My Ironman race

When I started my blog, my intention was to make it an Arabic language blog. After a few posts, my daughter Mariam suggested that I write in English so that I can have more followers. It was never my intention to have as many followers as possible, but I definitely wanted my daughter and my son (Kariem) to be able to read my blog. So, I started to post an English translation each time I posted in Arabic. However, I’ve never gone back and translated the first posts in which I described my Ironman race. This is what I’m doing now.

When I woke up at 5 am on the 28^th of July 2012 I knew it was an important day for me. It wasn’t because it was my 50^th birthday, but because I was going to have the physically most challenging day in my life. It was the day I was going to make one of my athletic dreams come true, finishing my first Ironman race. Was I going to endure a 3.8 km swim and a 180 km bike ride, followed by a full marathon, i.e. 42.2 km?

I was in my 7^th year of living in Hungary, to where I was relocated by my company. So, the location I chose for my race was in the south of Hungary. We arrived at the starting point at about half past six in the morning. We were a group of colleagues and their relatives, several of whom had signed up to do a part of the race in a relay, except 3: Andras Dancso, Laszlo Barhacs and I. We signed up for the full race.

The starting point was the start and finish of the swim leg, and the swim-to-bike transition zone. At about 7am I had finished preparing my bike at the dedicated place. I put my helmet on the bike and my biking shoes next to it. I had 2 bottles of water on the bike as well as some Powerbars.

I thought if I should wear my Garmin watch during the swim or leave it on the bike, and I decided to reduce the risk of anything going wrong during the race and left the watch and the heart rate band on the bike. Rule number 1 in Triathlon is not to do anything during the race that you haven’t tested in training before. Finally, here I was standing at the lake in my tri suit which I was going to wear throughout the whole race, with my swim cap and goggles on. Am I really ready?

The water temperature reached 25 degrees Celsius. The race officials decided half an hour before the start not to allow wetsuits. I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad news. A wetsuit lets the body float high reducing the water resistance and allowing a faster swim. This effect is less helpful for good swimmers who have learned to keep their body high in the water, but I could have expected a bigger help myself. On the other hand, a wetsuit restricts the movement of the arms making it more difficult and tiring, especially if you haven’t trained enough in a wetsuit, and I haven’t done that. Five weeks before this race, I had done a sprint triathlon, in which the swim leg was only 500 meters, and since the lake was very cold I wore a wetsuit. I finished the swim part feeling very tired. Considering that experience, I think I was lucky the officials decided not to allow wetsuits.

During the last minutes of waiting, I was standing in the lake, the water up to my knees; “Conquest of Paradise” was being played which was increasing my anxiety by the second until the start gun went off.

The swim itself was not very exciting; 2 rounds, each 1.9 km long, exiting the water after the first round and entering immediately to complete the second round. I tried to stick to the feet of any swimmer in front of me to utilize the reduced water resistance. Saving effort in this way is allowed for the swim, but illegal when biking. The effect of drafting like this is significant. I completed the 3.8 km in1 hour and 25 minutes and I was relaxed and happy when I was on my way to the bike after exiting the water. My wife Iris was waiting for me at the water exit, cheering me and carrying a sign on which she wrote “Happy Birthday”.

My bike is a Cannondale Multisport 1000, an Aluminium bike I bought in 2001 when I lived in Cincinnati, Ohio. Every now and then I contemplate buying a new, light-weight Carbon bike, but then my objective, data-based thinking tells me that I’m carrying many opportunities to lose weight right in the middle of my body and these are much cheaper than the opportunity of reducing weight under my saddle. Anyway, none of these thoughts were actually on my mind when I arrived at my bike in the transition zone. I put my bike shoes on, then my Garmin watch and heart rate strap, my number belt, helmet, and glasses. I jumped n my bike and took off. I was on my way for a 180 km bike ride which could last take me something like 7 hours. The distance was split into 75 km followed by 3 rounds of 35 km each. I have read several Triathlon books and articles and I knew that one of the biggest mistakes newbies do is to start the bike leg faster than their real ability indicates, and they only notice this after a while when they start losing energy and when it’s too late to make any correction. I didn’t want this to happen to me, so I tried to control myself and prevent my pulse to rise above zone 2. I was not completely successful, but it was it wasn’t too bad. The temperature rose to 30 degrees Celsius. I made sure to stay hydrated all the time and to eat enough powerbars and gels. My wife Iris, my daughter Mariam, and my son Kariem were waiting for me at a place near the finish line at which I had to pass 3 times during the bike leg. Kariem was handing over nutrition and Magnesium to me every time I passed. When I passed the first time he was hurrying to give me everything I needed without losing time, but I welcomed the short break. I think he was surprised that I was taking it slowly. I don’t think I have told my family since that day that I was really thinking about them while riding my bike, blaming myself that they were standing under the burning sun for hours just waiting for me. I completed the 180 km in 6 hours and 45 minutes, and burned 3500 calories, according to my watch, after having probably burned 700 calories during the swim.

