Monaco 70.3 Ironman!!

The following is the full break down of my first half ironman competition in Monaco, a small principality in the South of France on the Mediterranean Sea. The setting was beautiful, and the race was, for the most part, very well organized. I would like to start by thanking everyone who sent e-mails, and called me to wish me luck. Your support was amazing and very inspirational for me!

The official Monaco Ironman Website and additional information - http://www.monaco-ironman.com/


Logistics: To get to my first halfironman competition I needed to take the Metro from Paris to Orly Airport, Plane from Paris to Nice, Bus from Nice airport to Nice Train station, and then walk from the train stration to the Best Western I staid at Friday night in Nice. All of this with my bike packed away in a bike box (from crate works: http://www.crateworks.com/ ) and 1 bag with all the equipment/cloths I would need for the weekend and race. After arriving at B.W. I unpacked the bike and stored the box with the hotel, which they did for me until Sunday night. Thanks Best Western!!



Then it was off to Monaco by bus to register and enjoy the pasta buffet and debriefing, where I ran into a couple (Chris and Amanda) stationed just a couple hours from Monaco on an exchange program from the US Navy working with the French Navy. I had dinner with them and their cute little girl, which made me miss my niece Isabel! We exchanged e-mails since Amanda said she would be taking pictures of the race, and we ended up hanging out for a pasta dinner Saturday night as well, which was better than the solo plans to find a burrito shop I had originally.. (Although I think I would have performed better if I had found that burritto........superstition on my part)


Saturday we checked in the bikes and the transition bags for the bike and run. That night I stayed in Monaco at a place that was kind enought to open the kitchen at 5:30 for the racers sunday morning. Sunday morning I had breakfast, gathered what I would need, checked out and ran down to the start line with my sandels on, because I had to check in my running shoes with the transition bag the night before, and because I was, of course, running a little bit late. I made it in time to pump up my bike tires to full pressure, realize I had left a drink bottle for the bike in the hotel fridge, buy a new bottle with pre-mixed drink in it, use the all important facilities (you know which ones those are) and get the wetsuit on with 5 minutes to spare. Not much time for a warm up, but I had around 6 hours ahead of me to get warmed up!


SWIIM: The day started off with a mass start swim. A mass start swim means that when the buzzer goes off, everyone starts at the same time. You can just imagine 650 people all racing into the water at the same time and heading for the same target. It was a complete mad house. The water churning like it was filled with a group of Pirhaneas let loose after the same piece of steak. I had expected this, so I actually watched for a quick second to see if there was an opening of any kind, and when I saw one I plunged right in. I ended up having a pretty good swim with only a limited amount of getting kicked in the head and grabbed by the ankle.

The best part of the swim was the view. By the second loop the sun was starting to light up the water a bit more and I could actually see the safety scuba divers below me and fish darting in and out of the kelp on the sea floor. It was really a beautiful swim. In addition to the great view underwater, one of the things I liked about starting in the back of the pack was that I got to pass people almost the entire swim. So, as I got out of the water I was feeling confident. And when I looked down at my watch I was very surprised to see that 30 minutes hadn't yet passed. My goal before the race was 35 minutes. Official swim time 28:16 ( I will say that all of the swim times were amazingly fast and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the full 2 Kilometer length that it was supposed to be...... but even so, I was in the top 200 people out of the water and I was feeling great!

T1 - Nothing special to report here. My transition was not blazing fast, but I also didn't waste any time. The volunteer staff was amazing along the entire race, including at the transitions. They were right next to me taking my stuff and stuffing it into my transition bag for me, something I was lead to believe I would have to do myself based on the per-race debriefing. 4:24 and then I was on the bike.

BIKE: The first 22 Km are all uphill and I planned to start out easy on the first large climb so that I could attack on the third and final climb of the day. I also planned to eat as much as I could during the bike leg since I knew that I would be able to digest food much easier during the bike than on the run. This strategy didn't quite work as well as I had hoped.

On the first climb I kept getting past by racers, which I fully expected since I figured a lot of people would hit the first climb to fast. I was thinking to myself "let them go. They'll implode on the 2nd or final climb and I'll pass them there." It was really hard to hold back at the beggining, but I knew I still has a long day in front of me. I made it to the top of the first major climb and still felt pretty good. The great thing about long climbs is that they usually translate into long down hills. Unfortunately the downhills for this race where steep switchbacks that required a fair amount of breaking. I was actually able to pass quite a few people during these downhills. Many of them came right back past me during the next climb. I hadn't hit half way yet and I was looking to take it easy the first half and have a negative split. By the time I hit the half way mark I was at about 1 hour 40 minutes. WIth a negative split (i.e. faster second half than first half) I should finish the bike just over 3 hours. For the first half of the race I was also trying to eat and drink a lot, but my stomache started to feel bloated and I just couldn't keep eating. I knew I would need the energy so I force feed myself half of a PB&J that I had brought to have some realy food, a banana and 2 gels during the second half of the ride, also consuming a lot of fluids. However, I keept feeling like I was really full and wanted to purge a few things....... luckily that didn't happen.

