Taking place less than two hours’ drive away, Staffordshire 70.3 is almost a local event for me. However, I didn’t even know it existed until in traditional Ironman style they started advertising it at last year’s Weymouth awards evening. By the next morning, I’d signed up…
The race is point-to-point, meaning the swim, bike and run all finish in different places. This adds a bit of complexity as you spend the day before on a tour of the area dropping different coloured bags off in a variety of locations. Early morning shuttle buses promised to extend the logistical fun to race day itself, and I was so worried about queues that I ended up on the first bus and at Chasewater by 4:45am, before the site had even opened.
With there only being so much time you can spend in a portaloo, there was a fair old wait for the 7am start. Conditions were much better than when I’d racked the bike the day before, although the swim course remained slightly unclear. We were meant to be following yellow buoys and turning at orange ones, but a fairly pick and mix approach to colours had actually been used, along with some rogue yellow and orange markers that weren’t meant for us at all. There was extensive debate amongst the athletes on where we were going, and each conversation settled on swimming to the first orange buoy and hoping it became obvious from there…
Once again, we would be setting off in a rolling start – meaning the tactics of who to position yourself with at the beginning could be vital. I’d prepared as best I could, checking previous swim splits for some of the athletes and listening to who other people were trying to follow. I knew Malachi Cashmore and Ashley Hurdman had swum similar times to me at Nottingham four weeks earlier, Kit Walker had previously raced professionally so would be a good swimmer but wasn’t sure of his recent form and Ben Goodfellow was one of the strongest athletes in the race but was aiming for a slightly slower swim time than me.
When it came down to it, I’m not 100% sure who I ended up following – I was certainly somewhere close to Ashley at the start and felt pretty happy with my position early on. However, after a while I became increasingly sceptical about the line my group was taking, seemingly going very wide around the buoys. At one point I saw a bronze “All World Athlete” cap make a break for it which I thought might be Malachi, and I tried to bridge across with about 400m of sprinting. I’d reacted a touch too late though and couldn’t close the gap. I was then stuck with the dilemma again of whether to stick with a pack not following a great course, or go off alone hopefully following a straighter line but putting in more effort. Neither option was optimal, and by this point I’d missed the opportunity to find the best feet to follow, so I ended up settling in to avoid burning any more matches after my failed surge halfway through.
As I floundered my way out of the slippery swim exit I was disappointed to see myself right next to Ben, who I’d hoped to gain about a minute on over the swim. My time of 27:38 was two minutes slower than at Nottingham, confirming that despite working harder the wide course had cost me. I did my best to complete a quick T1, and didn’t notice the others from my swim group set off on the bike ahead of me. I actually wondered if I’d miraculously left them all behind, but unfortunately after about 10 mins on the bike they came into view. The stats confirm that I lost about 30-40 seconds on all of them in T1. I really need to sort this out for future 70.3 races, and perhaps need to abandon my commitment to wearing socks on the bike, as whilst this might not sound like much time it translates to about a quarter of a mile on the road, which can make or break your ability to stay in touch with the race.
I attacked the first section of narrow lanes and recorded the fastest bike split over the first 12 miles – needing to work extra hard out of the corners and up the climbs to compensate for my mediocre cornering speed. I could still see Ben’s bright yellow tri suit in the distance working its way through the field about 45 seconds ahead, and I stayed on my limit to try and catch him up.
This strategy gradually evolved into staying on my limit to try and keep him in sight, as the gap between us slowly extended to around a minute. I had worked my way up to fourth, and just about kept Ben in view long enough to see him catch up with second place, when I finally lost sight of both at around the 30 mile point.
Unlike Nottingham, there was no big group and very little drafting – with lots of hills keeping the race fair and making it a lot more interesting. After the initial narrow lanes, this turned into a great bike course. The persistent head / cross wind was not so welcome, but added to the sense that this was honest, hard racing. I was grateful for the course recce the previous weekend, and for my disc brakes, which helped me take some of the sharper corners and descents more quickly.
I spent the remainder of the bike completely solo – with no-one in sight either behind or ahead – and the mission simply to limit my losses and keep the gap to something I might be able to close on the run. I’m confident in my running at the moment, and thought a two minute gap might be achievable, so was disappointed to learn I was over three minutes off the leaders as I arrived in T2. Whilst I might be able to close that gap on one or two if they had a bad day, it was unlikely I’d be able to catch them all.
Nevertheless, I set off with the mindset of hunting as many people down as I could. The run course had a couple of out-and-back sections where I could check the gap to those ahead of me and the race was panning out about how I expected. Ben was now leading, just ahead of Kit and Malachi a little way back in third. By the time I saw Malachi, I was only about a minute behind and I caught him up as we were circling Stafford castle on the first lap. I was pushing myself hard at this point to see if I could still challenge for the win, and later found I’d got the Strava KOM for the fastest ever time up and down this climb.
Unfortunately, despite running strongly, the front two were going just as well. By halfway, I’d only managed to claw back 30 seconds of Ben’s three minute advantage. Meanwhile, Malachi was now a couple of minutes back so I felt pretty secure in third place. I ended up taking the last lap a tiny bit steadier – there was no point risking injury or inflicting too much suffering on myself at this stage.
I really enjoyed this part of the run. With the race pressure off, I could try and be more of a crowd pleaser like my earlier years in triathlon – engaging with supporters and being extra nice to the volunteers rather than ploughing on in cold-eyed pain. There were no anguished groans in the last few miles and no strained gurning along the finish chute. I even stopped briefly to stroke Jasper before crossing the line.
Ultimately, I’m left with mixed feelings about my performance. As an outcome, I’m happy with third considering who I was up against. Kit is a class athlete who’s had results well beyond what I’ve achieved and Ben beat me fair and square on the bike before grafting his way to a deserved win on the run. The difference with Nottingham is that I never managed to go toe to toe with those top guys and compete at the front end of the race, and I do think with different decisions on the swim and a better T1 I could have at least had a meaningful chase on my hands for the run. Putting that aside, I really enjoyed another well organised Ironman event alongside a number of friendly faces both on the course and the sidelines. I can now shift my focus to the very different challenge of Norseman in August.
