Ironman 70.3 Ireland, Galway: Part 1

Here we go again! This time it's off the mainland and over to the emerald isle for Ironman 70.3 Ireland in Galway.

It feels very different this time. Having done a 70.3 earlier in the year at Wimbleball, and then the full Ironman distance a few weeks ago at Bolton, I have no fear about the distance. I've learned a lot in the last two events, and this is the first opportunity I have to put it all together.

It's also the third of the four events in the Ironman Ultimate Challenge. At Wimbleball, the first event and my first 70.3 (half Ironman), the distance and the hilly course was the challenge. At Bolton it was my first full distance Ironman, and just getting to the end was the objective. Now I know (barring unforeseen calamity) I will get to the end tomorrow so my thoughts are turning to completion of the Ultimate Challenge. With this race, and then Ironman Wales in two weeks' time, the pressure is quite different - I'm starting to feel like I'm half way through a 13-week race, and tomorrow is the third quarter. It's a means to an end rather than an end in itself. My concern in the event of a DNF (Did Not Finish) here isn't that I'd fail to finish 70.3 Ireland, but that I'd fail the Ultimate Challenge. It feels like the stakes are somehow higher now!

Thursday 30th August

As I was off jetting around the world last weekend I missed the Sunday and Monday of my bank holiday weekend. Therefore I took Thursday off instead, and me and Mrs decided to take a leisurely meander to Galway and split the journey over Thursday and Friday. After my last training session (an hour and a half on the bike, and thirty minutes in the pool) we packed the car and set off for North Wales.

We stayed over Thursday night at Northop Hall Hotel, a nice little place that Mrs found

Friday 31st August

We had an uneventful drive to Hollyhead to catch the ferry to Dublin - this was certainly the right way to do it. Getting up at what would have had to have been 4am to drive here in one day would have sucked in the extreme. I needed a few sound nights of sleep - getting a good 8 hours the last few nights before a race can really pay dividends. It's not so much about the night before, indeed it's been shown that one night makes little difference to athletic performance, but the preceding 2-3 nights are definitely worth making the effort for particularly if there's a risk of a poor night ahead of race day.

Boat required

The ferry was good fun, I can't remember the last time I was on a ferry. There were lots of cars with bikes mounted on (in and behind) them, and an appropriate number of weathered triathletes making a direct line for the complimentary snacks.

Mrs and her happy snacks (we demolished an order of magnitude more snacks than this...)

A relaxed drive across Ireland followed as Dublin and Galway are at opposite sides. We went straight to Leisureland for registration, and picked up our bags, numbers, and assorted paraphernalia.

The Ultimate Athletes get another double-page spread - 8 competitors remaining

Another race, another wristband

We arrived at Sea Breeze Lodge (I can't be held responsible for the web site) late afternoon. The room is absolutely beautiful, a real surprise for what I was expecting to be a regular lived-in looking B&B. Everything has been recently redecorated, we have a big room with good quality fittings, very well presented common areas, and a warm welcome from the boss.

Sea Breeze Lodge, Galway - three locals and me the interloper!

We relaxed and got our kit ready for dropping off at transition on Saturday, and strolled up the road to Capone's for some dinner (a local Italian where parents take their kids to scream).

Kate and Charlie Stannet popped round at about 8pm and invited us out for a beer, so we went up to Tom Sheridans for a pint of the black stuff. A nice relaxing day, just what the doctor ordered.

Saturday 1st September

Today was already well planned out. Get up, 15 minute run to 'get the legs turning over' (I'm not sure my legs turned all the way over, but I went for the run anyway). Then some light(isn) breakfast, and down to Leisureland for swim practice and dropping off of bikes and transition bags.

The sea was not as cold as I'd feared. We swam out and back a couple of times, about 20 minutes in total. Wind was up a bit, but the waves were manageable. Tomorrow is due to be calmer, so I don't think the swim will be too bad for my first race sea-swim.

One of tomorrow's challenges is fast and efficient transitions, so I'm going with the bare minimum of stuff.

Blue bike bag for T1 (I need all of this stuff, but there's nothing extraneous here)

Red run bag for T2 (socks, hat, and inhaler all optional - only shoes are essential)

We went for a quick blast up and down on the bikes to make sure they were working OK. Mine was fine, but Mrs had sheared her rear gear cable somehow. A nice mechanic in the expo fixed it for €10, good as new.

Our bikes, racked and ready to go (Ultimate Athlete Bethan Fowler's bike in the background)

All done, and it was back to Sea Breeze Lodge for a relaxing afternoon of doing very little, and updating my blog (there you go, we've caught up with real-time now!).

Plan for Race Day

Swim: Put some effort in for once. I want to be out in under 35 minutes (tall order for first sea swim). Kick hard in last 100-150m, looks like it might be quite a trek up to T1 and jelly-legs would be annoying! Visualise transition.

T1: Fast, efficient, no faffing. No decisions to be made about what to wear or take, so no reason to slow down. Don't forget to put my bars in my back pocket. Not wearing a secondary bike top this time.

Bike: PACE YOURSELF! Start slower than I would normally want to and make sure HR is under control. Build after first 5-10 minutes up to around 130-135 BPM. See if I can hold it around there for the duration. Fuelling as has worked perfectly before - gel at +15, half a bar at +45, and gel/bar alternating every half hour from there. I'm carrying 2x 750ml drink so with a time of around 3 hours and 500ml/hour I should have no need to stop for anything. Take care flying through the aid stations, other people will be stopping! Don't forget to take feet out of shoes ahead of bike dismount!

T2: This should be very fast - nothing to do but put running shoes on. Take hat if it's strong sun (unlikely), change socks if it was raining on the bike (unlikely). Let's see how far up the ranking I can get for transition.

Run: Only part of the race with a time target. I really want to a) go under 2 hours, and b) negative split. Therefore, first 5km, take it gently, don't sprint off. A half marathon in under 2 hours means breaking 5:41/km on average. There's no need to go off any harder than this. If feeling strong, from 5 to 15km try to hold 5:15-5:30/km. Find a rhythm, and keep it going up until 15km, if you can't speed up, don't worry, just try and stay within 5:41/km. At 15km, if feeling strong, open it up and see what else you've got left - I know I can run a fast 5km, just think of it as a parkrun.

If I manage the bike well, and the first 10-15km of the run, I should be able to put in an effort to be proud of.

Let's see what happens tomorrow!

Ironman UK performance analysis

As I write this I'm on a plane on my way out to the US for another lightening fast visit. Arrive Sunday night, one night in New York, work Monday, and fly back overnight landing on Tuesday morning in time to go to the office in London. Don't let them tell you international travel is glamorous.

It's an important trip, and I can see the need for me to be there in person on Monday, but I'm a bit annoyed at missing what had become until recently a bit of a bank holiday ritual. The Monday morning 4am start to get up and head over to Hampton Pool for the wonderful Thames Turbo sprint series races. One is held on each of our bank holiday weekends, so there are three in close company at the start of the year, and then one in August.

I had decided to skip race 3, instead getting some extended training in the bank, but had been looking forward to race 4. In theory, I've never been this fit - how much of that transfers from the long course racing for which I've been training to the short course sprint format is uncertain, and I intended to find out tomorrow with a balls-out (metaphorically, I assure you) effort.

In any case, instead I'm an hour out from Heathrow over the Eastern Atlantic on my way to Noo Yoik. I shouldn't complain too much - without my job with the good folks at Razorfish I wouldn't be able to fund my Ironman habit.

Recently I've been reading the rather excellent blog of Russell Cox, entitled Trains & Travels. Lately he's posted a number of articles looking at the relative performance of athletes as benchmarked against their peers and other performance levels in their race. I've always done this with my Thames Turbo results - and they've always shown the same patterns:

The swim: I am roughly at the bottom of the top third. I've been improving, slowly, but not very rapidly. I haven't competed in a Thames Turbo race since I've re-learned to swim (more on that in the future). Recently I've been 25-30% down the field overall, but, as Male 30-39 is a high performing age group, this translates to only about 35-40% in my age group.

The bike: This is where I'm strong. In Thames Turbo races I can get as high as the top 10% in the overall field. I'm also strong in my age group, hitting top 15%.

The run: Do we have to talk about the run? In my first two Thames Turbo races I was beaten by almost 83% of the entire field - I am not a runner. My best run performance was Race 4 last year where I sneaked into the top 50% - but still got beaten by 65% of the others in my age group.

