The blog of Alex Fairman

Well the bike and bags are in and tomorrow hopefully by now I should be finished and crawling about in pain at the finish line. I saw my competition today for the first and there was a mutal nod of recognition between us and then both went our seperate ways.

The conditions should be perfect tomorrow with a little cloud and light winds, hopefully this should bode well for a fast time as I wish to break the 10 hour barrier as this is something that I have yet to do in an Ironman.

Hopefully I will sleep well tonight as it will be a long day tomorrow and with a bit of luck a good race and slot for Hawaii. Only 12hrs before it all begins...... bring it on! 

Today was the longest day so far as I am full of energy and have no training. The bikes were cleaned and prepared, race numbers applied and race briefing attended, same old stuff, but on the plus side was definately the best pasta party that I have attended in terms of food quality. Tomorrow is just a little tickle on the bike and gentle jog and put the bike and bags into transition its come around very quickly and seems almost surreal.

Got up early again and walked down to the swim venue as will be done on race day for the first open water swim scince my last ironman and witnessed all of the crazy americans doing what comes naturally to them, making lots of noise and flashing their bodies, Ben and I distanced ourselves and found a quiet spot to ready ourselves before gettng in for a short swim.

The water was bloody cold, much colder than I had anticipated and I didnt have my wetsuit high enough up on my shoulders and as a result was lacking flexiblity through my shoulders, definately something to remember for sunday. After getting out of the water I got pretty cold and was walking round in bright sunshine in a woolly hat and gloves, Im sure I looked a sight.

After race registration where I witnessed some people who I cant belive are entering an ironman. I had a short brick session which was fairly uneventful I belive that now I am ready to race, and am almost looking forward to the race. A scary thought.

Well the pizza on the BBQ actually turned out pretty good and was a welcome change to the chicken in every variety diet that we had become accostomed to. I am soooo looking forward to red meat, I cant wait. We have started getting up earlier today to reduce the shock of getting up early on race morning and hopefully help getting to bed earlier. This is also benificial as it allows the training to be completed earlier and minimise exposure to the sun during its peak which is unecessarly draining on the body prior to a race.

Todays swim was supposed to be done in the race venue, but unfortunately thiw was not possible as the lake is not open yet, so instead the swim was done in the pool sighting every few strokes to get used to what will be done on race day. The swim was really pleasurable in the outdoor pool and again followed by a good stretch in the gym.

After a poor nights sleep after replaying loads of dfferent race results and scenarios in my head I was pleased to get onto the bike and loose myself in the moment, and the water bottles didnt even fall off the back of my bike, so something is going in the right direction. Lots of people have started turning up today at least our hotel is quite out of the way. Tonight we are going to experiment with cooking a pizza on a bbq should be interesting.

Todays swim went well, 3 lots of 5 x 100m hard with 50m kicking between each set. I remembered I really hate kicking! This was followed by a good stretch and a power nap. Spoke to my coach and went over the race plan and what I have been feelings and 'What If' scenarios. Came off the phone feeling really confident and inspired, however this was fairly short lived as I made the mistake of researching my competition and worried myself at how strong the field was and the first signs of pre-race nerves had set in. Hopefully these will disappear as quickly as they came on. The weather should be perfect for tomorrows bike.

The run today was really confidence inspiring, fluid and fast I had to hold the brakes on the whole way around, I am finally in frorm for the big race. As luck would happen (or not) a very large female only fun run was taking place going in the opposite direction to the direction that I was running which made life a little more interesting but a run to remember.

The rest of the day was spent revising as I have just recently started a massage course which envolves a crazy amount of learning, this was done under the sun whislt watching birds of prey pluck fish out of the water and chase each other about. All in all a pretty good day and I even know all 23 bones in the skull.

Well I survived the American traffic today, although the ride was delayed a little due to 'rain' (not sure what that was doing in Arizona) and rode the ironman bike course, looks fairly fast with a barron landscape throughout although plays host to some of the best tarmac I have ever seen, which should be pleasent to the under-carrage and flattering to the bike split.

One of my water bottles fell off whilst on the ride today riding through the park, to get to the main cycling roads. The bottle could only have been gone a few minutes and it had disappered, I suspect it was one of the locals trying to get some of what we were drinking to make them go faster.

We found a local triathlon shop today which we must have only just missed several times whilst on our travels scince we have been here, this shop is a dangerious place and I think I should avoid it as it stocks some of the best bikes and equiptment that I have ever seen, eg. the full range of Cervelos including P4's, Scott plasma 2, Jamis, Ceepos and a whole host of others, I am sure that in this shop I could boost the american economy with my credit card.

Tomorrow I have my last hard session before the race next sunday so hopefully will be a good session and boost the confidence.

I have 9 days to go before Ironman Arizona, I have been out in the USA for the last few days and have just about got into the new regime, different time zones, food, culture and most importantly climate. Temperature today has felt a little cool at around 24 degrees today, and is hopefully set to fall even lower for race day although due to sods law I bet it is higher.

Training today was enjoyable, as I am starting to feel fresher by the day after a pretty hard training block leading into the race. 

