I originally signed up for this race in 2020 pre-Covid and distinctly remember mulling over one question on the application: “Do you want to sign up for the elite wave?” . This came with some accompanying guidance:
Have you gone sub 4:30? – At that time no (largely due to my focus on hilly and extreme courses)
Please note, you won’t be eligible for age group prizes – Well that sounds rubbish, getting into the top 3 of my age group was always one of my goals. Who doesn’t like a trophy?
Perhaps most relevant was a personal problem with the word “elite”. It’s not one that sits comfortably with me, but by the triathlon definition I’m objectively getting closer to that standard after some good wins last year.
In 2020 I confidently answered “Not Elite”. By 2022, when my deferred entry rolled forward, I ticked the box…
Not only had I improved over the last few years, but also in the 8 months since my last race at Weymouth 70.3. I had (some would say, finally) got a coach involved to guide me on running and also found a swim training partner to keep me honest throughout the winter. Whilst I’ve always been relatively even across all three disciplines, these were my two relative weaknesses and I knew I’d brought both on a good amount – as proven by beating my half marathon PB by 4 minutes back in March.
Despite a few issues impacting my training in the month leading into the race, I managed to get injury-free just in time, and headed to Nottingham with the same goals in mind that I’d written down at the start of winter – “test yourself against some of the best, ensure your swim is on point to be at the sharp end of the race, it’s a fast course – how close to 4 hours can you get?”
The race start was unusually early for a half distance, and whilst I thought I was there in good time ended up having to do a lot of urgent running around barefoot in my wetsuit to find the right way down to the lake by 5.50am. I was really disappointed we were going to have a rolling start – with athletes going off 6 seconds apart – rather than a mass start. I think this massively detracts from the race dynamic as you don’t know where you actually are in the race if you end up side-by-side on the course. It also means you have a VAR situation on your hands at the finish line where you can’t really celebrate anything until you’re certain someone behind hasn’t beaten you on the clock. At the very least our wave of self-identifying “elites” should have been allowed off together – and every athlete I spoke to felt the same.
Rant aside, this left me with a tactical dilemma – go off early and try to hang on to the fastest swimmers? Or set off a minute or two back, try to work my way up and have that hidden advantage on the clock? In the end, I thought the chance of a group forming on the bike made it too important to risk missing the front end of the race, so I made my way to the third starting row – right near the front.
We set off from a running dive, and whilst I saw a few people have to adjust their goggles after hitting the water, when my turn came they just slammed hard into my eye sockets but stayed painfully in place. I was hoping to find some faster feet to follow, but actually found the initial pace around me fairly comfortable. When a swimmer overtook me I latched onto his slipstream and was able to make good progress. There were a few times I questioned his sense of direction though, leaving me a dilemma whether to follow his feet or trust my sighting to be more direct. It seemed every time that question occurred to me, I made the wrong choice. More and more swimmers were catching up and building a group around me on all sides. This led to a general sense that I was moving backwards in the race and I was already cursing my hubris for thinking I could compete with these guys. I spent the whole swim with the phrase “You’re not a contender, you’re a pretender” on repeat in my head.
The swim seemed to go on forever, so I was surprised to exit the water in 25:39 – a PB, albeit one that didn’t quite live up to what I’d been hoping for pre-race. I was already regretting not setting off a bit further back as I’m sure I could have worked my way up to that same position from a slightly later start. My T1 was pretty slow, as usual, because I still have to put my shoes and socks on in transition. Or the positive spin, I know my limitations and that I’d probably crash attempting flying mounts onto the bike or trying to put my shoes on whilst riding. Maybe this is an area I should work on though…
Of the names I knew were starting, Finn Arentz and Donald Brooks were the two I mainly recognised as being strong and likely to finish sub-4. Finn in particular I was pretty certain would be stronger on the bike and run, so I thought my only chance against him would be to swim quicker and then get into a fast group on the bike ahead of him. When he came flying past me about half a mile into the bike leg with transition still in sight, my plan quickly shifted to simply sticking with him for as long as possible.
We quickly caught up with a group of about eight riders and I soon got frustrated with my first ever experience of “non-draft race drafting”. Even holding the legal distance of 12 metres there’s a significant advantage to be had and the pace felt very easy where I was sat. The sensible thing might have been to take it steady this early on, but this wasn’t my idea of racing – so I pushed on to the front, calling out to Finn to come with me and try and break this group up.
