here is an old report from 2007 that I dug out:
brought a better time to my wrong racing tactics. Perhaps this will help someone of you in their next or first Ironman planning. The preparation went really well, especially on the bike I felt great, but the 3 weeks before the race I had some motivation problems, caused by the long season since October last year.
The race day itself began with a never-before-seen fight in the water and didn't get any better until the end. Nothing helped, except to hand out a few vigorously yourself when you can't even get your arms up because you're being maltreated from left and right. I am relatively satisfied with the swimming time of exactly 1 hour, I had hoped for more, but it wasn't enough for more this morning. After all, I still had a few kilometers to go. The change went smoothly, it only takes a long time in Frankfurt due to the huge area, and off we go.
After rolling in for a few kilometers, I noticed that my heart rate belt wasn't working, great! Switching everything, slipping and wetting it with water didn't help, I had to do my competition without a pulse. So I drove by feeling. That went very well, once again I was able to drive relatively steadily, with a small low between km 110-130. After overtaking over 200 people, I had to drive on the left side of the road for a long time at times. At 80 km the judge waved me over and warned me not to always turn left, stop once, put both legs on the ground and I was gone again. So then rather right into the groups and suck ??? Without me. They were hardly warned, at least in my presence, but apparently somewhere else, what I saw on the basis of the always well-attended penalty ...
After a very satisfactory time of 4:50, I got into the second transition area shortly before the first professional women. However, I didn't feel quite as fresh as at IM South Africa in March and I also had the slight premonition that without a heart rate belt, I was driving faster than I felt good ...
Nonetheless, I started walking and met Uwe and Julia right away, great encouragement, both of you. Some work colleagues from Nuremberg were also there! After km 6 I finally saw my support, Julia, Moritz, Steffen and many others who came to Frankfurt because of Gregor and me. Thank you very much for your support. I felt so dirty at the end, I have never experienced anything like it, but long before that I was happy to see you again on the next round.
Up to km 20 I could go through my planned pace, then the stove was out!
I've never felt so bad, my pace felt like it would take me 5 hours for the marathon, nothing worked. So I cycled too fast, the sudden realization came. In the end I dragged myself to the finish with 3.48 hours. In the end, a new personal best jumped out: 9:45 a.m. I am happy with that. Next time, take a little out of the bike and then I can run faster again 🙂
15 minutes after crossing the finish line I fell over and was taken to the hospital tent and later also to the hospital. This is due to my extremely low blood pressure of 60 to 40 after the race, but I already knew that from South Africa and after a few infusions I was able to leave the hospital again at night ...
Whether this is so healthy ... think about it again 😉