The Swim which consisted of lots of 75m intervals, which is not often an enjoyable session for myself was really good due to the outdoor pool, a real treat from the indoor pools back home, and although  admittedly was fairly fresh upon entry made me swim faster just to keep warm, and with the sun beating down on my back could hardly be a bad session.

Running today was done on part of the race course, so that i could gain a good feel for the course and so that I dont have to venture there too much in race week and get caught up in all of the informal racing that goes on prior to the race. The session felt fairly comfortable although, I was aware that I was loosing quite a lot of fluid, which is something that I will have to bear in mind for race day but will be the same for all competing.

Tomorrow I will be riding the bike route and hope not to be mown down by the supersize cars that all americans seem to have, or pick up a puncture that Arizona highways are so famous for. We shall see.

test

The first race of the year is always a interesting occasion, getting both the body and mind ready for racing after a period of nothing, not quite knowing in what sort of shape that you have got yourself into over the dark winter months.

Upon race day we were blessed with fine weather unlike the previous few days of wind and rain. All was going well untill I started my pre-race warm up on my turbo-trainer getting myself ready to race when my legs started to cramp, slightly worrying as this is not something that I have previously had a problem with, after a period of stretching and moving about my legs seemed to feel better so I racked my bike in the transition area and headed towards the pool a little apprehensive, concerned about the possibility of my legs cramping again.

The swim was fairly uneventful although anyone that has trained with me will know that counting lengths is not one of my strong points, but on this occasion I managed to successfully count the correct number of lengths unlike the official on the side of the pool whom if I had relied upon would have let me keep swimming.

After a swift transition onto the bike I quickly started winding the power up and moving my way through the field feeling strong after having trained with Ain Alar Juhanson (The Estonian Express) the week before. The bike seemed to finish very quickly and before I knew it I had started running down the stupidly steep hill with the gate at the bottom having just exited transition.

The first few miles of the run were much harder as the were all uphill and I never really seemed to get totally settled into a rhythm but on the second half I gained a nice tempo and continued this all of the way to the finish.

I was very pleased to finish in second place in a pretty strong field giving me confidence that I have come out of the winter in good shape and am I looking forward to progress from this pleasing result into the racing season.

Living within kent I am fortunate enough to be a on the Medway 2012 Elite Athlete program, developing athletes for future olympics. I had been nominated for the sports person of the year, in which I have recently been awarded a bronze which was a pleasent and unexpected outcome. Having been awarded this I was then subsequently awarded sport ambassidor of the year which came as a total shock and had to endure a thorough Q&A session as a consequence, I am delighted however to have recieved these awards and look forward to a fruit-ful 2009.

When you think of Florida you think, flat ground, crystal clear water and Mickey Mouse. The Geat Floridian 70.3 or the Intimidator as the Americans like to call it is none of these things.

The start was in age gorup waves from the beach splitting the field down, starting in the last group gives a target to chase however does mean that you must overtake other participants in the process this is always interesting. Once the gun went the wave ran into the water, with the inevitable pushing and shoving that comes with this type of start, diving into water that resembled Newcastle Brown Ale and having previously been warned by locals aswell as signs, that there were alligators in the lake is always good to get the heart racing and was a distant reality from the serene crystal clear water that I had imagined. 

Surprisingly at the first marker I found myself in second place which was a new experience as this it not normally a position I find myself, however after realising I was pulling a group along behind me I slowed up and sat at the back of the pack conserving energy exiting the swim in 5th.

Anyone who has raced in America will know and I am sure will agree that they cannot stop talking, there is incessent chatter all the way round the only point where there was reduced talking were the vigourous uphills which thankfully there were quite a few, to be honest there was no flat on the course atall which was not what you would expect in Florida however I managed to finish the bike in fourth position overall.

The weather forcast for the week had indicated that the raceday would be cool overcast and rain at around 11 o'clock which would be ideal race conditions, as you could guess mother nature did not bless us and as a hit us with her full armoury, high humidity, no a single cloud in the sky and 30+ temperatures made for a uncomfortable run. I held my position on the empty course and finished with a very pleasing 4th overall and winning my age group by 20minutes.

This year, because of my university commitments I had to limit the number of competitions but was pleased to be selected for the ITU World Long Distance Championships representing GB in Almere Holland.

As with most races the mass start swim resulted in a confused first leg with bodies everywhere, I was delighted to have made the first main pack , the swim however took 15 minutes longer than anticipated due to choppy tidal conditions as a result of flood gates being opened upstream. I emerged in 8th position to have a strong, uneventful, if hot, bike leg.

By the start of the run I was in fifth in my age group but the temperature was well in the thirites. This is the area in which my coaching has focussed on. I had a consistent, strong run with little fade thanks to my preparation and plan. At the 5km point I passed a Brazilian competitor and at the halfway I took the Fin, who was unable to respond. I pulled four minutes away from him in the end and was delighted to podium in bronze medal position.

This is a very encouraging result giving me the confidence to step up to the full Ironman distance and potentially challenge for a Hawaii slot next yer