Our group consisted of my friend Marianne, competing in her 3rd full IM, her mom Lena, and I, all traveling from Piscataway and Philadelphia via Newark to Stockholm, and my aunt Pat and her friend Sandy, traveling from Milwaukee via Chicago. Collectively Lena, Sandy, and Pat are referred to here as the Moms. On the 5th day, we took the train from Stockholm down to Kalmar.
 |
| The host hotel (Calmar Stadthotel) is at the finish line and bears an ironman flag. Sandy and Pat shared the room on the top floor, overlooking the finish. |
The pre-race meeting had the same ol' boring info. Held before dinner, but still only athletes were allowed in. I and many others huddled by open doors to listen in. Fun facts: Only 14% of registered athletes were female. Some 48 countries were represented. In my counting of those listed in the spectator guide, only 6 women and 17 men were from the USA, and only 1 woman and 2 men were from Canada. But I understand the guide is incorrect in its listing of the Pro's, as the on-line results showed a couple of more North Americans (2 USA-F, 1 CAN-M) here. Get this, 52% of the 2700 registered athletes were first-timers! I guess this explains why they so thoroughly went over what you put into each of the transition bags. Also, and this is different, they stated that family could bring you nutrition as long as it was handed to them immediately after the special needs area. The water was said to be 22 deg and the race was wetsuit mandatory; in fact, it is only permitted to fully remove the wetsuit once in the changing tent. Exiting the water the suit could only be lowered to the waist. I wonder if these things were also b/c so much of the field were newbies; are Europeans naked under their wetsuits?? Ironman Kalmar does not hand out tickets that allow a friend to collect your race things on your behalf, so even the last finishers had to go do this themselves. One more vital piece of info - this race has a 16 h cut-off. I knew Frankfurt was shorter at 15 h, but had no idea that the 17 h allowed in North American races was not the norm. Based on the intermediate cut-offs, it seems Kalmar expects participants to be faster bikers (by 15-30 min depending on rolling start swim start time) and runners (by 30-45 min) than what's allowed in the States.
 |
| The water was filled with very many of these jelly-fish-looking things (which did not seem to sting) as well as with many small fish. |
At this point I fear I brought bad luck to Marianne, who was missing a part needed to secure her seat post to the bicycle. So we spent a sizeable amount of time between the swim and gear check-in zig zagging by foot from bike shop to bike shop in search of this missing part, covering ~4.5 miles.
 |
| This British athlete has a dinosaur on his stem |
 |
| Bike covers were mandatory |
Check in to transition area. So many people were wearing their buckled helmets and race belts while merely pushing their bicycles that I thought this was actually required. One of the Moms thought those people were just very concerned about forgetting something so this was their way of being sure they didn't, but I think there were too many doing this for that explanation. I wonder if it may be a requirement of some other popular European race. Turns out this was not a requirement here, but the bicycles were all checked for soundness which I haven't seen since my first couple of triathlons in 2002/3. A couple of bicycles had whimsy attached. And here, the US-forbidden bike covers were in mandatory use!
 |
| Swim entry - temporary ramps set in a location where swimming is not normally permitted |
 |
| 1 of the 2 two most unusual swim courses I've seen, took place in the Kalmar strait, which is a part of the Baltic Sea |
 |
| Sitting so close I was occasionally splashed |
 |
| Swim exit, which was located closer to transition (<25 m) than any other full IM I've been to |
Despite the stream of constantly shifting spectators, we were all able to move over to transition in time to see Marianne again. Lena and I saw her go under (swim) and over (bike) the small bridge next to transition and Pat/Sandy saw her come out of the change tent and head for her bicycle. I nearly got a picture of her at the start of the bike, but my camera focused instead on an adjacent spectator's head.
 |
| After leaving transition, athletes head north and then east over to complete the Oland lap (shown on the other map). They return coming close to the transition area before heading north for the Kalmar lap. |
 |
| The Oland loop. I believe the athletes complete 112 km when the round the round-a-bout just north of transition. |
At this point we all headed back to and met up at the hotel for breakfast, where I tried to figure out if there was any way to see Marianne during her bike. This race does not provide any kind of busing to alternate locations, and the provided course maps could have used a blow up of the area near transition to better show how close the cyclists came prior to ending their ride. I was able to get a more detailed view by looking at the Garmin files from prior year's participants, and found out that the turn around between the first lap (over to and around the southern half of Oland) and the second lap (north of Kalmar) was indeed close by. We had about 1 h of down time before we headed over, which I used for getting showered and trading my pants, layered long-sleeved shirts, and jacket for a t-shirt and skort.
