Previous races - Ironman Lanzarote part 3 - the bike

 Ironman Lanzarote part 3 - the bike

I had realised I was going to to be on the bike for a long time, and planned to change to proper padded bike shorts in the tent. I then realised that being a continental race they hadn’t heard of the concept of single-sex changing areas, decided I had more things to worry about, and got on with it. Although I’d carefully applied waterproof suntan oil in my room, I was happy to take a top-up from the marshals who were applying cream like Artex to people’s shoulders - I’ll take any assistance I can get. Onto the bike, and off we go. There was a huge volume of noise from the supporters all the way down the main drag, which was a really good start. OK, I’ve made it through the swim - its time for phase 2.

One problem I knew I didn’t have was with the roads. The road condition was generally good, and all the roads on the route were closed for the event - the only moving vehicles were supporting the race. Traffic on the island pretty much shuts down on that day. They are great conditions to bike in - that was at least a point on the positive side.

I had spent quite a while - possibly too long - studying the Lanzarote bike route, and thanks to another pirate friend I had the cutoff times on a piece of paper stuck to the crossbar of my bike. I knew that the plan needed slow and steady, just concentrating on keeping moving along. There were six main hills, of which numbers 3 and 4 - Haria and Mirador del Rio - were the grand daddies. But before that was the donkey track.

The donkey track is a viciously steep hill, northerly and therefore directly into the wind, that they throw at you about 4 miles into the route. Its a tiny minor road that was presumably built for donkeys and doesn’t look as if its used for much more than that today - and it feels as if its straight up. Half a mile into that, I was down to my bottom gear and proceeding at a speed of about 6 mph - at which speed I would finish the bike some time tomorrow afternoon. There was nothing I could do about it though - just keep grinding up and hope that I could pick up some speed later. My first 10 miles took just under an hour, and gave me some idea of what the wind was going to feel like all day.

It did finally end, and the next part of the route was amazing - down to the coast (emphasis on the down) and along the shore at the north-west end of the island. Somewhere around there the cyclists far ahead were coming back on the far side of the road, and going downhill at least allowed me to harangue a few random pirates (including a couple of Matts, pirates seem to collect them) who were, by that point, a good hour ahead of me.

I’d realised that, with the heat and wind, dehydration was at least as much an enemy as running out of sugar, so I’d decided that my nutrition on the bike would be made up of isotonic rather than energy drink so I got the electrolytes that I needed, using the gels I’d taken out and bit of energy bar and bananas I picked up from the stations as the energy component. What I wasn’t ready for was the fact that the isotonic drink was blue. Really blue - sort of paraffin colour. It actually tasted OK, and it was certainly easy to identify - you shouted “i-so-tonn-eeek” loudly as you approached the feedstations, and they held out what you needed. Still looks horrible even on the photos though.

Back up from the coast two hours into the bike, and we were about to start one of the more photogenic parts of the route through the black lava fields. I’m glad I’d looked at that from the car, as on the bike it was a slow hot drag uphill north into the wind. I’m sure it was picturesque, but it wasn’t soothing. I was aware that I was well towards the back of those out there, although not quite last. There were a few cyclists stretched out over the miles I could see going into infinity in front of me in the haze. Apparently there’s a real volcano on the left, but it wasn’t on my tour route.

Finally round the corner on that one, and to the feedstation at Club La Santa, or near it. This had a loo, which I dutifully used, and stocked up again with a banana. It was also the first timing checkpoint - I was still OK, but only ahead by about 15 minutes - not much margin for error, so back on the bike. With one exception, that was the last time I uncleated for the next 6 hours.

Back south from La Santa at least had the wind behind, and I was actually doing a normal speed for a while. But then the left turn came, and we were heading back into the wind on another steady climb up to the town of Teguise, which is presumably Spanish for “town you visit twice assuming you make it up and down two dirty great hills”. Past Teguise, I saw the race leader coming past in the other direction at ludicrous speed accompanied by a couple of camera motorbikes, and realised that not only had he already done the high road but he’d certainly be at the finish afore me - probably many hours afore me.