By half way up the second climb, while still being passed by small packs of riders (who I think were drafting off each other) I kept thinking to myself that there was no way these guys, and the ocassional gal, could keep climbing like that. Boy was I wrong. I ended up feeling like I was being passed the entire bike, and in fact some 150 people in total did pass me on the bike leg (which was easy to figure out by my overall race position after the bike because I only passed a handful of people that I can remenber, including a couple with flat tires). By the final climb, where I had planned to make my move, I just couldn't force my legs into another gear as I'm usually accustomed to and I was stuck in what felt like slow motion. However, I did slowly make some time on a few people in front of me and I kept a steady pace up the entire last climb. I made it over the final climb and it was a nice down hil back to the transition area.



The weather during the bike was actually a bit overcast, so the temperature was perfect for the race. (The picture is from my first visit to Monaco)However, because of the clouds the view wasn't quite as nice as it had been during my previous trip down to Monaco to preview the course. As I crested the last hill and started the long decent back to T2 the view of the Mediterranian and Monaco far below was great. Not only because of the blue waters and coast line, but also because I knew it meant the end of the second and longest part of the race. I had a minimal amount of cramping during the bike, but I could tell my legs were very fatigued. Official bike time 3:30:52. Total elevation gained = 1300+ Meters

T2 - My second transition was a bit long as I decided to change my shorts for more cofort during the half marthon run, which I was very glad I did. I also did start to cramp and figured that a slow transition would let my legs rest a bit before I started out on the run. T2 time 6:07

RUN - The run was split into almost 4 and 3/4 loops, starting at the beach, heading under the famous Formula 1 Tunnel, along the dock (with massive yahts resting in their births), up the hill past the Monaco Casino, and then back down to the beach. The finish line was in front of the Casino and after my first loop, I got to watch people running through the finish line during each lap as I continued on......that was realy fun ;) They also handed out different colored wrist bands after each loop and to get the right band you had to go through 1 of 4 gate ways that were side by side. So a few times, I was catching up to someone and feeling good about that only to notice that they were heading into the 4th and final gate way while I was heading into the 1st or 2nd..... another great motivator ;) In fact it was kind of fun, in a weird I need a destraction kind of way, to see how many wrist bands people had as I passed them or as they passed me. Actually, I was very impressed with the number of people I saw who were running at very good paces and flying by me like I was walking backwards, and they had more wrist bands than I did. The most impressive of these for me where the 50 somethings (or at least that was my guess) who seemed like the were just running a 10K race.

Along the loops there were 3 feed stations and pretty quickly I decided that I would be walking through each feed station so that I could get a good drink of "energy", which is what they called the Power Bar drink, and water before running to the next feed station. I decided to walk the feed stations not only because I could more effeciently get fluids down, but also because that was about the distance I could run effectively before the cramps in my legs almost forced me to stop. And I actually passed a good number of folks during the run even with my run/walk strategy. One of the best things about the feed stations were the ice cold sponges that they handed out!! What a great way to cool off and head to the next station. As the loops passed on, my walks throught the feed stations began a little bit earlier and ended just a little bit later.... ;) At this point I wanted to run well when I was running and finish "strongly" by running from the last feed station, up the entire hill to the finish line and through the finish line without walking.....which I did! Official Run time 2:04:22



Total Official Race Time = 6 hours 14 minutes!!

Post race, I basically had to do the same travel as listed at the beggining, only in reverse. A few hours of resting and eating, than train from Monaco to Nice, walk to B.W., pack bike in Bike Box, walk back to train station, but to Airport, flight to Paris, Metro home, and then arrival at my apartment where I was greated by my cousins who had also just arrived!! What a great weekend!!

Afterthoughts: Somewhere between the end of the bike and beginning of the run I definetely had changed mind frames from competition mode to conservation and finishing mode. Looking back on this it was very humbling for me and hard not to feel like I was not giving my all by not pushing myself harder somewhere along the bike or run. However, it gives me a baseline and something to work on....... and I do feel very good about finshing what I hope will be the first of many of these long distance races. In fact, I already signed up for the Paris Marthon which will be in April of 2007!!



Thanks again to you all for your support and I hope you are all doing well.