Overall: My strong bike pushes me up the rankings. In recent races I have come in the top 25% of the field, and the top 35% of my age category.

Disclaimer: My Thames Turbo PB was in Race 1 of this year - I haven't conducted my usual analysis on those results as they've stopped releasing the immensely useful .xls of all the results, and have moved to an equally immensely annoying web-based results tool. Colour me unimpressed.

Russell's blog got me thinking about how this performance benchmarking compares to my inaugural Ironman. Would the same pattern be revealed? If so, what action can I take to produce a better performance next time?

It just so happens that I checked the Ironman UK results page yesterday, and they have now released a .xls of the full results. I'll say right now - all race results data should be released like this. Today's Internet is all about the cool things you can do with data - and the first step is making the data available in an easily consumable manner. Coming third only to well documented API and a tidy .csv is the glory that is the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Fancy web front-ends and search tools are great, but please, race organisers, make them your way of interpreting the results for those that just want to click about, don't make them the only way to get to the data.

So what does the spreadsheet tell me? It tells me the following:

My finish was a bit behind where I would expect to come in shorter races. The first race at a new distance is unlikely to give your optimal performance, and I suspect my run will have brought me down the field.

• 501st out of 1,180 overall (42.5%) - meaning I was "chicked" by 39 women
• 462nd out of 1,047 men (44.1%)
• 103rd in my age category (M35-39) out of 227 (45.4%)

My swim was pretty average compared to previous performances. Interestingly I was higher up in my age group ranking than overall - this implies that M35-39 is behind the curve in Ironman swimming, as opposed to my local sprint races where it's one of the strongest groups.

• 408th overall (34.6%)
• 357th male (34.1%)
• 74th M35-59 (32.6%)

My swim to bike transition (T1) was well inside the top third. Again we see the M35-39 group are a little behind the curve - come on guys, get your fingers out!

• 343rd overall (29.1%)
• 303rd male (28.9%)
• 64th M35-39 (28.2%)

The bike was where, in my opinion, my race started to diverge from the plan. I went out far too hard and thought that would massively impact my ranking - I'm still in the top third, but no where near where I would hope to be.

• 350th overall (29.7%)
• 329th male (31.4%)
• 70th M35-39 (30.8%)

The bike is where the spreadsheet gets really interesting. It lists the split times at 7 points on the bike course (to this day I have no idea how they did that - I don't recall going over any timing mats).

My recollection of the bike phase is that I went off like a rocket. I thought I was under control, but I was flying past people like they were standing still. I decayed hard over the second and third laps, and picked up a tiny bit (probably relief!) towards the end of the third lap.

The stats seem to validate my suspicions, only I was decaying way sooner than I realised. In fact every split was slower (relative to the field) than the one before. I managed a very minor improvement on the last split, but that was only 2.3 miles long so I don't think it counts for much! Needless to say, this is not a good example of Ironman pacing. 

However, I was significantly faster at the start than I realised, my 12.5% overall for the first split puts me in the top eighth of all competitors! My assumption that I'd drifted down to half way or even further by the end was based on my starting pace being average - I didn't realise I'd set off so relatively hard, and therefore although I slipped a long long way down, my finish was still quite good (relative to the field, if not relative to my normal short course triathlon performance).

A similar story can be seen from my average speed.

It looks alternately slow and fast because the 3-lap circuit had a very definite slow and fast half, but of note is that the slow halves get slower each time, and the fast halves do too. My pace was dropping continually throughout the bike phase - this is a real eye opener, I had expected a period of good stable performance followed by a rapid drop off, not a decline basically from the word go!

So how does this compare with everyone else? I figure the top 20 finishers should know a thing or two about pacing - after all, they're the only group who went under 10 hours, with 20th place just sneaking under at 9:58:53. This group is all male, the first female was Irish professional Eimear Mullen who came in at 10:08:44 - an incredible performance for her first full distance race.

So it seems the top guys also fade, just like I do - exactly like I did, in fact. Only they are going faster to start with, and they drop off at a lower rate (their reduction is therefore much less impacting). This isn't quite what I expected, I assumed that there was a magic pacing ability the top performers have and their splits would show that the three laps were taken at a similar pace each time. Actually, their pacing pattern was much like mine, only they're much fitter and can therefore go faster and resist the drop off in pace for longer.

If I conserved my energy better by starting more within my capabilities I should find that, although my initial velocity might be marginally reduced, I can limit the rate of decay of pace, and therefore my plot would look similar to the top 20, only shifted down by a few km/h. Overall this would give me a better finishing time. Something to think about for Galway where the bike course is virtually flat. If I can get the pace right from the start and hold it right through to the end, and still have good legs for the run, then I'll have got it right and be deservedly pleased.

I'm expecting my bike to run transition to be poor - basically I stopped for a picnic, application of sun cream, a chat, and generally took my time. Mentally, I needed the break, but race-wise I suspect it cost me some places.

• 1,011th overall (85.7%)
• 896th male (85.6%)
• 199th M35-59 (87.7%) 

As expected - terrible! The stats show that at the slow end the M35-59 group were marginally better than average, but when you get down to the back 15% it's all much for muchness. Any longer and I'd have squeezed in a nice cup of tea (now I've thought that I'm wondering about the practicalities of leaving a small Thermos in my T2 bag, hmm...).

One of my objectives for Galway is to speed up my transitions. I needed the break after the challenging bike ride, but a better managed bike should mean a faster T2 (suggesting a well paced bike makes more difference than just that revealed by the bike split time alone). For reference, the fastest T2 was a breath-taking 1:16 by Rob Cummins, an Irish athlete who was placed 48th overall.

Onto the run, and again I'm expecting a picture of starting too fast and fading fast. If the Thames Turbo pattern holds then I'll be significantly further down the field in the run that I was the swim or bike.

• 747th overall (63.3%)
• 669th male (63.9%)
• 158th M35-59 (69.6%)

So I just squeezed into the top two thirds overall, and the top two thirds of men, but my age category is clearly comprised of stronger than average runners, therefore I got beaten by very nearly 7 out of every 10 of them.

Again, the spreadsheet gives a lot of splits. Let's see if the run really went the way I remember it.

This one is a bit different - it looks like I was gaining places overall for the first 13 miles, unlike the bike where I was losing places form the start. The trend reversed fairly quickly, and I started drifting back relative to the field at a pretty high rate. 13 to 21 miles was really hard, and I got slower and slower, and then managed to halt the decline for the last couple of miles (possibly because I knew the end was close, and also it was downhill!).

Basically, my pacing sucked, and I went off at an utterly unsustainable pace.

Compared again with the top 20 finishers shows my pattern was fairly representative, but once again I started a lot more slowly. My pace from 17-20km didn't pick up again when compared with the top finishers - I expect this was one of the long gentle rises that I just couldn't get going on and ended up walking most of the way. The top 20 picked up the pace again and kept running.

Note here that although it looks like our paces were declining at the same rate because the trend line is roughly parallel, this isn't the case. My drop of about 2.5km/h represents a proportionally greater reduction given my starting pace of only 9.5km/h (26%), whereas the top 20 dropped a similar amount of about 2km/h but starting much faster at 14km/h (14% drop).

As with the bike, I expected the top 20 finishers to have a magic pacing ability that showed they hold an even pace throughout, but this isn't the case. They gradually slow down along with everyone else (along with me, at least). Where my curve differs at 17-20km I was clearly in trouble, this matches my experience - this was the darkest point in the run, although I felt mentally alert (I take that as evidence my nutrition was good) my legs just wouldn't do what they were told. Even the technique of setting small targets (the next aid station, landmark, or sometimes even lamp-post) was not working - legs just went "sorry, no way" and would play ball. Or run.

I'm taking a few things from this analysis:

• My pattern of pacing decay is fairly representative.
• My rate of decay is proportionately greater than those at the sharp end of the field.
• The top 20 are faster at the start, faster in the middle, and faster at the end!
• My swim is OK - although a third of the field beat me, the time difference is comparatively small. The 9th place finisher only beat me by 3 minutes, and despite being 22% faster the top 20 was only on average 16:30 ahead of me. 
• My run is by far the weakest discipline, and that should be a major component of my winter focus. This is where I faded badly, and lost the most time.
• To move up to the next level (12 hours would seem to be a reasonable target) I need to improve my run, and get better at managing my effort on the way there.

