Ironman Goa 70.3 - The Journey to the start line
The Idea
I have forever believed myself to be a purist in my hobbies. I have never enjoyed pursuing multiple things and instead loved obsessing over one specific hobby and getting better at it. I think that is where my dislike for triathlons has always been from. I have always looked at it as being mediocre at three separate sports instead of looking at it as one single sport.
My mindset honestly changed when I saw Gokul register for the Goa 70.3 in 2024 and put in his heart and soul training for it. As I grow older, I also keep telling myself to be curious and not judgemental (My favourite line from Ted Lasso). So, right in the middle of my marathon block for Gold Coast this year, I started riding my gravel bike again. I just wanted to see if I even enjoy riding now before I took the plunge of registering for a 70.3. So one fine day in March, I took out my Fuji Jari 2.3 out for servicing and showed up at a scheduled long ride by TBA (our trusty local bike store in town). The only goal was to see how far I would last before getting dropped by the bunch and whether I even enjoy it or not.
The equipment
The other reason I have forever refrained from a triathlon was the fact that I felt it was a big equipment game in terms of the bike you own to begin with. The other big bottleneck was finding space at home for a smart trainer. It is almost impossible to consistently train outdoors on the bike in our current cities and a smart trainer was an essential if I were to take the thought of training for a 70.3 seriously. Two big things happened in the first week of March -
Natasha being the sweetheart she is - observed and realised my itch and predicament and offered me space in her office room to set-up my smart trainer. Not only this, she actually ended up paying for my ‘Wahoo Kickr Core with Zwift Cog’.
I sat down with Krish for a bike fit and we made three major changes - put me on a wider saddle to ensure my glutes are a lot more stable while riding, move me from MTB cleats to road bike cleats and a wider pair of Lake shoes accounting for my foot size and width.
Armed with these two updates, I did my first FTP test on 11th March - A full 182W. I was also showing up for the sunday rides with my fatigued legs from the marathon block and weirdly enjoyed getting dropped almost every single time. My biggest learning through these 3-4 rides was also the fact that I needed a better bike if I wanted to have a good bike leg in the race. I obviously reached out to Gokul to see what bike he would recommend while having zero clue as to how I would pay for it!
To cut the chase short, the good peeps at TBA set me up with a Merida Reacto 6000 with Magene Power Pedals, Profile design 40mm spacers and aerobar extensions. Going back to I had zero clue as to how I would pay for it, my parents like aways came forward to support my stupid goals and hobbies and gifted the bike to me as an early birthday present.
Armed with a brand new bike and registration in place for Ironman Goa 70.3, I forgot about the race till the Gold Coast marathon in July except for the weekend long rides.
The Conviction
I did not enjoy the block for the Gold Coast marathon. I had a lot going on personally; it’s never fun training for a marathon in the summers and I stood at the start line of the race waiting for the race to get over so that we can get on with our vacation. In fact, Natasha has it recorded on camera with me saying something to the tune of I want to get done with this while running the race.
The block followed by the race day experience was enough proof that I was burnt out and needed a different stimuli in training both mentally and physically. Atleast that’s what I told myself starting a block for the 70.3 mid-July :)
The Training
Armed with a new bike, a pair of Nabaji jammers and goggles and my wardrobe of running shoes - I started my block for Goa on 21st July.
Swim
My first swim session was a grand failure. I do not know why I was super confident that I will dive into the pool and my body will remember all the metres I swam as a school kid. Spoiler alert - It didn’t! I spent an hour in the pool during my first session barely swimming 600metres with multiple stops and all I could think was how am I going to go from this to swimming 1900m in open water by November. I kept at it myself trying to do various drills after combing through hours of YouTube videos for a month before finally realising that I would need a swim coach if I were to have a chance at this. 2 months of work with a coach at Strokes and I was finally putting in 1,800 - 2,200m workout sets. The first month with the coach was especially fruitful with him spending a lot more time with me, making me do a lot of drills to ensure my drag reduces, etc. Having said that, the second month felt like a waste of money since he would tell a random workout for me to do and disappear.
