It’s VERY well marked and marshalled on the day, I only got lost once and that was because some spectators who were previously pointing the route had vanished! You will be fine on the race but for a recce it’s easy to end up back at the car park after 5 mins!

1.  This is the start route. If recce’ing, don’t do this.. do route 2
2.  This is what you’ll have at the start of the next 4 loops after race HQ. It’s harder than route 1.
3. You’ll be running down a stony path and the turning to the left is literally a scramble up a dirt bank, very easy to miss. Carry on up the path about 20m and you’ll meet a good path, turn right
4. Garmins seem to get confused here as the GPX overlaps and you miss the loop. Basically at the junction turn right both times.
5. The route goes left up the bank rather than following the main path.
6. Easy to miss these steps as you’re following a ditch and looking at your feet. Especially in November with the tree roots under the leaves. You leave the woods and go up around the field. The descent down by the powerline is probably the steepest down.
7. Weird sort of climbing through a ditch, it’s slippy as f**k in the wet
8. This is where the aid station is on the day, you get to it at the end of the loop that looks like a witches head, so first time you just get to wave at people.
9. Before the top of this climb on the path you’ll get to a nice natural wooded bowl, hook a left and just aim for the top.
10. Go round the wooden hut and back down. The path is pretty tricky to find here. It’s well marked on the day.
11. Tree root hell
12. This is some of the best running you’ll have all day. Feels like you’re bloody Mo Farah.
13. ‘The Snake’. At the top you take a little path to the right about 3m before the main path..
14. My reaction here was “Really? This can’t be right? Surely?”. It is. There’s no way over the tree trunk that’s better than any other. 😀
15. Go up the steps to the right. About 50m up the hill turn left at the crossroads. Got this wrong every single lap.
16. These sodding handrails are too low.
17. Nearly there. You need to hook a left up the bank but there’s a fair few of them. I *think* it’s the 3rd path. If you run around the bottom of a fallen tree, that’s the right way.

Easy !

Build up

Some time in September last year, my good friend Sam pinged me on messenger and I think the conversation went like this:

Sam: “Fancy doing Race to the Stones with me next year?” (background, he’d run the last 10K of it with his cousin a few years back who did a very very decent 13:11!)
Me: “Uuuuuuh, maybe”
Sam: “Oh go on.”
Me: “OK then. Why not.”

2 minutes pass

Me: “The 50K or the 100k???”
Sam: “100”
Me: “Oh. The 2 day option or straight through????”
Sam: “Straight through”
Me: “…………………..”
Me: o.O

Me: “OK. I’ve entered.”

Now, OBVIOUSLY I planned on doing a lot of distance training after booking it. OBVIOUSLY that didn’t happen. I did run Snowdonia Marathon in October and about 4 half marathons over winter/spring but that was about it. The week prior to race week I did 12km/day for 6 days on the bounce. Everything felt good, let’s go!

A few days before the race it dawned on me that the logistics were somewhat irritating. You know the puzzle with the river, you have one boat, a fox, a chicken and some corn? Yeah. That. It looked like it might involve public transport which made me spit my dummy out a bit. Ultimately I dumped my car at the finish the day  before, got picked up by Lorna who was going to drop us off at the start and crew for us.

Start -> 10km

The registration process was pretty slick. Usual bib with integrated chip (gosh, RFID is very clever). There were a few bits and bobs on site but I was too busy looking for Susie Chan and Shaun but couldn’t see them. Suspect because I was hovering nearer the middle of the pack.

All the runners set off at 8am and the walkers at 8:45am. This seemed sensible (for now) and off we went. Nice and easy first 8km or so, sort of adjusting in the pack. At 8km though everyone just stopped. Not “Oh, this is a steep hill” bunching, but “Oh. There’s a very long British queue here” stopped. Got given a Haribo here by a very lovely stranger. After literally 10 minutes of queueing we got to the top of the hill to find a kissing gate causing the hold up. Through that and running again on nice soft grass for 200m to the next 10 minute queue for the next kissing gate. Brilliant. On this second gate, a few people tried queue jumping. After the abuse yelled at them the first bunch stopped and looked sheepish. The second bunch, all in the same running club with matching gear (M*dni*ht Runn*rs …. you silly sods) ran past the queue and climbed a fence. So technically, you guys cheated. And one of you had a backpack with a terrible stereo pumping out tunes you massively antisocial arse. Annnnnnyway. Really they need to stagger the start in waves based on estimated finish time. Having that many people just waiting was ludicrous. Split it in to 6 waves every 5 minutes or something.

10km -> 20km

At 11k was the first pitstop. Really slick actually. Water bowsers on one side, food on the other. Sam quickly taped his foot, I raided some energy bars. Really tasty stuff from http://perkier.co.uk/ . Highly recommended. I had one of each throughout the day. All nice. We saw Lorna just after pitstop one. The rest of this section was pretty uneventful other than running across a golf course, much to the annoyance of them lot. A lot of the path was very very narrow (single file really) between two sets of trees. Essentially running in the middle of a wide hedge. Not the easiest for me as I’m a bit rubbish on anything technical.

20km -> 30km

At 21.1km Sam had a little celebration of his first half marathon (yep!).  At 23km was pitstop 2. There were huge queues here. People apparently had to wait 10 mins for food/water. The crew were bringing cups of water to people queuing up. I didn’t do anything apart from a little bit of foot maintenance (slapped a compeed on a bit that rubs after a while). The path then led to the Thames for a bit. My gosh there are some incredible houses on the side of the river. Time was spent dreaming and questioning my life choices. Also found a full unopened packet of PomBears in a field. SCORE!

30km -> 40km

This section starts in Streatley which seems to be entirely posh shops, Range Rovers and steep hills as you cross the Thames. Pitstop 3 at 34km I can’t honestly remember. We saw Lorna again just after too which was a welcome boost. It was then mostly quite boring hard packed path with endless fields. I know, it could be worse. I think by this stage we’d stopped running really on anything other than flat flat. I hope Sam doesn’t mind me saying but I think his running legs had entirely given up by now. Still a decent walking pace and we were still clicking off 9:10-10min kilometres. Consistent forward progress will see us to the end.

40km -> 50km

Just as the sun started to get fierce and the temps started to climb, the shade completely vanished. This was one of the main gains in elevation and it took us up on to what I’d describe as ‘plains’. I’m not sure they officially are, or even what the definition is, but there was little of anything. Really was just 10 kilometers that were completely unidentifiable from each other. At 42.2km we celebrated Sam’s first Marathon. At 42.3km we celebrated the furthest either of us had ever gone. Go us. Aid station 4 at 44km had Fudge bars, crisps and coffee. Perfect. Sam detonated a blister on his foot which made me feel a bit weird and I think Lorna a bit sick.

