Berry Schipper is in april j.l. bij Lars Karmelk komen trainen met als doel zo goed mogelijk finishen in de Holland triathlon van Almere. Vanwege de vele engelstaligen in zijn netwerk (hij woont in Cambodja) heeft hij het verslag in het Engels geschreven.
Vanwege de lengte van het verslag heb ik het in 3 delen opgeknipt.
Deel 3:
Raceday (samenvatting)
The day before I was nervous, very nervous. I wasn’t doubting if I could make it or anything, but just pre-race nerves. I must have checked my gear 20 times (and still forgot to pack extra –dry- socks for the run) and I spent a lot of time on the toilet that day.
But on race day itself, I was calm. I knew I had trained hard and structured and I knew this would pay off. “Just another day doing some sport” (in Dutch: Gewoon een dagje sporten) said Lars and told me to let go of the goals I set myself time wise. Which of course I couldn’t; I’m a number-nerd. But his attitude towards the day did help me though: take it easy, you’ve been in the water, on the bike and running before; nothing new.
It was only six weeks ago when I didn’t dare taking on a bet by the before mentioned Berndt of finishing within 13 hours, but now my goal for the day was 12hrs30. For this to happen, and for that matter for me to reach my initial goal: finishing at all, I had to preserve energy during the swim and the bike. A triathlon doesn’t really start until the last 20km of the run.
318 Male and female athletes were at the start and I’m guessing not one of them was over 100kg; in a not-all-that-mature way that made me proud: I might not have the seize for this shit, but I’m here anyway.
As mentioned before I wasn’t going to push it hard during the swim, anywhere between 1hrs05 and 1:10 would do. In Singapore I was standing in the front row, but in Almere I settled for 7th-8th row. I did however stand in the middle and not on the wussy outsides; I like the mess at mass starts in the water, gives me a shot of adrenaline. Where you read that athletes blame their DNFs (Did Not Finish) on a kick on their goggles, it works the other way around for me: bring it on.
The swim itself was like a Dutch guy on new year’s eve: try to find free bubbles. You’re looking for (air bubbles coming from) feet and you swim behind those feet. Same speed, less effort.
Got out of the water in 1:05, all fresh and was happy with that split time. Nothing more than a glorified warm up I said to myself.
It was a long walk/run/dribble to the transition area, a long walk through the mud to my bike and another long walk to where we were allowed to get on our bikes. It had been raining huge amounts in the previous two days, but the weather forecast for this day was okay: maybe some light thunder storms at the very end of the day on the west coast of The Netherlands. Yeah right…
Going into the second (of 3 times 60km) lap all hell broke loose. A thunder storm with Cambodian-like rain combined with a chilling 16-17 degrees was nasty. But I guess all that training in challenging weather made me a bit of a tough SOB. During the first round a good deal of people passed me (Every time when someone went flying by I said to myself –hopefully not too loud- “wow, you must be a lousy swimmer”) and I had only passed 1 guy who funnily was named Berndt by the way. But during this storm and during the 2 hard and very chilly rain showers that would follow later on, I started overtaking people. This was a nice boost of confidence and Bruce Springsteen sang in my head: “Honey I aaammmm tougher than the rest.”
I had slowed down a bit at the end of the first round, I was aiming for a negative split, where the second part of your race is faster than your first part and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to blow myself up on the bike. So the 31.7km/hr average went down to 31.2 and I think that was a smart thing to do. Jan-Bert gave me my gel, water and energy drinks and that went smoothly. I didn’t need any at the end of the 2nd round, so the poor guy had been waiting for nearly 2 hours in the coaching area for nothing. But it’s essential to have someone there, to know he’ll give you stuff you need; there’s enough to worry about once you’re on your bike.
The third round brought two surprises. The first one I could have done without. It was another frantic rain shower and this flooded a short little road leading down the dike into a sharp corner. I couldn’t break, I couldn’t correct my path; I was going straight into the fields. Once I hit the dirt I was able to break and luckily didn’t fall off or damage my bike. These adrenaline shots are not the ones I was hoping for; I got a bit scared. I was still at 31km/hr by then, but now I slowed down at every corner even more than usual (I should work on that.) I ended up with an avg speed of 30.6-30.7km/hr; good enough. 5hrs52 was a split I was happy with.
