After a series of challenging half ironmans in 2019, the plan was to take on my first full distance “XTRI” in 2020. Norseman is the original and best known of these, but the odds of earning a slot are only around 1 in 20. So after a few years of applying unsuccessfully, I decided to try and earn a slot not through luck, but by finishing in the top two of another XTRI race.
The obvious choice – and only XTRI in the UK – was Celtman in the North West Highlands. My initial research revealed a lot of things not to like / to reframe as positive “challenges”:
- The swim is freezing cold and full of jellyfish
- It’s in the middle of midge season
- The weather is always terrible
- The marathon is entirely off road, up and down two munros
After an injury-affected 2020, training had gone pretty well this time around. A finish time of around 12 hours felt achievable, which had always been enough for top two. However, I couldn’t be sure what was realistic in my first XTRI – not least because I had nothing like the Highlands to train on.
One unique aspect of XTRI is the need for a support team – there are no aid stations providing water or food, so you need a crew to drive around the bike course with supplies and accompany you on the mountain part of the run. Whilst most have a few people in support, I was accompanied only by my “triathlon friend” Chris (featured in previous race reports). Driving to the furthest corner of the country, taking care of logistics and running the hardest 15 miles of the event certainly wouldn’t be for everyone. I not only felt grateful for his selflessness, but also some extra pressure to put in a performance that would make his effort worthwhile.
Our trip got off to a bad start with my car breaking down, meaning we arrived late in the evening, two days out from the event. We then woke up to howling wind and rain battering on the windows – confirming long range weather forecasts had been wildly optimistic. We were now being warned of: “Severe gales, sudden powerful gusts and considerable buffeting – arduous conditions”. Welcome to Scotland.
As the wind looked set to be similar on race day, I thought I’d take a quick test ride to gain confidence in the conditions. 5 minutes later I was being pushed off the road at high speed and onto the verge, somehow remaining upright and turning back very shaken. I started to worry I was heading less into a race and more towards an unenjoyable survival mission.
As we were staying an hour’s drive from sign-on in Shieldaig, we reluctantly had to set our alarms for 1:30am to make sure I was on the buses to the remote swim start. This was the first time I’d been on public transport for about 15 months, and doing so in masks and full neoprene in the middle of the night was a bit surreal. A short wait by the loch followed – fending off midges and stepping in sheep poo – before a quick group photo and the race got underway.
Instead of a mass start, we were set off five seconds apart to maintain some social distancing. I ended up towards the back of the queue, meaning my time started a few minutes later than those at the front. This had potential to make positions a bit confusing out on the course, but across 12 hours of racing, things were unlikely to come down to those margins in the end.
At 10 degrees the water was colder than many years, but my winter of swimming in the River Avon and investment in thermal wetsuit accessories meant I stayed comfortable. With most athletes starting in front I had plenty of pink hats to follow, and working my way past them was good for morale. The swim was pretty uneventful and with slight tidal assistance I completed the 3.2km in 48 minutes.
The first 20 miles of the bike had a strong tailwind and everyone was pushing a bit too much in their excitement to be racing again. I managed to move from 13th to 7th along this section and was surprised to continue the fast pace as we turned to head North West. Whilst the pure tailwind was over for the day, for the next 80 miles the cross-wind seemed broadly favourable and I couldn’t believe the pace we appeared to be setting.
Having been scared into thinking I might not use my aerobars at all in the wind, I ended up spending more time in this position than any other race. Most climbs and descents were gradual, and it was only on fast downhills with strong cross-winds that I adopted a more stable position on the brakes. I had one frightening moment in this “safe” position, when at 35mph the wind seemed to gust in two directions – causing my front wheel to wobble ominously before settling back into a straight line. I remained pretty nervous the whole way round though, and my arms became pretty exhausted from gripping onto the bike a bit too tight.
I tried to keep a steady effort for the first 60 miles, knowing that in most of my Ironman races I’ve blown up in the second half of the bike. Once I hit this point, I was feeling good and decided to make a caffeine-fuelled push to move up the field. This coincided with the two biggest climbs, and being relatively strong uphill managed to overhaul the 2 minute gap on third and fourth place – leaving me 8 minutes behind the leader on the road.
Then things changed. At my last support point with Chris (who’d seamlessly developed a technique to change a bottle, hand over food and share my position without me having to slow down) I let him know I was starting to struggle. My legs hadn’t fallen off as early as other races, but by mile 100 they were shot. Inconveniently, at mile 100 you turn into a slow uphill drag for 20 miles into a block headwind.
I found myself struggling to hold even 150 watts, even at maximum effort. I was soon overtaken and saw third place quickly disappear over the horizon. It makes a huge psychological difference when you start slipping backwards in a race. I found myself looking nervously over my shoulder expecting more athletes to cruise past and imagining how much that 8 minute gap to the front would be by the time I crawled into T2.
Counting down to the end of the 120 miles at Kinlochewe was some of the hardest cycling I’ve ever done. Mile 115 slowly rolled around and I saw a road sign – “Kinlochewe, 10 miles”. An absolute gut punch. 5 more horrendous miles than I’d counted on. Having averaged over 23mph up to this point, I was now ticking along at a steady 10-12mph. Grim. I dragged myself to T2, telling enthusiastic spectators “that was awful, never again” and apologising to Chris that I’d ruined our race. But amazingly, no-one else had overtaken me – perhaps it had felt that bad for others too. And despite the gap to the leaders doubling to 16 minutes, I was still in the race.
I usually find a fresh set of legs for the run and so it proved again. The first 12 miles were on hilly trails, with the slightest hint of a path overgrown with bracken. I’d checked out this part of the course before the race, so was able to approach it confidently and quickly moved up to 2nd place. I started receiving split times to the leader – first 8 minutes, then 4.5 and by the time I reached the foot of Beinn Eighe it was under 2 minutes and we found ourselves getting our kit for the mountain checked at the same time.