50km -> 60km

Right at the start of this section is the halfway basecamp. You can do the 100km as 2 x 50 with a night in a tent but for some reason in my head that seems harder. My enthusiasm to get up and run on day 2 would be exactly zero, especially as they had a bar, live music etc. There was hot food on offer but it looked fairly unappealing so I grabbed a slice of bread and a chocolate bar. Something was also up with the water there. I think they’d used some kind of cleaner in the water storage and not flushed it out. Had a hint of TCP to it. Leaving basecamp I walked into (almost literally) Sara from my swim club. I didn’t know she was doing it, and was very out of context so it was one of those ‘Let me walk in front and see if they recognise me so I don’t accost a stranger’. Her first words to me were “why the **** are we doing this in one go?”. Probably because I’d be in a beer induced slumber in my tent at 8am the next day if I tried it in two halves.

The path from the halfway stop got a bit naff over the next few km. Lots of sections where it was quite thick grass with two thin ruts on either side. I think this section was where we came across a lady who’d had a tumble and had a fair amount of blood. Some others were scrambling round for plasters. Sam pulled out a dressing big enough to mummify my 2yr old which did the trick for her.

59k was aid station 6 where Lorna was waiting along with Sam’s wife and child. Hurrah. Nothing like a completely unfussed child to lift the spirits.

60km-70km

10km of up and down path. Getting annoying now. Pitstop 7 I don’t remember in the slightest. I think I tried an Etixx Orange Isotonic drink and got terrible flashbacks to that one time I tried Sunny Delight. Probably old school Sunny Delight before stuff got banned. I probably washed it down with coffee as it was 8.30pm by now and I was getting a bit weary. Entirely unscientific but by now we seemed to be catching a lot of people who came running past us about midway of the race. Also a lot of people spending a lot of time in aid stations.

70km-80km

We caught up again with Lorna and Sam’s wife and child at the 74km mark outside what looked like a nice Indian restaurant. I think that was the closest I came to sacking it off. A nice curry, a beer and being taken home in a warm car. Mmmmm. Anyway, we didn’t. We put on our warm clothes, put our headtorches on and set off. Our support  crew left us at this point so we were somewhat committed to finishing.

The next few KM were walking along a fairly busy road in the dark which was one of the least pleasant parts of the race.  Beyond that it was a few KM up on to a decent sized hill. By now it was properly dark too so just a case of following the glowsticks. Still, only  a half marathon to go. Seems a ‘relatively’ short way but given it’s now 11pm and we’re moving slowly along a grass track in the pitch black it was a bit soul destroying. Pitstop 8 at 78km was time for another very strong coffee, a lot of sugar and on we go.

80km-90km

Please make it stop. 10km of grass path and some slightly easier gravel track. Still taking 12-13mins/km here, probably due to head torches. Somewhere along this section was a dreadfully steep section of rutted 4×4 track. It looked easier to slide down than walk down. At 84.4km we had a “Double Marathon celebration”.  At 89km we got to Pitstop 9, the final one at 1am. It appeared to be full of people who’d not quite managed to get home from a nightclub. Some were staggering around, some were delirious, some were asleep faceplanted in the grass.. Physically I felt fine. Legs were ok, shoulders a bit sore but fine. I was tired though. Really really tired. I don’t normally function much beyond 10pm so 1am after moving all day was a bit much. I briefly lay down on a mat to stretch my back but instantly felt my eyes closing and that strange sensation when audio frequencies get filtered out. I could hear voices but they were muffled as my brain started to remove outside influences to let me sleep. Mmmmm sleeeeeep. Argh. 10 more km and I can sleep then. I sank 2 coffees, a flat coke, some more chocolate, a seed bar and probably whatever else was lying around that looked like it’d give me a kick. I can see why various militaries use amphetamines. Probably cheaper.

90km-100km

All the enjoyment had gone by now. Seeing the 90km sign should have made it better. Nearly there, nearly done. On a normal lazy run that’s an hour, max. Except we were now doing 12-14 minute kilometers on what was the worst terrain of the race.  I couldn’t do the maths in my head at the time but I knew it was going to take “a while”. Strava tells me that it took 2hrs20 to do this section. Let that sink in. 2hrs 20 for 10km. I don’t remember much about this at all other than trying to think of fresh topics of conversation. We passed a few people who seemed to be struggling but there’s not a lot that can be done to help when you can’t think of proper words to say. Towards the end of this section my eyes were closing as we negotiated the downhill section in to Avebury and to the finish. Not really surprising as it’s now 3:30am. Still, we’re finished.

100km-102.5km

You have got to be kidding me. At the end there’s a loop you do through Avebury stone circle and to get to it you go past the entrance to the farm where the finish line is. Argh. 2.5km sounds trivial. A jog to go get the paper. A quick run with the dog. A little warmup before Parkrun. 2.5km at 3:45am when you’ve just had enough and you’ve switched off entirely? It was hideous. 30 minutes later we cross the line to applause of the 6 lunatics waiting there and get our finishers medal. Done. Never. Ever. Again.

In Hindsight

Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even compare to iron distance triathlon. Physically it wasn’t too bad due to the lower pace but mentally there was no letup and I’ve not experienced exhaustion like it (even with small children in the house). Even though it wasn’t ‘running’ it still feels like an achievement and I’m glad I did it. Some good scenery (though that wore thin after a while), some quality time with Sam and a medal to hang on the wall. On that subject… I have a few issues with this race (he says, speaking as an ultra veteran).

The Good

• Route markings were excellent. I can’t see how you’d miss them. Red arrows every few hundred meters even on paths with no turnings. It meant that if you’d not seen an arrow in a while you were lost. Glowsticks every 100m or so in the dark too.
• Plenty of variety at the aid stations, different crisps/chocolate bars. Some had trail mix, almonds, fruit etc etc. Aid stations were decently spaced too. The 11km spacing at the end was a bit tough but I think had there been another one I’d have just slept at it anyway.

The Bad

• Have I mentioned the terrain was quite hard? Road shoes were fine, but the surface was way more technical than I though with ruts etc. Not their fault, but just something to think about if you do it again
• They could possibly have done with a couple of volunteers on a nightshift between aid stations towards the end. There were some very exhausted people doing odd things and things could easily go a bit sour. Just maybe checking people are ok as they pass?
• Leaving your car at the start or the finish was £10. That’s fine, but there was no charge for people ‘dropping off’… so they could park there free for many hours. Given that it’s just a huge field it doesn’t make any sense to me to charge for it. They’ve done exactly the same work in terms of parking everyone.

