Ironman Copenhagen – Chris Donohue
It was always going to be about the run
Before I launch into this babble of epic proportions, there is just a group of people I want and need to thank.
First of all, it’s my very patient girlfriend, Nicole who more or less went without seeing me for the 8 months of training. Even when we did see each other, I was off doing runs around the bog roads near her house in Galway. Without her support, encouragement – and let’s be honest, blessing and permission to take on such a feat, I wouldn’t of had my day in the sun.
Next person is Super Coach and friend, David Adams. He gave me the confidence to go whole hog into this and knew exactly how to structure the training to suit me. He was relentless with encouragement throughout and I’ll be forever grateful.
Next is Damian McGoohan from 24/7 Letterkenny Tri. Being an Ironman Virgin, I had hundreds, possibly thousands of questions and since we were doing CPH together, he became my first port of call for all and any last minute questions and decisions I needed to make. He is also the person responsible for me getting into tri and making me very poor!!!
Finally, I’d like to thank absolutely every single person in Pulse, whether we have met or not. The club as a whole inspires me every day, seeing new people come into the club and take to it so enthusiastically just reminds me of me back in the day. A special thanks goes to the committee who keep this whole operation going smoothly behind the scenes. Finally, a special mention to Karen, Ger, Mick, Paul, Merv, Dee, Clare, Siobhan, Andrea, Miriam, Shay, Keitho and anyone else who took time from their own training plan to come with me for a long bike or run or swim and constantly pushed me. And let’s not forget a major thank you is in order for Matt Bird who kept me grounded with the constant echoes of, you’re still a fat bastard!!!
Now the ‘Journey into this Ironman Lark’
Like all stupid ideas, mine did indeed too did start in the pub. I remember it like it was 30th of August 2013, 7:22pm. A couple of friends from work having a pint in the Bull and Castle and one of the people there was Damian McGoohan.
After a few too many Belgian ales, I proposed the idea of doing a full length tri in 2015, having been warned off and rightly so from the wise heads in Pulse to attempt it in 2014.
The research started and after googling Flat Ironman course, we came up with Copenhagen, especially after the sneaky fuckers put out a video to show how ‘flat’ it really was. But myself and Damian also looked at the swim and run course, the sheltered lagoon for the swim and city centre looped course just sweetened the deal and it was decided, Copenhagen 2015!!!
Now the fun bit – the training. After arsing around for two years trying to do my own thing and jumping in and out of training, I sought the wise head of Mr Adams.
The Training
Training went surprisingly well and I quickly adapted to having a real structure, learning how my body was reacting and most importantly, how to interpret how I was feeling after each session. That knowledge is invaluable but it wasn’t all rainbows and ice cream.
I know this has nothing to do with the race itself but I felt it was important to outline the road to race day and the highs and lows that come with it so people have an idea of what to expect and the fact it happens to a lot of people. This was epitomised on one faithful day in July.
The plan was a 160k bike but with all low HR so I began the task of finding people who were; 1. Willing to do the distance and 2. Go at the slower pace I needed to, and so became my road to being a cycle group whore. After jumping between 3 groups and still 40k short, I ventured into the Phoenix park in a desperate attempt to catch someone doing a few loops but instead I came across Mick and Claire who were just about to start a run and such was the low, after 5 hours odd, I was pretty much close to tears and I could not face another minute of a cycle, especially on my own. So I cycled while they ran for a few k.
They just kept telling me to go home but I had flaked on a session or two in the previous weeks so I was determined to finish it. They just kept me talking about what I had hoped for the race so I outlined with 3 scenarios I’ve had from the start and then the game changing, pivotal moment that focused the mind from Mick, ‘If you break 12 hours, I’ll buy you a steak dinner’, (which was my best case scenario).
With visions of taking on a jumbo rib eye, off I cycled to finish the last few K and was a good running joke right up to the day itself, it even popped into my head during the run and kept my already smiles going strong.
The Run in to the Race
Arrived in CPH, that’s what the cool kids call it, just like CPT (Compton) a few days before hand to get the essential stuff out of the way like registration and picking up some IM swag.
