Ironman Swansea 70.3 – Race Report

While I don’t usually like writing a ‘race report’ per se, I wanted to share my experience of Swansea as it is the second year that Ironman held the race and well, I’m 5 months post operation and did not expect to be racing, but I did. If you haven’t read all about my journey up to this point, you can catch up here.

Heading into this season I believed that I would race, but also had to accept that I probably would not be racing. To be able to race, has been a pleasant surprise. I have had to change my expectations as to what to expect from my body. This season has really been about the unknown for me and just being able to accept whatever happens.

I chose Swansea due to the timing of the race and its ease of access, a 2.5 drive from where I live. I had booked this race as soon as it was announced and also booked my hotel. I had to cancel my first 70.3 this season due to the proximity of the race date to my operation, so this was the real test of what my body would do. Also, last season I encountered a number of nutrition issues in both IM Frankfurt and IM Zell-am-See 70.3.

Pre-Race

The day before the race the UK World Tri Para race was occurring, there were 40 mph winds, so their bike leg was cancelled. The weather leading into my race was not looking great, heavy rain and high winds. My absolute hell. I had to accept the conditions and just adapt on the day. I had debated whether to race on my road bike or my TT bike, I chose the TT bike. I will explain that in the section below.

I walked over to the race venue in the 40mph wind to check in, grab my athlete pack, and then rack my bike. It was a windy walk over, but the views of the beach were awesome, albeit daunting. There was even wind in the protected marina, rippling the water and blowing boats around.

When I racked my bike, there was some lightbulb who had not only racked their bike in the incorrect direction, but also taking up my spot. I’ve learned, never move another athlete’s bike, so I grabbed a marshal and they moved it for me. The very nice marshal handed me a zip tie to attach my saddle to the rack so that my bike wouldn’t blow away. I don’t take photos in transition as it’s not allowed, but bikes were already flying all over the place.

After checking in my bike I went back to my hotel to nap, and do nothing. I spent the rest of the afternoon with a book and stayed off my feet. I almost never eat dinner in my hotel, but in this occasion I did. It was easy and there wasn’t a lot else around me for food options. They had the food that I needed and it took the pressure off of roaming around town.

Race Morning

Race morning was a 4:45am wake up call, I slept really well. I’ve done enough of these races, it does no good to stress the night before. I really focus on reading a book and taking my mind off what I’m about to undertake, it helps with the focus and rest the night before. I ate my usual PB&J on a bagel and headed out the door.

I opted to walk over in my wetsuit as it was already raining outside and it would probably keep me warmer than wet clothing. I went over to my bike and inflated my tyres and found a slight issue with my front wheels’ valve extender. Luckily, I was placed right near the bike mechanics and it took them all of 30 seconds to fix it. Big props to the guys that keep us on the bikes, it takes the stress off of having to mess with your bike first thing (saying this, I always do a full check before a race and you should too, don’t rely on these guys to do everything for you.)

I wandered over to the swim start area and the rain was pelting down. I was cold and reminding myself why I hate racing in the UK, cold rain. I stood and chatted to a fellow triathlete from a local club and snacked on my SiS Beta Fuel chew. I then walked over to line up for the swim.

The Swim

This is my biggest criticism of this race, the queue to place yourself in the swim start. There was a very narrow area where the athletes were asked to line up in. I could not find the start time that I wanted, so I just placed myself in the predicted 35 minute swim finish time. It was stacked with athletes and spectators. Spectators filled the area and should not have been allowed in the area. There were so many other great areas that spectators could view the swim from, but chose to make it harder for the athletes.

I just got in line and was ready to swim, the rain was still coming and I was cold, I just wanted to get moving. The longer you stand out the in the cold, the more that it drains you.

I entered the water off the docks, the swim took place in a little alcove filled with ocean water. As soon as I entered the water I saw them, jellyfish. While there were nowhere near the amount of jellyfish that I encountered at IM Copenhagen, they were still everywhere. Other than that, the swim was not excessively beautiful, as the water was fairly dark, but pleasant. I heard others say the swim was choppy, I would highly disagree and say that it was really good and the athletes were spread out. I didn’t have to fight too much for a spot.

As I swam, there were spectators lining the sides of the bay and I rather enjoyed the swim. I found that I was passing a lot of people. Which says that most of the people were queued up in the wrong pens, but with the overcrowding that is not a surprise. As swimming isn’t usually my strength, I was extremely surprised (and pleased) to be passing so many people.

