Race Recap: Ironman 70.3 Zell am See 2024
I did my first Ironman 70.3 a few days ago in Zell am See and this is my Recap of the race.
I am more than happy about how my race turned out! It was an amazing day. I had a lot of fun and THE best support team I could wish for🥰🥰
Throughout the 1 year I was training for this race I got a lot of support from my family, boyfriend, friends, and coach! And I’m incredibly grateful for that!
I am very happy to have decided to sign up for this race and am excited to see where this journey takes me. All I know is that this definitely wasn’t my last race!
Here’s the full Recap of Ironman 70.3 Zell am See and the days leading up to it:)
Ironman 70.3 Zell am See Race Week
Thursday
On Thursday my Carboloading for the race started. I did it quite similarly before my last race. Two days before I had 8-10g of Carbs per kilo bodyweight and then the day before the race, I reduced to 7-8g.
Friday
On Friday I drove to the race location, to Zell am See with my mom.
The first thing I did was pick up my race documents at the registration and then we drove to the swim start for my swim.
After that, I had a bowl of Pasta and we drove to our stay for the night. There I did a run with short intervals at race pace and then the day was as good as finished.
Saturday
Saturday morning we drove to Zell am See again and checked into a hotel in the village to be closer to the start on race morning.
I did a bike check and bike ride with some small race-pace intervals and then had to take my bike and transition bags to the transition area.
Back at the hotel my family and I had dinner and then went to bed.
Sunday – Race day!
I woke up before my alarm went off and could not fall asleep again. I lay in bed for a while longer, visualizing my race from start to finish.
The race started at 11 am, so quite late and I had more than enough time for everything.
I had breakfast at around 7:30 to 8 am. I had coffee with some milk and two slices of white toast bread with jam.
8:30 I had a half bottle of Maurten Drink mix (40g Carbs). I drank the other half at 10, 1 hour before the race started.
Then 15 minutes before the swim started I had a gel.
I couldn’t have wished for a better race. The conditions were ideal for me and exactly what I had hoped for.
Sunny and warm for the swim and bike and then a little cooler and cloudy during the run.
Swim
The first half of the swim was mentally the hardest for me, I had some trouble finding my groove in the water.
I wanted to do a swim warmup but I was unsure if they would close the box or not.
I lined up in the 35-40min box but my swim turned out a little slower than I wanted. (Maybe because I was quite far away from the buoys and swam some extra meters).
However, I found a pace that was not quite easy but I felt like I could keep that pace for the length of the swim.
I was really looking forward to the bike, because of the beautiful scenery, and cycling is just fun:))
I managed to get through the swim and came out of the water a little wobbly and confused, but I found the way into T1😅
The transitions were ok, I had some trouble getting out of my wetsuit, but apart from that I did it quite well.
Bike
Out of transition and onto the bike I had some struggles with my Powermeter and was just playing around with the device for the first 2km until I finally saw my Watts😮💨
The first 20km of the bike were suuuuper fast and I felt strong.
Then the 13km climb up to Dienten and the Filzensattel started. I rode my goal watts, tried not to get influenced by the people passing me, and just tried to keep my goal pace!
After 1h30min I was already in Dienten and finished my Maurten Drink Bottle with 180g of Carbs already. I used a lot of water to cool myself down on the long but steady climb and then got two new bottles at the aid station.
I knew that the toughest part of the climb was just ahead of me but I was READY for it.
I watched as more and more athletes got off their bikes and started walking. But not me. It gave me a hugggeee confidence boost seeing all of these men who passed me before walking up the mountain😂.
Yes, the climb is hard, but for some reason, I had soooo much fun!! I was smiling and pushing, but still trying to stay as low as possible with my watts.
I tried motivating some other people that were noticeably struggling.
The downhill part was so fun and I had a LOT of speed. (especially the corners) I passed some people on the downhill as well.
At the point where it got less steep, I took my first gel at around 2 hours.
The rest of the course was rolling, no more steep climbs.
At the aid station at 55km, I asked for 2 new water bottles but got two Iso bottles😐. YESSS 2… and I poured them over my head before I noticed…so I was sticky and a little mad until kilometer 73km (aka the next aid station).
It got a little harder at that point because I was not cooling and drinking less than before and I didn’t especially want to try a new product on race day because I didn’t know how my stomach would handle the Iso drink.
During the last 20-30km it got more cloudy and dark and cooled off a little. Which was perfect for me, because running in cooler conditions suits me much better.
Run
I turned my head off during the half marathon, you’d be surprised by how little thoughts I had in my mind.
But I liked it and tried to keep my head clear. I cooled my body with water at every aid station, took my gels, took deep breaths to regulate my pulse, forced myself to smile (a lot), and stayed in the zone.
I felt like I was flying on the run, I felt fast, I had fun (really) and even my dad told me that I looked super fresh (and that at 16km!).
If I had not taken a quick stop at the Porta Pottie I might have even gone sub 2h in my FIRST EVER half marathon!
I passed a lot of other girls in my age group during the run (at least that’s what my parents told me)
I wanted to run the last 5km faster because I still had enough in the tank, but I could not get my legs to move much faster😂
Of course, my legs did hurt during the run, but that pain was bearable, it didn’t bother me.
Some tears came up when I got to the finish line canal, I could not believe that it was already over, because the time passed extremely fast!
What did I do well?
- Nutrition, cooling, and pacing
- Getting off the bike
- The transitions could be a little faster, but I think I did it pretty well
- Nutrition well tolerated
- Run pacing
- Keeping a positive mindset
What could I do better next time?
- Swim Warmup!
- Go a little harder during the run when I feel really well.
- Swim in a straight line!
- Making sure there is really water in the bottle…
