Triathlon World Championships Diary
Madeira Portugal May 2004.

Madiera is a Portugese island located off the north west coast of  North Africa and nowhere near Portugal itself.  It's volcanic past means that the whole island is steep sided cliffs and deep valleys.  What beach they have the sand is black and mostly rock covered.  The island has the second highest sea cliffs in the world at 580 metres straight down and much of the island is like this.
It also claims to have one of the most expensive road networks per kilometre in the world as most coastal roads have been made by chiselling a road out of a vertical cliff.  There are massive tunnels through mountains and high bridges built on stilts to span the deep valleys.
Funchal, it's capital, is a beacon for English pensioners.  They go there because it's safe and quiet and it's generally sunny.  It's actually known as the island of eternal spring. Where we stayed not many seemed to venture past the pool.  Walking in Funchal is another challenge.  It's either up or it's down and there's little in between.
About the only place that big cliffs didn't disappear into the sea was where they located Funchal, the site for the race.  No wonder the early explorers landed there.
We left Australia on a Sunday night for the long haul to England, from there we caught another flight to Madeira.  By the time we arrived in Madeira it was Tuesday night but still daylight to around 9:30pm.  The island is not very wide and you fly over it in no time.
We flew past the airport at near sea level and the first thing you see is the runway.  It's short, very short, and part of it has been dug out of the side of a hill and the rest is on high stilts going out over the ocean.  You feel like you're about to land on an aircraft carrier.
Expressions such as "Oh my god" are commonly heard as we flew past.  When the plane touched down the pilot hit the brakes so hard it was as if he was trying to avoid something in the middle of the runway.  A passenger who was sitting beside us wasn't holding onto his book that well and it flew out of his hand and ended about 10 rows further up the plane along with anything else that wasn't tied down.  We were later told that the runway had been extended recently!
After landing we waited patiently for our gear and bikes to arrive.   It is at this point that you get your first taste of Portugese "organisation".  An oxymoron if ever there was one.
After about 20 minutes people are still waiting for their gear but the luggage conveyor belt is no longer going around and a large queue is forming outside the lost baggage office. 
Everyone is starting to fill in Missing Baggage forms when suddenly a couple more trolleys with bags and bikes pilled high on top of one another appear after they "found" more luggage on the plane.  Thankfully this means that most people now have their luggage but some is still missing.
Further delays with the hotel transfer bus mean that it's 10pm before we actually check in to our hotel but at least we are there. 
Wednesday - Today is Registration, Bike course orientation and team meeting no:1.
Next morning it's off to Registration as the Australian team is one of the first required to register.  After arriving on time we are told that there will be a delay of about 1 hour.  I decided to wait in the queue while Janet and Katie go exploring.  We eventually received our race packs and gear then head off for a bike course orientation trip on the bus.  Prior to leaving Australia we were advised that it is illegal to ride on the road selected for the bike course as it's too dangerous.  If you want to view the course you must do so by catching the bus.
Off we go, everyone happy.  By the time we return most people are wondering what they have got themselves into.  The ride is a 38 kilometre out and back course on the only piece of highway they have on the island.  After leaving the transition area you have about 500 metres of flat road and then it starts, the first of many long climbs.  Its 7km before you reach the top of the first hill at grades starting at 12% and going right up to 19%!
To put this in perspective when the Tour of France went to the Alps the steepest grade covered was around 12% which includes the famed Alp D'Heuze.  Once you finally reach the first crest there's a steep descent leading to the first of the highrise bridges.
Bikes and pedestrians are banned from these roads for good reason.  None of the bridges are designed for them so consequently there aren't any high safety fences to keep them in just the much lower type that keep a car from going over the side.  From the bus or on a bike you look straight over the side as there is no verge between the side of the road and the safety fence.  It's along way down.
Then it's into the first of the dimly lit tunnels.  When you exit the tunnel there will be another high bridge crossing a steep ravine and then another tunnel.  In all there are 8 such tunnels outbound with the longest one being 3 k's  so that's a total of 16 tunnels once you've completed the course.
All the while the road is either going up or down very steeply commonly at grades of between 12 to 16%.  There is no flat road and slow Aussies will have to remember to keep to the right not left.
The only thing I could compare it to here is to say think of the steepest part of Bulli Pass and think of that going on for 7k's and you have the first hill and pretty much the rest of the course.
The return trip will be on the same road that we just drove out on.  We will be using one lane in either direction and orange plastic bags will be placed every few metres to separate the out and back lanes.  This leaves you with an image of one side of the road doing 80 to 90 (or more) kilometres per hour and the other side doing around 8-9 kilometres with not much space or room for error.