Importantly for this year:

• Even if I control my bike better in Wales I'm not going to pluck an amazing run out of thin air.
• The bike course is a lot harder than Bolton, and as a result I'm not sure I'll be able to set a better time, even with better pacing.
• I now recognise that at Wales the challenge for me really is in getting to the end.

In my next races I should (hopefully) have my watch working properly so I can map all this against my own data rather than just the published splits - that will give me a lot more insight.

Race Report: Ironman UK, Bolton, England

I wrote part of this report the day after the race and it then sat in draft form for almost a month. I’ve tried to find the time to finish it off and somehow just haven’t managed. A big push now as I need to get it out a) before I forget everything, and b) before it’s so late that I’ve raced again!

So, see if you can remember a whole month ago, and grab a cup of tea and a biscuit ‘cos it’s another long one…

Mrs wrote a race report too, you can find it here, together with some stats here.

In order to make sure the tension isn't too much to bear for you, dear reader - let me start with this: As loudly proclaimed by Emma Jenkinson, one of the two Ironman MCs, as I ran(ish) down the finishers’ chute “Norman Driskell – You. Are. An. Ironman.”

Pretty happy right now!

The journey is far from complete, but my first full distance race is over, and I have the t-shirt and comfortingly heavy finishers’ medal to prove it.

I’ve had a fairly good few weeks in between Wimbleball and Bolton. For the first week after the 70.3 I didn’t feel like doing much at all – if I remember correctly I had no exercise at all for 5 days. I then built back up and had two really good strong weeks. The fourth week I ended up going to China on business for an impossibly short trip (flew out Monday, and back on Thursday). This led to me “losing” an entire night of sleep, instead having two 36-hour long days. I was left utterly shattered, and of course got no training accomplished.

The final week was also dominated by work. It was a relief to finally turn off all my devices, set my out of office, and say “I’m really sorry, for any other reason I wouldn’t do this – but I’ve been training for seven months for this, and I’m not missing it for the world”.

We packed on Thursday and then had a nice evening of escapism at The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Radio Show Live – in London for one day only and, as a big fan and avid collector of versions, an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

Friday morning and we set off. Mrs’ Dad had kindly leant us his Citroen Bellingo, an ugly (sorry!) vehicle, but immensely practical. It swallowed up all our stuff with room to spare. We could have got everything in three times over. I’m starting to think my Audi isn’t compatible with a triathlon lifestyle.

We arrived at the Reebok Stadium, home of the mighty (apparently) Bolton Wanderers, and registered.  A race briefing was due to kick off shortly and, although we’d planned to go to the Saturday briefing, we decided to hang around. That meant that apart from dropping off bags and bikes in transition we wouldn’t have anything else to do the day before the race. That should help in relaxation and de-stressing.

Race briefing in the Reebok Stadium, Paul Kaye on the stage

After the briefing was the Pasta Party – an Ironman tradition. All athletes are entitled to complimentary plates of pasta, bread rolls, and entertainment. Paul Kaye, the other Ironman MC and always the voice of Ironman (I-ron-man) in my mind, talked through some of the day, and the Ultimate Athletes got a mention. 7 of us were there, and we were called on stage for our moment of fame. There’s a spread in the race programme again, entitled “and then there were nine”. Next time it’ll be eight, or fewer, as sadly Charlie Stannet missed the bike cut-off in the race.

Our 2-page spread and the first appearance of an "Ultimate" logo?

...and then there were Nine!

Paul Kaye described the four races we’re doing as “Ironman 70.3 UK: the hardest 70.3 in the world”, “Ironman UK: one of the hardest full-distance races in the world”, “Ironman 70.3 Ireland: the biggest ironman party in the world” and “Ironman Wales: Definitely the hardest full-distance race in the world”. I’m sure they “big-up” wherever they are, but it certainly made us feel good (and a nervous). We got a nice ripple of applause. I really hope me and Mrs are still standing after Wales!

The second of our four times as Mr 103 & Mrs 104

Team True Spirit got a big mention too, they are a charity supporting injured servicemen and women and giving them the opportunity for great personal achievement (as well as fundraising) at Ironman UK. There were maybe 30 of them in total, a mix of servicemen, physiotherapists, and other supporters.

The Team True Spirit crew

I spent a while looking at the handbike one of them would be using tomorrow to cover the 180km bike course - it was a work of art.

Beautiful handbike - light as it can be, but still a hell of a lot of work

We found our hotel, and turned in for the night. The next morning’s quick trip to T1 for bike/blue bag drop off, and then up to T2 for red bag drop off didn’t go as planned – the traffic was very heavy (jams, and annoying temporary traffic lights) so we got back to the hotel at 2pm tired, hungry, and thirsty. Not the best preparation. Determined to relax, we spent the afternoon doing very little – feet up, watching Tour de France highlights, and dozing. We turned in at about 20:30, and miraculously were both asleep by 21:30 and got a solid 5+ hours of sleep ahead of our crazy 3am start – a far cry form Wimbleball where I got what felt like no sleep whatsoever. Top Tip: For a good night of sleep ahead of a big race, don’t stay in a pub.

Bike left in T1 all racked and ready to go

So, up at 3am feeling remarkably rested and ready. Well-rehearsed breakfast of Ready Brek with peanut butter and a banana stirred into it, and a bottle of Gatorade to sip on, and I was good to go. We drove down to Penningotn Flash, scene of the swim, getting there at about 04:30. Race start was at 6am. Normally Ironman races start at 7am, I’m guessing this was a 6am start in order to get the final cut-off to be 11pm. The finish was in the town centre of Bolton, and there are probably regulations about making loads of noise beyond midnight.

There’s something surreal about covering your arms and legs with water-resistant sun-cream in the dead of night, but if the weather forecast is to believed (the UK is on the cusp of transitioning from never-ending rain to never-ending heat wave) then sun-burn was a real and very unwelcome risk. Factor 20 to start the day giving it plenty of time to soak in, and then some spray sun-cream in my run bag for a top-up in T2.

Benefits of arriving so early: Plenty of time to get mentally adjusted to the day ahead; no panics as you stand in the queue for the gents cubicles (bonsai trees grow faster than this queue was moving); and time to survey transition. I’m always amazed how many people seem to be in a state of panic – can you really not remember if you left your bike helmet in your blue bag? Really?

Transition looks pretty in the morning, barely 5am here

Volunteers had covered every bike with a protective cover in case it rained. The exact opposite to Wales last year where, as I was volunteering, we had to remove all the covers as they were acting like sails and blowing the bikes off the racks.

We bumped into a freelance photographer who had been staying in the same place as us in Wimbleball – he recognized us and we had a chat. He takes photos for Ironman, and also Compressport – so with my bright yellow Compressport compression calf guards on I was a good target. He got some snaps of me and Mrs but I’m not sure where they’ll end up – if anywhere.

We ambled down to race start.  I was eager to get into the water and relax and warm up – it felt a bit rushed last time. No such rush this time - we bobbed about for quite a while, amiably jostling each other to defend our starting position. It turns out we started 10 minutes late, but eventually the klaxon sounded and we were off! I was starting my first full-distance Ironman race. I hadn’t felt nervous coming into the race, probably because of the amount of thinking and planning I’ve put into it. As such, I set off on the swim feeling guardedly confident. I know I can swim this far, I know I can bike, and I’ll worry about the run when I get there.

• The Swim (3.8km / 2.5 miles) - 01:15:11
• 74th out of 227 in my age category (32.6% down the field)
• 408th out of 1,180 overall (34.6% down the field)

It was nice to bob around with Mrs before the start, but I lost her the second we set off. This is fine, we knew it would happen. We might be married, but our races were going to be two very individual affairs. I found out afterwards I’d given her a kick in the face just after the start – sorry honey! Wasn’t on purpose!

It was a bit of a bun-fight for the first couple of hundred metres (they don’t call it the washing machine for nothing) – I got a few elbows to various places (included one to a particularly sensitive area!) and I’m pretty sure I meted out some damage of my own. Unfortunately I drifted off course a bit again – a little off to the right. This gives me clear water and gets me out of the fighting, but it does mean the continual course corrections break my rhythm slightly and mean I take a slightly longer route. Need to fix this – it’s a free and easy way to get the swim times down.