The Ugly

• They MUST stagger the start if they keep the route via the kissing gates. Infact, stagger it anyway just for the better traffic through aid stations.
• No free event T-Shirt / finishers T-Shirt, you have to buy them at £15 a pop. Even tiny local events manage a free shirt. Ultimately it’s cheap publicity for the event. Given the event was £120 I’m sure there’s wiggle room there especially with the Dixons Carphone sponsorship.
• The finishers medal has no mention of the distance. They’re the same for everyone regardless if you did 50km, 50km+50km or 100km straight. They knew how many people had entered each event and could have even just have had the distance on the ribbon (so a single batch of actual medals). Feels very cheap. Their excuse afterwards was nonsense too: “We didn’t know the exact distances until the week before”. Yet the T-Shirt has them on. Uuuuuuuh.
• No finish line photo. They’d outsourced the photos to Pic2Go and are saying they couldn’t have coverage at all times. Hang on, they know it’s a 24hr race and people will be arriving at all times. If Pic2Go said they couldn’t do it then you find a volunteer, give them an SLR (remember Dixons are title sponsor) and you at least get SOMETHING. Utterly shameful and even worse to just blame it on the fact they’d outsourced it.

I quite enjoyed this attempt an an ultra, but I think next time I’ll pick one that’s more ‘runnable’ for my limited ability!

Here be Strava . It’s woeful.

https://www.strava.com/activities/644847384/embed/33d55373b92fec18d6b8c8fb48d0c2d3598ca6f6

This was supposed to be really really brief. I failed. Sorry.

The Week Before

I wanted to try the Mallorca 70.3 again as last year was a bit… bumpy. It’s also a great excuse for a holiday in what I think is a very underrated place. Not sure why but some people seem to look down their nose at Mallorca as a holiday destination. I can only assume they’ve only seen down town Magaluf rather than the spectacular mountains, coastline and crystal clear seas.

Anyway, this year there was a lot less faffing pre race and zero nerves. I knew what I was doing I guess. In the week leading up to the race I swam in the sea every day which was useful. On the Thursday I went for a quick ride down the coast with Amy and James to check my rear skewer had stopped slipping under power and causing the rear wheel to rub on the frame (thanks Loz for the loan of the turbo skewer which sorted it!).

During the week I also did a couple of trips up the big hill in the car, first to let Amy and Loz ride the descent and then next time round so that Andrew and I could ride it. The descent seemed easier this year than last year which was reassuring as last year was on a stable cyclocross bike, this year on a TT bike. I was amazed at how well the Magura hydraulic brakes scrub off speed and how easy they are to modulate. Confidence inspiring. Heck of an adrenaline rush though, flying down that hill. Garmin data shows an average of 40kph for 13 minutes. Strava reckons the quickest are doing it at 60kph average which strikes me as utterly psychotic.

Driving back from the descent attempt with Andrew we drove the whole course (something I’d managed to avoid with Amy/Lozza). Going past the scene of my crash felt very odd. I could pinpoint the exact location and I swore I could still see the marks on the road. My mouth went dry, my heart started racing and I was bloody glad to turn off that bit of road. Perhaps I wasn’t quite as comfortable as I thought. The next 20km of driving I spoke about the blustery conditions with Andrew as we watched the palm trees blow from side to side. Lunch, briefing and an iced coffee with friends was a welcome distraction in the afternoon.

Anyway, the rest of the week was filled with messing around on the beach, splashing in the sea with the kids, eating too much and coffee with friends before packing bags with Andrew and Loz and then bag drop and bike racking.

Race Morning

For the first time ever I slept completely soundly the night before and my body clock woke me up exactly a minute before my alarm went off. Skillz. Tried to consume some cereal, gave up and had a brioche and a tea instead. Our apartment was on the beachfront between the swim start and transition so at about 6.30am Andrew (who was staying with us) and I went down to stick our nutrition and bottles on our bikes. By 6:45 we were back in the apartment for another cuppa and try for some more food.About 8am it was time to put wetsuits on and walk the few hundred yards to the swimstart. My very fetching orange swimhat on, I went for a warm up in the sea to get over that “cold water in odd places” sensation, then it was time to line up in the start pen.

Swim

Some Ellie Goulding at high volumes over the PA and it was ready to go. Starter pistol went bang exactly on time and we walked/jogged in to the water. Within about 10 seconds I was in to a nice rhythm in the relatively calm water. For the first time in a race I managed to do the whole damn thing front crawl and had no need to catch my breath. It felt easy and comfortable. Nothing really to note other than I was astonished at how quick the quickest swimmers in the next start wave were as they passed me. The rest of the swim was sent looking at fish below me and the occasional swim hat on the sea floor. I exited the water according to my Casio in about 38 minutes I think. The official times reckons 40 mins but I have a suspicion the timing mat was at the start of T1, a good few hundred meters from the edge of the sea. I walked that bit whereas others charged round. Ah well. All in all though, I’d describe the swim as ‘blissful’. It really was very enjoyable. A big difference to last year where I was just glad to get out.

T1

Some chap was telling anyone who would listen that the swim was “quite salty”. Yeah, it’s the sea dude. I assume he was talking about the sea anyway.

Bike

Last year the start waves were much much bigger and I was in a much earlier wave. A bit crowded for the first part of the ride. This year though there were fewer people around once I got to the bike course which was nice.

The run up to Port de Pollença is pancake flat along the coast but a bit blustery. Still, it’s smooth and chance to have some drink and a bite to eat. Turn left towards proper Pollença and start to up the pace a bit to 30kph or so. The fast riders from the waves behind were thundering past but I was overtaking a decent selection. Through the first aid station, collect some water and half a banana and carry on. At this point I remembered that it’s not that easy to peel a banana when on the aerobars at speed, so I sort of made a little tear in the side and mashed it into my face. Attractive.

The first part of the climb (only about a 3% gradient) seemed to confuse a few people who must have seen the ‘climb ahead’ road signs and immediately switched in to a lower gear. It was easy enough to cruise along it at a decent speed though. I’m in the zone now and quite happy, but then get a weird piercing sensation in my left quad. That’s not good. Doesn’t feel muscular though, feels like a burning hot needle. Slow down enough to look down and I can see a tiny little black thing poking out. Oh good, my first ever bee sting (managed 35 years without a bee or wasp sting… good timing). Turns out they’re quite bloody painful aren’t they?

Get to the climb proper and settle in trying to ignore the fact my leg is on fire. My TT bike seems a lot easier to climb on than my old bike. Or I’m fitter. Probably the bike. Here I start passing quite a lot of people but also sometimes end up stuck in a queue. There wasn’t really room to go three abreast and with the line of traffic ahead it’d mean a mammoth effort for me to pass the required ‘train’ and keep out of the way of the fast boys coming past. Easier to take it a bit easier than I wanted to and think of all the energy I was saving.

