I did it!!!
9 months of hard work paid off. I am so glad it's finally over and can't wait to keep pushing myself over the edge again :). But let's review the race step by step again so that you can get an idea about how crazy this whole event is.
In fact I'll start with a quick recap of the days leading up to the race. We arrived on Wednesday in Nice and I felt like kissing the ground when I finally parked my car in a public garage since the people are driving absolutely crazy. Every little space is used to squeeze your car in and shorten your driving by a few seconds. People drive their motorcycles on sidewalks, honk when slaloming between cars in order to let you know they are coming so you should better get out of the way. Pedestrians ignoring all kinds of traffic signalization and everyone being completely fine with it. It's just crazy.
Once we arrived there we did a nice walk around Nice and watched workers making everything ready for the race. The transition area is being erected, the Ironman village is taking shape and people running and cycling in the evening when the temperature gets a little more bearable. I checked out the beach I was going to swim in and wasn't really pleased with the waves constantly bashing the shore but there were still a few more days to the race so there was plenty of time for the sea to calm down.
The next day 4 of my friends arrived (Hrvoje, Ana, Ivana and Kristina (also known as Kim K;)) and I was officially in vacation mode :)
We traveled to Cannes and roamed around Nice on Thursday and Friday and in general had a good time. I managed to squeeze in a few trainings in the morning while the temperature wasn't high and felt confident that everything will go well on the race.
I printed out the bike course at home and studied it in bed for a few nights while making plans on how I'll ride each section. I tried to memorize each and every ascend and descend as well as the course in general.
On Saturday I made my one more training and ended up fixing my race strategy. I planed on swimming for 1 hour and 15 minutes, ride the bike for 6 hours and 30 minutes and finish the marathon in 4 hours.
I knew I was able to achieve this times and with transitions counted in I was confident I could finish the race in less than 12 hours.
Once this was done I was ready to pack my bags and check in all my stuff for the race. Once I arrived there one of the referees inspecting my bike pointed to an unplugged bar end (the end of the handlebar usually has a cap which prevents accidental injuries if you happen to land on it, and this stupid piece of plastic just fell off) and told me he can't let me through if I don't fix it. I send a message to my wife and she brought me some bar tape which I used to plug the whole. The ref wasn't really satisfied with it but let me through.
I went to my spot racked my bike, left my bags to a volunteer and was officially ready for the race :)
I woke up at 4 am (I had set up 6 alerts each 1 minute apart just in case :D) and had my usual breakfast when going for longer rides - scrambled eggs. "Do you need some help?" asked my wife Andrea still half asleep. She was more than happy when I said I can handle it all on my own :).
After that I spent some more time just sitting around and helping Andrea stay awake. At around 4.30 it was time to leave the apartment and go to the beach. Once there I put on my bottles on the bike checked if everything was still OK and then started putting on the wetsuit. Since I swam a few times in the wetsuit I got used to putting it on without much problem. I gave everything I didn't need to Andrea and said goodbye to her. I went down a ramp from the transition area to the beach where the swim start will be in less then 30 minutes so it was time to warm up. I jumped into the water and first checked if the range of motion in my arms (shoulders) was fine. Everything was looking good so I started swimming back and forth something like 50-ish meters out and back to the beach. I exited the water a few times and did some stretching, then got back into the water for a few minutes and I repeated this for some 20 minutes when we had to leave the water and get to our starting places.
They segmented the beach based on times people thought they'll finish the swim so I found my place in the crowd and just tried to stay relaxed. It was working remarkably well. I didn't feel strange, no butterflies in my stomach, no elevated heart rate, nothing. Except for some sweating but I thought this to be due to the wetsuit I was wearing.
I was just in the zone.
At 6.25 the Pros started and we were only minutes away from the start.
6.30!!!
A insane wave of people rushed into the water and I was in the middle of it all!!! I was just looking around and thinking: "This is amazing!". I started swimming and was really good on my way when after 200 meters or so people started going over me from every direction. I was swimming into the legs of people in front of me, people swam over me from left and right and I could feel all the legs and arms hitting me from every side.
