It was a special day today. Today was the day of my ironman journey where the big training ends.
Tomorrow the taper starts.
I should be excited about it, and I've been looking forward to it and counting down the days all week. However now I'm there I don't have the energy to celebrate.
The reason?
It's because my last big bike ride also happened to coincide with the day Christchurch decided to swelter in the hottest day we've had all summer, and probably the hottest day in a number of years.
I was scheduled to do a 6 hour bike ride followed up with a 40 minute run. Shouldn't have been too bad but when we heard the weather forecast it quickly cemented my earlier decision to start the day early. Nor-west winds were expected and, in Canterbury, that means hot, dry temperatures.
The sort that bring on migraines and make people cranky. Yippee.
So the alarm clock went off at 5.30am (yes, a.m. - on a Sunday) and by 6.30am I was on the road. The plan was to do 2 laps of a circuit we cyclists call the Sefton Block. From home it is a circuit of just under 80km and, depending on weather/wind takes just under 3 hours to do solo.
The route takes you north out of Christchurch, through Kaiapoi and back onto State Highway 1 through Woodend, past Pegasus and Waikuku before hanging a left and heading inland to Sefton. At Sefton you hang a left again, going through Ashley and another left to head back to Christchurch via Rangiora.
In a nor-wester it's usually a bit of a grovel into a headwind all the way out to Sefton but the payback is a great run with a tailwind from Rangiora back into Christchurch.
So I headed out on the first lap. I had my aero helmet on, last chance to give it a decent ride before Taupo, and water and food to last me for the lap. I'd then stop briefly at home to refill the water and food before completing the second lap. It was already pretty warm but not too much wind. Legs were tired but that's to be expected given the training load over the past few months.
The only indication I had of what was to come was running out of water by the time I got to Ashley. Usually the bottle lasts me for the circuit but this time I found myself pedalling through Rangiora looking for taps where I could get a refill. I found one on the side of a church building and carried on, finishing my first lap 2 minutes shy of 3 hours. I was feeling pretty warm but otherwise OK.
Things started coming unstuck, however, on the second lap. By the time I got to Kaiapoi I was feeling seriously hot. So hot I started considering the practicality of stopping and jumping into the river for a quick swim. Instead I stopped in some shade for a couple of minutes to try and cool off a little, tossing a bit of water over me from the water bottle. I carried on, the hot nor-wester relentless in my face and my water supplies were getting low again. Just out of Kaiapoi I found a toilet block on a reserve and figured there must be a tap there. So I stopped, and there was, and refilled the bottle - and poured a bottleful of water over my head. Bliss!
I carried on but it was a true grovel and my head was getting seriously hot inside the aero helmet. By the time I got to Waikuku I had decided that I needed my regular helmet if I was going to finish this ride and so a text was sent to St Pete - "pls bring helmet, my head feels like it's going to explode!"
At the Sefton turnoff I found some shade and sat down and waited. Thankfully St Pete also thought to bring two more bottles of water as well and one went into my aero bottle while the other went over my head.
On I went. St Pete had offered to take me home but I was determined to finish - plus I knew that I only had 5km of headwind to go before turning side on to it and then a tailwind home. After 90 minutes of battling away at 20km/hr it was a great feeling to finally turn towards Rangiora and start heading home. I got a good pace going - up to about 42km/hr but it was still hot.
It felt like at least 35degC and by the time I got back to the outskirts of Christchurch I had run out of water again and my head was starting to pound. I knew I still had to do a run after this and there was no way that was going to happen unless I could get my body temperature down - and I was still about 30 mins away from home. So I found a tree to get some shade under and sent another emergency text to St Pete - "can u make 1 of ur famous banana smoothies?"
St Pete has these down to a fine art and they are just the tonic when I start overheating after a particularly hard workout - 2 bananas, 2 pottles of yoghurt, 1/2 punnet of blueberries and ice.
The thought kept me going until I got home, by which time all I was capable of was dumping the bike in the garage and collapsing inside the front door, which also happened to be the coolest part of the house. I lay there for what seemed like an eternity before I got led outside, handed my smoothie and had the hose turned on my legs and arms to cool me off. Aaah.
Then came the decision. Should I try the run or can it? It was still seriously hot and my tank was well and truly empty. We figured, though that I should give it a go and, if nothing else, do it as a walk.
And a walk it ended up being. I think I managed to jog about 500m but, really, I've never been a good hot weather runner and today was more than just hot. It was a bit disappointing not to finish the big week on a high note but there were 2 positives: 1; there's no way it's going to be that hot in Taupo and 2; my second lap of the bike was only 13 minutes slower than the first lap. It felt much, much worse.
All in all a good day to get ticked off. Today's conditions I'm sure must be similar to what's experienced at Kona and I definitely don't envy the guys that do an Ironman in those conditions. Amazing.
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