After smashing his way through IM70.3 Elsinore earlier this season, #TeamTCUK athlete Vilhelm Sundström set his sights on completing his very first Iron distance race at IM Vichy.

Pre-race

Overall, I believe my preparations where good starting a year in advance with relatively consistent efforts throughout. With hindsight, I had underestimated the toll the last 3-4 weeks of 15-16 hrs training would take on me and other life commitments. In the end I plateaued at around 12-13hrs per week throughout the training period. I feel I had a very good overall fitness going into the race. I could probably have paid even more attention to the long bike rides as that would have set me up better for the run.

Swim

Time: 1hrs 40

The start was a mental struggle with everything from the regular panic feeling from the cold water, the daunting distance and OW swimming in general. After I settled down from that initial awkwardness, the swim actually was nice and steady, even enjoyable. I was very puzzled coming out of the swim and looking at the time as I felt reasonably good. Afterwards I noticed that my Garmin showed 4.5km of swimming, which clearly shows a need for OW navigation training.

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The positives for the swim were that it was wetsuit legal, the Australian exit was a great mental help for poor swimmers, the course is straight as can be and therefore easily navigated. The negative was that the water quality was a clear question mark, which haunted me on the bike.

T1

Time: 9:57

Don’t really know where all the minutes come from but apparently I did take my time. I was extremely cold (around 10 degrees and wet) and had foolishly decided against sleeves or a bike vest the day before.

Bike

Time: 6hrs 26

I felt dreadful during the first 40km. I was cold, the sun did not come out and on top of that I had severe stomach problems, presumably from the water swallowed during the swim, which prevented me from being in aero position. After two ‘technical’ breaks at around 40-60km of some 8 minutes each, I suddenly felt good again and the rest of the bike was comparatively enjoyable. As it was my first IM and I had no clue what I was doing, I stayed well within my limits resulting in a very pleasant ride, even had a negative split with a bit of a push in the last 60km. There was good support throughout the course which was nice and rolling through small villages. The road surface was quite poor in places though.

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T2

Time: 10:27

My stomach problems resurfaced so added another break there. Otherwise pretty uneventful.

Run

Time: 5hrs 18

Started out well on the first two laps (as everyone does), with a steady planned pace. Had lower back problems from the bike effort, but nothing too bad. Served a one-minute penalty for violating dismounting the bike too late, obviously did not mean anything in the greater scheme of things.

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After the second lap things started to go a bit south with the body not able to hold liquid anymore. Peculiarly enough I was able to eat solids so ate oranges, bananas, gels, bars and anything I could get my hands on for the rest of the race. For the last two laps I adopted a run between stations strategy, but in fairness the running pace was very similar to a rapid walk. I liked the course a lot and the ‘stadium’ area was fantastic. I had thought there would be more support on the road, felt a bit lonely from time to time.

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Post-race

I will now rest for three weeks and start my new regime on the 17^thSeptember with the goal to crush my PB on IM and 70.3 next year. Already signed up for Copenhagen IM 2019 and a few 70.3s will follow.

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Race review

I would recommend it, as it has a lot of good things going for it. Vichy is a beautiful city and the arrangements were excellent. My wife was there as well and she was enjoying the surroundings and race day. However, wouldn’t race it again, mostly because of 1) location is a bit off, it took a lot of logistics for me to get there and away. It is not close to Provence nor Paris; 2) would like to try other IMs; 3) think there are two really good IMs in the Nordic area (Kalmar and Copenhagen) that would get my vote if I wanted to do the same competition several times.