AXTRI Race report

Think I'll do this one in English. For the bennefit of people that might want to know how the AXTRI is.
For a number of years now I have been building myself up. Going from 109kg couch potato to 94kg triathlete. Naming myself triathlete feels kind of funny, but yes I am one such. Last weekend I finished an half iron man distance triathlon called Aurland Extreeme Triathlon (AXTRI). This is my race report from that Triathlon:

The Swim: Aurland is a fjord with massive freshwater outlet. This means that the water is mostly fresh water. I knew that, but was not entirely prepared for it. The swim starts in an artificially made lagoon, and then enters the fjord.

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The weather was perfect. no wind, no waves, sun peeking over the edge of the very high very steep edges of the mountains making up the fjord. A proper "Kodak" moment. This picture from the day before conveys something of the fjord we swam in.

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The water temperature was measured to 14 degrees, I had bought a neoprene hood to prepare for that, but had not tested swimming with it. A risk, but a small one. The horn of the support boat at the first buoy was the start signal, and we were off. out of old habit I had placed myself in the rear and on the edge. This turned out to be a mistake. I had to pass a great number of slower swimmers, several who used chest stroke, and thus kicks sideways :( . The lagoon opening was also a bottle neck. come the open water everything was just perfect. I held back a bit out of experience to avoid panic when I go harder than I have oxygen for. The hod started to bother me a bit and irrational thoughts about being suffocated by it appeared. I cut back and they disappeared. THUNK something hit my head. a piece of wood floating in the water, not a problem. I increased the effort again and became aware that the goggles were taking in water. Kind of a problem. It's surprisingly of hard to convince your self that you'r, not about to drown when your face is under the water 90% of the time and your goggles are half full of water, so I stopped and emptied the mask. This happened three times during the swim until I got the mask just right. One more negative point about the speedo mask/goggles I have: The glass is orange, meaning that yellow buoys appear white, and does not stand out. However since I'm not an elite swimmer following the other swimmers was easy. At the far turning buoy we started to follow the shore. The water temperature dropped noticeably, and all of a sudden I was very glad to have the socks on (regular cotton ones but that helps too) Suddenly I put my hand in a large knot of seaweed floating about. I shook it of swearing and increased the effort to the sustainable threshold this time. When I'm properly warmed up going hard does not bother me, but somehow I never have time for that before a reace. We arrived at the lagoon where a friendly crew member unzipped me. To my surprise there were more blue caps around me than white. 35 minutes was shouted when I exited the water. 1900m in 35mins? yey! Not bad for me that.
BTC has an image of me coming into T1 I'm the guy with the hood still on.

The Bike:
After about 100m of flat ground it starts up. And it continues up for the next 16.5 kilometers, average grade is 8% (its very even btw). I had company with a nice guy from Hamburg. He did not like the hills. Kept mumbling something about not being accustomed to hills and yet he was tucked into the aero bars most of the time. This is us passing the photographer in one of the many hairpin turns. At about 600m height there is this very nice lookout point, that I highly recommend stopping at. You probably won't do it on the way down anyway. My friend Dan kept me company for a couple of hundred height meters, before finding a faster back to chase. I had more to go on, but was very uncertain about the wisdom of going to fast... I found an Englishman named Stephen to keep me company. He had done the bike part before and advocated respect for the mountain. I took it and we kept company to the top. The top was surprisingly easy to pass over. Hilly but easy. When I passed a water doing 44km/h on flat ground, I guessed that we had rather heavy tailwind. one glance at the lake confirmed my guess. BANG! No no no no no not that. A very sudden frost heave had done something to my rear end and rear wheel. The rear weel seemed to make an ssssssss sound. I prepared mentaly to change hose. Hang on! I have a tubeless setup. after comming to a halt I could see no singns of low pressure, no signs of leakage (you actually see that on a tubeless tire with sealant leaking out). Rather releaved I started pedaling again, but there was a rythmic tugg in the rear wheel telling me that the break pad was touching the rim repeatedly. This seemed to be the source of the ssss sound as well. I had to loosen the breake a bit to get forward. Still pretty decent breaking power. After a while I arrived at the Food stop just before the descent to Erdal. Two bottles of Sports nutrition and a flapjack, had been about perfect for the climb to the foodstation. They had potato chips, buns and prefilled bottles with squeezy. I have used Squeezy previously and stocked up on that rather than water. Then for the decent:

