He finished 6th after being about 20th off the bike…
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and nr last out of the swim 
and lap 1 of the bike (still struggling and going backwards)
I got bounced out of the sw1m after 1xIM, as it was too cold for me.
Here’s some TLDR ramblings as some kind of a Race Report:
Sat 7th Sept 2024 saw me in Llanberis defending my Brutal Extreme Double IM Triathlon title, hopefully to get IM #201 & 202. (Yes, I’m counting a Double as TWO!)
Annoyingly I hadn’t felt 100% on Thu & Fri but no obvious cold symptoms had manifested to deter me from the long trip there to give it a go. To say I’d have been kicking myself if I’d turned up to Lincoln ParkRun and felt fine on Sat am would have been an understatement. Especially as it was the last ever Brutal Event very sadly. 
Comically I still went to work on Fri am 
, as we’re busy, and was still getting my paw abused old Scott Plasma belatedly serviced at LBS at 3pm. Good job as I hadn’t noticed a rear tyre down to the carcass after a skid stop somewhere (during GeordieMan?). Plus, the main rear mech gear cable snapped in the shop! I only took it in for a new chain and cassette FGS (+any obvs TLC required), as I was conscious it was 12 months + since the last one , so I could easily have 700-1000 miles on that chain, and didn’t want it to go snap uphill! So I got home at 4pm with NOTHING packed ready. Somehow I got away by 6pm reasonably organised with everything I would need. Many thanks to Paul Jenkinson and Karen for putting me up, and not minding me turning up at 10pm!
I woke up still feeling seemingly OK and I was registering on Site by 6am for the 7am sw1m start by Lyn Padarn at Llanberis. WCPGW. Yes you guessed it I was 2 ½ mins late to the sw1m start facepalming: facepalming: I couldn’t see a single sw1mmer they were so far gone. But the air temp was OK, not windy, sunny yesterday, not much rain the last few days putting cold water run off in, so the conditions were pretty good. Tho there had been a freak deluge at the start of the week tho…
The sw1m felt cold. Well it would wouldn’t it compared to the warmer air. A bit fresher than expected was how most folks described it post-race. I had a thermal (‘oob) wetsuit on, and 2 sw1m specific vests on, and a trisuit. Thermal hat n gloves. Every trick I had basically. Normally you feel cold initially but gradually acclimatise and get on with it. This time I was getting on with it (sw1mble plod!) but still feeling this was too cold to last 4 ish hours of a full Double IM…. You get out every 2 laps (= ½ IM total) to go over a timing mat and have a drink/gel. I got a nice cuppa from the tea urn. I set off for the second stint with a bit more verve and positivity, and tried working harder. To no avail, it was plainly obvious I’d have to drop down to the Single IM (all distances start together). My teeth weren’t quite chattering but I was in my own little world, and everyone said I looked grey and drained as I waddled off and in to T1.
So whether I wasn’t quite right (some kinda bug?) making me more susceptible to the cold, or not, I’ll never know. Unsurprisingly on Lap 1 (1/4 IM dist so 4 laps) of the bike I was cannon fodder, every NumpT was passing me for fun. In the Single IM after the sw1m I was 49th/54 but still going backwards. After Beddgelert I stopped for a lie down and a snooze for ten mins by the lake on Lap1. Coz I could! and felt like it. Powernapped, and feeling a bit better I got up Pen y Pass OK. Lap2 went OK. Starting Lap3 at the turnaround timing mat I grabbed a few gears to go down…and the same (brand new!) cable snapped! 
Oh dear now Front mech I could have coped with, but rear mech this was too hilly a course. Bike mechanic was out roving and not available. (Normally I may have brought a spare bike ‘in case’ but hadn’t come in my Crown Estate this time as its brakes were knackered!)
Gavin Jeffers and pal tried to fix it, with no luck. Gavin offered his poshe new Genesis bike! With fancy wireless Di2. We were about the same size. Except his medals were SPDSL and I was Look Keo. He had no shoes, and could we heck as remove the seized pedals off mine to swap them over to his, with just a multi tool for leverage :o I was experimenting with jamming a stone in the derailleur to try give me 2 lower gears when he returned with a hammer, and we got them off. So off I went for the last ½ IM on a strange (to me) bike.
TriathlonDan of yooToob soon caught me up on Lap3. He’s waaay faster than me on the bike on the flat, and was (bravely) using a rear disc. But at the first steep hill to Waunfawr I got back ahead for a bit. Then we were swapping places to Beddgelert and Nant Gwynant but I was staying in touch, and feeling racier. Unsurprisingly I dropped him up the pass (tho he was a full lap ahead!), and did the final lap quite well too.
