My Ironman Experience

After waking at 4:30 and quickly getting in some food to try and stomach for the start of the day, I left the hotel and was on my way to the start area.

I was already concerned about my stomach for the day because only 48 hours earlier I had come down with a minor stomach bug that I was only just getting over - This meant that loading up for the day wasn’t ideal.

But this wasn’t my main concern as I knew I’d just work through it regardless.

After getting an email warning us about the cold water temperature earlier that week, it was unclear what the news was going to be.

In transition whilst getting set up at around 5:30am we were notified that the lake temp was barely 16 degrees, wetsuit mandatory and neoprene swim hats and booties recommended if we had (I had neither)

Me and Charlie got in the lake at 6:15am to warm up and get a feel of the lake which instantly took my breath when I submerged myself in the water.. it was FRESH

Despite this, I still felt pretty confident going into it and my mind was in a good place as we filtered through and crossed the start.

In fact, I was absolutely pumped.

In comparison to previous races, I felt most confident in this as a result of all the work I’ve put in over the last few months.

Fortunately, me and Charlie decided to start the swim together after being a very similar pace in training. This took most of my nerves away with the swim by far being my weakest discipline.

We started off and it was chaotic. The first 100m or so only went down to waist deep, and before we got to tread water, I think I seen 2-3 people bail from the coldness of the water.

Whilst I was still trying to adjust to it myself we got off to swim around the first turning buoy, at which point I was hit around the face from a pacing swimmer which knocked my goggles and completely blinded me.

As I was completely surrounded by passing swimmers, I had nothing to do but keep swimming with no vision until I had some clearance to try and adjust them. I must have got another 50m or so before stopping briefly to get them back on.

I tried to quickly get back into a groove, but at this point my goggles were completely fogged up and my body was still in shock from the cold water..

I couldn’t see the next buoy to swim towards and all I had was the swimmers immediately next to me to rely on for sighting.

I tried to stop and adjust them again but kept getting kicked and swam over, my only thoughts at this time were that of giving up and calling for help.

Charlie popped up next to me to check in if I was okay which helped give me a sense of calm..

At this point, I got some of my vision back and started to really focus on slowing my breathing down and being more positive in my mind.

I allowed myself to slow down and get into the groove which then helped me settle into a rhythm for a 1h36m finish of the 3.8km swim.

When I got out of the water, I was disorientated and I had no feeling in my face or most of my body..

I got into transition and noticed complete chaos.. people shivering all around me and struggling to get into their bike gear.

I then joined them. I couldn’t stop my body from the uncontrollable shivering and had no idea how I was about to face the rest of the day.

I took my time trying to gather myself and slow my breathing again whilst getting myself ready for the 112 mile bike ride..

I un racked my bike, got round to the bike mount area and could barely balance myself to swing my leg around on to the bike.

I knew what came next was going to be a struggle..

My body was shivering and feeling off balance with every step from the cold and turbulent swim

I mounted my bike, clipped into the pedals and began the 2 loop, 112 mile bike ride through Swiss mountains with over 7,000 feet of elevation (More than 2 of mount Snowdon in elevation)

It was grey skies, rain and wearing just my soaking wet ti-suit..

I looked around at everyone else on bikes who were smart enough to have packed extra jackets and layers, regretting not being prepared with any more layers, and I had no idea how I was going get over the effects the cold was having on my body.

The only thing that crossed my mind was to attack the first few miles of the bike, get the blood flowing and warm up my body

I knew I was already behind my target time for the day with the slower than expected swim and taking more time in the first transition, and after the first few miles I expected I could make that up..

Which was looking promising after the first lap of the bike

I set myself the target time for the bike course of 6h30minutes for the 2 loops, and the first loop I completed in 3h04 minutes.

At this point, I was feeling relatively good mentally and physically apart from 2 minor set backs;

1. My body was holding onto absolutely NO fluids

I followed the exact hydration strategy that I’ve followed and reacted well to all throughout training, but for some reason it just didn’t work out on the day..

Every sip of fluids I took on went straight through me (Literally)

Within 20 minutes of drinking fluid, my bladder was completely full.

To put into perspective; I peed 12 times on the bike course, in comparison to most who would go 2, maybe 3 times

I knew this would be having an effect on my performance, especially going into the marathon later on

(Continues in comments)

1. The climbing

The first half of the bike course was fun.

