European 70.3 championships - Tim Savage Race Report
Sunday 14th of august saw me doing the ironman 70.3 european championships in wiesbaden, germany, near frankfurt
I seem to have a habit of finding hilly half ironmans after wimbleball and bala and this was no exception with just short of 1500 metres of climbing pretyy much the same on a mile for mile bais as the 100 mile version of the big g which i did 2 weeks ago.
The race had some unusual features, a split transition with t1 and t2 being separated by about 30 miles (yes 30!) the swim was a beach start so you ran in and also had to get out after 3 quarters of the race distance to cross over a large pipe ! the bike was hilly as mentioned with long drags and the run was a 4 lap affair around the centre of the city, a feature of the race was the huge levels of support you got all the way around which definitely helped.
Race morning dawned warm and humid the swim start was in age group order and as usual i had the biggest group, the large distane from the city centre meant a 4.20 am start for a 8.15 swim slot
The field looked mightly impressive and i was in the minority for not shaving my legs! also impressive was the bike bling with a vast array of rather nice giants treks and cervelos on show all with electronic gears, i was a bit worried about my choice of tt bike and 39 * 25 lowest gear although thankfully it got me through ok as the hills were more of long drags than short sharp efforts.
The swim was the usual frenetic affair with plenty of bumping and barging and i lost my goggles a couple of times but thankfully it got a bit better as the field thinned out, as explained earlier the swim set up was a little unusual and that also included swimming around a giant floating crane! water was pretty brown at the beach front but better further out.
After exiting the swim t1 was quite a run away although sandy underfoot so wasnt too bad i managed a reasonable transition with no wetsuit issues this time and was soon underway.
The initial bike was pretty flat and technical with lots of corners, the whole route featured closed roads which was a real bonus and indeed essential given the conditions however can you imagine the a63 being closed for a race!
I guess the bike played better to my strengths which are more climbing than flat power courses and i managed to make up a few places, the weather got wetter and foggier which caused issues on the fast descents which were through country roads and i almost got caught out when had a bad case of the speed wobbles when doing 48 mph downhill, given i was only wearing lyrca the results would not have been worth thinking about and a few ambulances with flashing lights made you reevaluate your approach later i found out that quite a few of the pros got caught out badly.
The support on the hills was terrific as were the aid stations and after just over 3 hours 11 i was entering t2 and another great trait of ironman events they rack the bike for you so you can concentrate on getting changed for the run.
The run was 4 circuits around a park in the centre of the city (about the same size as leeds) and was a little undulating but ok, this allowed athletes to see their support crew and friends frequently laps 1 and 2 went ok 3 and 4 a bit more leggy as i started to feel the heavy bike route and a bit dehydrated in the humidity but i managed a sprint for the finish coming home in 5 hr 36 and just scraped a top 20% finish in age group and overall which i was pleased enough with given the field.
So would i recommend the event, yes if you like a challenging route and great support but (and its a big one) it is a faff with split transitions and the lake is not easy to access and of course being an ironman event you definitely pay for it.
Thanks for all the messages of support from the team and the training advice and programme from karl it is helping and a heavy winter programme of swim improvement is needed for the next step forward.
Next up... the big one Ironman Wales in 4 weeks gulp!