Elbaman

It was a real struggle waking up, and there was a feeling of 'what the hell am I doing' rather than the common nervous excitement. I put this down to just being drained and sleeping in the tent. I stuffed everything randomly into my big backpack before wandering over to the toilet block to eat my breakfast of cereal and jam sandwiches. Breakfast and toilet over I started the slow walk down to the transition area with music in my ears to try and wake myself up/get myself going. After getting to transition it immediately became apparent that I should have sorted everything out into each relevant bag yesterday. I got there an hour before the race start but it took all of this time decanting everything into the T1 bag, T2 bag, post-race bag, sort out nutrition, put on the race number tattoos, go to the toilet once more and put on my wetsuit. With about 5 minutes to spare I had made it onto the beach start area. It was a beautiful clear morning - the sun was about to rise above the hills on the other side of the bay.  And then we were off - I was feeling more excited than earlier and was glad that the race was underway. I employed my usual tactic of sticking at the back of the pack at the start of the swim aiming to avoid any flailing arms and legs. I felt OK at the beginning of the swim - it was the standard 2-lap loop with Australian exit after lap 1. Thankfully the water was pretty calm - I had heard from speaking to other competitors/race officials that this was far from the case during last years swim. Towards the end of the first lap my stomach started to feel slightly unsettled, and as the second lap progressed I started to feel really rough - the main cause of this being the unfamiliar breakfast cereal that I had eaten earlier. I was close to giving up towards the end of the swim and it was definitely a case of simply making it back to the beach rather than trying to swim quickly or have a decent technique. Thankfully I just about made it back, gingerly exited the water and managed a slow jog to transition.  Drinking water helped get rid of the seawater taste and made me feel slightly better. Thankfully after about 15 minutes on the bike I started to feel OK again and the race was back on :) . It was a stunning day (warm and sunny), which like the swim was a stark contrast to the torrential downpour that had happened during a previous race. The course was very hilly and there was the odd car/moped that came past (the roads were still open to traffic). Despite this I loved the 3-lap bike course, with the highlights being some stunning coastal roads and technical descents snaking down the mountains. There were enough feed stations around the course and the bike leg went well, with me making up several places from my pedestrian swim earlier. With the tough nature of the bike course ruling out any kind of fast finishing time I started the run with the sole ambition of completing the remaining 26.2 miles, and if things went well maybe doing it before sunset. I had lost a lot of salt during the course of the day (my tri-suit was heavily stained) so ran well within my capabilities and used each feed station to rehydrate and on several occasions refuel. It seemed like 90% of the competitors were Italian (this was shown on each race number), and I only spotted about 5 Brits. The 4.5-lap course featured an out-and-back along the seafront and around some of the town centre before another out-and-back in the opposite direction. The seafront in the centre of town and running down the council square road were the best bits mainly thanks to crowd support. The leading men had long-since finished but I passed the leading ladies on 2 or 3 occasions going in the opposite direction on the out-and-back stretches. The second lady was a brit so I gave her a cheer when we passed each other. I didn't manage to finish before dark - there was probably 1.5 laps to go after the sun had set. This made a big difference in the temperature and life became a lot easier. My last lap was significantly faster than the previous laps, and I overtook several people. The crowd were loving my fast finish and I got several high-5's and cheers as I smashed it (at least that's what it felt like) - definitely a highlight from my Elbaman experience. I crossed the finish line in 13 hours 13 minutes. Within about 10 minutes of finishing I felt sick. I tried to eat some of the pasta party food but couldn't manage anything significant. About 45 minutes after finishing I was sick - a significant amount of the fluids that I had taken on during the race came back up. I felt much better after this and was able to eat a decent amount of the pasta party buffet and drink some of the free beer. I spoke to a few of the other finishers at the pasta party before moving outside to the finish area. A local radio station were providing the PA and music at the end which was good, but certainly not as good as the finish party at Ironman Mallorca last year. Still I enjoyed cheering on the final finishers whilst drinking the free beer. The last one crossed the line with less than 2 minutes until the midnight cut-off, and was cheered home in style. After this I slowly cycled back to the tent and it was after 1am by the time I finally went to bed. The finishers presentation was at 10am, so I set my alarm accordingly.