Some real nice fast downhill sections (I hit nearly 50mph at one point), a few short climbs, lots of leaning corners, a lot to keep you entertained

Then the second half just felt like hours and hours of climbing

The first time round, I’d say that I tackled these pretty well.

I was over taking a lot of riders whilst still sticking to the plan of holding back some energy for the second lap

But when the climbs came back around on lap 2 at 70-80 miles, my body and mind began to struggle

My knees were also starting to feel pretty sore which I hadn’t experienced in training, and the saddle soreness had also kicked in which made the aero position extremely uncomfortable for the very few flat sections there were to finish

What made it more mentally tough was that I now knew exactly what I was going to be facing with a 15 mile continuous climb to come

This climb is when the fatigue started to really kick in and the thought of doing a marathon began to dwell on me

I then made what I feel was the sensible choice to slow down and avoid any huge pushes in effort in aim to try and reserve what I had left for the marathon

My speed dropped dramatically and even in the lowest gear possible I struggled to build any respectable momentum.

The last 30 miles were slow, lonely and uncomfortable

I managed to pick things up slightly to finish the second loop much slower than my first in 3h38m for a total bike time of 6h42m

Going into T2 my legs felt pretty good off the bike which did give me second thoughts about my efforts on the bike, but I didn’t get too ahead of myself knowing that I still had a long way to run and find out

What wasn’t feeling great though was my gut which meant spending a bit more time in T2 than planned ??

And when I was done, finally ready to leave the transition zone, I broke into a jog only to realise how bad my saddle soreness was..

At that moment just before leaving the zone, I made the decision to sacrifice another couple of minutes in T2 to return to my kit and plaster on a load of vaseline in order to try and save the skin I had left to make the marathon a little more bareable by not needing to worry about extreme chaffing for the next 4-5 hours

I made it out of T2 in 12 minutes, into a world of hurt for the final hurdle..

A full Marathon.

I left T2, lathered up with vaseline ready to commence the 3 loop, 26.2 mile run

The first mile was a good test to see how my body was holding up

I was happy to get it done at around a 9:30 pace which was just where I wanted to be

And I was able to hold that roughly for the first 10km

Which is when I started to experience some more gut problems and issues with fuelling

I went completely off plan at this point and was just reacting to what I felt my body needed

Each aid station was a bit of an experiment to see what was best for me, which ended up being;

Water

3-5 x orange slices

2 cups of coke

2 x bites of a power bar

Gels were not sitting well at this point

I completed the first lap in just over 90 minutes in good spirits

I was smiling, laughing and joining in with the crowds dotted around the course

But in the second lap, my spirit started to drop and I started to switch off a bit more to everything around me

My pace had dropped down to 11 minute per mile, which was way slower than the game plan but I was happy at this point to keep moving

The second time around I started to realise how big the loop was and it felt like every section had just got longer

(When in fact I was just running slower)

I finished the second loop 10-15 minutes slower than the 1st, and at this point I had gave in to walking at certain points to try and ease the pain

My plan for the last loop was to try and hold a slow, continuous pace and settle into a rhythm until the final 5km where I would use everything I had left to finish

But again, my body was broken and mentally I was becoming exhausted and fighting every urge my body had to just stop

With that being said, I never at any point felt like I had hit a wall, and was confident I would be finishing that course

My slowest mile was at mile 23 at 15 minutes where I walked a significant amount as a ‘recharge’ for me to go at the final 4-5km

I started picking up the pace and getting back into a stride, despite every signal from my body to stop

All I was thinking with every stride was getting closer to that finish line

I turned a corner to hit the final stretch to take me towards the awaiting red carpet which I had already ran past 5 times by this point and had been hearing cheers from for the last 4-5 hours

But now it was different because it was finally time to hear my name be called

I turned to the corner and stepped on to that red carpet, gave the first timer bell a ring and worked my way to the finish line to hear the words;

“Drew Shaw, YOU. ARE. AN. IRONMAN”

The moment I had waited MONTHS for

All to cross the line, get the medal and the pictures, and feel.. well, not much at all.

A week later, and I’m still trying to process it and make sense of it..

Which I will be talking about in my final video of the project Ironman Series on my YouTube channel.

Thanks so much to everyone for the support and kind words, it’s been a hell of a journey and I can’t wait to keep pushing and seeing what I’m capable of (I have some ideas in mind)