I also need to get better at using a burst of speed to find water at the start. The general advice is a good few hundred metres (more if you can manage it) to get clear of those around you and find some feet to draft – ideally someone who is marginally faster than you and can drag you along. I didn’t do any of this – I have much still to learn about race swimming.

The swim course featured an “Australian exit” which means after one lap you get out, run for a few dozen metres and then get back in for another lap giving just enough time for your supporters to identify you among all the other people in black wetsuits and hats, and for you to not see anyone at all and concentrate on not slipping over or losing your goggles. Mentally this worked in my favour – I know I can swim 1,900m easily, so I just viewed it as two manageable swims rather than a continuous 3.8km (2.25 miles).

I drifted off line again on the second lap – not terribly, but enough for it to be annoying. I will really need to fix this. The second lap was uneventful, everyone had strung out so I had my own space, we only came into bashing-range at the turn-buoys. I settled into a good rhythm and chewed through the course. The splits afterwards gave my first lap at average 1:58/100m, and second lap at 1:55/100m – so I negative split the swim! Very pleased about that.

I got out of the swim without any problems, and felt good, ready to bike. Let’s go!

• Transition 1 - Swim to Bike - 06:31

I learned form T1 at Wimbleball where I’d spent far too much time faffing about with gloves and arm warmers. This time my blue bag was streamlined.

The tent was already quite humid, so I found a seat near the exit where it was cooler. Apart from the transition volunteer trying to pack my cycling top in with my wetsuit (“No! I need that!”) it went to plan. I could be quicker, I know, but with such a long ride ahead I felt it was more important to mentally tick off the main things: Socks on without wrinkles under the feet, shoes done up to the right tension, still got nutrition in my cycling top pockets, etc.

Blue bag - bike stuff

I had three mule bars with the tops already opened in one pocket, some emergency arm warmers in another pocket, and the middle pocket was going to be for rubbish (wrappers from the bars and gels that were taped onto my bike). I already had 2x 750ml Gatorade on my bike, and at a minimum 500ml/hour that’s up to 3 hours before I need to stop at an aid station. I wasted a lot of time at Wimbleball farting about with wrappers and moving bottles around, people I’d worked hard to overtake streaming past me. This time I was going to be much more efficient, and had practiced it all in training.

I saw Ultimate challenger Kate Stannet in transition. She beat me in the swim by about a minute, but I think I got out on the bike before her.

I think one of the things I’ll take to Galway is an attempt to do fast transitions – the challenge there is it’s tricky when you’re not out with the front pack in the swim as the transition area is already very busy. Maybe I should just learn to swim faster!

The biggest annoyance of the whole day happened as I left transition. My Garmin Forerunner 910XT has a “multisport” mode designed specifically for race timing in triathlon. In multisport mode you hit “Start/Stop” when you start the swim, and then hit the “Lap” button each time you change discipline, and than “Start/Stop” at the end of the run. This includes transition, so you have 5 clear times (Swim, T1, Bike, T2, Run), and can manage each sport individually whilst keeping track of overall race progress.

I hit “Lap” as I exited T2, and instead of a little “Now start biking!” graphic, I just got the normal “Lap” behaviour. Either it wasn’t properly on multisport mode or something had gone wrong. I wrestled with it a bit and eventually just decided the quickest thing would be to stop the current exercise, reset, and start again as if it were a normal bike ride, with “Bike” as the active sport.

I thought I’d done all this correctly (remember I’m on my bike trundling out of T1 at this point, and negotiating Pennington Flash’s precipitous speed bumps) but heading down the road I realized I wasn’t getting any km splits at all, just elapsed time. This was a problem all the way round as I didn’t know how fast I was going, or how far I’d gone. Luckily I knew the course so could gauge my position, but not knowing my average speed was annoying.

Anyway, if something’s going to cock up I’d rather it was my watch and not my bike again! Speaking of which, the bike…

• The Bike (180km / 112 miles) - 06:29:55
• 70th out of 227 in my age category (30.8% down the field)
• 350th out of 1,180 overall (29.7% down the field)

I set off. I felt good and confident. My bike felt (no pun intended) absolutely amazing with the HED Jet rims on. I love my H3 wheelset, but unless you’re all about speed on a flat sprint/Olympic course (e.g. Thames Turbo or at Dorney Lake) then they’re just not appropriate – and as I learned at Wimbleball, they absolutely suck when you try and make them stop quickly on a fast descent, and as soon as you lose confidence in your ability to stop, you may as well give up.

Leaving T1, 112 miles to go!

The bike course consisted of a 16-ish mile point-to-point, then three laps of a 32-ish mile circuit to give 112 miles (180km) in total.

Within the first mile I’d seen a crash – one guy was wobbling around and lurched to the right as someone was overtaking - he took him out completely and both went down. Poor blokes, I hope they were OK to get back on and carry on racing. As with Wimbleball, I was surprised at the number of people stopped with mechanical problems within the first 10km, underlining again the importance of ensuring your bike’s fitness as well as your own.

I’ve heard a hell of a lot said about Ironman cycling, particularly about pacing. For example, “there’s no such thing as a bad run, only too fast a bike”, “it’s almost impossible to take the bike too easy”. I probably should have remembered some of these pearls of wisdom as I rocket past fellow competitors like they were standing still. I felt amazing, I felt strong, my bike was mechanically as close to perfection as it has ever been. My new rims hummed and whistled, I just knew I sounded like an unstoppable missile to the ears of my fellow racers. I took some time to enjoy it, really enjoy it. I even said out loud how great I felt, and how amazing this experience was. I knew there would be some dark times in the race (there always are in races this long, even for the professionals) so I wanted a happy-zoomy place to remember when my time came.

My watch wasn’t giving me splits, but I was using my estimate of perceived effort to keep the energy expenditure under control. I thought I was taking it easy, I really did. I got to the start of the circuits, still overtaking people (I genuinely have no idea how they got there so quickly, the speed they were going on the bikes they must have completely aced the swim and got a 20-30 minute head start on me). Why would such strong swimmers be cycling so slowly? If I’d thought about that question I might have been able to work out the answer – they weren’t going slowly, I was going way (Way WAY) too fast.

My plan was to use the first lap fairly cautiously for reconnaissance, making sure I knew where the tricky corners and technical descents were, and then open it up a bit on the second lap. Mrs and I had been out here a fortnight ago to ride the course, so I already had some familiarity with it – but it all looks different at speed and on closed roads.

At the top of Sheephouse Lane, the only major climb on the route

I finished the first lap – it seemed to take a long time to get there, these laps are long! – and set off up Sheephouse Lane, the only real big hill on the course, for the second time. It was during the second lap I started to pay for my exuberance early on. I was getting overtaken. I’m not used to being overtaken on the bike. I found it very demoralising. Whereas I’ve been overtaken by the odd whippet on an awesome bike with humming disc wheel and easy cadence, and that’s fairly easy to come to terms with, this time I was being overtaken by chubby blokes on old steel-framed bikes. A lot harder for me to deal with.

It’s not that I was tired, my legs felt OK, I wasn’t fatigued, and my nutrition plan was working perfectly – my legs just wouldn’t work as well as they had been. I got really quite depressed about it, and slowed dramatically. This was definitely a dark moment. As I finally finished the lap and started up the hill for the third time I looked forward to the super-fast descent on the other side, and tried to take comfort in knowing there was only one more to go. Lap three went on for ever. The roads were longer than they had been, the gentle rises became hills in their own right, and more and more people were overtaking me. My initial “holy crap I’m going to break 5:30 at this rate!” turned into “well I think I might still make 6:00” and eventually became “I reckon I can just creep in under 6:30”.

As it was I got in a hair’s breadth under 6:30 having learned a whole big lesson about pacing. It would be easy to blame my watch, but my watch wasn’t pedalling, I was.

I understand now those people I overtook 15 miles in (who all overtook me 70 miles later) weren’t “amazing swimmers who were going slow on the bike”, they were “good swimmers who were pacing themselves appropriately on the bike”. I wondered a little bit about what my cycling enthusiasm was going to do to my run, but realized that wasn’t a productive line of thought, and quickly shut it down.

On the up side, my nutrition had gone perfectly. I took 15 minutes to get settled in to the bike, and then had a gel. I had half a mule bar 30 minutes later, a gel 30 minutes after that, etc. Combined with a target minimum fluid intake of 500ml of Gatorade per hour that’s exactly the carb intake I need. I stuck to the plan rigidly, almost to the minute. At least I could still get elapsed time from my watch. After 3 hours when I ran out of drink I got a Gatorade top up from an aid station. I was carrying all the solids I needed, so there was very little time lost refuelling. This was one of the high points, and I don’t think I need to make any fuelling changes for my next races.

