IronMan Goa relay team. Anyone interested?

While I’m currently aiming to finish the race in under 2.5 hours, my ultimate goal is to achieve a sub-2-hour finish if everything goes well. :man_running:t5::dash:

2 Likes

Training has not been progressing well. So a quick update.

Finding it hard to maintain the training consistency. Both volume & intensity is not working the way I’d thought. Maybe a bad planning :slight_smile: and also recovery challenges.

Considering Goa weather , rolling inclines and an estimated start time of 11:30-12noon for the run. I’ll be ok to finish anything between 1:28-1:30 for the HM distance.

3weeks to go. Not a lot can be done from a performance point now. Getting to the start line healthy is the goal now :slight_smile:

How’s it going for others?

2 Likes

I did a 1.5 km in the pool with many breaks today. :slight_smile: I have had a coach for the last 1 month who has been helping me fix my stroke and it is making me gas out really fast. I am scaredddd. :wink:

1 Like

I attempted a race effort 10k today. It was a suffer fest :expressionless:. From 4k-13k just couldn’t hold the pace.

The only motivation now is the post race beer :grinning:

2 Likes

Congratulations Team Zerodha for becoming the Champions at the IronMan70.3 Goa in the Corporate Relay Team Event.
Amazing effort by @NithinKamath @Dilip.Kumar @vishnus!!
KUDOS!!!

9 Likes

Thank you :slight_smile:

Congratulations to @Rohan123, @Manjesh, @TheMaddala from Zerodha
and Aditya, @tanmayi, Rishabh from the Rainmatter team also for achieving the Ironman title! :slight_smile:

8 Likes

Thank you, @vishnus, for organising this and @NithinKamath, for supporting the event and every one part of the event.

Very happy with 2:18 time. Running started at 12:30 pm right when the sun was on the head, with little or no experience of running in the blistering heat of 40 degrees Celcius and high humidity.

6 Likes

Coming back here to share a race/training report :slight_smile:
Mostly internal notes i made for myself post the race.

It was possibly the hardest race i have did in a longest time. The struggle and pain was real.
Was i totally prepared for this? No.

Training

I started the training late for the race. Had roughly put in 4 weeks of work. Looking back, it was not enough. Was coming off a marathon in August and dint have the right fitness to take on another training block in short period.

The four week of training mostly had mileage of 65-70k/week.
One workout and one long run as quality session/ week.

With limited training on the legs and the paces i was hitting in the workout, i was hoping for a Sub 1:30hr finish in the HM race. That means around 4:15/k pace. This looked doable.

Race

My team was- Nithin (swimming), Vishnu (cycling) and me running.

On race day, woke up at 5am. Not the most ideal sleep the previous night.
Did some dynamic stretches inside the room and met Nithin around 6:30am and we walked together to the swim start point. Seeing the participants warming up for the swim finally got the race excitement raised :slight_smile:
Stayed back at the beach with Seema all throughout waiting for Nithin to finish his swim.
Saw him passing the tag to Vishnu and cheered for his start.
Came back to hotel right after, had a light breakfast. Kept it simple- bread/peanut butter/banana & coffee.

Was tracking Vishnu all throughout on the app. That was a useful tool.

Around 10:30am, met Anil & Rishabh. All of us were doing the running part and walked towards the transition area. Nithin & Seema joined us.

Did a 3k warm up. Was already feeling the heat :sun_with_face:

The waiting at the transition area was chaotic. First the heat and then just being static made the body very relaxed. Never had this kind of a start in a race before.

When Vishnu came, quickly got the tag and sprinted to get out to the road.

The first three km’s were on target around 4:15- 4:17/k. But immediately after that holding the pace felt like a challenge. Heart rate started peaking up. The heat and humidity was just not helping a bit. From 4th- 8th km dropped the pace to 4:40-4:50/k.
The running route was 3.5k one side and repeat down. 7k loop x 3 times.
The last 500m of the first loop had steep incline. First time i ran without stopping. Subsequent loops, i’d to walk and jog.

By the second loop, i realised this isn’t conditions i can give a race effort. It was becoming extremely challenging to just be on the course and the suffering was getting onto me mentally.

Had to walk/jog multiple times. Put a tone of ice water on myself. Perhaps the most wet i’ve been in my lifetime :slight_smile:

Honestly ,had multiple instances where the mind and body just wanted to stop and give up.
But the thought of the other two boys were waiting for me at the finish line kept me on the feet. Had to get to the line for them else they would also not qualify as finishers :slight_smile:

The third loop which was the last one was the most dreaded. Pace was just not on my mind anymore. The only goal i’d was to overtake everyone in front of me :slight_smile:

Reaching the finish line felt like a miracle.
Spotted Nithin and Vishnu 100m before the finish. Felt very nice to see them in full cheering mode.
We held each others hand and sprinted together to the finish line. That was a special moment.
Finished 1 hr 45 mins.

If i’d to do this event again, things i’ll change:

  1. Do some heat training. Run under the sun.
  2. Get some hill/incline runs.
  3. Pace grade the course for more realistic time target. Often training at flat course/ideal weather conditions misleads to understand the fitness level.

Endurance training is learning to get bored while hurting :grinning:

Coming back to this thread was always fun. Thanks everyone for making the weekend special.
Thanks to Seema for the nice dinner and special thanks @vishnus for doing all the coordination for logistics and travel :slight_smile:

6 Likes

I guess the blame lies on me—our decision to travel 3 hours (to & fro) to have dinner at the fantastic Cavatina. What was supposed to be carb loading became like full binge eating for me. :wink: I have been wondering how much time we could have reduced if we all just decided to stay back, ate early and slept well.

I hadn’t raced for a long time and didn’t think through this as much. Maybe you should have put your foot down and forced everyone to stay back and sleep early.

This actually got us to the podium :grinning:

We should continue this format of carb loading to maintain the podium streak :wink::sweat_smile: