2022 races

No!!!

Double flat.

Great write up and at least you know your in top shape, drop it and move on.

That is incredibly unlucky. Well done for composing yourself and getting something from the day.

That’s a really strong run off - you’ve got time to make amends in St George too

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What a nightmare and I’d echo it he sentiments of others - I’ve no doubt that I’d have called it a day after a dose of that kind of misfortune. Proving once again your incredible mental strength.
Looking forward to tracking you in St George Chris.

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Yeah mate well done, amazing effort physically and mentally to push on. Id have just sat at the side with my bike and burst into tears.

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Nightmare about the double puncture, Chris. But kudos for getting the bit between your teeth and treating the rest as a hard training session, shaping up well for St George.

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@TROSaracen what a legend! Fantastic mental strength!

Nice one @TROSaracen :muscle:t3:

Ironman Italy. Nothing to see here :exploding_head:.

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Not much they can do about that - literally not enough road for all the competitors. I believe the 70.3 and full were on the same road

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True but how would you feel about it, would you make your best effort not to draft or think feck it this is just a blatant draft fest?

I wouldn’t be happy about but I think you’d be pretty powerless in that situation - you’d kill yourself trying to find some space and only for some pricks to sit on your wheel why you do it

Tbh, Italy like Barca has this reputation and I would never consider them

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Well done @TROSaracen, no doubting your strength of character.

On IM Italy, I mentioned I know someone there, I saw their bike split and it was definitely faster than I would expect him to go. However, no idea what he would or could do in those circumstances.

ETA: the other overseas IM he has done is Barça :eyes:

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Asterisks next to his times then :grin:

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When I did IM Italy the drafting was worse than Barcelona.

Including one UK guy who I spent time with, and who was banging on about the evils of drafting but I saw him out there soft tapping in the middle of a 25-39 peloton!

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Confession time!

I have a second race when I’m in America next month, Ironman California! I entered it around October 2020 when Covid was over :roll_eyes: and the world would be back to normal :joy: (a massive bout of optimism or drugs!).

It is supposed to be a fast course and my original aim was one last bash at a sub 10, albeit on a friendly course. Anyway, come October 21 and the Americans still weren’t letting us in and as it happened I’d been injured for a few months and running 10K wasn’t even very pleasant so they allowed us to defer as we couldn’t travel.

This was quite fortunate as a weatherbomb hit California and in particular Sacramento on race day and they cancelled it a couple of hours before it started, everyone had racked their bikes as well!

Fast forward to now, it has been a long season and the travelling is being a ballache with KLM and bikes! They’ve really gone down in my estimations. I’m still barely doing between 6-8K swimming PW and have struggled to run since UTMB, and generally just want the holiday instead.

It is also 6 days before StG 70.3, but I knew that when I took the slot so in reality I know that race is going to be especially painful!

I’ve been in denial about it :rofl: I have done about 5 decent bike rides throughout summer and if the leg holds up the run distance shouldn’t be an issue, it’s more a question of how the glute\quad\knee holds together.

My current dilemma is the bike, my P5 is crap for travelling and I can’t remove the base bars as the 4 bolts seem to have seized and might need drilling out, and it practially cripples me. Current thinking is the Propel with tribars, not a complete disaster.

Anyway, the course is flat, the swim sounds like a massive gimme typical US IM, it’s downriver and the current sounds that strong you could float down and make the cutoff. I’ve heard people mention 15S/100yds assistance, but that could change on the day. And it is offset by a run from the water to T1 that is possibly further than Wales!

Bike course has something ridiculous like 300m vert, and it now looks like there could be nearly 4K people doing it so I’m bracing myself for massive draft packs at least for the first lap.

Run is also supposed to be flat.

The other issue (for me) is that it is currently 30c and above, that might come down within 4 weeks but even then it’s currently 15c here, but I will be there for about 8 days in advance, but I’ll need to save my legs a bit.

I’ve written off sub-10 and will just see how it goes after the swim\bike!

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My advice, for what it’s worth.

Don’t tell anyone on tritalk you’re doing it, get a PB on your swim then sit in a pack on the bike so as to not exhaust yourself. Then run-walk the run at a very easy pace and chat to some likely civilised ‘mercans.

That’d be pleasant and you won’t F up StG. Much.

Doh!

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I’m sure I’d soon get rumbled if I post a decent swim split!

I could do what people did in Italy and cruise the bike in a pack then hammer the run!

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Again, that was the plan before you spilled :joy:

Dagnammit, honesty is a bitch!

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Kept that one nicely under the hat!!!

Makes the trip even better I would imagine.

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As above, I think I’ve been in denial about it :joy: it was probably my A race of the year but wasn’t sure what would happen at UTMB, that turned out better than I expected and although there’s no significant injury it’s a struggle running particularly far. Going to try a run\walk tomorrow.

Looking forward to the trip now, going to have nearly a week in San Fran first, plan last year was about 3 weeks in Cali moving about after the IM, that’s changed now that StG is the week after but having seen some pics of StG earlier this year I’m hoping to spend a few days around there looking about.

Just the bike causing problems now, at this rate I’ll be buying something off ebay and dumping it in the desert like that silver plinth thing :rofl:

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