I am an ironman!
This weekend I completed my first Ironman in Kalmar, Sweden. The race was fantastic, and it went much better than expected! I was hoping for 14-15 h, but finished in 12:30!
Swim: 1:23:41
T1: 5:56
Bike: 6:12:54
T2: 8:45
Run: 4:39:30
Total: 12:30:43
The biggest surprise was the swim. I just recently started swimming, I don't like it very much, and I'm not very good. My longest training session has been 4100 m (in 1:51). But that was in a small lake with completely calm waters, so I was expecting roughly the same time for the Ironman swim, but I got quite a shock when I got out of the water and looked at the watch!
The weather was great, and the audience fantastic! It was such a great atmosphere with people lining the entire run, blasting music from large speakers, cheering people on, and using the garden hose to cool the runners (and kids with squirt guns!). I can totally understand why Kalmar has been voted the best Ironman in the world. It was an absolutely fantastic day!
I started triathlon three years ago and I've done two medium distance (~70.3) and a couple of shorter ones. Previously I've mainly been doing running (completed a handful of marathons), and one 315 km bike race and one 3 km swim. I used Chat GPT to come up with a 10 month training plan (https://www.reddit.com/r/triathlon/comments/1pi3ts9/is\_this\_10\_month\_ironman\_training\_plan\_realistic/). Unfortunately I developed plantar fasciitis in the beginning of the year and my run training suffered. Luckily I didn't feel anything during the race. Also real life got in the way (lost my father in April) and I missed quite a lot of sessions during the spring/summer. All in all I averaged 4.5 h/week with only nine sessions >3 h.
The race was great, but the next day when I got back home and started to unpack I got a bad case of the post Ironman blues. I've had this single goal for the last 10 months, and then all of a sudden I didn't anymore. It felt so weird no longer having the training plan posted on the fridge, telling me what the next session was. It just felt so empty and meaningless. I'm starting to feel better now though. I guess I just have to give it time. I have a marathon in two months to look forward to, and I'm thinking of signing up for another one in June, and maybe try for 3:30 h (PB 3:52). I will definitely do another Ironman, but not next year. I will do some shorter triathlon races though.