 |
| Cyclists in the foreground facing left are coming in from Oland. Those in the middle coming at the camera or heading right are going out on the next lap. Cyclists completing the ride would be heading to the left against the far fencing, but not are shown here. |
 |
| Marianne has completed ~122 km while other racers are heading back to transition |
 |
| The race was easy to watch from this part of town. Our hotel, marked with an H, was adjacent to the race finish (F). Swim start (S) was just 3 blocks south, transition (T) was 3 blocks north. At one point, the round about was busy with cyclists and runners (marked as Bike spectating). The thicker blue lines show how the run course zig zagged through town, by many shops and restaurants. |
 |
| The run course is 3 loops. Aid station 7 gives out colored bracelets that denote how many laps have been run. Once the racers have 3 bands, they may proceed through the finish shoot. (The finish is their 4th time through the old part of town.) |
 |
| Cat art by the beach |
 |
| Port-a-urinals kept the lines short for the port-a-poties |
 |
| One of several very cute houses in the area |
 |
| There was an energy conservation fair in town the day before the race. We also saw one of these electric cars in Stockholm. |
 |
| The run course crosses this bridge and goes through the stone gate |
 |
| Runner's view of the bridge. This old and central part of Kalmar is surrounded by water. |
 |
| The same gateway as above, with yours truly providing a sense of scale |
 |
| Ceiling of the gate way |
 |
| There were a couple of rooms. This one is gated off, as was a stairwell down. Another room was being used as an active glass shop. |
 |
| This map of the city shows the stone wall that surrounds it |
 |
| Through the stone wall, looking back |
Then things became less certain. I didn't have cell service in Sweden and the hotel wi-fi and/or Ironman's website seemed perhaps saturated. This made it impossible to get an update on Marianne's pace or where-a-bouts. In general, viewing participants on the run was quite simple as it passed right by our hotel (three times plus again for the finish) and the finish line was also right there. I found the Moms along the fencing and we waited as it grew darker and more chilly.
Eventually we had the sinking feeling the night wasn't going to end well, and I took off running upstream alongside the course through town, looking for her. After I found her I raced back to tell the Moms she was on her way, and I snapped what should have been a great photo except that my camera was not set for night time photography.
 |
| View from the second story of our hotel. The three people in the lower left along the fencing are Lena, Sandy, and Pat. Photo credit - this was pulled from the race live stream on eu.ironman.com. |
I decided to run with Marianne for the last lap, not knowing whether I'd be helpful or annoying. Leaving the center of the city, she was checked to be sure she had the right number of bracelets (participants got a colored "scrunchy" placed on their wrist for each lap they completed) and was noted as being one of last participants to get by the check point.
Now I got to see much more of the run course, some of which was quite dark and illuminated only with candles. This made me glad I was along as running through here alone I think it'd be easy to lose focus and perhaps even be creeped out. Passing the horse pasture a course marshal on bicycle instructed me I was not allowed to run/walk alongside Marianne. I am aware pacing isn't allowed, but have seen people run portions of a course before so concluded no one cared what back-of-the-packers did. I guess Swede's are more hard core about the rules. I sped up, made like I was heading back to town at the path intersection, he went away and I then fell in several yards back of Marianne.
The course entered a residential areas with quite lovely modern houses, and several people still sitting outside with food, drink, and music. After a mile or so a different course marshal biked by and asked what I was doing on the course. I said I was just a kind samaritan out for a lovely walk, at which point he laughed and told me to go keep Marianne company. I later saw this man's picture in the spectator guide as one of the event organizers. He biked with Marianne before I caught up and radioed to others about her position. We passed someone who was stopping to sit down; he didn't make it. I tried to be encouraging, but now that I think back on it, I should have stopped to talk with him. The woman we knew was behind us came blazing past apparently deciding she'd had enough of this and finding the energy to do something about it. We came upon another two women walking, one a participant and the other her friend; this woman from Germany managed to pull out the last record-able finish of the night, 15:59:55. The remaining spectators seemed intreged by the last participant who was going to be permitted to finish, and many of them pulled out cameras as we passed. As we approached transition I was told that I had helped enough and I couldn't go on, at which point I cut straight to the finish line to update the Moms. Then I got as close to the time clock above the finishing arch as I could, aiming to capture a finish that would not go in the record books. I thought she'd be officially listed as a DNF for not crossing under 16 h, but they list her as a DQ! Shit, I hope that's not my fault :-( :-(
 |
| Marianne earns a 24 minute PR! |
 |
| Photo taken from the Athlete Guide |
No comments:
Post a Comment