At this point, I felt the race was mine to lose as the evidence suggested I was the stronger runner. I’d also gained a lot of time over better runners on the mountain part of Snowman in 2019, so I felt we were heading into the strongest part of the race for me. However, I’d also heard a rumour that the leader Ewan was a specialist fell runner or “mountain beast”, which sounded more convincing than my “once did well in a hilly triathlon”.
I was now joined by Chris and felt relieved he could be part of an exciting race. I felt great as we started the big climb (which you can only really walk, aside from a few short sections). My heart rate was under control, my fuelling and hydration had gone well. I just had to keep walking and avoid overexertion. I was chatting to Chris about how the race had gone, and spreading optimism, confidence and sunshine.
SD: “How long have we been climbing for?”
CP: “10 minutes”
SD: “Oh f*ck this”
So ended all optimism, confidence and sunshine. In its place came a relentless 3 hours of swearing, shouting, moaning and what can only be described as animal noises. Chris really had drawn the short straw to join me on this section.
Apparently the views were incredible, the bagpipes at the summit were magical and the cheering supporters were brilliant. All I remember is trying to pick a path through indistinguishable rocks, telling Chris to slow down and trying to absorb his motivational commentary on how well I was doing (which I later discovered to be a series of complete lies). And stripping off on an exposed mountain top to experience the first of several bouts of “gastrointestinal distress”. My layers went on inside out and back to front too – I was quite visibly a shell of the athlete that had entered the mountain.
Doubling back from the second munro, I was at least 10 minutes behind Ewan and now only 5 minutes ahead of several athletes gaining on me. My mindset shifted to holding onto second place and that Norseman slot. Really, I should have been hoping just to finish at all…
The next challenge was to descend off Beinn Eighe. On steep slopes, with a tired mind and body, this was going to be just as hard as going up. The initial scree descent, without any discernible path for a couple of miles, was pretty silly. I picked a path carefully, then heard someone shout I was going too far to the right. I ventured back left and onto the loose scree, where a rock fell on my ankle. I swore and carried on, adrenaline dulling the pain.
As we charted an unconvincing route towards the corrie loch at the bottom, I lost my balance and tipped over forwards – taking a hard fall on my shoulder. More swearing. More pain-concealing adrenaline. I got up and ran but within a minute took another heavy fall, sprawling onto my front. The “path” (where one existed) was very uneven, and fatigue meant I was misjudging both the terrain and my feet. Chris suggested I stop and regroup – I’d been lucky not to be more seriously injured. But I refused, out of stubborness as much as anything. I couldn’t afford to lose any more time.
Once we reached the lower slopes I started to move a bit better – the gradient was less severe and the path had bigger, flatter rocks to land on, allowing me to open up my stride. I felt a bit of confidence return as I enjoyed this second wind. Then fell again with rocks under my calf and hamstring. Both cramped. I shouted and swore some more. Luckily, the pain eased and I was able to make it back to the main road running somewhat convincingly, even with a fourth and final fall thrown into the mix.
With our car parked at the bottom of the mountain, I could drop off my rucksack before the final 4 miles into Torridon. Stupidly, I only realised my GPS tracker (separate to the timing chip on my wrist) was still in that bag once we got a mile down the road. I was suddenly panicked that the organisers would think I was injured and send out support, or even worse give me some sort of penalty. So I sent the long-suffering Chris back to the car and ploughed on myself – hoping he might be fresh enough to catch me up so we’d be able to share the finish together / avoid being told off for the GPS mistake.
This plan went out the window when I spotted a competitor and his support runner about a minute behind me on the road. Suddenly, race-mode flicked straight back on and I remember feeling quite … affronted. How dare this person try and take second place off me after I’d held this position for hours, worked so hard on the mountain and kept going after all those falls?! This wasn’t how the narrative was meant to play out… I remembered the staggered swim start all those hours ago and the possibility that he could have set off behind me, giving him an invisible advantage on the clock.
I recorded my two fastest miles of the day – around 6min 30 secs (my slowest mile was 28 minutes up Beinn Eighe…) but this was only enough to preserve the gap. I arrived in Torridon absolutely exhausted, only to have a repeat of the bike course finish and discover an extra 1.5 mile loop at the end I hadn’t expected. Cue more pained grunts as I forced my way around this as fast as possible, no doubt bemusing the cheerful local supporters.
I finally crossed the line in second place, providing more confusion as instead of celebrating I hurriedly sought out one of the organisers to explain the GPS situation and ensure I wasn’t in trouble (I wasn’t). Unusually there were no photos at the finish to capture my worry and general dishevelment. My time turned out to be 11 hours 19 minutes – unbelievable considering how terrible it had felt for so long and more than 20 minutes under the old course record (of course, Ewan had just broken that record by considerably more…). Despite how close we were on the road, my time was 5 minutes clear of third place, so I needn’t have suffered quite so much at the end (though it was satisfying to have pushed to the absolute limit). Chris came over the line with my GPS tracker a short while later, pleased I’d held on to second but annoyed they’d made him do the extra 1.5 mile loop too, despite not being a competitor.
Overall, my memory should be of a stunning course and friendly atmosphere amongst organisers and competitors. It should be pride for a brilliant performance and relief the event could go ahead despite Covid. Or gratitude for the support from Chris, who earned his desired status as an “elite support athlete”, doing everything asked of him and more only to be sent on a 2 mile detour rather than share any glory at the finish line.
However, my abiding memory is simply of how hard and painful this race was. How hard XTRI is. And the respect I have for anyone with a Celtman finisher shirt.
Norseman in 2022? Can’t wait.