Now, I only had a marathon to run, 42.2 km. The last time I had run a full marathon was 10 years ago in Cincinnati. The longest distance I had run in my training building up to the race did not exceed 28 km. In the transition zone, I took off my helmet and bike shoes, put on my running shoes and a cap. 100 meters later, I stopped were my wife who rubbed sunscreen on my face, shoulders and legs; and Vaseline in my armpits. The nice thing about this race I did in Hungary is that the marathon is made of 11 rounds of 3.83 km each, which meant that material and moral help from friends and family is very well possible. Mariam took over handing the nutrition to me. The first time she handed a Magnesium bottle to me, she had removed the cap which I didn’t expect. I lost half of the bottle running until I noticed. In one of the other rounds, the magnesium bottle she gave me was closed, but empty. I don’t know how that happened. When I started the run, I was running at a pace I knew I couldn’t maintain till the end, but I felt good and didn’t think of running slower until I was totally exhausted and about to end the race without reaching the finish line. This happened about 2 hours and a quarter into the run. I felt my quads were about to cramp any second. It was not important to me how much time I needed to finish the race, but the one thing I certainly didn’t want to see behind my name on the results list is DNF (=Did Not Finish). I stopped running and started walking until I passed by my friend and colleague Laszlo Marta. Coach Laszlo’s part in in getting me to this point and then helping me to finish my Ironman race is probably bigger than my part. Laszlo gave me a salt tablet which helped me feel I could run again. He gave me another one in a later round, but then he ran out of tablets. After about 4 hours of running, the feeling that my quads were about to cramp came back and I started walking again, and until the finish line.

Kariem joined me in the last few meters to the finish line where I received the finisher medal. Iris and Mariam met me there too. It was great to have the three of them with me as one of my dreams came true.

Swim Video Analysis

I was traveling in the UK in the past 2 weeks and could not continue posting. However, on the weekend between the 2 weeks I returned home to Germany to join a 5-hour swim clinic I had signed up for. The clinic included classroom and practical swim lessons as well as video analysis of the participants' swim technique, which was the part I was most interested in.
So, what was the outcome?
I learned that my swim technique is not too bad (thanks to my friend Laszlo from Hungary). This was good news and bad news at the same time; bad news because it meant that the possibilities of correction and improvement were not easy. Nevertheless, my video analysis revealed 3 opportunity areas I need to focus on:
1) Breathing. After inhaling and turning my head into the water again, I don't start exhaling in the water soon enough. So, the next time I turn my head out of the water, I'm still finishing to exhale and waste some of the time I have available for inhaling.
2) The arm movement in the water can be split into 2 phases, pull and push. The pull starts by pointing the fingers down to the bottom of the pool and pulling the hand back. At this time, the elbow must be raised and kept high such that the lower arm is moving the water back as long as possible instead of pushing it down. Pushing the water down only results in raising the upper body and lowering the legs, hence exposing a bigger surface of the body to high water resistance. To practice raising the elbow, I need to close my hands to fists, such that the impact of the lower arm is emphasized as it is the only part that is moving the water back while the hand is closed. Another exercise is to swim with one arm for a pool length focusing on its movement alone and changing to the other arm on the return length.
3) As I mentioned, the second part of the arm movement is the push, which starts approximately when the hand is passing the breast and continues until the hand has reached as far as possible along the thigh. During this whole time, the hand should be kept perpendicular to the direction of the push. The mistake I do is that I finish the push and start returning my arm to the front too early. One exercise I could do to change this is to become aware of the reach of my hand by consciously letting my thumb touch my thigh at the end of the push.
The clinic was good and I advise everyone to join such clinic once and having a video analysis done, but don't expect to become a better swimmer immediately. Among the 3 sports in Triathlon, swimming is the one in which technique is most important and requires focus and continuous repetition until a feel for the water and efficiency are obtained.