No one is hitting you on purpose, it's just that so many people try to get into a limited amount of space and this kind of things just become inevitable. That's the moment when I felt panic creeping in. I couldn't breath. I couldn't move a muscle. I was just there floating and trying to get out of the way of all the people coming from behind.
Luckily I practiced this kind of things as well while training. I tried to think of anything that can go wrong and try to find the best solution. The solution here was just to resort to a breast stroke swim and start calming myself down. Breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. I did this for a minute I guess and once I felt I was OK again I started to swim normally again but in an attempt to prevent the next panic attack I started counting my strokes. Every time the right arm was out of the water I added one more to the total. When I reached 300 or something like that I was back in my regular pace and ready to finally start the race.
I have been practicing sighting or navigating through open water a lot but one thing I couldn't practice was handling the waves. As I got out into open water the waves started to pick up again and were something around 0.5 to 1 meter high which made finding the buoys and swimming towards them difficult. The fact that there were people who were 10 times worse than me in this didn't help much. I had to swim around some people, I followed a guy who lost course and in general did a poor job in finding the shortest path.
Once I reached the first exit after 2.4 km and I went back into the water I was a little disappointed that I lost so much ground but I still had 1.4 km to swim so I had to focus on that. The second loop when smooth and after I reached the exit I was more than happy that this part of the race is behind me.
I looked at the clock and realized it took me 1:23:43 to finish it which was 8 minutes slower than I hoped but if I take into account that I swam some 300+ more meters because of my inability to swim straight and lost a few minutes to the panic attack, I can generally be very satisfied with the result.
While climbing the ramp I tried to find my friends and get a some encouragement from them and once I switched to my cycling gear and ran to the bike I could hear them scream. Oh boy did that feel good :)
"You are slow, Ivan", said Alan who together with his girlfriend Glorjana arrived on Saturday as part of their small southern France tour. I replied in a similar fashion and picked up my bike. I ran to the exit, mounted my bike and passed my fans one more time.
The plan was to get the bike part done in 6:30 so I was in for a loooong ride. I knew that the bike part will be the one I am most comfortable in and since I "lost" 8 minutes in the water I had to do some catching up.
Right of the bat I started passing one after another and within a few minutes I passed the airport and headed for the hills which from far away looked a little terrifying but I knew that all the hard work I put in the hills will pay off. To give you a better perspective here is how the bike course looked like.
It's quite flat for the first 25 km and then catches you with a 12% climb which is 500 meters or so long. This was the time I got my first taste of what it's like to ride in an Ironman. People standing next to the road cheered and clapped and everyone was in a fantastic mood. There were kids waving in your direction, drummers and all kinds of other crazy things which just keeps you going forward.
After the first steep incline it was all uphill for another 25 km but it turned out to be easier then I first thought so instead of going the planed 20-22 km/h I was riding something like 25 km/h. It's not that much of a difference but on 25 km it equals to around 12minutes. Not bad at all.
After that we had a small "intermezzo" of 5 km downhill until the true test in this course. The almost 18 km pure uphill segment of the road. At that point I was in very good shape. I picked up some bottles in the aid stations. Got some gels and energy bars and was all fired up to tackle this beauty. I kept passing a lot of people (more than were passing me) and after some time reached the peak. It was one of the most beautiful climbs I have ever experienced. The nature is breath taking and I was constantly looking around and enjoying every moment (at least as much as I could).
Once at the highest point in the race I passed the special needs stations where people picked up their bags with nutrition they left the day before. One guy took out a nice sandwich, sat down and enjoyed it for a few minutes. Another guy took out a chocolate brownie which smelled so nice that it broke my heart when I saw him drop it on the ground.
I knew I had some 5 more km to the next aid station so I tried to pick up the speed since it was now going slightly downhill. With 100 km to go I suddenly felt like I couldn't ride anymore. Puzzled for a minute or two I tried to figure out what was going on and then realized I haven't taken a salt tablet for more then an hour. Since I was sweating so much I lost a lot of electrolytes which needed to be replaces. Luckily I experienced this before in training so I bought some salt tablets which I planed to take 1 or 2 every 30 minutes.