At the team briefing that night there is only one topic of conversation and that's the bike course.  You would have been forgiven for thinking that there aren't 2 other legs to this race.    The team organisers did their best to calm people down but they are left with a long list of "what if" questions concerning the course.  One of the main ones being "what if I get a flat?"  With no verge, where do you safely go to change your tyre while bikes are whizzing past in the single lane road at breakneck speeds?
There were so many questions that the meeting took quite a while longer than expected.  One competitor thought that he might brighten up the mood a bit by having a joke with the Team organisers.  When asked if there are any more final questions he put up his hand and said "my wave start is at 10 am and I normally race at 7:30 am so what time should I eat breakfast?"
At first team management didn't get the joke but once they saw most people were laughing they sternly replied "meet us in room 110 for an answer" to which everyone, school boy like, said oooohhhhhhh.
Thursday - Practice of swim course, assemble and test bike, team meeting no:2, Team photos, Street parade of nations and opening ceremony.
The swim course had been set up and competitors were allowed to practice it at set times during the day.  The water was cold, around 18 degrees and dark because of the colour of the sand on the bottom.  It didn't look inviting.  Based on my experience from going to Edmonton, Canada in 2001 I had learnt not to try and do too much training following along flight.  My plans were to just do the one swim, test ride my bike sufficient enough to check that everything worked and then wait for the race.
With driving happening on the opposite side of the road and warnings that island drivers do not normally encounter or look for push bikes I decided to limit my riding.  As I was getting ready to leave I found the Italian team were about to set out on a similar ride so I thought there's safety in numbers and tagged onto them for my test ride.
With no real answers to all the questions posed at the first team meeting the second was cancelled but photos still went ahead followed by a trip into town for the Parade of Nations which was held in the main street and ended in a park in the centre of town.
Following official greetings it was food, drinks and fireworks to welcome the visiting athletes.
Friday - Today is Bike check-in and Team meeting no:3

We had been told to check-in at a specific time based on your age group.  I arrived at the check-in to find long queues.  Something was up.  I went and spoke to an official who later walked up the queue and advised all that the organisers had forgotten about an entire age category when preparing the pre-numbered racks.  This would mean that they would have to remove all the numbers (stickers) from the racks, recalculate how much space each athlete could have, and then re-number all racks.  Time delay before transition would again open, 4 hours.  We went sight seeing. 
The resulting space per bike amounted to the width of a handlebar or less and competitors were instructed to rack all bikes by the seat.  You would have to put all your gear in front of the front wheel which was a strange outcome considering it's the longest transition area I've ever seen.
At Friday nights team meeting most answers had been found for Wednesdays questions and Greg Bennett and Simon Thompson had arrived to give us all some encouragement.  Greg Bennett addressed the meeting and after trying to pass on some of his knowledge he asked "are there any questions?"  Silence filled the room until a lone hand up the back of the room once again was raised in the air.  Greg, happy that someone finally wanted to ask him something says "yes".  The question, "what time will you be having breakfast on Sunday morning?"  Greg just stood there with a puzzled look on his face, speechless.
The room went crazy with everyone laughing hysterically.  Team management, who were sitting in front of me, couldn't contain themselves and just laughed.  They were still laughing as they were trying to thank Greg for his talk and as he left the stage he still had no idea what it was all about.
Saturday - Today is Race day. 
Jackie Gallagher wrote in Triathlon and Multi Sport Magazine that "the race was held over the toughest and most spectacular bike course I have seen in my 12 years experience of World Champs (Olympic Distance)". 
I think if you substitute the word "dangerous" for "spectacular" then you're getting close.
Finally Race day dawns.  A wind is blowing which has chopped up the sea considerably making the sighting of buoys difficult and there are some scattered showers in the area.  In my practice swim on Thursday I had picked out some large landmarks which I had intended to use should things get tricky. 
We had received a starting schedule at bike racking with males going first followed by females, youngest to oldest.  As is often the case with an older age group the late start seems fine until you find that the transition is being closed at 9:00am which is 2 hours before your wave start so you have to be there early anyway then sit around for hours. 
Overnight someone has made the sensible decision not to send the Athletes With  A Disability up the same cycle course.  Shortly after arriving at transition an announcement is made that all wave starts will be delayed by 15 minutes.  At Registration on Wednesday we had been advised of our wave start times however at Bike Check-in on Friday we had been given new start times which were 15 minutes later.  Was this the 15 minutes they were referring to or was this an additional 15 minutes?
Within a few minutes of this announcement the message has changed again and it's now 30 minutes delay.  Confusion reigned as people weren't sure what their new start time would be.
Sometime later another announcement advised that it is now a one hour delay.  I was sitting with a number of Aussies outside a McDonalds and each announcement was greated with a sarcastic cheer.  With the team breakfast occurring at 7am (even earlier for some) the delays meant that many wouldn't have eaten for several hours come race start so we needed something to eat.
