Laura goes to Huntsman

The path to Ironman, whether short or long, is invariably steep and rocky.

I raced (and I use the word in its loosest sense here) my first triathlon this weekend and I’ve been humbled and uplifted by it in varying measures. Here’s the recap:

The preparation

The best laid plans often go awry, and they did exactly that on our way to the English countryside on Saturday. The prettiest places are usually the most remote, so when a last minute hitch left us without a car, my travel companion and I were incredibly lucky to have been able to blag our bikes onto a coach bound for Ringwood on Saturday evening. 

The best-laid schemes of Mice and Men
Gang aft agley,
And leave us nought but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Robert Burns

We missed our dinner reservation, but as I’m quite used to last minute travel fails, I’d grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the bus station, just in case. We supplemented those with cereal bars from the petrol station and got early to bed.

On race morning, we munched more cereal bars and coffee from the helpfully located van at the race registration tent while we prepped ourselves and our bikes with the various stickers, wristbands and tracking devices needed for the race.

The swim

My first open water swim (OWS) was only a week before when the water had been a chilly 13⁰C.  My first experience of trying to swim front crawl in the reservoir was a fail so I hoped for warmer water on the day and got my wish; 17⁰C!

The cold lake left me gasping for breath and I felt the panic rising

The extra four degrees didn’t help though, the cold dark lake still left me gasping for breath and I could feel panic rising in my chest as the race started and the water churned up the with flying limbs of my fellow athletes. Remembering the previous week’s practice swim session, I decided the best thing to do was to get through the swim however slowly by resigning myself to 1100 metres of breaststroke.

My hand-me-down wetsuit was too thick and tight around my arms and shoulders and I felt defeated watching everyone swimming away from me. Trying not to dwell too much on being last out of the water (someone has to be, right?) I settled in and tried to enjoy swimming in the ‘wild’.

After 31 long minutes, I scrambled out of the lake to hear my name being cheered by two of my fellow 10Ironwomen who’d come to support the race. I was surprised and delighted that they’d waited for me – what a boost! I peeled off my wetsuit, popped on my sandals and tried to walk/run to the transition area in decent time with the sandals flying off my wet feet every few steps!

The cycle

After drying and attempting to powder my feet, I got the socks and cycling shoes on quite quickly, took a few gulps of Lucozade sport and fastened my helmet. There are strict rules in the transition area that say you must not have hands on the bike without a properly fastened helmet. There are a lot of rules about a lot of things.

Off I went, trying to hobble/run on the cleats back through the almost empty transition area to the start of the bike section. I was a bit wary of the course for this part as the race briefing mentioned gravel and I’ve got previous with bike falls on surprise gravel surfaces.

Once I got started and remembered to record it correctly on my watch – because everyone knows if it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen – I was soon pedalling in beautiful rolling countryside, probably the prettiest place I’ve ever ridden a bike.

Besides gravel, there were a few other things to look out for, potholes of course, cars as roads aren’t closed for the event and an assortment of wild animals including deer, pigs and ponies!

A few cyclists from the other races flew past me on their aerobars making me wonder how they could stop in time to avoid the ponies wandering in the road and the open top sports cars that seemed to be around every blind bend. I wondered too, will I ever be brave enough to attempt those bars with no access to the brake levers?

We’re getting along ok, but I’m still a little afraid of my bike

I started on tired legs due to having cycled 85km the day before – another mistake! Nonetheless, I kept pushing on, investigation the breadth of gears on both cogs of a bike I’m still a little afraid of. We’re getting along OK, and will hopefully get used to each other as the race season progresses.

Finally, I turned into the lane leading back to transition and the 10Ironwomen cheer squad to dismount and run/hobble back to transition once more.

The run

At last! This was the happiest moment of the day, putting on my running shoes for the only part of this event I felt in any way qualified for.

Unfortunately, I would soon realise one more mistake I’d made. I didn’t drink enough water on the bike, so my mouth was bone dry as soon as I started running under the mid-morning sun. Of course this weekend the sun would make its first appearance!

The blue sky would have been delightful if I hadn’t been running up a hill

As I was thinking how it would be OK to take a little walk break, I looked down at my watch to see that the pace I was running was quite fast, actually. Maybe I could slow down a bit instead?

The running course was a straight line out and back with some areas of dappled shade and some exposed to the blue sky which would have been delightful if I wasn’t running up a hill.

I was happy to have caught up a little and passed a few runners heading in the same direction. Then when I saw some of my fellow 10Ironwomen on their return leg, I felt happy and relieved that I wasn’t quite as far behind as the swim had me believe.

I trundled on, taking two cups of water and a light misting at the aid station, then onwards to the turning point that seemed like it would never come.

The good thing about out and back is that the uphill eventually becomes the downhill, so I was flying on the return. Another two cups of water and a quick face spray at the water stop on the way back then just a few kilometres to go.

As I ran down the leafy lane towards the finish line I hoped the 10Ironwomen team wouldn’t miss me and indeed they did not. The girls cheered so loud for me that the other spectators joined in and I came into the finish feeling like I’d won the race.

The power of women supporting women is so strong, its impossible to underestimate.

The race certainly wasn’t easy, but it was tough enough to sharpen my focus on the task ahead. Training for Ironman is not to be taken lightly, I’ll need every ounce of my own resilience to get there, and I’ll take as much support from whoever has it to give.

Photo Credits; The header picture of swimmers in the water and the last pic here of me finishing the race are by Edward Twinn (MulletManTri on Instagram). The others are the official race pictures that I’ve paid for.