Taking on the world: Kona

In this three part series, 4F+ athletes tell the story of their recent World Championship experiences - the preparation, the race, and what they learned.

Ironman World Championships - Kate Boulton

For the pure cyclists among us, there are cycling events that you can do that encourage you to do a warmup in the water before you get on the bike and a little jog to cool down after the race has finished, and the Ironman World Championships is one such race. It happens in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and this year was the first year that the race was females only (the men had their turn in Nice, France the previous month).

You need to do a qualifying race in order to be on the start line and I went to Cairns for the qualifying race, which was four months before Kona. Unfortunately, I came back from Cairns with an injured shoulder, which, believe it or not, prevented me from riding my bike comfortably as I couldn’t rest my hands on the handlebars and I certainly couldn’t get onto the aerobars. This meant that my prep for my first ever world championships was going to be sub-optimal. I tried to make it work, but as the weeks got closer, I had to accept that things were the way they were, and I had to work with what I had to get through. Knowing this actually kind of takes the pressure off a bit because I knew it wasn’t going to be my finest performance and I turned up on the start line relaxed and looking forward to the experience, if not the results.

The race starts with a little swim to get you warmed up; 3.8km in the warm, tropical Hawaiian waters, with corals and tropical fish to distract me from the fact that I only had one usable arm before getting onto the bike. The bike course is famous for the trifecta of heat, humidity and wind, plus it is hilly, just to make things interesting. The ride is 180km and the first 80km went by fairly unremarkably. Aid stations were 20km apart and I was taking two water bottles at each station, one to throw over myself to keep cool and the other to drink. At 80km, the road turns to go uphill and then you are heading into a screaming headwind for 15km. In triathlon, you are not allowed to draft so there is no protection from the wind. It doesn’t discriminate and puts everyone equally in the same hot, windy hell!!

I am quite fond of downhills and was watching the other side of the road, looking forward to coming back. We got to the turnaround point and that was the best part of the race! I had seen the state of the road surface and it was sh!t, so I secured all my things and off I went. Downhill with the wind behind me was fun! I reckon I overtook 200 people who were nervously on the brakes, sh!tting themselves with the windy descent. This again was quite hard on my shoulder as I had to press down on the aerobars quite firmly due to the crosswinds and didn’t want to come up and lose momentum. Unfortunately all good downhills must come to an end and it was back to the undulations to head back into town.

The last 50km was hot and all with the famous Kona crosswinds. It was quite funny to see someone move from one side of the road to the other, seemingly randomly, then a second later, you also moved sideways over the road. Again, bad shoulders don’t like to have the handlebars jerked around so I had to ride quite loosely and go with the flow, which was probably a good thing in conditions like that. I got off the bike in 6 hours, 7 minutes but in order to get into the recovery area for my ice-cream, had to do a little jog to get there so I put my running shoes on and off I went.

The jog is 42.2km, which was quite far to go for an ice-cream but you do what you gotta do, right? They make you run through town first so everyone can see what an amazing cyclist you are, then it’s out into the lava fields. Poor planners do this part of the run in the heat of the day but if you time things right, you will get out there as the sun goes down, which helps with the heat that is relentlessly reflecting back at you from all the bare, shiny, black rocks. Quite a few people choose this option and given there are no street lights, you need a headlamp as it is pitch dark out there, so what you see is little lights bobbing along, with far off music from the turnaround point. I was having so much *fun* by this point, I just wanted to make it go on and on and on and on…. I made sure I wasn’t sprinting so I’d get my money’s worth from the entry fee and spend as long as possible on the course...

So there I was, strolling along a beautiful Hawaiian island, watching the orange sun, blazing like a fireball, dropping down into the sapphire blue ocean, casting shadows over the black, basalt rocks. It was a beautiful night, with a warm, tropical breeze and the prospect of an ice-cream at some point in the future. This may have been delirium but at least it was enjoyable!! They put an uphill section at the 39km mark, which I think is to make sure your glutes don’t get too weak, which is really nice of the course organizers... From there, it’s downhill, and back around town. For the sake of pride, I had to run those last 2.5km, pretending to be a real runner. This took quite a lot of effort and I was quite emotional by the time I hit the 500meter long finishing chute. People were cheering, hands were coming out for high fives, lights and music were blaring. AC/DC was playing when I hit the red carpet and I stopped and had a quick dance with an Italian lady who was celebrating her race, then up the ramp, across the finish line, and straight to the ice-cream!

This was not the easiest race I’ve ever done but definitely the most satisfying. I didn’t achieve the outcome I had planned in my head as I had to adjust my plan and goals on the fly as things got increasingly tough. Just finishing was one of the most amazing experiences and worth every minute of the time and effort it took to be able to achieve that.

Take away lessons:

1. Swimming is only good as a warmup if you get out of the water when everyone else does. If you take too long, you’re at a definite disadvantage and I don’t recommend it…

2. Super-strong, Zwift-built legs are useless if you can’t use them, or are too scared to, on a mobile bike.

3. Train for the conditions. If there’s a chance it’s going to be windy, head out for training rides in the wind and learn how your bike handles, learn how you are going to get your food and drink and learn strategies for mentally dealing with less than favourable conditions.

4. Forty-two kilometres is too far to run for an ice-cream. No ice-cream is that good. Don’t do it.