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Met lots of bicyclists going up, most of them looked in good shape, but not all. Some walked. One guy was sitting in the side of the road without his jersey on. I took it ridiculously easy due to the reduced brake power. I also started to smell a funny smell. That got me thinking about rumours about delaminating carbon rims on steep descents. Not Funny! Still I passed a few on the descent. Got to the turning point and started back up. The Erdal side is steeper than the Aurland side. A lot steeper. 10% mostly and a small section with 14%. but it lets up from time to time. Suddenly after a car passed me I smelled that smell that got me thinking about delaminating rims. And all of a sudden I know what it was. It was the smell of clutch. Cars going down have to use the gears to brake or the breaks will overheat. Doh. I could have gone so much faster down that hill. Oh well. I passed quite some people going up that hill, a couple of them had punctures. I lend one guy an inner tube and my CO2. One guy started off again from talking to a crew member when he saw me comming. He started walking again shortly after. Never saw him again. Stephen, me and two girls chased each other up the mountain in a sensible speed. We got to the food station again. My God that must be the best potato chips ever. It's actually worth all the height meters just to experience that. Re stocking and starting back across the plateau. Actually Plateau is a mis-nomer here. were talking jagged edges for 10k here with about 250 height meters to accumulate. Tailwind had now become headwind. And a powerfull one to. The girls seemed to have no scruples about drafting. A bit annoying that when the conditions favored them for this. Come to think on it; they claimed it was their first triathlon. Maybe thay did not know better? I have tremendous respect for anyone tackling a half Ironman as their first Triathlon. To do the AXTRI as your first is nothing short of astonishing. Plateu traversing became descent, and this time I was like a Kamikaze pilot. Stephen in front of me was a little faster/more reckles. No thinking about delaminating rims this time. Felt good all the way down. Passed cars in both directions. Comming to Aurland I realized that the head wind was almost as bad there. The 6km to T2 felt flat. There is actually about 100m ascend on those 6km. On the night before the crew had briefed us that the cut-off time for the bike portion would be at 16:00. That was later set to 17:00. I had originally been a bit incertain if I could make the cut-off for 16:00. Turned out I could :) I was out of T2 about 15:50, having spent 5:57:55 on the bike part. Fairly satisfied I set out on the run just behind someone I thought was Stephen and the girls.

I started running at once. I passed the girls who was walking. The route is spectacular. Whenever I felt a bit down on the run. I lifted my eyes to focus to the surroundings. Not once did it fail to bring me back up. This is a powerful mind trick. I advice you to try it. But in Aurland it was boosted a lot by the scenery. After 5k flat on tarmac and gravel along a lake on one side with a 800m cliff wall on the other side I came to the point where the trail starts. There was a cafe at that point and 50-60 people sitting there cheered us on the way. The GPS was useless from that point on and the HR-monitor was reduced to being a timing device for the time spent pr km. The route was well marked. one poster every km and the trail was self evident at all but a couple of points. As soon as I started the assent I knew this would be hard. One knee was giving me some pain. The tired muscles after a very long and hard bike session kind of pain. tip-toes up all steep hills is the answers to that. This suited my foot wear well. Brooks Green Silence are lightweight and fairly flat. The grip is decent even on wet stone but they are not meant for trails at least not this kind of trails. The sole is thin and soft giving you good contact with the ground, but also demanding a high degree of attention to where you put your foot. After a while the trail got steeper. Lots of tourists coming down the trail and every one cheering me along. Hot and fantastic conditions. The trail got ever steeper to the point where I had to use my hands on my knees. The pace was steadily dropping towards 16 mins pr km! But hey! It was beautiful! I got to Sinjarheim an ancient farm at about 10k. Why anyone would build a farm up there is beyond me. But man he would have become pretty darn fit after a while! Half way and just out of water in the camelback. Perfectly planned! I drank some sqeezy at the service point at Sinjarheim, but declined on the sports bar. I can not stomach sports bars when I'm running I thought. I'll stick to gels. Throughout the race I had been using one 50g gel pr half hour by the clock. This is by the book, and since I did not have enough long trips I did not feel comfortable with going by feel only. Come the first stream to cross the trail I stocked up on water. This is probably where I lost two gels. After a cople of k's it was time for one more gel. but the pocket in the camelback was empty! oooops. I knew I had enough to last me four hours at least when I set out. That morning I boldly stated that "anyone could walk a half marathon in four hours", so I could not possibly need more. Now I know better. This was no ordinary half marathon. Trail from Sinjarheim was just as steep, but now it was alternating up and down. runnable? Welll yes and no, not for me at the time anyway, and some places: not for anybody! I ran where I could although the pace was not impressive. I started to get hungry. The time had passed the 9 hour mark. I had not eaten proper food since the top of the mountain. My stomach craved proper food, but all I could offer to it was water and gels. Although I had to ration gels too. I sorely regretted declining the squeezy bar. The trail was increasingly runable, but the pace would not get better than 10m pr km. My foot soles started to hurt from not being accustomed to the thin soles and the brutal trail. I had to really focus on where I put down my feet. Also I got really tired in the feet. Probably also from the somewhat new experience of less support. All this contributed to slow pace. People had been passing me all the way, although not many. Suddenly I got passed by Stephen who was obviously not the guy in front of me when I set out on the run. I kept up with him a while but got stomach issues and had to take a detour of the trail. Note to self: bring toilet paper on long trail runs. Grass is itchy. Finally I got to the 1km mark and passed the last of a series of ridiculous(for me at least) signs that warned to go slow!?! because of danger. Going up I felt actually got a dizzy spell, but not one that would have been dangerous. The last hour on just water was taking it's toll. A poor marking of the trail cost me the 99th place as a fellow triathlete came up behind me while I was searching for the trail. I had to open a gate and he did not. We jogged, then ran, then sprinted to the finish. He was the better triathlete that day, it's that simple. But hey, as finisher no 100 I was awarded a gift certificate on triatlonbutikken.no. The support crew had the diploma ready with split times after just two minutes. 10:50:58 yey! Bergen Triathlo Club as a Finish Photo of me

Not sub 10 as I had secretly hoped to achieve, but I'm happy and proud to have finished at all, even though I never had any doubts about that during the race. My first half ironman distance triathlon and no field trip version of it either with 4200+ accumulated meters height. Some of the Norseman contestants from one week previous did AXTRI also, they claimed that in many ways AXTRI was harder. Been there, done that. Have got the Tee-shirt :)

Verdict:
Perfect Route, Perfect crew, Perfect or nearly so weather ;) All in all a fantastic race. Highly recommended!