We both took some hard turns to try and get free but we couldn’t drop the train. Just as I was starting to suffer from the surges, I was pleased to see Donald sweep past to take a shift. Having a third strong rider made a big difference, but the group remained stubbornly attached. I’ve got no real complaints with the other riders – everyone was trying to maintain a legal distance and taking it steady to save their run legs was a sensible tactic. Having said that, whilst Finn and Donald’s motivation for pushing on was to catch a group of three riders up ahead leading the race, I hadn’t even thought about them and was just annoyed by people getting a free ride!
It was definitely more fun trying to animate the race – Finn put in one huge effort which briefly earned us a bit of a gap, only for me to lose it on my turn. I’m not sure how much of this was my fault, and how much I can blame a car pulling out directly in front of me, which forced a slamming of brakes and not a little swearing. In fact, the only time I heard more swearing was watching Finn take a solid two minutes to try and get his drinks bottle back in its cage behind his saddle – this was only so funny to me as I’d gone through the same problem a few miles earlier!
The lead group came into sight, and three became two after one of them unfortunately crashed out. A sleeper agent in our group – Malachi – was suddenly activated and put in some good work to help us catch the lead pair. We then cruised into T2 as a group of around ten, with no-one too keen to bury themselves as the contest was clearly now going to be decided by a running race. 2:09:54 represented a pretty rapid bike split, over what had been a more polarised ride than my usual consistent time trial efforts.
Given my investment in putting socks on in T1, my T2 is always pretty fast and I came out onto the three lap run course in second position. This quickly became a lead group of six all running side-by-side and even having a bit of a joke together on lap 1 about how we were out for a group tempo run. I was feeling really good at this stage, but still a bit nervous having not done much running in the previous month and nothing up to half marathon distance. I was also aware that I was probably behind all of these guys on the clock having set off near the front of the swim, so I would need to make an attack at some point if I wanted to beat any of them.
On lap 2, an athlete I didn’t know called Jack took over the lead. The course was completely flat except for a couple of short grassy hills and I should have spotted the warning sign when, whilst I was absolutely gasping for breath to keep up, he was within himself enough to try and start a conversation about not expecting cross-country. He didn’t get much chat back from me hanging on in survival mode.
Jack ramped the pace up further on this lap and I went with him. Looking behind we’d now dropped everyone else. This effort was clearly unsustainable for me, but I wasn’t sure if Jack could keep it up either so decided it was better to cover every move and keep myself in with a chance of racing for the win. I hung in there until close to the end of lap 2, when I simply had to throw in the towel and admit I wasn’t going to finish if I tried to keep that pace up any longer. Jack immediately grew a healthy lead and I dropped my effort a bit in an attempt to get my heart rate back under control for the remaining five miles.
By the start of the final lap I was still in second place on the road but Finn was closing in. He made the pass fairly early on, and knowing he was even further ahead of me on the clock my goal shifted to third place and hoping I could hang onto Finn as long as possible to keep me ahead of the chasing pack. It didn’t quite work out, he seemed to have paced the run well and was moving faster than I could match – also opening up a gap. With two miles to go I saw Donald in fourth place about 45 seconds back on the road. I knew he’d set off behind me too so the real margin must be less, and I gave it everything I had to kick on in the final stretch.
I ended up crossing the finish line 30 seconds behind Finn and a minute ahead of Donald. But given the rolling start my time of 3:56:27 was actually a full 90 seconds down on second and only 18 seconds clear of fourth. That final sprint finish had done the job to keep me on the podium!
I’m absolutely delighted with the performance, which more than matched my aspiration to test myself against some great athletes. I didn’t just finish close to the 4 hour mark, but came in well below it. Jack was a seriously impressive winner, who it turns out also won the age group race at Ironman 70.3 Mallorca the weekend before. As a late entrant, he hadn’t been on the start list sent round, which is probably why I hadn’t clocked him coming into the race but I’ll definitely be watching his progress now he’s moving into the pro field. Finn might also be getting his pro card from this result, which he’s been after for a while and fully deserves.
As for me, the next stop is Staffordshire 70.3 in four weeks’ time. And whilst I struggle to admit it, I should absolutely be going there trying to think of myself as a contender.
