Ironman Malaysia 2016 A lot had happened since my last Ironman in Cairns of July 2015. We’d added a beautiful girl to our family who certainly was keeping us busy. For about six months, triathlon was simply a matter of trying to fit some exercise in between the sleep deprivation, feeds, naps and work. I guess it pretty much still is! The ironman bug was still strong and my wife was happy to support me to complete one more ironman, which meant she’d need to give up a lot of her activities to accommodate the time taken for mine. The decision was made for Malaysia as I generally like the heat, and the course sounded super tough and interesting. There was also the small chance of qualifying for Kona, which would need me to have a good day and a lot of luck! My preparation wasn’t ideal. I kept getting sick which would keep me from training. I’ve been pretty lucky in the past, rarely getting sick but I guess having a bit less sleep and training for ironman really puts your immune system on edge. Between illnesses though, I was able to put in some good training. The trip to Langkawi went smoothly, as did race check-in. The practice swim was great to feel the water, like swimming in a warm pool. The shuttle buses between all of the race sites were great and timely as well. Our hotel had ten Ironman athletes, and they organised a free van to take us to the race start on race morning. It was all very easy- now it was just time to race! Swim The IM Malaysia swim takes place at beautiful Pantai Kok, a 2-lap triangular swim with a beach run in between laps. The water is a little murky, but the setting with islands popping up in the background, and the lovely 29 degree temperature more than makes up for it. Another thing I need to note is that there are flags every 25m, leading to each turning buoy. This means you hardly need to sight, and simply look for each flag as you pass them. After a brief warm up, I made my way to the corrals for the rolling start. I’m a big fan of these starts; it reduces the carnage at the start of a swim and gives everyone a chance to settle into their swim. The only downside is that it’s hard to find packs to work with. I tried to make my way up to the front, but ended up being about 4th or 5th deep in my “lane”. They let off a group of 4 every 3 seconds. After watching the pros enter, a long 8 minutes later and our horn was off. A quick jog into the water and I was off and swimming. I’ve changed the way I race the swim in recent years, now trying to ease into the swim to not burn too many matches too early. This has seemed to work pretty well. After 200m, I’d passed most of those in front of me and could see 1 swimmer about 20-30m ahead. I figured I’d just keep him as a pace guide and try not to lose too much distance, assuming this guy must be flying. At the 1st buoy at 400m though, I’d caught him and after the turn felt him on my toes- a

quick surge and he was off. The rest of the lap was spent on my own, catching a couple of female pros.

Running out of the water at the end of the first lap, I looked back and saw I had about 30-40m on the second age grouper. Back into the water and my focus was getting my breathing right. I really struggle with the mid-swim beach run, the shunt of blood to the legs seems to really burn my lungs when swimming again. It took about 300-400m before I felt I got my rhythm back again. After the turn, I could see I still maintained my lead and just focussed on my stroke rate, this coincided with a jelly fish sting to the right armpit- ouch! After the final turning buoy with 800m to go, I hit a fair bit of traffic from those on their first lap. There was a wall of 5-6 at the buoy which took me forever to get around. From there, the final length was a combination of zig-zagging and complete stops to negotiate the traffic. With 200m to go, I saw a yellow cap (my group), which had made the smarter decision to take the wide line and avoid the traffic, versus my decision to take the shortest route. He had clear water and beat me out of the water by about 10m.

So that was my swim, second age grouper out of the water in 53:46mins. We ran into T1 together, I had some issues with my swimskin zip which maybe cost me about 30secs, but I was first onto the bike and ready for a hilly 180km bike. Bike The IM Malaysia bike course gives you a good tour of the island. There are two main hilly sections: an out-and-back section to the Datai Country Club, and 3 massive hills just outside of the main city of Kuah. The rest of the course is made up of rolling hills with some flat sections. The road surface is lightning fast hotmix. Riding out of The Danna, the temperature still felt pretty mild so I thought I’ve got to make the most of it before the heat hits. I always struggle for the first 10km or so after the swim to get my HR down. This was at the same time as tackling the first set of hills towards Datai, and I was thinking I’m in for a tough day. I was leading the age group race until the turnaround at Datai (12.5km) when Nick Bensley roared passed my on his human-powered “motorbike”, on his way to a 4:27 bike split. A group of 5 other age groupers passed me at 18km, and all I was thinking was that this is a group I need to stick with. Daryl’s instructions pre-race were to watch moves at the head of the race and make good decisions. This was a decisive moment for me. It was hard work to hold onto this group through the hills, but as we got back onto the main road, my legs seemed to arrive and I was comfortable in the pace line. So there we were, a group of 6, the lead age group pack, each holding our 12m gap with positions rotating as 1 person went into another’s draft zone. We had a TO moto with us the entire first lap, no one was wanting a penalty.