And then how NOT to prepare for an Iron Man – don’t fall over your bike. On the way over to transition to leave my bike off on the Saturday, I was cycling at walking pace and unfortunately the guy in front of me stopped and with the weight of the bag on my back, over the handle bars I went and my left quad went straight into the corner of the handle bar. Very embarrassing to say the least but even worse than scraping myself off the deck, was t he newbie cycling tramp stamp on the back of my calf after the front ring dug in and left it’s greasy mark and blood trickling down to boot. Thankfully, the quad was worse than it looked and gave me no pain what so ever, and the same for the calf.
Race Day
In the run up to the race, even from the week before, I just wasn’t excited. I wasn’t nervous and I wasn’t my usual anxious self where I am usually throwing up and panicking – which I have done at pretty much every other race, even aquathons and duathlons. Even lining up with the other age groupers before we went off for the swim, I was still calm as fuck and still not one bit excited – but a bit more about that later…
So there I was in the holding pen, we were the wave after the people who registered to go in the second wave as sub 10ers. Off they went and then we shifted forward, I had made the decision that my swimming would be strong enough so off I went to the front. Countdown started and that was it. I shifted even more to the front and had it in my head that I’d rather have someone try swim over me than try to pick through the traffic.
We got to the first buoy and it had already strung out quite a bit so no real traffic but then something savage started happening before the first bridge which was 500m into the swim. I started passing the blue hats in front of me who were gone 5 minutes ahead of us. I knew I was swimming well as I felt really relaxed and just kept passing people in the wave ahead. It was a great feeling.
All was going well until the turn around at 1500m. I had gotten disorientated and found myself in the middle of the purpose built water park with every other swimmer about 100m to my right and swimming in a different direction so I got into a bit of a panic and off I worked to find some feet to lead me into the next bridge. When I got there, it was worth the struggle. A wall of absolute noise, no exaggeration, I’d say there was at least 4.5 million people on the bridge just encouraging everyone. Such was the noise, I just had to have a look and just as I passed the bridge, I rolled onto my back like a little otter and gave the crowds a wave which was met by even more roaring. It was the first time of the race where I thought; man this is going to be fucking class!!!
At the next bridge, I was jumping from feet to feet to save myself, not for the bike, or so I thought… but for the run but SMACK SMACK. Two kicks in the jaw as I got too close to the feet in front and then I just started laughing to myself as I couldn’t get N.W.A.’s song ‘Gangsta Gangsta’ out of my head and the lyrics, ‘First N… I saw, hit him in the jaw’ and that was it, just citing the words to the song in my head over and over as I swam the rest of the way. It’s very odd the things that go through your head during these things.
Into T1 and a quick glance at the watch, 1:06. I’ll take that every day, just a minute off what I thought was my A scenario. No real drama until I ran down the wrong aisle to where my bike was racked. I ducked under the rack to my bike and then standing over me was this burly Dane, ‘5 MINUTE PENALTY’ for not going back up and around the racks. I asked where do I do it and what stop it was on the bike (just to make sure I didn’t miss it, didn’t want to do a Mervyn on it, how embarrassing?!?!?!?)
Off on the bike and it was going fantastic, 40kph but oh shit, HR was through the roof so I settled into a nice rhythm up until the hour mark and then the back pain started but I knew I had some Advil in my pouch so I played a game and promised myself relief at the 2 hour mark so that’d at least get me to the run… where low and behold I had more Advil stashed in all my Shot Bloks two jellies down, Tony Montana had nothin’ on me.
2 hours came and it was reward time but I must have knocked the tablets out when I was getting my first Nutrigrain, small bit of panic but there was fuck all I could do. Soldiering on was my only option as I knew I had a ‘’break’’, I mean time penalty to serve at 80k which was atop the hardest drag on the course. It gave me a good chance to stretch out the back and legs and pick up my special needs bag and my other 3 bottles. It was a definite blessing I have to say.
20k later and it was time for a gel, reached around but couldn’t feel my back and I thought I was imagining things. Unfortunately I wasn’t. I got the corner of the gel and put that at my back and… NOTHING. I had lost all sensation in my lower back. I started to panic as this was a symptom I was warned about by my doc because of the slipped disc I have. It meant the disc was compressing the nerve that ran along my spine (or something to that effect). I was 50/50 on whether or not to get off the bike and try stretch it out and try get some feeling back but I pushed on, possibly foolishly. A good side effect was that I was no longer in pain so I figured, fuck it, I’ll deal with the consequences after the race.