At this point I was starting to get quite unpleasant stomach cramps which didn’t really help with the whole nutrition thing which went to hell in a handbasket. Got to the water station on the climb, jettisoned my bottles and then look up to see the volunteers just standing around. One guy shouts to me “Sorry, no agua”. Errr, you what? I stop, unclip and he tells me he’s just sorting it. He dives into the back of the van, gets a couple of empty bottles. Goes back in the van, grabs some water, decants it, presses the lid on and hands it over. He offers me another bottle but I decline, this one will do fine for the descent. I ride along and take a few sips, then pop it in the horizontal cage on my aerobars. At which point, the lid he’d gently pressed on stopped being a lid and the precious agua just ended up wetting the front of my bike and the tarmac. DAMMIT! Oh well, no liquid for a while. Somewhere around here I passed Lu Telford who seemed very cheery despite the climb and the now climbing heat. Get to the top of the hill eventually and feel fresh. Felt much easier than last year  and looking at the Garmin data afterwards tells me I was 5 mins quicker too (on roughly an hours worth of climbing). I’ll take that.

The descent was fine for me personally although I passed 8 people in various states of ouch by the side of the road. At one point towards the end I heard the unmistakable sound of rubber just starting to break into a skid and something moving out of the corner of my eye. Quarter a second later, George from the USA slid past the front of my bike as I was slowing down. Mostly on his arse with the bike following. He stood up, shouted he was ok and we all carried on (including George who I saw at the finish). Good on you George,  but FYI, your bike doesn’t have ABS.

The next part of the ride goes over some really terrible road surface, much worse than last year. Ended up having to stick to the aerobars as I was getting whitefinger through the basebar. When the pros got there first thing, and the first few waves it must have looked like a normal road with some really crappy potholes etc.  By the time I got there, it looked like someone had taken the returned Wiggle orders for a day and just dropped them from an helicopter. All along the road were bottles, multitools, saddlebags, tubes, CO2 carts, folded up tyres, Speedfils, Garmins and all manner of nutrition that’d been shaken from previous bikes.

Past the Wiggle Wastelands the road becomes flatter and smoother. Up the ridiculously steep but short hill in Muro and snigger to myself as one guy neglects to change gear (he was still in the big ring), stops dead and falls off sideways.

Final stretch now, all completely flat and smooth. I get comfy on the aerobars and plug away into the relatively strong headwind. There’s nobody coming past me now and I’m picking off people with ease as they’re all mostly sitting up doing their best parachute impression. I know I’m coming up on my crash spot from last year and I tell myself not to be a chicken. The temptation is to sit up and cruise but I persuaded myself to keep tucked down and push the pace up a bit. i.e, show it who is boss and that I’m not afraid.

Come round the corner before the long straight and I see blue lights a long way ahead. Couple of minutes later I arrive at the scene of last years accident and there’s an ambulance parked up, I kid you not, about 5 meters from where I stood bleeding last year trying to repair my bike. There’s a woman being loaded on a stretcher with what looks like a head injury. Two male riders stand and watch. I can only assume it was another almost identical collision as there’s literally nothing to hit at that spot. It’s flat, straight and sighted. Weird. Well, that didn’t do my inner demons any favours and I’m not going to lie, they won and I backed off a bit. The few slight downhill sections around Sa Pobla were taken with more caution than required and every time the speed started to creep up there was a comforting scrub of speed from the brakes.

Final run into Alcudia and I spot a rider ahead who I think might be Lozza. Yep, get a bit closer and it is. Gunned it off the last roundabout before transition and caught Loz up so I can let her know where I am and we can both have a bit of company for the run.

Ride over in 3:27. Not dreadful given the headwind but I was secretly hoping for a lot faster. Probably lost a couple of minutes down to waiting at the aid station and me generally being a bit of a wuss on the sweepers, but not what I was aiming for still. Some work to be done then! On the plus side, I felt great coming off the bike, bags of energy and felt like I could do it all over again.

T2

Some guy asked a volunteer for a tissue to blow his nose with. Official picks up (I don’t know why!) a pair of used bibshorts off the floor and offers them as a tissue. Guy declines.

I pee in the weird open air urinals next to the spectators (how very Euro) and overhear someone shriek in a Geordie accent: “Holy crap, not sure my pee should look that radioactive!”. It smelt like bleach.

Run

I left T2 looking for Loz and saw her about 200m ahead. The stomach cramps I had on the bike turned into a horrendous side stitch / trapped wind feeling which with hindsight was probably trapped wind. What I probably needed was a massive fart but I didn’t think of it at the time. A few km of painful jogging and it sort of loosened up a bit and I started to run a bit better. Andy Lavelle then came steaming past on his final lap with a cheery hello. I eventually caught Lozza up at the harbour. We ran/walked/talked together for about a lap and a half which made my day. We saw Jo and Tarsh at various points who were both going a fair bit quicker than us. Doesn’t matter, it’s not a race is it? Ah damn, it is. We start pushing each other to go a bit quicker and especially when we saw various supporters. It was great to see the wife and kids so often due to the layout of the run course and the location of our apartment. By the 2nd lap, they were on the beach side of the apartment with the (rather nice) bikini clad American & German girls from the apartment downstairs. That made that part of the run go a bit better. We also saw Anne, Helen and Rae at various points around the course. It’s obvious, but it does need saying, it really does lift the spirits when someone you know is shouting encouragement, so thank you all so much.

After another pee stop (I’d drunk a LOT) I somehow managed to lose Loz so ran off on my own on the third and final lap. I caught a very friendly Californian fellow who had almost literally stuck a pin in a map to choose this race. The hill on the bike had surprised the heck out of him and he was in a world of hurt. I kept him running for a little bit but eventually he slowed down. On the last bit with about 3km to go, I was following a girl who was looking a bit unsteady on her feet. As I approached she sort of stopped on the spot, whirled round and clattered into a big wheelie bin. I managed to catch her as she fell. A man rushed over who turned out to be her husband and between us we lifted her out of the blazing sun (it was about 35deg by this point). I ran into the restaurant to get some water/ice and ask them to phone an ambulance (yeah, ok, so I technically left the course, DQ me). She was asking what her time was and appeared lucid but her eyes were tracking all over the place. I spent a couple of minutes waiting there until he said he was ok on his own and I started the last 3k. Having had a little break the final run was actually really easy and were the fastest km splits of the race. Ooops. Got cheered on by the bikini clad girls from downstairs on the last run past, turned right and into the finish chute.

Run time: 2:46. Bit of a shambles really and nothing I can really put my finger on as to why.

Lessons Learnt 

One of the reasons for doing this race was that it’s 8 weeks before Challenge Roth, my first iron distance so it was a bit of a practice really.

1) My nutrition in general sucked and it was mostly my fault. I had 2 half bananas on the bike, loads of water but no electrolytes. I had a mix of water and coke on the run and one revolting gel. It was way, way off. Could ‘get by’ for a 70.3 but that’d end my race in Roth.

