Ironman Austria in Spirit

Sometimes when people have asked me how I manage to get through Ironman races, either 70.3 or in the past one of the eighteen long distance races that I have competed in, I think that it is as much a mental thing as much as anything else. There have often been times when I have been racing at Olympic distance when I have found it really hard and have asked myself why I had found a shorter race as hard as a longer one. The answer that I have come up with is, that I think you just set yourself up for the job in hand and get on with it.

When you have been racing for a few years, I tend to think that you can pull anything out of the bag when you have to. All the time you are keeping up a sound training schedule, I am sure that’s true. Of course I am not and have never been an elite triathlete; they are another breed like an expensive violin rather than one you bought on Amazon as a beginner.

The reason I am thinking this over again is that today according to my diary would have been Ironman Austria in Klagenfurt today. That is a great race and I would recommend it do any triathlete looking to try a longer race after a couple of years at standard distance. The swim is in the most beautiful crystal clear clean waters of the Wörtersee in Kärnten. We have taken many a holiday there for that race over the years. I have lost count of how many times Steve has done that race and I have competed there a good few times myself, in fact a got one of my three Hawaii slots in that event.  

Today would have been the day for Ironman Austria this year had disaster not struck the world causing cancellations for events of all kinds far and wide. Our entire race programme was postponed until 2021 as was everybody else’s.

 

Steve and I have banged on with our training determined not to get depressed and jack the whole thing in. That would have been such a waste of so many years struggling to stay fit, strong and healthy and so this morning we launched ourselves on an endurance set to mark the day.

We took a day off training yesterday and giving the light healthy eating regime a rest, ate a well planned pre event menu. This morning, my computer pinged up a notice that it was Ironman Austria several times before I deleted it. We waited until a time when we would not disturb our neighbours then set about a series of 5 x 55 minute turbo sets. Then a quick break to answer the call of nature, grab something to eat and cup of something different to drink each time.

We watched five episodes of The West Wing that we have been re-watching during lockdown. I can honestly say that the last one was not any harder than the first and that my legs were spinning at the same rate all the way through the set and the same goes for Steve. The episodes are forty minutes long and we caught some news before we started each episode making sure each set was exactly the same.

It was good fun and we really enjoyed getting through it so well. Afterwards we jumped in the bath and after that, Steve stretched out on the sun bed in the garden whilst I prepared the last stage of a little embroidery project I have been working on and I am pleased with that too.