Ironman Mallorca 70.3 race report: Tom Foster

Coached triathlete Tom Foster raced the Ironman Mallorca 70.3 triathlon last weekend, here's what he had so say about his race! 

• First race of the season - pre-race nerves 
• How will I do? – Haven’t raced in ages
• Have I trained enough?  I said I wanted 4 hours 30 mins, I’m not sure I am in the form for that.

First up, I love Mallorca; I have been 4 times in the last 2 years, raced 3 times and a training camp earlier this year. It is cycling/triathlon Mecca (of Europe) with that the Ironman 70.3 in Allcudia is very popular and it’s easy to see why: well organised, great location, not that far from the UK and good weather (more about that later). The problem with all these great features is that it fills up really quickly, so you enter back in October because it will sell out otherwise.

My prep for Mallorca started with me attending the WhittleFit training camp (not coached!) we did a lot of sim-bike-run over the course of a week, I think I totalled 35h+ of training in all. Safe to say I was pretty tired afterwards! All the same, a great week, with a really solid group of people. During the camp I did one specific day of training focused on the 70.3 where we rode the bike course at steady speed – other than the last 35-40km that turned into a 4 up TTT, then ran off the bike. We also had one day of truly bad weather, torrential rain and cold, good prep for what was to come as it turned out!

Coming home from the camp I continued to work hard up to the taper. This is when doubts about my form started to creep in, I knew I was fit, but I hadn’t raced anything since October! And every session felt like a beasting. I was doing sessions where I should have been riding at my 70.3 wattage but struggling to hold the power for 30 min. Was I out of shape? Had I over done it on the camp? Was I ill?

I was into the taper by now so I just had to go with it, follow the plan – the plan worked. I had a couple of easy days, and then returned so some more intensity. Like someone had flicked a switch I was able to hold my watts easily, my running started feeling effortless.

We flew out to Mallorca early on the Thursday before the race, my bike had already travelled ahead with RaceForce – so no dismantling of bikes, bike boxes to contend with -glorious! (see http://www.raceforce.co.uk/ trust me it’s well worth it, Kate and the teamdo a sterling job). My mum had sorted the accommodation, again nailed it with a lovely apartment that was sandwiched by the run course front and back and was 200m in either direction from the swim start and transition.

I managed to get a second route reconnaissance ride in of the Thursday taking in the key bits of the bike – climb and descent. I have previously taken on this race in 2014, my first race proper after joining Whittlefit. The course is predominantly unchanged, with some minor adjustments on the bike, the main one being removal of a really rough section of road after the descent. The run course had changed quite a bit, but nothing that would make it any harder. So the race wouldbe an interesting comparison, although 2014 was in near perfect conditions – warm (High 20’s – perhaps a little hot!) and light winds. 2016 was a little different, I had been tracking the forecast closely, various websites suggested it was going to be wet, frustrating as it was boiling back in the UK!

Registration was on the Friday, I was shocked to find myself in the low numbers (106 – usually 1-99 are Pro’s) I couldn’t figure out why this was, until I looked on the front of my registration document and noticed the AWA (Ironman All World Athlete) logo on it. Last season I ended up doing 3 ‘M-Dot’ branded events in my quest for World Championship qualification this meant I amassed a load of AWA points and got a ‘Gold Rating’. So basically like some sort of  frequent flyers club I had managed to get priority space in Transition, my bike was 20m from the mount line and seeing that it wasn’t a one-way transition area this would benefit me in t1 and t2!

Race morning arrived; I didn’t sleep brilliantly worrying about missing the start, like I nearly did in Turkey! Another slight change from previous years was the rolling swim start. I have talked about this before, good in some ways, bad in others. Bad in this way because the swim start in previous years had been at a leisurely 10am or so!

I had a quick breakfast and coffee, headed over to transition to put my bottles/shoes on my bike and pump up my tires. It was hammering down, with standing water everywhere. People had put plastic covers over their bikes overnight – pointless, everything was soaked in seconds following their removal. I decided to put socks in my run bag and arm warmers in my bike bag. My wet ride on camp had shown that it was possible to get very cold even in Mallorca. I reduced the pressure in my tyres slightly, down to 90PSI just to give a little more contact in cornering. That descent was going to be hairy enough with carbon brakes and rims!

My nutrition for the day was going to be a classic Torq gel cocktail of flavours in the bottle on my bike with some Torq energy drink in the other bottle. For once it was not going to be a challenge to stay hydrated! But fuelling would need more attention as you don’t feel like drinking so much when it’s really wet.

