, not quite believing what I am seeing.
I had heard about crowds at the Solarberg hill before the race, but nothing can prepare you for the sheer thrill of riding through a narrow tunnel of thousands of people cheering and sloshing Erdinger on you. The Solarberg comes near to the end of the lap and it gives me a much-needed kick up the backside, because I have been struggling up to this point. The effect on my speed is not instantaneous but I definitely start to pick up, although it still takes me over three hours to do the first 90k and my dreams of a sub-6-hour bike seem about as realistic as seeing Nigel Farage at the Eurovision Song Contest. I ride past Nicky, who is cheering me on at the halfway mark, and put on a temporary burst of speed to try to impress her – and just sort of keep it going. Having already been around the loop once I am conscious that I am having a much better time on the second lap, not least because I start to overtake people. Whether this is because I have sped up after a shocking first lap, or because they were slowing down, isn’t clear. Either way, while not exactly ripping it up I am definitely shifting and feeling much better about it. Solarberg comes round a second time and the crowds are a bit thinner, many people clearly having wisely decided to go and watch the leaders who were now on the run rather than hang around plotting the physical decline of 2,000 also-rans. There are still plenty there to give me an Erdinger shampoo, though. About five miles from the end Mark comes whipping past me in a frenzied battle with some Italian, and then with less than a mile to go a cyclist comes inside me on a tight bend, overcooks the corner and rides straight into some hay bales at the side of the road. As he sprawls on the tarmac, I notice his name is ‘Knut’ – and who am I to argue?
Accidental Ironman Page 18