And then there was Haria, biggest climb on the route. The road was straight for a while, and then started zigzagging up. I realised I wasn’t the only one struggling, as I passed a couple of pirates who managed to find the breath to encourage me despite their own positions - thanks Barlos. Somewhere close to the top, I passed a group of people supporting from the end of their drive, with a stereo blaring out “Hot Stuff”. Not sure whether they were referring to me or the weather, but I tried to do the elbows thing from the Full Monty to reciprocate - tricky when riding a bike up a hill. The top of Haria probably had a view, but the next time check called, and a somewhat crazy ride down a switchback of lefts and rights took me into the town of Maguez, still 10 minutes up on time at the checkpoint. No more margin of error, but at least that was Haria done. Unfortunately, also feeling done was another pirate, Mallowpuff, who was looking at the next hill with a knee that was claiming it had already done enough for the day, thank you. We exchanged mutual comments on the downhill nature of the course and I had to leave him to it.

When I’d been planning the route, I knew there was a special needs drop bag point at Maquez, and I’d carefully put a couple of treats in it for myself, including a flapjack I was rather looking forward to. I’d planned a couple of minutes off the bike, look at the view, eat the flapjack, cool down a bit. Not going to happen - not with only 10 minutes of safety margin left. I left it reluctantly - I’d been looking forward to that - and headed on for Mirador del Rio.

Technically, Haria is the bigger hill. It really didn’t feel like that. This one got steeper and steeper, and was still dead into the wind. IT was also one of those hills that didn’t finish - you thought you’d got there, went round a corner and the hill still went on. At one point it beat me - I just couldn’t keep the pedals turning and had to walk the bike a couple of hundred yards, following the cyclist in front who was doing exactly the same thing. But finally we got to the top - amazing view (brief glance allowed only) and the feedstation on top (more energy bar, more bottles of blue stuff). No stopping - dump the empty bottkles, grab the new ones, keep moving. Six hours into the bike course now, and 3 to go before cutoff. But at least that was the northern point on the course - from now on, the wind should be pretty much behind me. Mostly.

What goes up must come down. And on this course, that whole 3 hours of climbing up Haria and Mirador del Rio gets dropped off in about 10 minutes, at a fairly dizzying speed where you are trying to decide how much to brake and how much to try and win back some time. Once down at sea level, just because its fun, you start the long slow climb back west to Teguise (remember that)? Its not particularly steep, but I remember this as being the worst bit of the course - there was still a long way to go, the wind wasn’t hindering you any more but being on the side it wasn’t helping much, and it was continually slightly up. Knowing that the 10mph I was grinding along at was slower than I needed for cutoff wasn’t helping.

As I finally came into Teguise, I realised that the bike in front of me that had been 100 metres or so ahead for a while had suddenly whirled off and dropped me. It didn’t make sense - there was a long way to go yet - but I suddenly realised that the final timecheck point was in Teguise. OK, time to move - kick a gear and see if there are any legs left. I went through Teguise officially a minute ahead of the cutoff time, although I noticed later that they’d slackened that slightly to let a few through after. A friend at home who had been watching me on the tracker told me afterwards “you got us a bit worried there”. She wasn’t alone.

After Teguise, which was rapidly losing my approval, there was the annoying “make up the distance” bit where they dropped you down to a roundabout, round it and back up to the road. The additional climb was not what I needed, but I did finally catch up with another pirate, Minibar, who’d decided that an excellent place to do her first Ironman race was Lanzarote. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or sympathetic. I passed her on the way back up from the roundabout, and waved - we got to the top, there was a yellow and black blur, and she was a few hundred yards ahead of me on the last climb of the day, a slow ascent back towards the top of the donkey track.

The feeling of turning off down the donkey track was amazing - that was the first point that I actually thought I was going to finish the course. That feeling was slightly tempered by seeing Minibar at the side of the road - on the first bit of road that wasn’t immaculate tarmac, at just the point where you can head for home, there was a pothole that had caused her to puncture both wheels. She was taking it rather well - I (slightly faint-heartedly) offered to help, she told me to bugger off and finish in more or less exactly those words, and I headed down the donkey track I’d hauled myself up what felt like several days before. My enjoyment of being near the finish was further tempered by seeing an ambulance at the sharp bend at the bottom - someone had come down a bit too fast and hadn’t made the bend, and had ended up in the wall. It certainly wasn’t easy to keep your concentration by this point in the day, so I could see how it had happened. I hope he was OK.

Final trip up the Puerto del Carmen bypass, and back in the way we’d come, to increasing noise from what seemed to be the entire town and most of its holidaymakers, along with a noisy (and welcome) collection of pirates who hadn’t made it out of the Ruta 66 bar all day. The winners had long finished, and I hadn’t even started my run yet, but I’d beaten the bike cutoff by 10 minutes, after 8 hours 50 minutes in the saddle. 182km, 2443m of climbing. That was a fairly special moment.