التحليل بالفيديو

في الاسبوعين الماضيين كنت على سفر في إنجلترا بسبب العمل فلم استطع متابعة التدوين. لكنني عدت الى منزلي في عطلة نهاية الاسبوع بين هذين الاسبوعين لأشارك في كورس للسباحة مدته 5 ساعات ضم دروسا نظرية وتمارين مختلفة. كما ضم الكورس تحليلا بالفيديو لكيفية سباحة المشتركين، وهذا هو الجزء الذي أهمني والذي شاركت في هذا الكورس بسببه. فماذا كان الحاصل؟

 قيل لي أن تقنية سباحتي ليست سيئة بشكل عام (والشكر يعود لصديقي لاسلو في هنغاريا). وهذا خبر جيد من ناحية ولكنه أيضا سيء من ناحية أخرى لأنه يعني أن امكانيات التصحيح والتحسين ليست سهلة. ومع ذلك فهناك ثلاثة أشياء يجب أن أركز عليها حسب تحليل صوري:

1) التنفس: بعد أخذ نفس و إدخال رأسي إلى الماء فإنني لا أبدأ بالنفخ وإخراج الهواء إلا بعد مدة مما يؤدي إلى أنني ما أزال أخرج الهواء من رئتيني عند رفع رأسي لأخذ النفس التالي. وهكذا فإنني لا أستغل كل المدة التي أخرج بها رأسي من الماء لسحب النفس بل أضيع جزأ منها لإخراج الهواء.

2) حركة الذراع تقسم إلى جزئين، السحب والدفع. السحب يبدأ بتوجيه الأصابع إلى قاع المسبح ثم سحب اليد إلى الوراء، وحينئذ يجب رفع الكوع بحيث تكون حركة الذراع إلى الخلف لأطول مدة ممكنة بدلا من أن تكون إلى الأسفل. الحركة إلى الأسفل لا تؤدي إلا إلى رفع مقدمة الجسم وانخفاض الأرجل، مما يؤدي بدوره إلى إزدياد مقاومة الماء، فيما أن حركة الذراع إلى الخلف هي التي تدفع الجسم إلى الأمام.

وللتدريب على الحركة الصحيحة فإن إحدى التمرينات هي إغلاق قبضة اليد مما يجعلك تشعر بتأثير الذراع عند رفع الكوع، حيث أن الذراع هو الوحيد الذي يدفع الجسم دون تأثير اليد المغلقة.

وتمرين آخر هو السباحة بذراع واحد مما يساعد على التركيز على حركة هذا الذراع أولا ثم التغيير إلى الذراع الآخر.

3) كما ذكرت فإن الجزء الثاني من حركة الذراع في الماء هو الدفع الذي يبدأ بعد نهاية السحب عند الصدر تقريبا ويدوم إلى أن تصل اليد إلى الفخذ. في كل هذه المرحلة فإن سطح اليد يجب أن يكون دافعا للماء إلى الخلف، أي أن سطح سطح اليد على زاوية قائمة نسبة لإتجاه الدفع. والخطأ الذي ارتكبه أنا هو أنني لا أدفع إلى النهاية بل أبدأ بإخراج يدي من الماء مبكرا لإرجاع الذراع إلى الأمام. وأحدى التمرينات التي علي تكرارها هي التركيز على لمس فخذي بالإبهام عند نهاية الدفع.

الكورس كان جيدا ويمكنني بنصح كل واحد على الإشتراك بكورس كهذا وتحليل التقنية بالفيديو ولكن لا تتوقعوا أنكم ستعودون منه سباحين أحسن مباشرة. من بين رياضات الترياثلون الثلاثة فإن السباحة تحتاج إلى أكثر التركيز على التقنية و التكرار المتواصل للحركات إلى أن يتحسن الإحساس بالماء.