2) Just bloody run. I dilly-dallied far too much on the run section.

3) Carry an antihistamine on the bike just in case. My left leg was like a balloon by the end.

It was supposed to give me confidence before Roth but in some ways it’s done the opposite. The reality of just how damn far a full is (particularly the run) is far too apparent. Also, with the cut off at Roth being 15 hours, I’ve realised there’s no real wiggle room for me.

I’ll probably be back in Mallorca the same time next year, but more than likely just to watch, and to get some good quality cycling, eating and drinking done….

First thing’s first, I failed at my run streak. The intention was to run at least a mile every day but for a few reasons it never happened. I missed a run on the 14th due to my legs being plain tired and having the Silverstone Half the next day. The following week was also a write off due to being on holiday. I’d planned to run every evening on hols, but frankly a glass of wine and relaxing felt like the better option.

All that said, although it wasn’t a ‘streak’, it was the shot in the arm that my running needed. Although it’s not a huge amount of distance for some people, in March I clocked up 130.73km of running and managed to get out there 20 days out of 31. Not terrible. It was also a huge monthly increase in distance which was a gamble that fortunately paid off.

So my previous ‘best’ as it were was July with a whopping 45km or so in a month. So what’s that about the ‘10% / week’ rule?

So what have I managed to gain from it?

Firstly, I’ve not broken. That’s a massive for me. Last year I was plagued by knee pain, ITB pain and a weird sciatica that wouldn’t bugger off. This time round, fingers crossed it’s been fine. Other than just exhausted legs now and again I’ve had no pain at all. The Silverstone Half hurt a bit but mostly sore feet.

Secondly, it’s become way, way easier and I’ve become quicker. The 5km on the 10th March was a 5K PB, but a not insignificant 90 seconds (ish). Then 5 days later I beat my 1/2 Marathon PB (set this time last year) by 30 minutes. Oh, and the first 10K of the 21.1KM? A 10K PB by 3 whole minutes. An easy-ish pace is now 5:10/km, around a minute quicker than this time last year. If nothing else it’s a good boost in confidence.

Overall, it was well worth doing but as someone aiming for a full distance IM, trying to run every day was rather predictably restricting other training. When my legs were tired and I ‘had’ to fit another run in, bike and swim went out the window entirely. I might have another crack at it over winter though, it’s strangely addictive.

Got busy with the aluminium strip again last night and knocked up a bit of bracketry to take a bottle cage and a Garmin mount. You can buy them, but I have a few issues with them:

1. The Garmin mount is often to the rear bottle so impossible to see
2. If it’s in front of the bottle, the bottle still tends to be in the way.
3. £££££££ Damn, they’re pricey

Didn’t bother with a huge set of photos of it ‘under construction’ as quite frankly, it’s simple enough to make.

Cut a small bit of plastic away on the Garmin mount so it slots nicely on to the alu strip.. 

The finished bracket. It looks pretty industrial, but it weighs 90g (excluding the cage). Difficult to see, but I cut a small notch on the left hand side and put a small cable tie around it to stop the Garmin sliding off

Installed on the bars with some honking great big cable ties and some sticky back neoprene between bracket and bars.

Garmin nicely visible in front of bottle:

Tada!

One thing that’s bugged the hell out of me about my Tri bike is the frame bottle cage placement. Either it’s designed for people with tiny arms so they need to have it high to reach, or they just didn’t think it through properly.

As you can see in the pics below, the bottle it quite high on the downtube, meaning that when you remove it from the cage there’s not that much room. Also, the downtube is nice and fat at the bottom so would shield the bottle from the wind. The standard position just seems a bit odd.

Interestingly, Cervelo have bothered to put a mounting rivnut above the bottom bracket. It’s allegedly for a forthcoming storage kit, but that doesn’t appear to be happening. Could be useful for relocating the water bottle though..

So, being a bit of a bodger tinkerer, I’ve modified the Elite cage with some aluminium strip. First of all, I used a dremel to cut a slot in either end of the base of the case and slotted the ally strip through. Bend it gently into the required shape and then measure and drill the 5mm holes.

Trim the ends up, cover in some carbon effect vinyl and bolt it back on with 3 bolts. It sits much lower and is far easier to get out the cage. It’s not a long reach at all and feels very natural. Job jobbed.

The opposite to most people really, instead of “wow, where did the year go?”, 2014 seems to have gone on forever. In a good way. Here’s my mega lazy summary of what went on:

January

Mild weather, get massively over excited by running for some weird reason. Run about 4 times a week. Manage a 5K in 23:55 out of nowhere.  Find that actually 10K isn’t that bad either. I like running.

February

Arrive at Feb utterly broken by an over enthusiastic January. Everything south of my ribs makes an alarming clicking noise when moved. Like an Action Man with gravel in the joints. Spend Feb doing a bit of light turbo trainer and learning how to swim.

March

Somehow forget that I’d entered a Half Marathon. Realise that with a grand total of 12km running since January, and double the distance I’d ever run this was going to hurt. It did. A lot. For 2hrs 25. I hate running.

April

Spend April seeing every physio in the south of the UK trying to unbreak myself and stressing about Mallorca 70.3 coming up in May, feeling woefully underprepared.

May

Mallorca 70.3, my first longish distance event. It didn’t go hugely to plan. Tarmac hurts, a lot. Quite broken.

For some reason, I then stupidly attempted a 100km sportive the next weekend. Nope, still broken.

June

Old bike pretty tatty after crash. This little bundle of joy arrives.

July

This little bundle of joy arrives

.

I occupy Ben by taking him out on the back of my bike a lot. He finds it all a bit much.

August

Took 2 week old baby to a wet and muddy Carfest, which was fun. Ate the worlds largest Scotch Egg . It’s birthday month in my family and August vanishes in a whirlwind of toys, party food and cake.

September

I hadn’t forgotten about about Challenge Weymouth Half Distance on the 14th, so much as not stress about it and put family first. A little panic week of training at the start of September and I’m good to go. I’ve not bothered to blog about it, but the race can be summarised by these pictures:

Quite a lot less blood loss than previous race, so a win.

October

Not a whole heap. A lot of well needed family time.

November

Some more, muddier family time.

Right towards the end of November had one of the best bike rides I’ve ever had. Crisp weather, no rush to be anywhere, the lad on the back of my bike, coffee at Twenty3C and a surprise winter fete in Stony Stratford. A glorious 40KM.

December

DISNEY!!

This is my first race report. It’s huge (like medium sized novel huge). I’ve gone into far too much detail, but that’s entirely for my own benefit so I can remember it all in years to come,  so apologies in advance.

