I came into race week with three main problems, all adding to a sense that Weymouth might be one event too far this season:
1. My race bike was still in the shop after damage from Ironman Cork. After tracking a component creeping its way from Denmark, when it finally arrived it was the wrong part.
2. I rolled my ankle eight days before the race and had to take the week off running.
3. I’d got an overuse injury in my shoulder and had to take the week off swimming.
I’d made peace with the fact I’d be riding my old bike and somewhat liked the romantic narrative that it had last been ridden outside when I won this same race in 2021. It’s a great bike and wouldn’t have been an excuse, but its two main drawbacks are that it handles poorly in windy or wet conditions. We were forecast to get both. When the bike shop was able to find a workable solution on my regular bike the morning I had to travel, I didn’t hesitate to use that option. Farewell romance. Hello disc brakes.
Once in Weymouth, the nostalgia from two years ago gave me a morale boost. I was also excited for what should be a tight race with my training partner Henry James. I’d always been the favourite to come out on top over the longer distance at Roth, but in a hilly 70.3 it had the potential to be very close. We’d tried to convince our Western Tempo teammate Alex Jones to join the party but he’d turned us down…only to be spotted secretively racking his bike on Saturday afternoon! The news that all three of us would be lining up together for the first time really lifted my spirits – with all of us having the potential to win the thing.
The weather forecast had looked unpromising all week, but going to bed on Saturday night the radar was pretty certain that no rain should fall until late morning. Naturally, I woke up to a thunderstorm. On the drive into Weymouth one flash of lightning wiped out every radio station and, as it turned out, led to a power cut for half of Dorset. The Jubilee Clock on the esplanade stayed stubbornly stuck at 5.05am all day to mark the moment. Smarter folk than me walked to transition in their wetsuits, smugly unconcerned by the torrential rain, whilst I got drenched before sadly squashing my soaked clothes into a white streetwear bag to deal with later.
Henry and I slalomed our way through 2000 other athletes to get to the front of the swim queue. With 20 minutes to go, just as I was eyeing a pre-race caffeine gel, it was announced there would be no swim because of electrical storms in the area. A bit surprising, as we hadn’t seen any lightning for an hour and were probably enjoying the best weather we’d get all day. But safety comes first, and given my dodgy shoulder I wasn’t as upset as usual. The main disappointment was that Henry would have expected to get a 90 second advantage over me across swim and T1, and without this we might not get the close battle we were hoping for.
The wetsuited masses shuffled back to transition for a rolling bike start – with three athletes setting off at a time, six seconds apart. I was on the same row as Henry but made sure he rolled over the start mat a second in front of me, just in case it came down to a sprint finish later on… A bike start doesn’t give you quite the same adrenaline rush as a swim, but after a mile or two I was settling into my rhythm and enjoying the sight of Henry and Alex just ahead. This was going to be a lot of fun, just three mates in their element ready to go head to head. I noticed my handlebars were sprayed with white liquid. Had I ridden through something? Was my drink bottle leaking? No… my front tyre had punctured and was spraying sealant as well as rainwater. A persistent white dot on the tyre every time it rotated showed it wasn’t sealing and I realised I’d have to pull over to assess the damage. I cycled up next to Alex, who was climbing surprisingly slowly
“I’ve punctured, I need to pull in – it might be game over for me”
Alex: “I’ve got no gears – I think I’m done too”
That explained the slow climbing. I rode up to Henry and told him I had a puncture. He took a look at me sprayed with sealant and quipped “are you sure you didn’t just get overexcited?”. I told him it was up to him to win now and stopped on a grass verge with Alex. My tyre was bubbling away – but only losing air and sealant slowly. I tried to plug the hole but the tyre was still too inflated. I then turned the tyre over, applied pressure to the hole and let the sealant pool for about a minute. It seemed to solve the problem, but I couldn’t be sure how long for. A motorbike marshal had pulled up and was commiserating Alex on having to drop out. After a 2.5 minute stop, I apologetically set off again, telling Alex if I dropped out later he could explain to people why.
Normally I would be frustrated at the bad luck of getting a puncture, but instead I was feeling relieved and grateful that I was still racing. Seeing Alex drop out must have been a big part of this, but also the fact we were so early in the race, it wasn’t as if I’d been in a great position and had my hard work undone. I had a fresh slate and, ironically, given Henry the head start we both wanted to have a fun battle between us. I also felt like the pressure was off me at this stage – anything I could retrieve from this position would be a bonus.
