Ironman 70.3 Stoibermühle

Due to the Coronavirus Ironman Klagenfurt got cancelled. But I didn´t want that, to stop me from what I trained for two years, so I decided to do the Ironman as a race by myself. Six weeks before that date, I wanted to toe the start line at Challenge st. Pölten. That event got cancelled as well, so I decided to do it by my self as well.

Preparation

Usually, preparation is an easy thing to do. Just pack your stuff, go out an race. But now as an event organizer, I had to look for a route, organize all the logistics and so on. When I started planning, I immediately decided, that I´m going to do the same route two times in my Ironman. As I don´t want to do more than two loops each I started looking for a 90 km bike loop as well as a 21 km running loop. The first cycling loop I tried was way too busy and quite hilly, so I changed my plan and created a new one. I tried to find a fast and flat loop on which I don´t have to stop because of traffic lights. This is my result.
For running, I tried out a loop, which was cobble most of the time, sometimes grass and 3 km street. I wasn´t happy with the result, but I decided it wouldnßt be bad either, as it was beautiful to run there. Later a friend of mine pointed a small street out to me, which I could use for the race. Again on the second try, my route was way better.
Additionally, I had to do all the logistics, like where do I get which nutrition and who will give it to me. In the end, all worked out well and I´m happy how things went during the race.

Swimming

Cycling

I knew the cycling leg would be my best chance to make up the lost time, so I got into the Aerotuck and used the first ten kilometres with a strong tailwind to get an average of 42 km/h without even applying my goal power. Turning into the headwind, I got slower but still managed to hold on to 38,4 km/h average on the halfway point. My legs still felt amazing even though I held a higher power into the headwind than I wanted to average over the whole loop. After getting new nutrition after 46 kilometres I used the tailwind and my fresh legs to my advantage and was able to higher my average to 40,5 km/h. For the last ten kilometres, I had to turn back into the headwind again and a short but strong shower caught me. I desperately wanted to hold an average over 40 km/h so I put down the power, but my legs still felt great, so I didn´t have to worry, that I couldn´t run anymore afterwards.

Running

When I went out of transition, more than ten minutes earlier than expected, we knew that I had already nearly achieved my goal of a sub 4:30 finish. On the first few kilometres, my mood was great and I even had a little conversation with my brother, who supported me and kept me fuelled, during the run. The only thing, I was a little worried about, was my right shin, which felt crampy, but I knew that it loosens after a few kilometres, because I had experienced that in training before. When it loosened, I felt great and was able to go a little quicker until things got very tough on kilometre 14. I tried to sustain my pace, but quickly my mood changed, and I only tried to reach the next tree and the next tree and so on. On the last 5 kilometres, I desperately wanted to walk, but I didn´t want to disappoint the people around me, but way more importantly myself, so I somehow kept running and made it to the finish line in at time 4:16:45. On the run, I had a time of 1:28:20, 1 minute and 40 seconds quicker than I expected.

Conclusion

It couldn’t have been a better experience. I left everything on the course I had and got a great time as a result. Additionally, I learned a lot for the Ironman, which I´m really looking forward to!