Earning the Ironman badge @ Goa IM 70.3 – Part 1 (Build-up to the race)

Endurance sports journey is all about progress – incremental gains trickling over a long period of time. But, every once in a while a jump-shift is needed to break the monotony of linearity and more importantly, to stretch our boundaries further!

I have had 2 such jump-shifts so far. First, when I graduated to FMs and, second, when I moved from FMs to Ultras. Since early 2022, I had been harbouring the dream of another jump-shift – triathlons. I had done an Olympic Tri at the Hyderabad Triathlon in 2018 so the sport wasn’t new. The real challenge was to enter the big league with a 70.3 race to setup a base for 140.6 in future! And, thats how Goa IM 70.3 happened for me in Oct 2023!

Goa IM 70.3 was a surreal experience and I found it hard to compress the whole experience in a single and short blog post. It was always going to be as long as the race itself! Hence, I decided to write it in two logical parts. This is the first part encapsulating the journey from registration to the expo day. In part 2, I bare down my expo and race day experience with the usual conclusion (https://aashutosh.net/2023/10/25/earning-the-ironman-badge-goa-im-70-3-part-2-expo-race-day/).

Let’s dig in Part 1!

a) Registering on a whim

In Mar 2023, a Goa 70.3 IM post popped on my social media stream and I registered on a whim! I knew I had to do a 70.3 Tri in 2023 and at that moment I felt Goa IM 70.3 is the right event! My run and endurance was sorted. But, I did not even have a decent bike back then and the max distance I had done was around 60K. Swim was fine but largely in the pool. I hadn’t done much of open water swim so this also was a big unknown. I usually do not register for races like this but then this was a jump-shift!

b) A tepid start to the training block – April & May’23

In the months of April and May, a hectic personal and work schedule did not allow me to devote much time to the training. I was looking for a second hand entry level road bike but was not successful after several wild goose chases. There was limited cycling mileage – all on the gym bike, during these months. Suprisingly enough, I did not have much swimming mileage too because our apartment complex pool was undergoing a major maintenance outage and I was too lazy to explore swimming options outside.

Mileage Meter:

April 2023 – Run: 170km, Bike: 100Km, Swim: 0km

May 2023 – Run: 150km, Bike: 120km, Swim: 0km

I was feeling terrible by the end of May and was already regretting the decision of registering for an expensive IM race and not backing it up with a solid base training! I needed a turn around and I was determined to get my training in order in June.

c) Getting the training block back on track – Jun’23

My bike hunt continued to be unsuccessful and I finally chucked the idea of picking up a second hand bike. I kept putting in some cycling mileage on the gym bike. Swim hadn’t yet kicked off but I wasn’t worried about it. Thankfully, I managed to pick up the running mileage. Things weren’t great yet but I was getting into some kind of training groove.

Mileage Meter: June 2023 – Run: 230km, Bike: 100km, Swim: 0km

d) In comes the Red Fury – Jul’23

The inflection point came when I finally got my road bike. A red color Merida Scultura RIM 400. I named it Red Fury. I must thank my running buddy Nirav Patel, a fabulous triathlete himself, who helped me with this purchase. I decided to dedicate Jun month to cycling with the objective of building atleast 80-90km ride endurance. Thanks to my cycling buddies – Nirav, Sunil, Sibu, Vinay, Rahul, Ganesh & Ravi, I was able to squeeze in several long rides and by the end of Jun, I found myself comfortable on a road bike with cleats and also equipped with technical bike mech nuances like punctures, wheel in/out and so on.

I also got some valuable swimming miles under the belt – all of it in the pool though! Running mileage remained steady too.

Mileage Meter: July 2023 – Run: 120km, Bike: 350km, Swim: 7km

e) Starting Bricks and a Test Tri Event – Aug’23

With training block in motion, I earmarked Aug month for combination training with more focus still on cycling and swimming. I also signed up for a local Tri event – BMF Triathlon, which had 1.5K swin, 60K Ride & 15K run. I thought this would be a good baseline test to figure out things to work on over the remaining 7 weeks to the event!

I tested several brick workouts during August and was able to do combination of Bike + Run and Swim + Run fairly comfortably. I also did some mini training tri just to get training around transitions and locking in experience of 3 things all together.

Finally, I got to test a Tri at BMF Traithlon wherein I managed decent timings : 47 mins for 1.5K swim, 2:08 for 60K ride and 1:29 for 15K run; and around 10 mins across both the transitions. I felt a bit of a panic and anxiety during the lake swin but somehow hustled through. I realized I had to get more open water swim training to get past this!

Mileage Meter: August 2023 – Run: 150km, Bike: 230km, Swim: 8km

f) The final frontier – Sep’23

And just like that, it was September and only 5 weeks to go before the race. This was a going to be a heavy month with equal focus on all three disciplines.

I also signed up for a 3 day training camp in Goa. This was organized by Power Peaks – a pune based triathlon training organizaiton led by a fabulous triathelte, Chaitanya V. This was one of the best decisions in hindsight. During 3 days we did countless sessions – swim, bike & run; including a race simulation on the actual IM route on the final day of the camp. I met several fabulous triathletes in this camp and made some great friends. Two biggest outcomes for me were: a) I become fairly comfortable with sea swimming and b) I gained the confidence of doing a good finish in my debut Tri.

Mileage Meter: Sep 2023 – Run: 192km, Bike: 375km, Swim: 11km

g) Ready to roll – Oct Week 1

By October week 1, I felt ready to rock my debut 70.3 IM. I was reasonably confident of doing a sub 7 hour finish provided I had no untoward incidents on the race day. The only lingering doubt I had was about the heat and humidity acclimitization. I landed in Goa just 2 days before the race and that too from Bengaluru. I could have tried reaching a day or two earlier but it was not possible due to personal committments and work schedule!

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Side notes:

Tri-suit: I picked up a 2XU core trisuit for a good discount from Triequip Sports Mumbai. I picked up the sleeveless one and quality is awesome.

Goggles: I graduated to the popular Speedo Flexiseal Biofuse 2.0 in September as I found my earlier speedos fogging up badly in the sea water leading to sighting issues. I must say these are one of the best goggles for open water swimming.

Shoes: I had several options to choose from here given my running base. I zeroed in onto Saucony Endorphins Pro 3 and Saucony Speed 3.

Watch: I had Coros Pace 2 which worked perfectly fine for triathlons so I did not have to pick-up anything new here. I resisted the urge of picking up a cyclo computer. Instead, I mounted my old Garmin Fenix 3 on the bike and this was sufficient.

Bike: As mentioned above, I picked up Merida Scultura RIM 400 from Wheel Sports Bangalore. This is a fabulous bike with 105 set-up and I would highly recommend it to anyone planning to get into road cycling or triathlons. The only add-ons needed on the bike were Shimano pedals. The other accessories used were FLR cleats, Btwin Road Helmet, Btwin Handpump and Btwin Van Rysel gloves.

Bike transport: The good folks at Pedals & Wheel made fabulous arrangement of bulk bike transport. The participants from Bangalore were happy to hand over the bike to Sachin & team who safely got the bikes to Goa. We had to pick up just 2 kms from the venue. The drop was also very close to the finish line. This way, one major logistical task was fully take care of!

In September 2023, when I traveled to Goa for the camp, I carried my bike in the flight and I had a fabulous experience with Indigo. We need to pack the bike up well before handing it over to the airline though.

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If you have come this far, I am sure you would want to read about how the race went for me. Here is the link to part 2 of this blog, where I relive the expo and race day experience: https://aashutosh.net/2023/10/25/earning-the-ironman-badge-goa-im-70-3-part-2-expo-race-day/