Chris McDonald Ironman Roth Race Report

Some of you may know that I made the trip to Germany this past weekend to race in challenge Roth for the third consecutive year . The skinny was

Swim - 50 :30
Bike - 4:22:xx
Run - 3:01:xx

8:17:xx

My trip to Germany had started with an upgrade to business class and a very comfortable travel day . I had left the travel late this year and arrived on Wednesday morning just 72 hours prior to the race . On Thursday we had a full day of activities starting out with a mandatory blood testing for every professional in the field , then followed by , briefing , press conference , athlete signing in the local shopping mall.

Race morning rolled around with a 3:20 am wake up call for the 6:20 am start . At Roth they do an amazing job of building the tension to the start of the race and this year was no exception , we all lined up in the Donar Canal and we were away right on time . The swim was largely uneventful and I exited with a big group of guys and gals in just over 50 min .

After a quick T1 I was one of the first of the group out onto the bike and pushing the pace , much to my dismay a BIG group had formed .
This is were I had some decisions to make…..so now it was essentially turning into a” bike race “ senario and the run was becoming the sprint at the finish so to speak . So you have a decision of “ chasing the break” or the front of the race in a triathlon , or take the gamble and sit in and hope that someone else will do it .

At 80 Km I had heard a split of 90 sec to the front group to this point it was down from 2:45 . I knew that there was a HUGE benefit of being in the front group going into the 2nd lap so this is were I made some bad decisions and just drove the pace as hard as I could and became the domestique for about 10 guys . We did make contact with the front group at 110km and I tried my best to recover from a very torrid pace in the early part of the bike .

I came into T2 with a group that was essential all in 3rd place . I had had several nutrition dilemmas on the bike with losing a bottle and having to make it up with a LOT of gels . And I was also not quite sure how my hamstring ( injured pre race ) was going to behave .

Still I set out at my goal pace of a 2:50 marathon and moved through the half marathon mark right on pace , this is were things started to go south , the pain killers I was taking for my hammy wore off and it went from the hamstring to glute then my back , and on top of this the total of 20 gels I took in on the bike was causing a few porto stops .

The last 10 k was almost comical watching my running as I just could not recover my right leg and I had the straight leg going . This result was a LONG way from my goals for this race after finishing in 4th last year .It has put a fire in my belly to return in 2010 .

thank you very much to my family friends and sponsors for there continued support .

Cheers Chris