2014 Training and preamble

I’d booked Mallorca almost a year ago after having just completed a ‘novice’ super sprint triathlon. I wanted something to work towards, something hard but achievable with the right work. Make no mistake, for me, a 70.3 distance (1.9km swim, 90km bike, 21km run if you happen to be one of the 3 non tri people reading) is no joke for me. Some will knock that out as a tough training day, but for myself, with no real athletic background, it had sat on my wall planner like an ever nearing panic attack. I’d done a sort of Olympic distance race before (swim was cancelled and replaced with a 5km run) and that wasn’t too bad, but this was going to be an entirely different ball game.

Training wise, 2014 was mixed. A lovely mild January meant I could actually go outside and learn how to run. I ran 3 times a week for about 5-7km at a time which for me was quite big volume. Between the start of Jan and the end of Feb my 5km tumbled from 27.50 to 23.55, which was incredibly encouraging. Running felt easy, everything was good. Bike time was still limited, but I quite enjoy the turbo trainer anyway and was making good progress on TrainerRoad working through the sessions.

Towards the end of February though, I think my body had had enough and decided to throw various leg/hip injuries at me. I had a complete week off and shelved the running entirely, concentrating on turbo and a lot of strength training. Late March I did the MK half marathon which was double the distance I’d ever run. Encouragingly it felt great and was on track for a respectable 2 hours until the last few miles when I started to get knee pain. Hobbled to a 2:25 finish, but job done. Every run for the next month though was plagued with knee and hip pain. I could manage about 5km but beyond that, no chance.

Swimming has come on leaps and bounds too thanks to Keith Lewis at the Swim Shed, transforming my stroke from salmon in fishing net into something resembling an efficient swimmer. With a somewhat varied block of training I boarded the plane to Mallorca with the sole aims of having a nice time and walking away with a medal.

Race Lead Up

Sunday – nice recce of the course from our rental van (don’t ask). The climb on the course seemed absurd but the rest of it seemed fine. Quite a long way, 50 odd miles on winding roads. Built my bike up in the evening and then went for a nice meal out

Monday – good play on the beach with Ben. We made some sandcastles and I walked out into the sea carrying him. Couldn’t get him to splash around though as he said the sea was scary. Later in the day, friend and amazing athlete Amy Kilpin asked if I wanted a bit of hand holding with my first sea swim. Yes please! The sea doesn’t “freak me out” as such but it did seem a bit vast to just go in on my own. We both also needed to test our bikes out so we did an easy (for her, not for me) ride up to Port de Pollenca and back. Riding on Mallorcan roads just felt faster for some reason. It was also the first test of the deep aero front wheel and rear disk cover with some serious side winds. Other than a tiny wobble now and again it felt fine.

Back home, to the beach and wetsuits on it was time to man up and get in the water. The calm millpond water from the morning was replaced by some relative chop and the odd occasional proper wave. Swimming out left me feeling totally breathless, I couldn’t get the timing right and I was really struggling. All the pool swimming I’d done had gone out of the window. Half an hour more swimming and some pointers from Amy, I was feeling a bit better. 1900m though was going to be tough. Best moment of the day though was walking out of the sea to see Ben up to his elbows in the water having a great time splashing around.

Tuesday – had an hours swimming on my own while Ben and Nat built sandcastles and played in the sea. Much much better than Monday. The water was still and I found the rhythm I’d been missing.

Wednesday – another morning sea swim, this one felt great. Managed to keep pace with a chap who turned out to be an OW coach from the UK. He gave me a couple more tips, watched me swim and said it looked good. Confidence restored! In the afternoon we picked Amy up and put the bikes in the van to do the descent. It was the one part of the ride I was worried about. It’s mega fast in places and incredibly technical along switchbacks in others. Turns out it was hilarious fun. Years of driving quick cars on track meant it came quite naturally. Brake late and if needed all the way in to the apex to keep the weight on the nose, use the full width of the road, let the brake off as you come out the corner and I made pretty good pace. Natalie followed us down and picked us up at the bottom. The drive home was a 2 hour adventure of diversions that involved driving through an olive grove and a car blocking the road with a sign that said “I’m here with the asphalt machine” as the locals were frantically resurfacing before Sunday.

Thursday – quick splash in the sea followed by event registration and collecting my transition bags. Holding the race number in my hand it all started to feel a bit real. Nerves starting to kick in now so spent the day playing with Ben to try to take my mind off it. Once he’d gone to bed I packed, repacked and triple packed my transition bags before an early night. Couldn’t sleep at all.

Friday – easy morning, another play on the beach with Ben, followed by bike racking. Had met up with Amy before bag drop to have someone sanity check my bags as I was convinced I’d forgotten something. Bike racked, bags dropped and a few technical issues sorted and was good to go to the briefing. Seeing hundreds of amazing looking athletes in one place did nothing to calm my nerves and feelings of being utterly out of my depth but the briefing itself was good. After a few hours of slow boiling in the sun though we were both starting to feel the effects of the heat. I always notice my speech starts slurring a touch if I’m overheating and it was just creeping in, so we went on a hunt for some ice cream (nutritional and medicinal, honest) and some shade. Nerves still at full tilt, I went home to try and eat some dinner and get some sleep.

Race Day

5.15am wake up, try to eat some breakfast. I managed a small coffee and a tiny bowl of Cheerios (quite plain, easy to eat). Amy picked me up to save me a mile walk. I made my way to my bike to put my spare inner tubes in the saddlebag and fill my bottles. Then to the beach. By 7.30 the nerves had vanished for some reason and replaced with a sense of calm. I had various comments from people floating round my head, one of which was from my wise Scottish friend @IronPugsley:  “Take the time to have a look around, take it all in and enjoy it.“. I did just that and looked at the faces of people. Most were looking nervous, some completely stone cold. A few smiling, so I exchanged smiles. Kept reminding myself I wanted to do this and it was an adventure. 7.45 and it was time for Amy to go into her holding area for her wave start. Good lucks exchanged and I’m on my own. I watched the pros start and then the next few waves. Then it was my turn. Wetsuit on, I got sort of in the middle of the pack and waited…

Swim

After an eternity of waiting the gun went off. At my point of the pack it wasn’t a run into the water, it was too busy for that, it was more like a crowd boarding a train, moving with conviction but without any pace. Found myself a space to swim and went for it. The water was opaque with kicked up silt and I could feel the bubbles of the person in front. 200m or so in, I’m not quite sure what happened but during a breath my goggles got removed from my face along with my cap. I stopped to find them a few yards back but whilst trying to put them back on someone swum over me and I took a lungful of sea water. Confidence knocked entirely I started to breaststroke my way after the pack which shot off into the distance. At the halfway marker I looked at my stopwatch which was showing about 19mins, so plenty of time left. It was very clear that I just needed to take it at my own pace. Pretty much on my own apart from a few others I alternated between 30secs of crawl and some breaststroke. I kept panicking with the crawl and I couldn’t find any rhythm. 45 minutes after the gun went,  I left the water feeling annoyed at myself but ready for the bike and pleased I made the cut off (which last year looked a bit tight).