I took 2 of them at once, sipped a little juice and after a few minutes I felt my strength come back. Thank God for making mistakes in training!
Once back at full speed I started pacing again like crazy since I knew that after a small uphill which shouldn't take me more then 15 minutes to cover it was all downhill till the end.
Oh boy have I been wrong. If you look at the map you can see the segment from km 110 to 125 which looks like some cat ears. After this point it's basically all downhill. The only problem was I was still in the km 70 to 90. After the downhill from 90 to 100 I started climbing again and since it took more then I expected I started to think that there must have been something wrong with the map provided to us. So instead of going the planed 15-17 km/h I settled for an easier 12 km/h until I figure out what the problem was. I didn't want to burn out since there were still more the 70 km to ride and I clearly had no idea where I was.
After finally reaching the downhill part I started to pick up the speed and really enjoyed the long descends where I focused on not crashing since I was riding 55+ km/h.
Once I finished the long loop and started my last 20 km back I started picking up the speed again and overtook one group after another. It felt so good to overtake so many people at the end and break away of some guys and girls who tried to draft behind me (despite it being illegal). I was just in my element and I knew that every minute won on the bike will be huge on the run.
I finished in 6:22:03 or 8 minutes faster than planed which meant I was back on target when it comes to my finishing time. One thing I will forever remember are the awesome people along the road who just push you forward with their smiles and kind words.
Once I arrived at the transition area I was welcomed by my awesome fans and within minutes I was up and away to tackle the hardest part of the race - the marathon.
I have never ran a marathon before (30 km was the longest I ran in training) so I guess it was the perfect stage to break some personal records.
The run course was 4 loops of 10.5 km (5 km in each direction)
I started running and was amazed by how fresh my legs felt. I ran a 4:44 min/km pace for the first few minutes but since I knew that this was impossible to hold during the race I started slowing down to my desired 5:15-5:20 min/km pace. I knew that it would probably drop a little more later in the race so I tried to keep my form for as long as I could. After 27 minutes I reached the half way point of the first lap and thought that this was pretty good.
If I could keep up a similar pace I was clearly going under 4 hours which was my main goal. After 7 or 8 km into the run my stomach started to feel strange. I went to the toilet the worst thing I could think of happened.
Knock, knock. Who's there? Diarrhea!
Crap! (pun intended)
I tried to get it over with as quick as possible and after 3 minutes I was out just in time for an Italian dude to get in after me.
May God have mercy with his soul.
Anyway, I started running again and felt quite good.
Once back at the start I could see my fans cheering and I was still in a good mood and joked about how I had to go to the toilet and lost some time. "See you in 55 minutes" was what I told them as I passed and I was in my second lap not knowing that things will take a turn for the worse in the coming minutes.
After every lap you pick up a band which indicates that you have finished a lap. After the first lap you get a green band. After the second you get a red one. And finally after the third lap you get a blue band. Once you collect them you do your last 10.5 km and you are done.
While I was wearing my first (green) band and moving towards the half way point of my second lap I started feeling very bad. My stomach started hurting like crazy but the only thing I could do was to keep running and hope for the best. After I finished my second lap I told my friends that things aren't looking good anymore and that the last 2 laps are going to be a little tricky to put it mildly.
My pace started falling with every kilometer and to make matters worse I started seeing people with the third band going back to the finish line. You can't imagine how much I hated them at this moment :D
I started running really slow, walked through the aid stations and generally felt really bad. That was the time when the Ironman magic starts happening. Your race number has also your name on it. People along the road see your name and start cheering you on with "Allez Ivan", "Come on Ivan, you can do it" and many other ways. Just hearing your name and knowing that these people are making an effort to read it and focus on you for a few seconds is something that keeps you going until you drop.
And that was precisely what was happening. Every time I passed the medical tents I could see more and more people inside, completely exhausted and just trying to stay conscious.
For me there were only two options. Finish the race or end up in the tent. I wasn't going to quit so close to the finish line.