The next 40k ticked away nicely until my HR started dropping and I recall Dave telling me of the worst case scenario, ‘’the body just says no’’, I’ve had enough and just says no more and won’t let the HR rise no matter how hard you push. Unfortunately this was the case. With 40k to go, my numb back had now spread to the tops of my legs and I couldn’t push on the pedals really. Thankfully, there was no major climbs and I managed to roll in the last little bit without losing too much time. Finished the bike in 5:55, my B scenario.
This left me 10-15 minutes over my target time of starting the run with 5 hours to go. I figured I’d need at least that to break the 12 hours which was the pre-race and now aka steak dinner target. I was panicking as I thought, the second I start running, my race would be over since my legs were numb and no?? HR.
Into T2, I had a sit down and got some paracetamol from the medic as I knew I could take paracetamol and ibuprofen without any hassle (and I figured I’m going to start suffering straight away.)
Off I went and the plan was to keep the HR low for the first few k. That wasn’t going to be a problem as it had fallen off the cliff an hour earlier. Now do you remember me saying I wasn’t excited earlier? Well all that just changed. I had heard reports that Copenhagen really gets behind the race but I was not prepared for the volume of people and the noise. It hit me like a hammer the second I left the T2 tent. Music blaring from everywhere, it gave me goose pimples. Conservative estimates gauged that there was well over 100k people and this time, it wasn’t an exaggeration.
HR jump, I thought happy days and just settled into the running trying to keep it steady, knowing or thinking, ‘the wall’ is going to come as it does for all marathon runners. 1st loop of 4 done, 10k in and 1 of the 4 loops done and I thought, this is going alright actually!!! Then I started to flick between the screens on my watch and doing the math to see what I had to do and thought, there’s still an outside chance of making the 12 so I upped the pace for a few k and to my surprise, I still felt really good.
I was starting to have so much fun, high fiving people as I went past anyone who had their hands out and, at one of the hot spots where it was 4-5 deep and I ran by shouting, COME ONNNNN’ which was met by a huge roar and it just gave me such a lift.
Every 2-3 kilometres, there was someone else with an amp with a phone hooked up cranking out metal, dance, rock, all types of music, there was even a live band just on the foot-path. It was absolutely incredible. Such was the fun I was having, I kinda stopped looking at my watch and was then just counting down the DJ’s as I went along, instead of the kilometres. I knew the guy after the 1st aid station was going to be classic rock, aahhaaa haaahaaaaaaaa THUNDER, aahhaaa haaahaaaaaaaa THUNDER, the guy on the promenade near the Little Mermaid was going to be old skool trance and then there it was, perfect running song, Sandstorm, smiling from ear to ear until I looked down and realised I was running far too fast, stupid tempo!!!
3 laps in and there I saw the crew from 24-7 Letterkenny who had adopted me for the week, Sean McFadden there having just done a 9.52 was there cheering the four of us who were still out there.
Start of the last loop, 12 hour was definitely back on, I had 1h 30m I think to do 10k, wooo, another little HR jump, this shit is getting real. I saw Nicole for the 2nd last time and was still feeling fresh and apparently still looking fresh so off I went on my victory lap in my head. I was still holding pretty much the same pace so I knew if I just kept going, I’d be comfortably under the 12.
Just under 4 k to go and I had 35minutes so quick calculation, I have 4 8min ks to do, I thought EASSSSYYYYY and off I went knocking them down and with 2k to go, it was in the bag and I just remembered Jarlaith’s advice, stop and soak in the atmosphere. I started to walk as I had 20 minutes or so and I was just high fiving everyone, pointing at the 4 bands on my wrist I had gotten 2k earlier.
1k to go, that was it, this is my time, this is what I trained for, for the last 8 months, I was shouting at anyone who caught my eye, 4444 BAAANNNNNDDDSSS, COME ONNNN and then it was my turn to turn down the finishing chute at 4hr 39 Minutes.
I took off my visor and tucked it under the tri top and put my glasses on top of my head, spotted Nicole where she handed me the Pulse flag and all that was going through my head, get the flag right and just as I approached the line, got the flag open and proudly presented it to the world….…LOVE THIS SHIT…!!!!