Race Report
Ironman 70.3 – UK
20 June 2010
This would be the last of my three race and the toughest of them all. However with steep climbs on the bike and a tough run course, in theory my size and weight should favor me on such a course. Set in the country side with the start and finish at Wimbleball Lake, there was only one way in and out on a narrow country road which meant heavy traffic on the morning with the thousand plus athletes making their way to the start. A bit of stress to start the morning but we managed to get there with time to spare, on what was a freezing start to the day.
With a long walk down from transition to the swim start on freezing grass my feet were numb before I even got into the 1.9km “ice bath”. However my troubles only started when I left all my breakfast behind about 1km into the swim. I was a bit worried that I might blow running out of fuel on the tough course which lay ahead of me. Once again my swim proving to be a very clear weakness and the worst of all three races.
Getting out of the water with numb hands and feet from the cold it was a long run up a steep hill into to transition and a mission to get out of the wetsuit. On to the bike and straight away onto the first of many hills on the day. The key on a course like this is constantly changing gears to try keep your cadence as efficient as possible and fins a good rhythm. Unfortunately soon after finding good rhythm about 5km or so into the bike I found myself laying flat on my back in the grass on the side of the road. My chain had slipped and my moment had caused me to go flying over my handle bars, luckily I was able to recover quickly without any war wounds. Unfortunately I had lost valuable time but the show had to go on. I would soon regain my momentum before hitting the first jaw dropping climb of the day, it wasn’t long but it went straight up. With a two lap course you had to wonder what each hill would feel like going up the second time around. But once the guns warmed up I managed to get a good rhythm and pace myself into T2 with enough left to tackle the run.
Other than grabbing bag 117 instead of 17 my transition was smoothish not losing too much time. With my running shoes eventually on I was ready for the home stretch on what would be a fairly hard run course consisting of three laps. Each lap consisted of a sharp up and down hill as well as the majority of the course being off road with some single track running. With a cross country back round this was a good thing. Finishing off the day with a great run I crossed the finish line in 13th place, making this my best result to date.
Although not a perfect race on the day it was another one in the bag and experience gained. As happy as I am with the race there’s still a lot of hard work to be done. Although its back to the drawing board for now, there’s still a lot of racing in the future to look forward to.
Race Overview
Big numbers, big hills and tough day at the office. Great race with good organization set in the beautiful English country side, I can definitely recommend this be put on the races to do list. I will also try fit it into next years race plan.
Overall results
Position: 13th
Overall time: 4:46:38
Swim: 0:30:26
Bike: 2:49:00
Run: 1:22:45