My transition from the bike to the run was a bit faster (and shorter) and I felt my legs were good. The first part was a path next to the dike and Dinus was running beside me on the dike. Great for motivation, but I think I ran just a bit too fast the first 2 km. I slowed down a bit and was still within d2.
Beforehand I had made a running schedule of 18 minutes running followed by 2 minutes walking both in d1 and d2. Lars told me there isn’t any d1 in the run (also it ain’t smart to run or bike in d3) and it turned out he was right. But I kept the 18-2 schedule –in d2- and was able to do so during the whole run. I was en route to a sub 5hrs marathon during the first part of the run, but the expected pain came at km 17-18 and it came fast and hard. I could keep my 18-2 and even though my heart rate went down to 115-118 at times, I just couldn’t squeeze out enough speed. Whatever articles I have read about pain coming from your mind and comparing these signals to the fuel light going on in your car while having enough gas for another 50km, I tried and I tried, but slowly the lights went out over Broadway. I had followed Lars’ food and drink plan to the letter during the day. But taking into consideration the rain and the cold, that might have been a bit much, resulting in me peeing 4 times during the bike ride and two times during the first round of (3 times) 14km running. It did however contribute to me not cramping up. I was in a decent amount of pain and I was stiffening up, but thank goodness no cramps. Also my stomach got fed up with the gels and the sports drink and shut down: “No more, buddy. I’m done with this junk.”
My friend MaX supplied me with gels during the run, but at times I wished he would just sod off with those –by then- disgusting things. I think I drank about 3.5-4 liters energy drink and 5-5.5 liters of water to wash away the 18-20 gels I consumed that day.
During that second part of the run I felt the energy fading away and I remembered this was what multiple IM finisher and insane distance biker Matt Warner-Smith had written to me: “The 1st 10km find your rhythm, the 2nd 10km stick to the rhythm and pay attention to your form, the last part just toughen it out.” There was no more technique, no more Chi-running, no more breathing pattern. Keeping up the 18-2 was all I could do. I forced down a few more gels. Burped, spit and gagged them away and I was truly at the outer limits of what my body could take. My dad broke the rules and could have gotten me disqualified by biking on the run course next to me on the last part before running those ugly last 5km on the dike towards the finish, but I was too far gone to say anything about that. I was in a zone and it wasn’t a pretty one.
I was wearing a shirt that read ‘After today there will be tomorrow’, this is the text my mum ‘uses’ to help her to get through chemo and beside honoring her true battle I guess it couldn’t hurt stealing a bit of her toughness.
Guess that helped. I never once got that voice inside my head that told me to give up, I wouldn’t let it
Looking at my watch I could still do the math about my end-time and saw that 12hrs30 was still in reach. Until the first round of running I was even on schedule for sub 12 hours, but that one was out the window already. I decided to push it just a bit more and thought I found my running rhythm again: “Strong, strong, strong as a bear”, a nice and fluent mantra that is exactly my running pace. As you can see on a little film put on Facebook by my friend Jean Pierre, there is no such rhythm going on in my run at that time; there was in my head for sure, but the facts show the rhythm a 3-legged pregnant hippo.
But there, after 3.8km of swimming, 180 freezing km biking and a 42km marathon I crossed the line. There was an uncontrollable series of screams/Yeahs, and I was an Iron Man.
14 friends and family were there to witness it and after I went to them and sat down something hit me hard; I was very emotional and felt I was going to cry, but physically couldn’t. I had pushed my limit and it was like my body was shutting down. I was taken to the medical tent, but after a few minutes I was feeling much better again. And I could start celebrating this ‘thing’ I did.
I guess I’m known as someone who starts more than he finishes, who talks more than he achieves and I guess that is right. I also guess that changes don’t come overnight and I for one believe that the best way to initiate changes is to face your shortcomings head on.
So I set a target, worked towards it and finished it.
I am an Iron Man.
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