Bike

Into T1, get bike gear on, grab bike and jog along the world’s longest transition (500m apparently). Mount the bike and off we go. Up into Alcudia old town where Matt Fisher blasted past me saying “come on Brian, mate!”. Sorry Matt, that was me actually pedalling quite hard. I literally have no idea how the fast bikers do it. It really is incredible. The pace I can maintain for a minute sprint, they’ll do for 90km. Amazing. The bike course is a single loop that follows the coast, takes in a 600 metre climb, then drops back down to undulating farmland for another 50km. I was starting to get into a zone on the bike, passing a few people that left the water ahead of me. Gentle cruise up the coastal road to Port de Pollenca gave me time to eat a 9Bar and have some fluid. Got to the first aid station at Pollenca having drunk most of my bottles so grabbed a water, an isotonic (yuck), and a half banana. The gentle climb from Pollenca up to the start of the main climb was only really noticeable by looking at the Grade reading on my Garmin.

Then passed a sign warning of a steep climb for the next 9km. Here we go, rattle through the gears one by one as speed drops and keep the legs spinning. The climb was never impossible, just long with very little rest. Although my bike is a heavy lump (it’s a pimped cyclocross bike) it does have the advantage of a triple chainring up front and a huge 32T gear on the back. I never used all the gears, but some people could have done with some extra options. At one point I was following a huge Russian guy called Ivan. He must have been about 6ft5, 18 stone and for some reason, on a small frame bike. He looked like  Donkey Kong and I was pretty sure he could just push his bike along with his hands. Unfortunately, he was getting slower and slower as the hill got steeper. I waited for a small gap in the passing bikes, clicked up a few gears and did a small sprint effort standing in the pedals. Other than that, the climb was just a case of looking at the reading from my Powertap and keeping it as smooth as possible between about 130W and 180W depending on traffic etc.

Once at the top of the climb (there’s a few false summits on the way!) I shifted into the big ring, zipped round the first corner and promptly found the chain had jammed in the front mech. Back pedalling made it worse so had to leap off the bike next to someone changing a puncture, pop the chain back on and away again. About 30 seconds wasted and more of an annoyance than anything else. Onto the descent proper and some of the riding standards were dreadful. I passed about 50-60 people on the switchbacks and didn’t get passed at all. There were some almost coming to a standstill, wobbling round the corner and pedalling like fury again for the downhills. Odd. Off the main descent, through Caimari village and hook a left onto the worst road surface you can imagine. Potholes, gravel, dust. Even cruising at 20kph felt too fast and the bike felt like it was being shaken to bits. Fortunately it didn’t last long until we got to section that was resurfaced on the Wednesday.

Along to Campanet  and the second aid station. The gap between aid station 1 and 2 is a whopping 40km and included the 600m climb. It really felt  like about 20km too far. They could have done with a water station (rather than a full aid station) at the top of the climb IMHO given it was starting to head towards 26-28degC by this point. Another banana, a Powerbar (yuck) and some more waters down me, the stretch from Campanet to the final aid station was only 15km along some half reasonable roads…. after seemingly barely enough time to finish what I was eating it was time to grab some more water and click off the final 25km back to Alcudia. Not sure if there was a tailwind or what, but down in the aero position along the flat smooth roads I was maintaining an easy 40-45kph with barely 130W of output. Lovely cruise and I’m feeling great. This’ll be over in no time.

Another cyclist pulls alongside me, shouting something at me in German that I don’t understand. Flustered, I stare at him as he’s looking back at me, about a metre in front and a metre to my left. I carry on at a cruise  as I’m aware there’s someone about draft legal distance behind me and I don’t want to slow them up too. I wait for him to pull the regulation 10m distance away. He has all the time in the world, this road is arrow straight, massively wide and empty infront of me. He turns away from me and all of a sudden moves over. Not a fast move, maybe two seconds or so. I’ve removed one hand from a tri bar moving it to the brake but it’s too late. His rear wheel just kisses my front and *BANG*. I’m down. 45kph according to the Garmin, and I have no bike underneath me.

I don’t remember a vast amount from the tumble itself, it was probably too quick, but I do remember landing on my feet whilst watching my bike bounce through a field off the road. I then remember catching something out the corner of my eye and watching my two Powerbar water bottles come down from the sky like tiny yellow laser guided bombs onto the road, exploding in a shower of cold water. He didn’t stop. Nobody stopped. I’m standing up, shaking, blood dripping from all my fingers like a horror film poster.

I’m screaming at passing riders: “Someone call the next medic! Someone call the next medic!”. Silence. They all carried on. To the left and right, all I could see was heat haze from the tarmac, dusty fields to either side and a smattering of riders trying to ignore me. It reminded me of the film Rango where he falls from his tank onto the desert road.

I checked my limbs and everything seemed intact. Although incredibly painful I had movement in my arms. My left elbow though had swollen massively. It looked like someone had rammed something about the size,  shape and texture of a Mr Kipling cake slice under the skin. My legs seem sort of ok other than the skin. I walked over to the field to fetch my bike and get it back to the road. Lifting it was painful so it was more of a drag. It looked intact apart from the front tyre which was flat. Ah, that explained the enormous bang and hiss I heard as I was airborne.

It took ages to get my hands onto the zips of my saddlebag as they were shaking so much, but once I calmed down I managed to get the tyre levers and an inner tube out of my saddle bag. As I was fiddling with the levers trying to find a way to get the tyre off using my remaining working fingers (quite a lot of road rash) a course motorbike arrived. It was a Police rider with a bike mechanic on the back. The Policeman asked if I was ok while the mechanic fixed my front tyre in silent Spanish. Once the bike was found to be sort of working (all ok other than broken front derailleur which he managed to bodge into the middle ring) the Policeman ask if I needed a medic or if I was ok. I sort of took it as a good sign that they weren’t calling for an ambulance. I must have at least looked ok. I had a quick look at my Garmin which reckoned I’d travelled 70km, so I decided to try to ride the remaining 20km back to Alcudia. Worst case I could stop at the next point where there’s a course marshal. Beyond that, I could maybe ride to the next town. Maybe if I made that, I could just ride gently into Alcudia where the main event medical tent was. Yes, I’d do that. I’d ride to the med tent and let them sort me out.

Riding was ‘interesting’ to say the least. With my swollen (and very bloody) elbow I couldn’t put that one on the tribar armrest. The other hand had a whole bunch of missing skin from the palm so it was a weird riding technique with left hand grabbing the brake hood, right hand sort of holding the extension bar. Incredibly thirsty after standing in the sun and from the shock I went to grab a bottle, but remembered they’d both jettisoned in the crash. It was a long, hot ride back to Alcudia with zero fluid. Oddly though I still was passing people and maintaining a decent pace. Riding back to transition I started looking for the medical tent. I hopped off at the dismount line and ran (walked) over to a marshall to ask them. They said to ask the people in the tent at the exit of transition. So walk/jog the 500m to the other end and oddly felt fine.  OK, screw this, let’s at least start the run so I can say I tried even if I can’t finish.