The image below illustrates perfectly how I felt during the run.
But all bad must come to an end and with my last (blue) band around my wrist and doing the last turn 5 km away from the finish line I realized I would finish in over 5 hours if I kept the pace of my previous 1 and a half laps. So I started running again like crazy. I just couldn't stand the fact that I would miss my target by more than an hour.
My chest hurt like crazy, my legs were crying for mercy but I just didn't want to stop. Another guy thought the same thing so we run together for quite a while until I dropped him some 500 meters before the finish line.
It was pretty strange when I passed the 40 km mark. I knew there were only 2 more km to go and all would be over. 9 months of hard work would be over in just about 13 minutes or so.
I started thinking about every good thing that happened to me during this time. The amount of things I learned, things I tried out, everything was going to be over in just a few minutes.
People saw that I had all 3 bands and knew that I was close to finishing the race so they were even more encouraging than before. "Way to go Ivan, you are doing great!" said a random guy. "Yeah, I am getting my ass kicked big time" was my response which made us all laugh and once I was on my last 50 meters I could see my friends in the stands cheering one last time for me.
It's funny how the people I neglected the most, my family, friends and especially my wife Andrea, were the people who were there for me the most. They basically carried me the last 20 or so kilometers and I just can't express how happy I am to have them all.
I ran up to them, gave Andrea a kiss, picked up a Croatian flag and ran towards the finish line. I don't really remember the last 20-ish meters. I don't remember much after crossing the line but the fact that I had a medal around my neck and one of the volunteers telling me that I am an Ironman.
After 4:50:13 of running it was all over and I was more than happy that it's over.
Once I got my medal and a bottle of water I left the finish line and walked to the exit to pick up my street ware bag. I engraved my medal and picked up the rest of my stuff.
While limping to the transition area to pick up my bike and run bags a volunteer was already waiting with my bags ready. I thanked her, she congratulated me and after picking up my bike I just wanted to get to my wife and friends.
The traditional biting-the-medal-picture was taken and we went to the beach to celebrate.
I jumped into the sea again and just felt amazing that it was all over. It took me a while to get out of the water where we popped a bottle of the finest €2.50 "champagne" and I have to admit it tasted like pure gold. It wasn't the best thing for my stomach but what the hell. I can now throw up as much as I want (which I did when we came back to the apartment but who gives a shit :D )
It was one of the most painful and most rewarding experiences in my life. There aren't many things that I will be more proud of than this but more than that I am happy I could share this feeling with so many people there as well as along the way.
I can only say thank you to everyone who was watching my results live that day, everyone who was listening to my stories for the last 9 months, everyone pretending to be interested in what I was doing, everyone who was genuinely interested in what I was doing, my family and friends who travelled 930 km to France, the ones who threw a surprise party at 11 pm when we came home and once again my wife who had to live with (or in fact without) me and endure my constant talking about triathlon, ironman, and many more boring things I now can't remember.
I'll try everything I can to return all the kindness to all of you :)
The last question I have to answer and it's one I get asked a lot is "What now?".
I'll still continue doing triathlon since I have fallen in love with that sport and I'll continue competing in Ironman races (have to clear that with Andrea of course ;) )
I have in fact registered myself for the Ironman 70.3 (half ironman distance) in Pula in 2 months so there will be still some training but not in the amount like the last 9 months.
I'll continue improving each segment and hope that in 4-5 years I'll be able to finish an Ironman in less then 10 hours (9:59:59 is the ultimate goal). I'll do more strength training, more stretching and try to prepare each training sessions as good as possible to get the best out of it. I don't think I'll hire a coach any time soon since I don't want to feel the responsibility towards someone else other then myself but you never know.
Through out this journey I have learned to overcome so many things and I can only urge everyone to try it out. It doesn't have to be an Ironman but I am sure that anyone who starts triathlon will fall in love with it in a heartbeat.
There are so many more things I didn't cover since this post would be to long (in fact I have crossed that line quite a while ago) so if you have any questions let me know and I'll be more than happy to answer them :)
Until my next victories, don't forget to be awesome :)