As I entered T2 (I’m sure that school never used to be quite so far down the road) I had a new experience – a bike catcher took my bike off me and whisked it away. I haven’t had this happen before and was momentarily confused as my routine in T2 starts with “run with bike to racking point and hook bike up securely” – I was pointed to the T2 area (school sports hall) by a friendly volunteer (I must say, all the volunteers were excellent) and off I trotted.

• Transition 2 - Bike to Run - 13:08

My second transition was laconic to say the least. I almost forgot I was in a race. I took some time eating a bagel I’d stashed in my bag (brilliant idea - put a treat into your run bag, and reward yourself for getting through the bike). Again I took time, making sure I applied some more liquid chamois to areas at risk of chafing (you know the ones), rubbed some body-glide under my arm-pits as that is one of the most painful areas to get rubbed raw, and covered myself in sun cream. It was getting damn hot out there, and I was going to cook unless I had some protection.

Red bag - run stuff and special bagel treat! (If I get this far I deserve a treat)

I knew I’d gone too hard on the bike, and as I sipped some water kindly supplied by a volunteer, I reflected. I had to avoid doing the same on the run, and I couldn’t let it ruin the race. There was a long time to go to the finish and I had to leave the bike behind, it was done, and focus forward.

• The Run (42.2km / 26.2 miles) - 05:12:58
• 158th out of 227 in my age category (69.6% down the field)
• 747th out of 1,180 overall (63.3% down the field)

Like the bike course, the run consisted of a point-to-point component of about 8 miles, followed by a purported three (which turned out to be more like three and three-quarters) laps of a circuit to make up the remaining 18. A marathon. I’ve never run this far before!

I set off out of T2 determined to keep my pacing even and careful. I’d reset my watch, set it to “Run” and headed out. It failed in the same way, no kn splits, not sure on my pacing. I went at what felt like the right pace and made good progress all the way to the circuits.

I felt like my pacing was good. Cadence high, tried to keep speed low, I overtook one or two people who looked like they’d suffered on the bike, but I certainly wasn’t rushing. I got to the circuits feeling strong. There was a very short sharp steep hill connecting the river-side section to the loops, and I chose to preserve some energy and walk up it. I’d learned at Wimbleball that run/walk is acceptable, and can make a big difference to energy conservation. At the top is a pub and a sharp left turn on onto the looped section of the course. Rounding the corner, I set off on a run again, to much whooping and cheering from the large (and tipsy) group of patrons.

This part of the course was a gradual incline all the way out, and decline back, with a squashed U-shaped loop in the town centre. There were two aid stations, one at each end.

The “out and back” style of looped course doesn’t suit me mentally. It really feels like running with no purpose in a way that a circuit doesn’t.

Part of the course that was in the middle of the town centre

Quite quickly I started to suffer the after effects of my bike effort. If I’m honest with myself (I wasn’t at the time, but in retrospect I can see more clearly) I went off too fast on the run as well. I felt good, it was nice to get off the bike, and my bagel-reward gave me a nice boost. The lack of pacing data from my watch was more impacting on the run, I felt a bit helpless without the regular beeping each kilometre. I ran for a while chatting to someone else, but realised he was going marginally faster than I wanted to, so I let him run on.

I had heard a lot about how if you pace the run correctly you’ll start to reel people in who went off too fast. This didn’t happen, instead I got slower and slower – a pointer that I was one of the ones who had gone off fast.

The crowd support on the run was excellent. Most of the sections were well represented, and the town centre loop was electric. I started to walk up the long rise, more so on the second loop. It became quite demoralising seeing other athletes with more armbands than me (one per lap). I tried to find my happy place – this was at two places on the loop, firstly Mrs was now on the run course so I was really pleased to see her and spent some time working out what I’d say as we ran past each other (it’s also the first clue I’d had that she had made it through the swim and bike and onto the run), and secondly down in the town where my good friends Paul, Chris, Rachel, and Simon had come out to support us. This made such a huge difference to my mental condition – I can’t thank them enough for coming out to support us.

At one point someone yelled “Come on, Norm” (the race numbers have our names on) but then followed it with “Oh! Norm Driskell! parkrun!” That took me by surprise, but it turned out afterwards that it had been the race director from Bolton parkrun which I’d trotted round the day before, and he’d recognised my name. That was amusing – I thought for a moment my parkrun addiction had become public knowledge!

Got a long way to go - no wristbands yet (photo copyright Simon Rowe)

The run went on and on and on… It seemed to be never ending. Before the race I had dreams of trying to get close to 4 hours, that was rapidly out of the window (I now see that it was a crazy objective) but it felt like the time was just sliding further and further away. I gave myself a promise of a pick-me-up treat on the final lap, I’d switch to the flat pepsi (surprisingly nice) – and that kept me motivated a bit longer. Until then my nutrition was a half banana and a couple of Ritz crackers at each aid station – I really didn’t fancy any more gels after the first lap, plus they are damn-near impossible to open after 10 hours of racing, the last couple I had to bite the tops off which was a mission in itself. I suspect a lot of people had commented as for a while the volunteers were handing them out with the tops already torn off – much better, thank you volunteers!

I was hoping I may still creep in under 5 hours, but as that slipped past I focused my efforts on breaking five and a half. I found some energy for a push at the end, running (if you can call it running) up most of the last hill, and all the way back down to the finish. My spirits lifted over the final 15 minutes – my legs were crying out but I pushed on regardless. I was so close, I was going to be an Ironman.

It was with a great sense of relief and achievement that I rounded the final bend and went straight on to the finishing chute. One athlete with another lap to go shot me a jealous look, probably similar to the ones I must have unknowingly exchanged with athletes a lap or more ahead of me when the situation was reversed.

This is my happy face (photo copyright Simon Rowe)

As I ran down the carpet, spiralling my arms and trying to whoop the crowd up, Emma Jenkins declared that yes, at last, after the longest 13 hours of my life, I. Are. An. Ironman.

I. Are. An. Ironman! (Official time was a second quicker than this)

• Final time (140.6 miles) - 13:17:45
• 103rd out of 227 in my age category (45.4% down the field)
• 501st out of 1,180 overall (42.5% down the field)

Very amused to be number 103 and come 103rd in my age group!

Kate Stannett got a mention on Ironman Live when she finished...

...and earlier on, so had we! (US timezone, -7 hours on BST)

I made my way quickly through the finishers’ area, grabbing some pizza (Domino’s, yum!) on the way. I wanted to see my friends and let them know how much they’d helped me.

After catching up, and scoffing recovery drink, cake, an ice cream, some coffee, and probably the other half dozen foodstuffs that were nearest at the time, I went back to the barriers to cheer on Mrs. I saw her go past twice – “You’re gonna be an Ironman!” I shouted – she didn’t register that she’d heard, but I think she did. After Mrs had successfully come in, we went for more cake and coffee before returning to welcome the last people of the day.

Mrs, enjoying her first taste of the Ironman finishing carpet (photo copyright Simon Rowe)

I was so pleased to have got through the day. The time wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping, but I can clearly look to my limited pacing skills for improvement next time – there’s a lot I could gain without being any fitter, just by playing the game better.

Mr Race Number had a crumply and ink-bleedy kind of day

The icing on the cake is that when Bolton was featured on the new Ironman magazine TV show, my legs were in one of the atmospheric shots! One of the unexpected bonus effect of wearing bright calf guards and patriotically coloured trainers (the other was that my supporters could easily see me coming).

My legs! On TV! Fame at last!

Two races down in the Ironman Ultimate Challenge, with two more to go. Galway is next for Ironman 70.3 Ireland; bring it on!…

Consistent swimming pace

So I made a lighthearted post some months ago about my swim coach un-teaching me to swim (apparently, I couldn't swim, even though I thought I could) and rebuilding my technique from the ground up (we have the technology).

Well here's a quick update on how it's going. I'm now faster than I was before I started, and much more efficient (going by perceived level of effort/tiredness - not particularly scientific, but it's all I have to go on - although it ignores that I'm generally fitter now and so shouldn't get as tired, etc, etc, etc).

This morning I swam a timed 30 minutes.

