Saturday Half Iron-man Practice

The not so Scorching Bay

My half iron man challenge is getting closer. My training squad met at Scorching Bay at six thirty in the morning ready to go. I had got all my gear together the night before as I knew that at that time in the morning it would be easy to leave a helmet or wetsuit behind in my hurry to make the deadline.
It was a beautiful morning which bode well. The sea was dead calm but I was not fooled. The name Scorching Bay is a misnomer. Twenty-four degrees Celsius is a hot day in Wellington in mid summer and we were nowhere near that. The sea washes in from Cook Strait and is never warm. It goes from toe and temple freezing in winter to just bearable if you move around a lot in summer.
 I placed my bike in the rack and sorted out footwear and food in my tri-box so I would be organised and ready after the swim.

Putting on my wetsuit was a mission despite use of plastic bags and rubber gardening gloves to haul the thing on. If you don't get it on correctly you will get chafing which is not pleasant. At the last practice I had finally got the suit on when I felt something sticking into my leg. I asked my fellow squad members to go delving down my suit and try and fish it out. One tried with no success then decided this was all getting too intimate so I had to take the suit almost off to retrieve a piece of stick that had inexplicably got wedged on my thigh. This time I was careful no foreign items got entangled where they shouldn't. I felt the water temperature had improved a tad from last time and decided to dispense with my booties which are good toe-freeze preventers. No way was I going to part with my bonnet though. Getting into Wellington water is like biting into an icecream with nerves exposed in your teeth, only every nerve in your head is exposed which causes a screaming pain until your head and brain goes mercifully numb. After my first experience of this I visited a swim shop which sold me a bright yellow and black neoprene bonnet which had a strap going under my chin and locked onto my head with velcroe. I looked decidedly odd but if it helped with the pain I was for it. And if I needed rescuing having sunk I would still be glowing at twenty metres down.

We were sent down into the sea to acclimatise before we started the swim. I swam about with my bonneted head submerged. The screaming pains diminished quicker. The sea was a degree or two warmer and my bonnet definitely helped. We came out and lined up on the beach. We had to swim for an hour around three buoys set up in a triangle. Completing a circuit was about three hundred and thirty metres. We went over the trick of setting up points in the distance to help you keep on course when the buoys were less visible due to waves. This discovery had been a boon to me as I had never figured out how to swim straight before. I always had to stop and peer about every so often to figure out where I was - and usually I was heading off to Antarctica or in a direct line to collide with a ferry. It was reassuring to know there were three pairs of eyes on us - one in a kayak and two on the beach. At last practice I had swum up and down parallel to the shore where I felt secure but today I was going to do the deep water course.

Then we were off. I swam off at a relaxed pace and concentrated on breathing and checking where I was going. The last buoy of the triangular course was close to shore so after every lap I could take stock as I stood then waded around it before setting off again. Towards the end of the hour I seemed to lose control of my hands. I couldn't keep my fingers together to push the water behind me and my wrists had no strength left. My hands flapped about like dying fish, slapping the top of the water instead of carving into it. The guy on the kayak who was patrolling said my hour was nearly up so to make this my last lap. I was glad to hear that as without hand control I wasn't making much progress any more. Upon standing up I found the rest of my body was not much better. I walked out like a drunk weaving my way out of the pub. My dead fish hands would not work and I could not grasp the string to pull down the zip of my wet suit. The person next to me had the same problem so we helped each other and somehow got the zips down and peeled off our neoprene casings like insects shedding their old skin.

One of the other competitors mentioned that he had got confused while swimming as the buoy he was aiming at kept shifting. Upon getting closer he realised he was aiming for me and my bonnet. A couple of others said they had had the same problem as I was the brightest glowing object out there.

Is it a bonnet or a human buoy?

We were given a small break to prepare for the next phase which involved cycling a circuit then running a circuit for the next three and a half hours. I was feeling decidedly waterlogged having drunk a fair quantity of salt water during the sea swim. A toilet stop helped plus a face rinse to freshen up. I sorted out my tri-box, again,




putting running shoes and sun hat next to my bike. As I was still chilly I added leg warmers and  arm warmers to my tri suit before gearing up in cycle shoes, gloves and helmet. I downed a banana, a ghastly gooey gel and electrolyte fluids. I was ready for the next effort.

Keeping up the fluids

We started with a run to the bikes - well a sort of a run - cycle shoes with great lumpy bike clips on them make any agility in the running department impossible. It was more like a hobble which was exacerbated for me by the fact my feet were still numb and not receiving messages from my brain in any sort of coherent way. Once on the bike things improved. The slight warm breeze dried me and my clothes as I whizzed along to the turning point and back.
Alas my bladder began to whine again. I must have drunk half the ocean. At transition I had to find the toilet once more. I have to say the relief was exquisite.

The run section felt odd as my feet had not quite thawed. Once again my bladder went from whining to nagging to aggressively haranguing. I surrendered and shot into a handy patch of flax bushes. Returning to the road afterwards in a far more relaxed frame of mind I slowly picked up pace and developed a rhythm. The day was superb for running as it was warm but not hot. The side of the road was uneven and the road itself narrow. I had to keep a good vigil as cars, cyclists and runners kept passing and there was no separate footpath. Sunny calm days can be rare in Wellington so there were plenty of people out to enjoy the day.

Cycling was pleasant as it was warm and calm

I got into a good pattern at last - cycle, eat and drink, run, eat and drink, then repeat the routine over and over until the time was up. I gradually shed clothing as I warmed up until I needed only my tri-suit.

Almost finished - bbq coming up

It was great to collapse on the grass in the sunshine and finally relax. We shared our experiences as we tucked into a barbecue of salads and venison. In a months time we would be doing this for real. Finally I felt that this challenge might be within my capabilities and even fun - maybe!