Bike prepped, it was back to the apartment to get suited up into my wetsuit, finish my coffee and chill out for a bit. I was a bit anxious about how this start was going to work, so I headed over to get in the sea and get a feel for the water. Congre

gating on the beach with some of the Cr@p Tri crew and Dave Murray we stood huddled up for a while as it was pretty cold! Eventually we made our way into the start pens; I put myself near the back of the 20-29 min pen, with the promise of a Butch Stephens swim lead out!

Swim 31.56

The first section of the swim was fine; the rolling swim start doing its job of thinning out the field, the water was fairly calm at this point considering the heavy rain. I was trying to find some feet and concentrate on swimming ‘comfortably hard’ I have a bit of a habit of losing concentration in the swim and forgetting to kick so I was focusing on that. Once we had swum beyond the breakwater, it became noticeably choppier, and then came the jelly fish.

At first I thought it was seaweed, but then something touched my thumb, then there was a stinging sensation grew and grew from my thumb, it wasn’t bad but confirmed that I had swam into something, and it wasn’t happy about it. I swam on (with a bit more aggression) and cleared the jelly fish then made it around the turn to head back to shore. About 100m after the turn I saw them properly this time, huge and bright purple! I upped my tempo a bit and tried to find someone to follow. One caught me on the ankle but again it wasn’t too bad, my biggest concern was not having my face stung.

I made it back into shore with only two stings, my time was a little slower than I would have hoped for, but all the swim times were slower, so I think it was choppier than I was felt it to be.

T1 4:36

Transition at 70.3 Mallorca is huge, so I knew my time through here wasn’t going to be quick. I decided that due to the weather I was going to put my arm warmers on. They put up a bit of a fight because my arms were soaking, but I eventually managed it! I made for my bike, a long long way down to the end of transition – some people pushing their bikes all the way – not me!

Bike 2:38:25

The bike is where this race is ‘won or lost’. The course hasn’t changed significantly, but more gradual evolution over the past 3 or 4 years. The main feature is the climb of the Col Femenia. The rolling swim had done a good job of thinning out the field (previously the climb and initial section of the bike have seen heavy traffic) I just focused on hitting my power and settling into the bike. I felt good; my power was up above what my target was due to be. There were a few other racers drafting around me, which is frustrating because you can get innocently caught up in it where people pass you then slow down so you have to get past and try and get clear then they do it again. In the end I just let a gap eek out to them and held the group at the edge of my draft zone confident that come the climb I would blow them away.

The climb came; the draft crew went out the back door. I stayed on my power cap all the way up. It was oddly quiet going up the climb, as I said, previously it was so busy going up there but now it was just handfuls of riders every couple of hundred meters. That said, by the top there could have been a peloton ahead of me, but it was so misty you couldn’t see more than 50m ahead.

The descent stated, I gave myself an early scare with my wet brakes not providing the best stopping power! After that, I knew I had to get on the brakes much earlier just to dry them before they would bite. I was confident on the decent having done plenty of prior recon. By the bottom eventually arrived. I was so happy I had bothered with my arm warmers – it was cold!

The second half of the bike was pretty uneventful, the organisers have done a great job of removing some of the rubbish roads that you hit coming off the descent, so it lent itself well to getting your power down, warming up and nutrition on. I had my Torq gels in my water bottles to encourage myself to drink – it’s easy to forget to drink when it is really wet. I ended up biking a little harder than planned, but I was happy to go with it as I felt pretty good.

I had hoped to put down a PR for the bike split and go under 2:30 but the weather defiantly hampered times across the board.

T2 2:47

Run 1:24:08

I set out and felt strong on the run, grabbed an energy bar from the first aid station as I felt a bit hungry, nothing detrimental just that I wanted something solid in my stomach. I focused on getting that eaten and keeping my pace up for the first couple of Km. I was running slightly above my target pace but I went with it as I knew that putting down the extra bit of power on the bike would eventually catch up with me later on the run. The run had changed quite a bit since 2014, much improved in my opinion. A couple of annoying dead turns, but they had got rid of the long out and back along the main street which was so demoralising in previous years. My run did slow slightly in the last couple of Km but I was still confident of getting in around my par time of 1.24, again especially in the weather. I was spurred on to finish as the run course was getting busier and busier, so I was keen to get off the course. I was also pleased that the only guy who passed me on the run course was Brennan Townsend who was racing Pro this year, he was flying so I thought better of trying to race him!

Total Time 4:41:52 55th Overall,  5th in Age Group

As usual thanks to Mark of WittleFit for getting me into the form to perform! and to Cranc for looking after my bike. Torq for keeping me fuelled and RaceForce for getting my bike and kit out there.

Well done Tom, great racing in poor conditions. Onwards and upwards now towards the British Middle Distance Champs on the 22nd May!