The objective: to go as far as I can.

The method: swim, put effort in, but not so much I burn out and have to stop, but enough to keep the pressure on and feel like I've represented my ability well.

The results: I over-ran a bit, but hit 64 lengths (1600m) in 31:47.8. What I'm most encouraged by is the consistency:

Solid consistent pace, v happy!

Next steps: Work to increase my speed across the whole set (i.e. just "swim faster" in general) - this should be easier than correcting any dead spots (e.g. variable inconsistent pace, terrible drop off in pace, etc).

Tonight I'm driving up to Bolton to swim in Pennington Flash, to run Pennington Flash parkrun (which until last week I didn't even know existed!), and to cycle 2 laps of the Ironman UK bike course (and back to the hotel) for a grand total of 150km! Last big training session until the big race!

Nutrition testing - Pt. I

I got heartily sick of gels during the bike ride at Ironman UK 70.3, so it's time to experiment with food options for the full distance Ironman. Gels on the run are fine - it's pretty hard to eat anything else while running, and harder to digest as my effort level will likely be higher on the run than bike (less blood flow to the stomach). There are plenty of options out there - but I don't have much time to prepare ahead of tomorrow's session, so it's got to be quick and easy.

I need 60g carbohydrate per hour to keep me going over long distance. Tomorrow I've planned an 80km bike ride and a 20km run - at training pace that should all take about 5 hours.

Planned nutrition

On the bike I'll take 2 bagels each with 30g of Nutella in (yum) plus a 500ml bottle with one sachet of High5 powder in. High5 to be sipped throughout the ride, and a quarter of a bagel to eat every 15 minutes or so. I'll take water in the other bottle. Returning home for a quick transition, my run belt will be ready with another bottle with High5 powder in, and 4 gels - one as soon as I set off, and at each 30 mins afterwards.

Nutrition profile

284.4g of carbohydrate over 5 hours gives 56.9g per hour. This is a touch on the low side, I'd aim to be 10g per hour above this for a very long day, but should be enough to know if the bagels are OK.

To try and make sure I'm not "cheating" by having a big breakfast that would mask the effect of any under-fuelling I'm going to keep breakfast light. A cup of tea and a single piece of toast with no butter and 20g peanut butter should do the job.

One difference between this experiment and race day would be I'd probably go with white bagels on race day to keep the fibre level down.

Tomorrow's feast

It's important to train and test every aspect of the race - there's more to this lark than just swimming, biking, and running!

Ironman 70.3 UK, Day four, Race day!

Mrs has also prepared a race report, you can find that here.

It's well known that no one gets any sleep the night before race day, I didn't expect to get quite this little though. We took the evening before quietly, ate early with Chris and my Dad before heading up to our room at about 7:30. We chilled out to some music and TV before turning in at about 10pm, at which point some seriously drunk people decided it would be fun to stand outside the pub (under our window) and shout and sing and make stupid noises at the tops of their voices until well gone midnight. In a dramatic case of role reversal, Mrs fell asleep instantly and didn't hear any of it, while I lay awake getting more and more annoyed. I used the time to visualise my race step by step. I managed to get right to the end, in what felt like real-time.

I next awoke and saw the clock at 03:45 - hell, three and a half hours of sleep is enough for any man! We got up at 04:00 (arising before 4am is not permitted, that counts as "yesterday"). The last thing we did yesterday evening was to apply our temporary tattoos - they seem to have held well over night.

Posing? Not at all!

The big difference between this race day and previous races is that most of the preparation is already done - bikes and bags were dropped off yesterday and we're already registered. There's nothing to do but get dressed, eat, and head off to the lake.

I was feeling fairly calm - I'd spent a long time thinking about today and making sure everything was suitably planned. I remember volunteering in transition in the morning of the inaugural Wales Ironman race at Tenby last year, there were literally hundreds of panicking competitors desperate to get to their red and blue bags to check the contents, add something, remove something, and generally faff. They seemed very ill at ease, and very stressed. I was determined not to be one of those people. If you put what you need in your bags in advance, then it'll be there on the day. I'm fairly sure Ironman don't have special Iron Pixies who go and mess up all your bag contents for you.

We drove across, clocking three or four race vehicles out to patrol the course on the way. Traffic was good - we got straight into the car park field with no delay. The Rotary Club team of car parking attendants had done a fantastic job all weekend, and were still on the ball today. Massive thanks to all of them. We heard some reports afterwards that the parking was a nightmare if you got there late - top-tip, get there early! Much less stress.

Transition at 05:30, full of last-minute tyre pressure checks and drinks bottles being mounted

We met up with Chris and my Dad ("You're starting at WHAT time?!") and killed time until the start.

Me and Mrs - can we get started now please? (with Kate & Charlie Stannett on the right)

There was a 15 minute delay getting going, but eventually we walked down to the lake and swam out to the start. I was keen on having a good warm up, so was a bit disappointed that we were told we had to remain in the main village area until notified that we were to be walked down. To be honest, I didn't check the lake ahead of time so I don't know if warming up properly was an option. I did what I could with some high-knee running and arm-swings on the way down. I really wanted to get started now.

Standing around waiting to be escorted down to Wimbleball Lake (photo courtesy of my Dad)

There seemed to be some commotion about exactly where the start line was - some people seemed to be many tens of metres forward. From somewhere the national anthem rang out and many of the athletes sung along. Singing was not high on my to-do list, however, I was trying to gradually get my face wet with the cold water and focus on my start. As I've mentioned before I have freaked out a bit in open water starts previously and it takes a good few minutes for me to settle down. Finding a calm place to float and focus before starting was part of how I was aiming to combat that today.

The "washing machine" as we all set off (photo courtesy of my Dad)

Suddenly, I heard someone shouting "Let's get on with it then!" (or something similar) and everyone was off. I didn't hear a klaxon, gunshot, air-horn or any kind of official starting noise - I don't know if there was one. I found that a bit odd. Anyway, best get on with it then!

All the red hats set off (elites, ultimate athletes, and lower age groups - green hats were 15 minutes later, athletes in the 40+ age groups). I took some time to settle in to my stroke, and thankfully didn't get any of the discomfort I've had before. I don't know what was different this time - maybe I was more mentally prepared, or possibly it was because I had a good bit of clear water around me and didn't get into the jostling and shoving part until a few minutes in.

I found some handy trees on the horizon to use as markers, and got into my rhythm. I quickly started overtaking people, and managed to stay on course in a good straight line - not much correction required. To say there were almost a thousand people starting in my wave it didn't feel that crowded. I suppose there's only so many people you can see when your head is in the water, and it's only the 5 or 6 in your immediate vicinity that you need to worry about.

My stroke felt good and strong, thank you Jez Robinson, it seems that swim coaching is really starting to make a difference. The first buoy came quickly and I turned hard right with it banging my shoulder - no long turns and wasted time here. It took a while to sight the second buoy but once I did, and located another handy tree on the horizon to aim at, it quickly came up. I was feeling good and strong, and my stroke remained stable and controlled.

Turning right again I found the exit gantry in the distance. Here was where I made the only big mistake in the swim. I was still feeling strong, but my focus started to drift and I daydreamed a bit, thinking about all sorts of things. Losing concentration meant I didn't sight as often as I should have, and I started to go off course. I was yelled at by someone in a kayak - I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I heard the word "Yellow!" and realised there weren't any other swimmers around me. I'd drifted right and was going off course! I needed to make a sharp adjustment left in order to get back on track and go round the left side of the yellow interim marker buoys - going on the right side is off-course, and a fast track to DSQ (DiSQualified!).

Exiting the swim - nice marks on my head from the swim cap!

I stayed in the game for the rest of the swim, and didn't lose concentration again. Something to watch out for in the future.

• Swim (1.9km / 1.2 miles) - 0:35:14
• 83rd out of 214 in my age category (38.8% down the field)
• 507th out of 1,265 overall (40.1% down the field)

Close, but I'm pretty sure I didn't swim across the land on the way out...

I'm really happy with this time - it's the fastest 1.9km I've ever completed, and about 5 minutes faster than I was expecting. In other triathlons I've been around the end of the top third (e.g. 30-33% down the field). I expected the standards to be higher here, so I'm not surprised I'm a little further down, but still comfortable in the top half and I didn't freak out at the start. A really good start to the day, and I smiled checking the time on my watch as I made my way to transition.