Luckily someone had some money so we all went to Maccas.  My secret pre race meal was a hot apple pie.  What effect this would have during the race was completely untested but I had to eat something and we had a limited money supply.
With us were a number of other athletes from our wave start and to me the Aussie "she'll be right" attitude never came to the fore more than during that pre race waiting period.  While other countries athletes seemed to get more and more agitated at each announcement we just laughed it off and went with the flow.
My race plan was to take things easy in the swim and try and get out of transition with a relatively low heart rate.  My thinking here was that if you went hard in the swim you'd be starting the ride with a heart rate of 170 -180 and that would put an end to you on the first climb. 
Even at the start fellow competitors were still saying things like be careful on the bike course.  When the gun went off my plan for an easy swim went out the window immediately as we swam headfirst into a choppy and cold Atlantic Ocean. Water temperature was officially 18 degrees.  I was thinking it was one of the toughest swims I had ever done. 
The swim course was basically rectangular and parallel to the shore. You swam straight out from a large pontoon for around 700 metres then turn right for 50 metres then back towards the start, past the end of the starting pontoon and then across to the black sands of the shore.  From there it was about a 300 metre run to transition over a footbridge.
I had a reasonable marker for the outward swim but the return proved difficult to navigate and many got lost or were affected by an undertow that took them further out to sea.  At one point I could just see arms splashing around about 50 or so metres to my left and thought one of us is off course so the only way to check was to stop and tread water for few seconds to check my bearings.  I decided I was on course and the others were lost and to stick with where I was heading.  Final swim time 26:38.
I was concerned when I arrived in transition to find that almost all the Aussies had already left except one who happened to be the top ranked 45-49 year old who was standing beside me so I thought maybe I'm not going so bad after all.
That first hill on the bike was incredibly tough.  It ground away at you for kilometre after kilometre. I was just managing to turn the pedals over but there were many in my age group, and those in younger waves before me, that could not make it and had to get off and walk.  I don't know if they had not set their bikes up correctly or trained for these conditions but for whatever reason they couldn't get over that first hill.
We had been told in advance that the hills were huge and to get at least a 23 cog for the rear.  I can tell you that once out on the course those that had a 23 wished they had a 25 and those with a 25 wished they had a 27.  I actually had a 25.
Once over that hill there's a big descent and then the tunnel sequence begins.  The first time you exit a tunnel at speed and out onto one of those high rise bridges you realise just how far it is to the ground.  Then it's back into the next tunnel.  Exit that one and you get blown to the right by a cross wind coming off the ocean and up through the valley which gives you a big scare but before you've time to worry it's back into another tunnel.
The longest tunnel precedes the bike turnaround and by the time I exit it my triceps are aching from staying in a tuck for so long.  It's raining at this point.  I checked my time and am disappointed to see it reads 46 minutes.   I thought to myself that I can usually do the whole 40k's in around 65- 70 minutes so I decided I should try harder on the return leg. 
On the last 7 k descent into transition a rider came off in front of me.  His bike careered across the lanes and smashed into the concrete barrier on the other side of the road.  Luckily no female competitors were riding up at that point.  Meanwhile the rider just seemed to slide on forever.  It can't have been good when he stopped and I hate to think how much skin he lost.  I think I rode the entire course and only used 3 gears (1st, 2nd and top gear) and my brakes. 
With the 38k bike ride completed in 1:25:54 it was on to the 3 lap run.  At least that was relatively flat.  I wondered how this would go.  At the club race 3 weeks prior I had cramped badly.  Would this be repeated?  When I got off the bike and started running through transition I felt pretty good.  In fact as I was exiting transition I felt like I was running close to the best I've ever run off a bike.  This was not so for a number of competitors who had struggled throughout the ride. 
First lap went by without any problems and I started to wonder if I would soon fall in heap but as lap 2 went by I was able to maintain my pace so at the start of lap 3  I decided it was all or nothing.  I crossed the line in a total time of  2:36:46 and happy with my effort..  The run had taken 38:44 for a course officially listed as 9.65 kilometres.  Probably my fastest run ever.
Conclusion

On reflection I'd have to say that I turned up at the race in pretty good shape.  I still can't face riding some of the hills I was doing regularly before the race so I must have been doing OK. 
Maybe reading this you might get the impression that the whole thing was a debacle, a negative experience, but it's actually the opposite.  I thought of it as a great adventure that would never have happened had I not decided to try and qualify.  I would never have been to Madeira or even bothered to find out where it is in the World.  The experiences and people that we met make it well worth the effort involved to get there.
Team management were excellent in their efforts to keep everything on track and keep the athletes happy and the support staff  were great.
Would I do it again, probably not, I doubt I'd push my luck on that bike course again. 
Glenn Schwarzel.