We negotiated the hills outside Kuah, flew down the downhills, and the group stayed together until about 90km, when a couple started to drop off. Every 10km I’d do a systems check- how am I going? How’s are the legs? How’s the head? Am I hot? Surprisingly, I felt great. The legs were good, more importantly the head

was better. I had a good nutrition and hydration routine going as well. Swig of gel drink every 30mins, salt every 45mins for the first 3 hours and then half hourly after that, water every 10mins and isotonic every 15mins or so. At the aid stations it worked perfectly as well- water straight into my BTA cage, isotonic bottle into the back, next water bottle straight over the head to cool the body down. Going into Datai the second time, this was where those of us remaining began to split. Some were taking the hills very conservatively; others were trying to go off the front. For the first part of this section, I felt the group was going too slow but also thought there’s a long way to go, so now’s not the time to attack. Two guys went off the front, I was umming and ahhing about whether to follow- by the time I made the decision, they were too far up the road. On the way back from the turnaround, I went to the front of our remaining group of 3 and one dropped off. I was passed by about 3 or 4 guys at the 150km mark, but had otherwise held my position for the ride. The rest of the lap was uneventful, although the big hills outside Kuah had me cursing my cassette selection prior to this race- just as I was pedalling uphill at 40rpm, going 8km/h, wishing I had a 28 on the back that I could drop down too! I backed off the last 20km of the bike, really starting to feel warm and realising the marathon wasn’t far off. Bike time 5:13, Ave Power 164W, Normalised Power 182, IF 0.79, Ave HR 143. Nutition: 14 gels, 8 salt caps, countless bottles of water and isotonic. It was then into the air-conditioned comfort of Mahsuri Internation Exhibition Centre for T2 and the start of the marathon. Run The run is a 2.5 lap course on the western coast of Langkawi, running from the MIEC, around the airport runway, to Pantai Cenang and back. The run is dead flat, with a little shelter around Cenang from the sun but otherwise no shade. There’s a bit of beach and grass running around the finsh line compound as well. The end of each lap is at MIEC, where you run about 150m inside the air-conheaven. Running out of the MIEC, you are hit with this wave of heat! I started the run around 1:45ish, and it was warm to say the least. Running around the airport runway had me questioning when my body would tell me to stop. Then the aid station would approach and after dousing my head/body with ice water and collecting as many sponges as I could, I’d start to feel ok again… for about 500m. Then the whole process would start again: hot-> very hot-> too hot-> aid station -> cool -> hot again. That’s pretty much how my run went for the first 22km. My changed my data screen on my garmin to just show me HR, I couldn’t bear to see how slow I was running (particularly if it was slower than I perceived). The aim was to keep the HR under 160- it hovered around 156-158 for the majority of that time. At 20km, I was passed by a guy in my age group who was flying. I tried to go with him and

stayed with him until cramp attacked my left hamstring. I played around with my stride pattern and this helped a little but there would be stages where I’d need to completely stop, stretch, and then get going again. I knew this would worsen, but if I could keep running and only need a quick stretch, I might be able to put in a respectable marathon. It got to the stage I could run about 1500m each time before the cramp would stop me- so I made the most of what I could run. My running pace was still ok, it was the stationary time that was killing me.

At 30km, the sun began to hide and at 34km, torrential rain hit. Such a relief! The feeling of running in an oven had been replaced by a swimming pool- I know which I preferred. My cramping was still an issue but I could still run between stretches. Fortunately my head never waivered, and the finish line remained the motivation the entire run. The cramp was just a hindrance, not a race-ruiner. Crossing the finish line felt so sweet, it really felt like I earned this finish. For the first time I felt like I put together 3 solid legs in an Ironman and finished off strong.

Run time 3:28.33. Nutrition: 0 gels, 9 salt caps, water and copious cups of Coca-Cola. Total time: 9:41.55. 4th in M30-34, 8th age grouper overall and 26th overall. Kona Roll Down ceremony After a sleepless night Saturday (I can never sleep after an Ironman- probably all the sugar and caffeine), headed to MIEC for the Roll Down ceremony. I’ve attended a couple of these in the past and each time, I haven’t been looking to qualify for Kona- but have been a couple spots off qualifying anyway. It’s amazing to see the emotion of those who qualify though, it’s such a happy vibe. On the shuttle bus to MIEC, speaking to one of the guys I met during the race, he told me there would be 4 slots for the M30-34. This means I’d be in! From there, it was a long wait! The slots went from oldest to youngest, and women were done first- leaving the wait until the 3rd last age group. When my name was called, there was a fist pump, followed by some sort of shuffle to the stage to collect my lei, quickly followed by my wallet becoming $1000USD lighter with the Kona race entry fee. Finally, after 5 years in triathlon and on my 5th Ironman, I can call myself a Kona qualifier.

This race and qualifying for Kona would not have happened without the support of my wife. Ironman training all but rules out Saturdays to spend as a family, or for her to do anything she’d like to, as she watches our daughter - I couldn’t have done this without her. There are also the sacrifices to come as I prepare for Kona.

Qualifying early for Kona gives plenty of time to plan, and focus on my weaknesses without having to do the big hours required of Ironman until midnext year- so hopefully I can make it up to her over summer! And big thanks to Daryl, who I came to for my first half ironman five years ago, and hasn’t kicked me out yet! I started as an ex-swimmer who liked running, and now I’m off to Kona. This was a trickier preparation than all my other ironman races, and Daryl was able to fit in a program around family duties and, even with some training inconsistency, I was fit and ready to race in Malaysia. I know to trust his program and believe I’ll be ready come race day. Now for the big one! Ashan