Mrs exits the transition tent (photo courtesy of my Dad)

Exiting the swim I jogged and quick-walked up the grassy hill to the transition tent conscious of not wanting to spike my heart rate unnecessarily. It was slippery and muddy, and the route went across a couple of paths with pointy stones (matting next time please, organisers). I'll be the first admit that my T1 was pretty poor. I found my bag very quickly (always make sure you take a moment to remember exactly where your bag is hung on the racks - in the heat of the moment the numbering doesn't make the most sense) and then found a spot to sit down. I used my socks to wipe the mud, gravel, and other bits of lake off my feet - a few seconds wisely spent here could save hours of cycling discomfort or a silly avoidable injury. Socks and cycling shoes on, no problem.

Next up, my arm warmers. It was a nice day and shaping up to be warm, but I'd heard so many times that arm warmers were essential on the long bike legs that I'd been determined to wear them. Normally I can slip them on in a few seconds, but I'd never tried it with wet arms - and they stuck like glue. I wrestled with them for too long, and also found it tough getting the left one on over my chunky Garmin Forerunner 910XT watch. Wasting time now! I had also decided to wear glove liners under my cycling mitts, and to slip them both on together. This also failed with wet hands and I had to separate the gloves, and put them on individually. Bit of a farce - I shouldn't have bothered with any of it, and just gone out with bare arms and hands, like in every other triathlon I've done recently. I could have kept my arm warmers in a pocket, or on my tri bars, and just put them on if I got cold out on the road.

I'm reminded of the first Thames Turbo sprint triathlon I did in spring 2010. I took what felt like about a week in T1, getting dry, putting on socks, gloves, etc, and a cycling t-shirt. All unnecessary, and all chewing through vital minutes. It seems in this new scenario I need to learn some of those lessons again. It's important to be settled before you go out on the next leg, be it bike or run, as you'll be doing it for a long time in a full or half Ironman race and a twisted sock or forgotten nutrition could make or break your day, but I think I need to try and do it a bit quicker!

• Transition 1 - Swim to Bike - 0:07:53

I finally got out of T1 and ran through the mud to my bike, hoping that my shoes would still clip in properly when caked in wet mud. They did.

A couple of lonely bikes belonging to people who DNF'd the swim (photo courtesy of my Dad)

Now, time for my strong section, the bike. 90km (56 miles) of undulating terrain with a few steep hills and some technical descents. I ran over the mount-dismount line, and hopped onto the bike pleased I'd taken the decision to have my shoes in my bike bag rather than attached to the bike, otherwise my feet would have been caked in mud.

I left with a group of riders, and we took it gently down the 2-300m of narrow muddy lane to get out onto the road (a slightly wider and slightly less muddy lane). The advice is to start slowly - keep your cadence up, and just ride up the first long hill out of transition - get relaxed and comfortable, and be ready to wind it up as you settle in. I always have a heart rate spike when I get on the bike after swimming - this was reduced as I had spent so long sat around in transition, but I still wanted to get down under my threshold HR as soon as I could (threshold is the HR you can sustain for a long period, if you're above threshold, you'll burn out quickly).

Within the first kilometre I needed to change off the big chainring - the chain jumped and then my pedals spun around with almost no resistance! It felt like the chain had come off (I looked down, it hadn't) or the hub had somehow broken and I was turning the cassette but not the wheel. Whatever it was I'd lost all drive and had no alternative but to get off quickly, unclipping my shoes before I toppled over. I'd left with a group of others so I had to get out of their way too, I ran over to the far right of the road, out of the way, to find out what had happened.

Somehow, the chain was sat around the small chainring, but was not engaged - as this meant the radius of the chain was higher than that of the chainring, it never was going to magically engage, and so the chainring just span round inside it - I have never, ever, seen that happen before, in who knows how many thousands of miles I've cycled in my life. I manually mounted the chain back on the ring (at least it was a quick fix) and set off up the hill (these things always happen at the bottom of hills).

Making some progress in my nice warm socks!

Trying to put the weird behaviour behind me I found a nice low gear and trundled up the hill, overtaking lots of people along the way. I was amazed at how many people had mechanical problems - crunching gears, swearing, people getting off - hadn't they checked their bikes? I reminded myself that I too was one of those people.

In racing there tend to be those who enjoy leading form the front, and those who enjoy chasing people down. I'm one of the latter. I love seeing people on the horizon and gradually drawing them in. For the next 10 miles, that's exactly what I did. Tucked down on my tri-bars, managing my effort carefully, and overtaking dozens of people. Their swims and transitions must have put me to shame, but I could sure as hell ride faster! This is more like it - mechanical problem behind me, bike functioning well, nutrition on plan, and feeling strong.

There is one particularly fast descent on the bike course, about a third of the way round. It's long and roughly straight, with a 100 degree hairpin right-hander at the end, followed by another steeper straight section down to a difficult junction and a 120 degree left-hander. This is considered so dangerous, it's marked as a "No overtaking zone", and was specifically called out during the race briefing in addition to having a large yellow sign placed at the top. It was on this descent that my second mechanical problem surfaced.

I am not the most confident cyclist descending at speed on my tri-bars, so I was up on the risers and braking occasionally to control my speed. As I neared the first sharp corner I slammed the anchors on hard - at first I shaved a lot of speed off, decelerating smoothly and rapidly, and then from nowhere started to get vibrations up through the front end of the bike - these got worse and worse until I thought I was going to get thrown clean off! I couldn't see very well as my head was being vibrated. I'd slowed enough to make the first corner, and vibrated my way down the final stretch to the bottom corner.

In honesty, I was really scared - if I couldn't stop there was no way of avoiding a crash, and at that speed it wouldn't be pretty. Full of adrenaline, I turned the bottom corner and gathered my thoughts to work out what had happened. In the stress, I hadn't changed down, so I was doing about 10km/h in top gear - as I changed down my chain jumped and skidded, failing to engage with the inner chainring again. I was going too slowly to take any action other than to get off, or fall off. I got off.

At this point I could have cheerfully picked my bike up and hurled it over the hedge.

Instead, I fixed the chain, manually shifted into a low gear, and got back on. Experimenting over the next couple of kilometres I found that whenever I braked at the front my bike vibrated like it was going to shake itself apart. It felt like the brake was being pumped on and off, exactly like braking on a warped rim - but with a carbon braking surface when the pads bite on the rim it's a very sudden braking effect - OK if you can apply it gradually to an even rim, but disastrous in this situation.

I found myself on the hilliest 70.3 bike course in the world, unable to brake properly going down hill, and unable to change chainrings reliably. Well this was going to make for a fun next 40 miles.

I was having quite a dark moment now. I had to remind myself that this was the first race of four, and the objective was to complete all four, therefore as long as I finish this race it doesn't really matter what the time is. I climbed the next steep hill (stopping to replace my chain once again) and crawled down the other side, back brake almost fully on - I was too scared to get up to a high speed when I couldn't see the road ahead, as I knew that if something unexpected happened I had no way of stopping quickly. It's a truly horrible feeling when you completely lose trust in your bike, and it means you just get slower and slower.

I completed the first of the two laps and set off on the second, now starting to dread the repeat of the "No overtaking zone" hill. How could I control my descent? As it was I went down with both brakes on hard, the vibrations were so strong and really quite frightening, but I knew there was no alternative. Really, I should probably have stopped and withdrawn, but there was no way I was going to fail at the first hurdle in this journey. As I crept down the hill, other competitors flew past me (so much for no overtaking) - that in itself added to the scariness of the descent. I got down in one piece, and limped down the following hills too, trying to make what time I could on the flat and the ascents. I'd found a technique to jump my chain back on the big ring when it failed to change down, so I could at least manage that situation.

With about 10 miles to go I noticed whilst freewheeling briefly I seemed to be losing quite a bit of speed. I realised that my front brake had been rubbing! So for 30 miles I'd been fighting my brake, as well as the hills. I reached down and adjusted the thumb-wheel - almost immediately my bike felt faster. Great! Couldn't descend quickly, couldn't change gear, and riding with the brake rubbing. What a terrible ride! At least I'd made it to the end though. I'm fairly sure all the people I overtook in the first 10 miles had now overtaken me back, and then some. I noted lots of fast people flying by me - they would have been in the second swim wave, so were 15 minutes ahead of me already. I tried not to get too dejected, reminding myself it was about getting to the end of Wales Ironman, I had to focus on that objective.