I set about working through the cyclists who’d passed me during my stop, worrying about my tyre every time I went over a patch of rough tarmac or plant litter. I was working at close to maximum effort – remembering the advice of a triathlete-turned-Youtuber that “there’s no such thing as overbiking a 70.3”. Two guys in matching kit were shamelessly drafting so closely they might as well have been on a tandem. I politely told them as much, which must have annoyed them as they then worked together to try and stay on my tail for a good 10 minutes. I then spent nearly an hour without seeing anyone, all the while keeping an eye out for Henry’s orange kit on the horizon.
When I reached the main climb of the day, I finally saw seven cyclists again riding shamelessly close together. To be fair, the climb might have caused some bunching but for the first time my zen-like gratitude was threatened by a pinch of irritation. I rose above it, and despite being at the bottom of the climb enjoyed the view from my moral high ground.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the group break apart on the rolling plateau and descent into Dorchester, where a crosswind caused a few stomach-dropping handlebar twitches and the rain started to pelt down in earnest. I caught three more people up – including Henry in the last five miles. We exchanged a few words about how we’d been doing so far, then I tried to put a surge in on the final approach into T2 and achieved a small gap. I was pretty pleased by this display of power until Henry later told me he’d eased off for a wee.
I saw the race leader John out on the run course as I pulled into T2 in around 4th position and estimated he was about four minutes ahead. Henry overtook me again in transition and I held a consistent gap about 20 seconds behind him for the first two miles of the run. We quickly overtook a handful of remaining faster cyclists to move into second and third place. I saw him briefly pull up when he lost his foot down a pothole. I was so invested in him having a good race I shouted out loud “oh no!”. He was fine, but the pause allowed me to catch up so we could run together.
The rain really started to lash down and whilst I always prefer to run in sunglasses had to concede I couldn’t see a thing with them on. I mainly noticed their absence when I grabbed a cup of red bull, aimed it in the general direction of my mouth and only succeeded in getting it specifically in my eye. No matter, it washed out quickly enough in that weather.
My coach, parents and some friends were on the sidelines giving me splits at different points around the course. I spotted mum and dad where I expected – under a shelter on the esplanade, keeping their umbrella over our miniature dachshund Jasper who is not a fan of the rain. Unlike him, the rain couldn’t dampen me and Henry’s spirits at all – we were just two mates enjoying the hunt for the overall win. For now we were working together, but if it came to it later we’d enjoy racing against each other just as much. We were grinning and chatting quite a bit. “This is so much fun” I remember saying. I nearly tripped him up as I dodged a deep patch of flooded road, but otherwise we were a well oiled machine working in harmony.
It became clear that if we maintained our current pace we’d catch the leader. Two years ago I’d had people hunting me in the lead – doing the chasing this time round was much more fun. It occurred to me that someone who started later could end up setting a faster time so maybe I ought to push the pace. As soon as I did, Henry told me that I was dropping him. But within a couple of minutes he was back at my side. I gave him a pep talk and to convince him he could beat me, that my legs were tired and that he’d be quicker in a sprint finish. I’m not sure why really, I obviously didn’t want him to do that, but I did want him to believe in himself and finish the race strong.
Before I knew it, we’d completed two out of three laps. After a season of racing full Ironmans a half felt ridiculously short. I kicked on and Henry dropped back for good this time. I was now 40 seconds behind John – for the first time I could see him and he could see me. There was a sense of inevitability about it when I caught up and made the pass. I patted him on the shoulder, said “good racing” then accelerated again just to make sure he didn’t try to latch on. There was no response, and on the final stretch I opened up a decent gap.
Enjoying myself on this final stretch, running under 5:30 per mile, one guy gave me a brief panic as he came flying past. To my relief, he told me he was on his first lap and it makes me think he must be a much better runner than cyclist, not thinking he could actually have started the race much later… I savoured the finish line as usual. It was much sweeter for having to make such a long comeback and for how close I came to not reaching it at all.
As it turns out, the mysterious fast guy Jonathan ended up in second place overall. I only found out an hour later – if he’d run my time down it would really have take the shine off things whilst I was shivering in my wet clothes under a foil blanket, drinking my fifth hot chocolate. Henry had been so close to a top 3 result, but some stomach issues in the last few miles saw him lose several places. The race wouldn’t have been the same without him though and I hope we can share a course again next year.
It’s hard not to use this race as an opportunity to reflect on the last two years. In 2021, I genuinely hadn’t considered it possible I could win and was completely overwhelmed by it – seeing it as a complete one off that would never happen again. This time, even after a puncture, I stayed calm and always believed I could win. On the other hand, some things don’t change – like the elation of crossing the line first, Jo Murphy quipping “I think he might be happy” at my shouty exuberance or the same volunteer asking for a selfie with the Z-list celebrity who will soon be featured on page 7 of the Dorset Echo.