I exited the swim and saw that I had hit a PB, 35:20. My fastest swim to date was 36:30, so to chop off over a minute in a sea swim was awesome. I was totally surprised to hit that pace, but I had also PB’d my swim in Windsor the month prior.

T1

I don’t usually talk about transitions, but this one was a bit more notable. Sometimes we have to go slow, to go fast. I ran from the swim exit to transition.

I ran to transition, stripping my googles and hat to get into my bike kit. I made a toilet stop in hopes that any stomach issues could be mitigated. I just wasn’t feeling 100%, but not bad.

The rain was in full force at this point. I opted to not wear a gilet or a jacket.

The Bike

Well, I’m not even sure how to describe what happened next. They say a photo says 1,000 words:

The bike started with a flat 5 miles, into a 28 mph headwind and driving rain. I think you can pretty clearly see the rain here… and the lack of smile on my face.

After the flat portion, the majority of the bike involved nothing flat. The bike is usually my strength and I had a plan to smash the bike this day. As I started into the hills the rain didn’t let up. The roads were a bit pot-holed (usually British roads) along with turns and drops, on a bike with wet brakes was pretty much my hell. My visor kept fogging up and I kept faffing with it to get it to defog.

Now, let’s delve into why I chose my TT bike over my road bike. I wanted to test my new aero position and while my road bike has disc brakes (great for descending), the position is completely wrong for running off the bike. As I was accepting that this race was a test of my fitness and recovery, I didn’t really expect such a fail on the bike.

I continued riding and was pretty cold and miserable. There is one section of the bike where the course takes you on an out and back through a narrow road. While Ironman posted signs to not pass, most of the guys didn’t listen and were passing on some very narrow areas. This added to my extreme discomfort.

By the time that I reached the first feed station, quitting was at the forefront of my brain. I was cold, soaked and my bike was grinding somewhere. I stopped to grab a bottle and fix my wheel. Because I’m hard-headed, I kept going. After about 70 minutes on the bike the rain started to let up. This is what I needed to get comfortable and attack the rest of the course.

I think ‘attack’ was not what really happened. The heavy winds and wet roads kept me pretty conservative, but most notably my body never really picked up. I climbed well, but never paced well on the flatter portions. I also don’t feel like the tailwind ever helped. However, there were a few sections where I could get some speed, my power output was still pretty low.

By the end of the bike, the sun started to break through the clouds, I couldn’t get any speed nor power on the downhill and flat road into T2. I was just ready to be done with the bike. This was the day where I had to put my ego aside and just accept a really poor bike performance. On the positive, my nutrition plan was executed as planned.

The Run

I was so happy to be off the bike, I had a really long transition due to a non-eventful toilet stop. Sometimes the best execution is down to preparation.

I started the run into a headwind, seeing Emma Pallant-Browne post finish with completely purple lips. I am glad that I am not the only person who had been cold. I started to warm up and I was happy for the warmer weather.

For the run, I stuck to my nutrition plan. I had completely changed up my nutrition plan the last couple of months with success in practice, but we all know how that changes on race day. I took on my first gel at the planned time with plenty of water. I started to experience some stomach cramps and knew where this was headed. I had to stop at mile 4, but it wasn’t a bad stomach, which is a first for me. I felt much relief after the mile 4 pitstop and actually felt myself ease into the run.

I had zero expectations for the run, my training was okay in regards to consistency, but I didn’t feel like my runs had been ground breaking. I started to just run, ticking off the miles. I walked every water station to ensure that I got enough water in, hydration is huge. I stuck to the plan with my gels and then started on Coke (except that they had Pepsi on course…bleck).

My run was consistent, I will give it that. It was the first time that I had run off the bike in years without screaming hamstring discomfort. The gels were sitting well and things went so much better than I had expected.

I kept on going and when I hit mile 10, I opened up. Due to all of the health issues that I had experienced for years, my body would traditionally falter at this point. After mile 10, I started hitting negative splits. From mile 10 to mile 11, I hit a sub 10 minute mile. Getting faster to a 9min/mile pace the next mile. The final mile was paced at 8:30min/mile, with the final sprint at a 7:30min/mile for the last quarter mile. I had not had a sprint finish in such a long time, it felt amazing.

Consistency Pays Off

I had the strongest finish of any race that I’ve had in years. I’ve struggled for so long, it feels so good to be back to ‘me.’ The irony was, my strength was my weakness on the day, and my weaker sports were strong that day. I am looking forward to see how my fitness grows and what results I can produce in my next HIM.

Just show up. Day after day. Consistency is key. The efforts will pay off.