I'd stayed spot-on with my nutrition with one gel 15 minutes in, then another at 30 minute intervals. I hadn't got tired (dejected, pissed off, disillusioned at times, yes, but not weak). This was a good result, and should have me in a good place for the tun.

• Bike (90km / 56 miles) - 3:21:11
• 73rd out of 214 in my age category (34.1% down the field)
• 411th out of 1,265 (32.5% down the field)

I know these times look good - into the top third overall - but remember I'm used to being in the top 5-10% on the bike leg of a triathlon.

2-leg bike course

Some serious climbs and descents

Remember, there's always someone worse off than you. Up one of the hills on the second lap I overtook a guy stood by the side of the road, his left crank arm on the ground still with pedal attached a few metres behind...

I'm in the yellow calf-guards, running past the toilets into T2 (photo courtesy of my Dad)

T2 was much quicker - I took advantage of the toilets on the way in, and did a quick change of shoes, shoving everything into my bag. One volunteer tried to help by emptying my bag as I was filling it, but apart form that the transition was uneventful. Arm warmers and gloves off, helmet off, cycle shoes off, run shoes on, cap on, and out the door. I had spare socks in the run bag but elected not to change, my Woolie Boolies were warm and dry, and the spares were only for if I'd got wet.

• Transition 2 - Bike to Run - 0:03:55

I sploshed out of transition through the mud, and it was time to go for a run.

One of the things I love about multi-sport is that you can segment the experience with clear boundaries even while you're still in the race. As soon as I started running the adventures and disappointments of the bike component were already forgotten. I had a new task, and its name was half-marathon. 

I've found before that after a long swim I've had what could only be described politely as a problem which is gaseous in nature. This kicked in hard in the first 5km and I farted my way round quite uncomfortably with some real distress in my guts. My posterior was so "vocal" that it proved to be quite the conversation starter, "As long as it's only gas, I don't mind!" I quipped to a few passers by. Thankfully it was only gas, and over the first 5-7km everything settled down and was able to speed up a bit.

Thumbs up on the second lap! (photo courtesy of my Dad)

My plan was to continue with the gels every 30 minutes, but I really couldn't face one with my stomach as it was. I decided to swap to a half banana from the aid station I passed 30 minutes into the run, and that worked out well and made a nice change from the sweetness of the gels on the bike. 

I had already decided to walk up the one big hill on the run - overall it wouldn't make much difference to my time, and it would be much more useful to save that energy for where it made a difference. I stuck to this plan rigidly, and ran the rest of the way, only walking a few steps at the aid stations when I stopped to take some sips of water. I took on gels at 60 and 90 minutes in - my stomach had settled completely within the first 30-35 minutes, and I felt stronger and stronger.

I took the first of the three laps deliberately slowly (regardless of the stomach distress I had planned to start slowly and build up). I felt stronger on lap two, but still held a bit back in the knowledge that I had a third to complete.

For the third lap I pushed harder, I think there was more to give but I had nothing to prove at this stage - I knew I could finish well and in one piece, and that means it would be mission achieved successfully.

Making some progress on lap 3

My Dad was out on the run course and I saw him a few times. I got encouragement every time I saw him - I hadn't appreciated the strength you get from support, it was a real boost and I'm so pleased he made the long trip down to support me. I'm looking forward to having Chris' support in Bolton - I think we're going to need it!

The course was tough and technical - slippery and muddy in places, slippery and grassy in others, and challenging throughout. A lot of climbing and descending, there were very few level periods. Apart from the few hundred metres over the dam and back, there wasn't really any flat. Wimbleball is famous for its hilly bike course, but I think comparatively the run course is harder (though that may be from my position as a more competent cyclist than runner).

Three laps including two "out and back" sections (top and bottom on the map)

Good pace, held steady throughout with a slight lift towards the end

At the completion of the third lap I took the spur that led to the famous red carpet and finishing chute. A smile broke out onto my face completely outside my control, and I ran down looking good and strong, raising my arms in victory as I crossed the line. 

• Run (21km / 13.1 miles) - 2:06:54
• 122nd out of 214 in my age category (57.0% down the field)
• 706th out of 1,265 overall (55.8% down the field)

I'm very happy with the time - it's a minute faster than I ran the Nike Run To The Beat half marathon in with Mrs last year, and that was a walk (run) in the park compared to this course. I'm particularly pleased that my pace didn't decay, and I had enough left for a push at the very end.

My GPS watch missed the first km or so, but to get an idea of pacing the first 10km it logged I ran in 62:31.9, and the second 10km in 62:17.9 - a negative split of 14 seconds. Doesn't get much better than that!

It's lying, my official time was 6:15:08 :)

• Final time (70.3 miles) - 6:15:08
• 98th out of 214 in my age category (45.8% down the field)
• 499th out of 1,265 overall (39.4% down the field)

So well inside the top half in my age category, and inside the top 40% out of all the finishers - not bad for my first go, a pretty solid day at the office.

Meanwhile, while I was on lap one of the run, this was happening:

Philip Graves takes the Mens' race in 4:19:56 (photo courtesy of my Dad)

Philip collapses on the floor, a 6 minute lead going into the run... (photo courtesy of my Dad)

...translated into a victory over Markus Thomschke by just 79 seconds! (photo courtesy of my Dad)

Full set of Male professional results (ultimate athlete Paul Hawkins in 8th place)

Eimear Mullan took care of the Female pro race with a finish in 4:53:33, pushing defending champion Emma-Kate Lidbury into second by 2 minutes and 50 seconds.

Full set of Female professional results (ultimate athlete Bethan Fowler in 8th place)

A full set of results including the professionals and all age group finishers can be found in the official results PDF.

Mrs with a mega-strong finish - I love this picture (photo courtesy of my Dad)

Mrs came in with a time of 7:11:04 - 16th out of 34 in her age group, and 985th overall. She had a solid race and is as pleased as I am to get the first of our four races ticked off in good form, and with no injury or major problems.

This is what it's all about - the finishers' medal - a weighty beast!

All done, apart from a bit more posing

After finishing you're shepherded through to the "Athletes' garden" which is actually a big sweaty tent where you can collapse a bit and get yourself together before going outside to hook up with friends and family. We had some recovery drinks provided, and water, as well as a lovely white bap full of fresh hog roast being prepared outside. It was lovely to eat solid food after living on mush all morning! At this point you can pick up your white bag and get changed. I'd forgotten to put the milk we bought into my white bag, so I had my My Protein Recovery XS with water, tastier than expected.

Mrs with her hog roast and finishers' medal looking rightly pleased with herself

Me and Mrs, looking a bit more matched than we'd ever planned!

The numbers that we're expecting to keep for all four races this year

Me and my Dad - thanks for the support, Dad, it made a huge difference!

Me, Mrs, and Chris in our finishers' t-shirts enjoying a well-earned cup of tea

After exchanging stories and stocking up on tea and a cookie (thanks Chris!) we went back to transition to retrieve our bikes and bags and store them in the car. 70.3 races are all over in one day, including the prize-giving ceremony and roll-down for places at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas.

Mrs and I saw the roll-down when we volunteered at IM Wales last year, it was an exciting time as competitors waited to see if they were going to get lucky. I was keen to hang around and watch it this year too. If you finish at the top of your age category you qualify for a place at the World Championships. If you don't want to go, the spot "rolls down" to the next fastest person, and so on. Some slots roll down well beyond the tenth fastest so it's worth hanging around - you never know what might happen!

We also stayed for the prize giving for the professional athletes.

L-R, 5th to 1st, Susie Hignett, Holly Lawrence, Simone Braendli, Emma-Kate Lidbuty, Eimer Mullan

L-R, 4th to 1st, Fraser Cartmell, Mark Threlfall, Markus Thomschke, Philip Graves

Next stop was back home for some serious dessert. Very well earned, I think!

Incredible freshly made Blueberry and White Chocolate Cheesecake!

Upon reflection I'm really very happy with the way the day turned out. We'd been thinking about the day for a long time, and most things had gone according to plan. I learned a lot to take forward to my next races, and am now really looking forward to getting stuck back into a good block of training ahead of a taper for Bolton - our first full distance Ironman event in just 5 weeks' time.

Our accommodation at The Anchor Inn, Exebridge

We were made to feel very welcome and looked after by the proprietors, Ann and John Bland