Having said that, the Coach played a big part in ensuring that I found my flow and improved my form to an extent where I was able to put in long 1 hour swim sessions by October. The second week of October also was when I travelled to Goa for a swim camp with Goa Open Water Swimming Club. I showed up at the camp excited to swim in the open water and learn techniques which will improve my chances of getting through the swim leg. Spoiler alert - The only reason I survived the swim leg on race has to be this camp. The fag end of our first session I had to pause swimming to adjust my goggles and panicked as soon as I realised my feet weren’t touching the floor. I took this mental baggage to the second day as well and panicked during the time trial. But both Nicole and Trevor from GOWSC were super calm with me through my mini panic bouts and also gave me their thoughts on things I should work on between then and race day. The entire camp in itself was super well structured and is a no-brainer for anyone who is yet to swim in open water or are getting into open water after a break.
Once I was back from the camp, I stopped working with the swim coach in Hyderabad and started putting in my own workouts. I felt like I put in quite a bit of quality work during these 3-4 weeks leading into the race giving me the extra confidence I needed for the swim.
Swim Totals - 54.53K over a period of 14 weeks averaging about 3.9K per week
Bike
This was where I had the most fun. Coming from a running background, I could push a lot on the trainer workouts and I would look forward to the weekend brick rides with Gokul and Shaunak. The more I rode, the better I got - My FTP went from ~180W to 240W by race day. All I did was pick-up bike workouts from Humango and completed them on the trainer with Zwift while tinkering my brick days based on what the larger group wanted to do on Saturdays.
My biggest bottleneck on the bike was being able to be in the aero position for a long time. This again was a huge work-in-progress and I went back to working with Krish to get my bike fit right. One of the biggest wins was moving from a 172.5mm to a 165mm crank length. I was initially not sold on this idea at all and only when Shailendra from TBA offered me his crank to try on for a weekend ride, did I give it a shot. The first minute on the aero bars during that ride, I knew the change in crank helped a lot in staying in that position for a long time.
The other big issue I had was that my right elbow and arm would go numb after being on the bars for 10-15 minutes. The first big change we made again based on Krish’s recommendation was add in a 40mm spacer under the aero bars. The next change we made thanks to Shailu was to have the bars a lot more upright. These changes really helped but I was still struggling with my right wrist hurting. My right wrist would intuitively go rest on the left aero bar instead. This finally got solved during a random conversation with Sarthak where he suggested that I tilt both the aerobars inwards and that did the trick!
Bike Totals - 2145.96K over a period of 14 weeks averaging about 154K per week
Run
I was so consumed with getting better on the bike and surviving the swim that the run leg sort of became an after thought. I counted on the fact that my legs know how to run when tired and I would get through the run leg. I also ensured I would hit the track with Gokul and Tribhuvan every wednesday for our track workouts and would also not miss the runs on the saturday brick days. In hindsight, the one thing I would have loved to change was running the long runs on Sundays a bit more faster - atleast to stimulate running faster on tired legs if not for anything else.
Run Totals - 426.85K over a period of 14 weeks averaging about 30.5K per week
Armed with all this training and a bike bag borrowed from Ballu, Gokul and I drove down to Goa on 2nd of November with an overnight stop in Solapur to break down the journey.
The Costs
I honestly feel like the biggest bottleneck to getting into this sport is the cost associated with it. I will also be the first person to agree that I could have trained the best I can without purchasing a trainer or an aero frame 105 di2 road bike. But I also had certain time goals in mind when I registered for this race and wanted to figure out how I can eke out the most value from the money I spent. I also have to acknowledge the fact that I am privileged enough where my Partner buys me the smart trainer and my parents buy me the bike without any second thoughts and support me through every random idea I have.
The below table is a summary of costs I spent on to get to the start-line of this race with a disclaimer that this is an extremely personal choice and the costs will vary from person to person :)
Like I said, the costs spent is absolutely personal and I wouldn’t want this to dissuade someone from doing their first triathlon. Like I could have done the same race on my existing gravel bike while training outdoors and would have ended up saving at least 70% of what I spent above :)
Will detail the race weekend and the race day in the next blog.
