Epic Camp Lite Kona 2017 - day 2 riding the Ironman course

BIKE – 189km on the ironman course

RUN – had to skip for a massage.

SWIM – 1.5km easy recovery swim

Today was the litmus test. I’ve been to this island many times and have yet to master the full ironman course. I’ve done really well in the 70.3 but even in training I have not mastered the full course - it's partly due to us always doing it very early in the camp but I did not want to pull out that excuse again.

My plan was to ride controlled out to Hawi aiming for ~200w (with the speeders of Andrew, Matt and Jimi) take it easy’ish down from Hawi then try to ride Ironman power back to town on the Queen K (around 50km @ 235w).

We had ridiculously easy conditions today. Of course it was hot but there was more or less no wind on the entire course other than some head breezes before Hawi. It was by far the least wind I have ever encountered.

Arrival into Hawi was OK. I was not too chipper but doing OK. I knew I needed something to fire me up so I did a test run of the Fuel 5+ from Extreme Endurance which has 90mg caffeine.  All the way down all I could think about was nailing the Queen K however my optimism was not high given the way my legs felt. When the time came I settled in and was just making the numbers until bang, my first flat about 200m from the next aid station. It was an immediate flat and on inspection I had a nail all the way through my rim. After a brief stop at the aid station I was back on it and I was cranking it. Power was high and I needed to hold back rather than push… this was looking good. After ~30mins if nailing it the Kona heat started getting to me. My legs were OK but my body and particularly my head were started to explode with heat. I whimpered into the next aid station and desperately tried to cool myself down which got me back in the game for a while until the melt down continued. Legs were still OK, alertness was OK but I was just melting. At the next aid station I threw in the towel and let Matt and Jimi tow me home which at times was a struggle as those boys were riding well. Once I finally cooled down on Ali’I drive I felt absolutely fine.

Whilst I did crumble somewhat on the Queen K I did manage over 1hr @ 228w which is better than the past but I think I just need some more time to get used to this heat (same excuse again I know). 

The schedule was to run off the bike 4-6km but we needed to crack into massage so I had to skip that.

To round out the day I did an easy 1.5km swim. Not an incredible day at the office but better than past effforts. 

Bike file http://tpks.ws/xuXwJ