For my first blog, a short intro: I’ve been training and racing triathlons since 1986, and completed 23 ironmandistance-races since. The last of these, and by far the toughest, was the Norseman Xtreme triathlon in Eidfjord, Norway, on august 4 2007.
During this race I had one advantage: I have been training on powercranks since November 2005.
Living in the Netherlands means that its hard to prepare for the tough bike- and run course the Norseman offers. Its up and down all the way, the bike starts with a 40 K. climb, and the run is 39 K of climbing altogether, 11 K is at 10% continuously. The only climb in my neighborhood is a flyover. Fortunately I’ve got my powercranks. Actually, I was kind of curious as to how they would help me, because since buying them I hadn’t been in the mountains. Norway is hilly though and they do know how to put together a hard race. The swim takes part in a fjord, the bike is in the hills and highlands, starting with the 40 K climb, four hard climbs between 110-140 K, followed by a thirty K descend all the way down to the T2. Because of an unusually cold summer the water near Eidfjord was to cold, so the swim was moved nearer to the sea to benefit from the warm gulf stream. The downside was that an extra 20 K was added to the bike course: 200 K, instead of 180 K. Although the water temperature was 15 Celsius, we had to do the full 3.8 K. Believe me, it was cold. Bloody cold. I exited the water in 56 minutes shaking and feeling numb all over. All I could do was spin like crazy to heat up again. The weather wasn’t helping much, it was about 10 Celsius, cloudy, but dry. I used the first twenty K to get warm again, then it was time to do some real cycling. The first 10 K. of the 40 K. climb were very hard, but I felt good and started passing people. Hey, interesting. I’ve never been a good climber and never will be, but still, this was encouraging. To cut a long story short: the bike was hard, very hard. It took me almost 8 hours to complete it (normally I can do 5.10-5.20). I started the run in 42nd place (there were 200 people competing). In a normal race I would have been close to the finish now, but not here. There was a marathon to run, and not just any marathon. It started off with a gentle 25 K climb. 1-3% is manageable, but it still saps your strength. After 25 K the road turned left. Here was the first aid station (you have to bring your own food and drinks, or use a support crew to help you through the day), but all they had on offer were some slices of bread and some salami. I made myself a sandwich and started chewing and walking up the mountain. This was where the 11K 10% climb started. The deal was that I allowed myself to walk until I had finished my sandwich, then I would start running again. When I did there was almost no difference in speed between walking and running. It was unbelievable. I decided to run for eight minutes and then do two minutes of walking. This worked pretty well. By now the weather had really deteriorated. It had been cold all day, with strong headwinds, but now it started raining as well. The last 4.5 K of the Norseman is a mountain climb which I was sure would be cancelled due to the bad weather. I was right. At 32 K people told me that I had to continue to a turn around at 36 K, then descend to 40 K, and turn right for the last 2.2 K. When I reached the turn around I still felt great and running downhill I got rather careless, because I thought I was nearly there. For the first time during this long day I released the brakes and just ran. When I reached the fork in the road and turned right I had the feeling that the finish line was just around the corner. Boy was I wrong. Another climb was waiting for me and for the first time in thirteen hours I began to feel tired. The last two K’s I really struggled but I held it together and reached the finish after 13 hours and 26 minutes in 32nd place (I ran the marathon in 4.29, 27th run time). Not bad for a 46 year old guy from the Netherlands. There were no cheering crowds to celebrate me, actually I had to tell some bewildered people at the finish that I, nr. 85, had finished. But I was glad to hug my wife who had somehow managed to be there.
This was by far the toughest race I have ever done. It was not the hardest race of my career because I felt strong all day. I’m sure powercranks had a lot to do with that. I’ve not become a better cyclist, but thanks to powercranks my over all fitness had much improved and I have definitely become a better runner. That is a lot to be grateful for.
Gerard.
Check out the Norseman site at www.nxtri.no