Run

I grab my run bag, ditch my bloodied and shredded bike gear, put my run clothes on (apart from calf guards which look like they’d hurt my road rash) and trot out of the change tent. Ah, there’s the tent with the officials. I ask if I can just get a dressing/wash the blood off. They say I can do so in the medical tent at the finish line, but I need to go the other way to the 3 lap course to get there. She takes my race number and starts radioing through. I ask what she’s doing. She says I wanted to exit the race. No.. well.. I do. Desperately. But I really want to finish. I tell her I’ll run half a lap, if I struggle I’ll exit to the finish line area (and the medical tent) at that point. She radios something again which I hope is “Cancel that, the idiot is still running” rather than “Security, I need you to extract someone from the course”.  Off I go.

The run is a 3 lap course of the promenade, a couple of town streets and a main road out of town. It’s lined with spectators and feels like running in a carnival. I jog the 500m to the first aid station, down a ton of water/coke and whatever other fluid I can find. I last drank before the 3rd bike aid station at 65km and I’m parched. I take a gel on too and off I go to see how running feels.

It feels fine. Easy fine. I’m ticking along at sub 6min km’s and it feels effortless. In fact, more effortless than it normally feels. I check my heart rate and it’s 175. It can sometimes get above 180 on a run if I’m pushing but I feel like I’m putting in no effort, just gliding. I carry on for a few minutes longer and start to look around. People are really suffering in the heat. There are people dripping in cold water from sponges. There’s a couple of people lying on the floor. There’s one guy being sick. I normally suffer badly in the heat. Even lying around at home I feel odd in this kind of heat.  Hmmm. I take a walk break to cool off and gather myself. My heart rate doesn’t drop below 150 after a few minutes. A few minutes more walk and it’s still 150. Lots of people are pointing at me from the side of the road. Ah yeah, that’ll be the fact I’m dripping blood onto my white running top and down my leg. Sorry about that. At the pace I was going I must have looked a bit like a zombie.

Another aid station, another weird feeling run and I managed to let my sensible head take over. I was never going to set  a time to be proud of, I’d had quite a tumble, and potentially I wasn’t quite 100% myself. I realised the adrenaline could be masking all sorts of messages my body was trying to send me and my heart rate still wasn’t dropping below 150. I was probably very dehydrated from the bike, and potentially had some big injuries. I thought of Natalie and Ben, I realised I was potentially pushing myself into a unhealthy situation. I really shouldn’t do this run. I did a slow walk (always keep moving) and flipped through my Garmin to do some mental maths. Normally I find it easy to do that kind of thing in my head, but it was getting to the point where I had to ask another walking stranger for help. That was a pretty good sign all was not ok with me. As it transpired, at my quick walking pace (8:15/km) I was easily going to beat the cut off, so my run became a walk. A very social walk where I chatted to other non runners. An amusing walk where I was catching and passing people who were running/stopping. After a lap and a half I finally saw Nat and Ben waiting for me. I’d been slightly concerned that perhaps in the confusion they’d somehow been told that I was out of the race after a crash and were looking for me. I assured Nat I was fine, gave Ben a kiss and carried on my walk. An hour and a half more of chatting to strangers and it was time for the finish chute (where I ran, obviously).

Total time for the worlds slowest half marathon: 02:58:23

Final Thoughts

On one hand, I’m pleased I finished a 70.3. It’s something I thought I couldn’t do and really my aim was to just finish it. On the other hand, I’m gutted I made a bit of a hash job of it. I can’t really say I gave it my all in terms of physical performance. Yes, I ‘gave it spirit’ like an underdog high school team in an American movie, but that’s not what I’d trained for.

Swim wasn’t what I was hoping for at all, more to come there certainly and it’s all mental rather than physical.

Bike, looking at the Garmin data, removing the 10 min crash stop would bring the bike split to 3:30 putting me about 20th from last in my age group. I’d probably have ridden a harder last 20km sans crash so would have gained a few more places. In hindsight I reckon I totally undercooked the bike. I could have upped my target watts and still felt fine. I think I was a bit cautious there.

Run, no idea. I’ve not run in so long,  but I reckon with a bit more walking than running I’d get an easy 2:30 run, putting me again about 20th from last.

On the plus side, I finished the race feeling fine. Grabbed my medal and made my way to the med tent where I saw 6 bodies with IV fluids, 2 with oxygen masks. Screw that. I prefer my way. Death or glory isn’t really my style. Once they had room for me, a very pretty Spanish girl cleaned me up with iodine (YOUCH), popped a few stitches in my elbow and sent me on my way. Nat picked me up, took me home and helped me clean myself up. I hugged my family and nearly burst into tears. It could have gone horribly wrong. It didn’t, but it could have. Later in the evening I met up with Amy, Roland and James for a well deserved pizza, a couple of beers and a wonderfully girly cocktail.  I did the uncool thing and wore my medal to dinner.No sleep at all that night as just couldn’t get comfortable and my head was full of “what if”s”

The next few days were understandably slower than usual but managed to meet up with Pete and his lovely wife who were out for the weekend to recce the course and watch the race. Would I do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. I think I’m going to enter for the 2015 race as a warm up for a full distance IM later in the year. It’s an easy location, stunning course, relatively sensible weather and a good atmosphere.  Anyone else fancy it? I promise the 2015 report will be snappier……

Thanks

Thanks to Natalie. Thank you for putting up with my never ending stream of stupid ideas that demand your energy as well as mine. Dragging yourself to Mallorca at 30 weeks pregnant with a 2.5yr old and a relatively useless husband is the work of an angel.

Thanks to Ben. Sorry buddy, I know you hate it when you watch me race and I always seem to run away from you. You’re always in my thoughts and one day we’ll do this silly kind of nonsense together ok ?

Thanks to Amy for your help during the week. Having someone around who knows what they’re doing helped settle my nerves loads. You’re a superstar and it was a total pleasure. Your race result was fantastic and well deserved (Amy finished in 5:32:35, some 2hrs 10 mins quicker than me!). Dead proud of you.

Thanks to all those who supported me on Twitter/Facebook before, during and after the race. I could genuinely recall the lovely things you all said the day leading up to the race and it really did help me get my head straight. It’s funny the voices that go through your head. Sometimes it’s people you barely know because they’ve said just the right thing.

Finally, thank you for reading.

Links

Ironman Split Times

Garmin Ride Data

Garmin Run Data