With all this happening I was just going for a completion, but I had no idea how I’d fare on the run. For the last 10 years I’ve always got through the sw1m OK somehow and done double or Triple IM distance, and run (yomp) up n down Snowdon first, on the obvious tourist path. Thus doing the lake laps totally knackered on a run walk, tho faster than anyone else usually. For this single IM it was ‘just’ 3x 5 mile laps round the lake FIRST before going up n down Snowdon as the finale. I hadn’t done Single IM at the Brutal since the first one in 2012, when I similarly dropped from Double to Single IM as I’d felt a bit woozy in the lake, but finished 7th overall. Well I’d perked up on the bike, and Chuff Me I was running really well, in road cheat shoes, Saucony Endorphin Pro Mk2 so low profile and stable, not super stacked and unstable… So I just kept going. A 41 min first lap was the fastest of ANYBODY bar a handful of those running from fresh at the start of the Brutal Duathlon, under 5mins/km. It was some kind of redemption for a rare disastrous IM. I was thoroughly out of breath. Laps 2 and 3 OK too. The 3 lake laps were 15 mins in total faster than anybody else! (Next up was Simon Booth fair play on 2nd overall.) I figured it wouldn’t make much difference when yomping up Snowdon in the dark, and trotting down using gravity, so why not enjoy myself. It was weird to be able to attack the run lap for first time in 10 yrs. WCPGW…
I swapped to sturdier Merrell Agility Peak 5 with Vibram grip for Snowdon (as initially recommended by Loyd Purvis on yooToob ta). On the Double or Triple you MUST have a buddy runner for safety in case you go downhill. This used to be a requirement for the SingleIM too but was dropped. I’d never had any bother, it just seemed an annoyance to me to have to drag some paw soul out with me in the night. Well like Christian Bouet / CH_race I found out why. I was going well and had easy made up a couple of places. But halfway up I ground to a halt and had a major wobble. Turns out I AM human! I stopped for a break 3 times and sat on a rock. Feeling a bit sick so didn’t fancy any energy drink or fuel, and contemplated turning round! My pace was so dreadful on the steep bit after Clogwyn that a competitor coming down said ‘Here you go m8, use my (cheating)sticks”. So I did! Thanks m8 (whoever you are, and I hope you got them back!) When it flattened out on the top I was perking up and had a bit of energy drink. Of course I had to descend carrying the Poles but they were poshe light weight ones, and little bother tbh. With my experience I used the mountain railway line for the section to Clogwyn, but wasn’t making up any more places thereafter on the main descent. I wasn’t descending like crackers, I’m no fell runner, and didn’t want to prang myself fall again and fracture any more fingers etc like I did at Scafell Marathon 3 weeks ago, still healing! I got to the gate at the minor tarmac road and hadn’t fallen over once yaay! I can run well on tarmac downhill so thundered down. Chuff Me, I made up 3 or 4 places right there before town. But comically, coming in to the finish chute, I fell over a metre from the line FGS. SLAP! You couldn’t make it up. But it was just on grass so no bother.
I was buzzing having finished well and turns out I’d clawed my way back to 6th Overall!! And first Old Man I think. A thoroughly daft up n down race for me, with a positive decent finish, in the circs I was pleased.
So (‘just’) #201 it is, and this can offset the very dodgy IM ‘Event’ of Outlaw 2019 which ended up as just a Sw1m-Run FGS (flooded roads on bike). IM Wales at Tenby 2 weeks after this can hopefully offset one of the duathlons, maybe the last Outlaw with an initial 5km (park)run instead of the sw1m (algae).
IM70.3 Weymouth in between time for an out-of-breath sprinty half-IM feck about. Never done it before, and for once it didn’t clash wi’out (eg IM Wales or Hardmoors60 etc). Shame its such a long way away for me to go tho. Reckon I can just about fit in ParkRun at Lincoln Sat am, and then dash straight down there before registration closes. WCPGW…
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me…was fixing some other guy’s front mech…
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as a strong climber on a frankly not that testing (to me) bike course, a mere front mech I could have happily lived with, sadly.
As far as my wunderkind 150+ IM Scott Plasma Mk1 reliability, the rear mech cable was poss Mr Shimano’s or my LBS fault?? Just a cable FGS, but only 1 day old, never prev had a problem.
But this happened today. My LBS contact of 25 yrs said he’d never seen nowt like it. Too much power 
obvs
I consider myself lucky tho. It was a rare occasion when I was riding it not in a race. I had just picked it up from LBS fixing the rear mech etc. Had in the course of that pickup cycled Lincoln to Nottm Weds. eves. coming back to Lincoln this Thurs am when it happened.
So I’m lucky that a)wasn’t during a race eg Weymouth or Tenby
b) wasn’t in middle of nowhere, I’d cut thru centre of Newark as ring road traffic busy. so I just walked to train station 5-10 mins, immediately got on a train. Dead Scott locked up in railway station storeroom. Bus home. Back in car to get dead bike!
tbf the bike is 15 yrs old! And all those IMs! Never had a problem other than the usual ‘consumables’, til now.
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i had a couple of spares too…
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he couldn’t…
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Looks like a classic fatigue failure - load and unload it enough times and you’ll eventually have a brittle fracture.
I’ve done that a few times on my commuter fixie, where I’m repeatedly putting a heavy loading through the cranks to accelerate away from the many sets of lights 
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yep, that was what I was doing! I’ll say it again: Too much power obvs
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