Well done
Cycling to work the day after an Ironman is as impressive as sub 10!
I can’t even imagine !!!
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I think I told the story of Paul Every. He was a bit of a triathlete and ultra cycling legend in Sydney.
He once did the Canberra HIM, rode the 300km to the race on Friday, raced Sunday and rode back on Monday.
Absolutely loco 
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Did he wear denim shorts as well 
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Trust me, he had ‘that look’. His reputation went way before him when I started out doing tris.
We were in a rego queue at one race and my mate said:
‘there’s Paul over there’
I said ‘who, that guy that looks like a prog rock singer?’
He said ‘Yep’
IIRC, he was a zoologist.
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Ha, he looks like a lad in our running club, more like a roadie from a rock band
He doesn’t look particularly like a runner but put him on a fell and he’s a whippet 
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Thought I’d do a bit of a race recap for IM Wales now I’ve recovered a bit, as I gave a short copy and paste summary earlier.
Leading up to the race training had been going about as well as I could have hoped, until 3 weeks before, when I either got ill, or had over done it a bit, but I felt exhausted. I decided rather than push through for another week, I’ll start my taper early, as from what I understand, it’s better to go in slightly under trained, than over trained. I went quieter on here, as I was having a bit of a panic thinking I won’t recover in time.
Arrived on Thursday, staying 5 min walk from transition, with wife, child, parents, sister and her daughter. Plenty of time to sort things out and try to relax.
Registered Friday, lots of faffing with the bags, not sure if I prefer them or not. Less to stress about on the morning, but more to worry about leading into it.
Saturday I did a practice swim at 7am organised by Chris from Recovery Lab, which helped to acclimatise to sea swimming - something I’d not done before - I’d hoped to, but cancelled my recce trip to Tenby in July due to reluctance from my wife to go. Saw and hit some jellyfish, much bigger than I’d expected, but not stung. Racked etc late in the afternoon, knew it was going to rain over night, so kept some things off my bike to put back on in the morning.
Race morning went fine, my friend came in to watch too. Very wet walking down to the start, but massive crowds. Back was twinging a bit, had been doing it all weekend as the beds weren’t the most comfortable where we were staying.
Swim started fine, kept to the left on the way out, got round the first lap to the beach, looked at my watch and saw it said 42mins. I would have expected 35-38mins, so 4-6mins down was a bit disappointing. Got back in and carried on. Got round the first buoy again and made my way up to the second/third buoys. That was the worst part of the day, looking back at Garmin data I was doing about 3.30min/100m over the ground, fighting the tide for about 800m. Kept thinking what am I doing, I’m not going to make it round, I’m going to let people down etc. Eventually I reached the top marks and fought round that, as everyone was working to not get pushed back past the buoy. Once round, I had a couple of breaks to sit up have a breather and relax, then carry on back to the beach. Got out of the water and across the timing mat at 1:34.06, about 20mins longer than I’d have hoped. 1211 overall.
Took my wetsuit off at the zigzags, as I’d planned to, poured a bottle of water over my head and trotted up the path. Saw my wife, son and friend at the top of the zig zags, stopped to say hello then jogged down to transition with my wetsuit over my shoulders. Support was immense on the way down to T1.
T1 I took steady, got everything done as planned. Took 15.11, slower than expected, but wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
Set off on the bike nice and steady. Forecasts were different depending on what you looked at. I’d hoped that the rain would start to clear after an hour or so, it didn’t. Mistake going for visor on my aero helmet, kept fogging and was a bit of a pain. Lots of dropped visors on the roads, lots of punctures too. Bike went fine other than that, drank 4 litres of carb/electrolyte mix (300g carbs) with 5x60g chews and a malt loaf (160g carbs), with about 750ml water. Less water than planned, but I wasn’t as hot as expected due to the rain. So about 750g carbs, 5 litres liquid including a drink in T1. The hills were fine, I ran my 2010 Trek Speed Concept 7.5, with Zipp 808 front and disc rear with no problems. 34/34 lowest gear was fine. Bike overall was 6:48.19, again about 20mins slower than planned, but I think that was mostly due to taking the down hills really steady, not knowing the bike course and struggling with visor fogging. I’d planned to average 170w and normalise 205-210w. Garmin said I averaged 169w and normalised 207w, so about as close as I could be there. 556 overall.
T2 again I took steady, decided to walk it round, not wanting to roll an ankle running in cleats. Stopped to use the portaloo, to mitigate risk of stomach issues later. Got wet wipes out to remove as much road grime as possible off my feet to prevent blisters and fresh socks on. Picked up my waist belt with water bottle on and headed onto the run. T2 11.15. Slower than expected again, but wanted to get things right.
Onto the run, my legs felt good. Had to consciously slow myself down, was wanting to stick to 5:40/km for as long as possible. Got round the first lap fine 56.42. Second lap also fine, saw TC just after I’d picked up my lap band, shouted at him, wasn’t sure if he heard me. On the way back down I felt my stomach full of gas, so decided to stop at a portaloo, which was much better after. Then stopped at personal needs to fill my bottle back up, pick up more carb chews, reapply cream to the nether regions. Was stopped about 8mins that lap, with loo/personal needs, so 1:07.25 was ok. Third lap was more difficult, but was still running, uphills I was keeping a running cadence, but only just faster than a walk. Saw my wife and child near the entry to the finish, so knew where they would be for the next lap. Headed up for the final lap. Ended up walking part of the climb, still trying to keep a faster cadence, but wasn’t really getting anywhere. Tried to rationalise distances in breaking them down into things I do in training etc. Found the last 5k difficult, even had to walk some of the downhill, as I wasn’t moving much faster than a walk when running. Finally got round to the finish, saw my friend, his wife and their kids who had come to support, then my wife and child, before going into the finishing chute. Last lap was 1:15.01, so a fair bit slower. Overall run time of 4:26.28. I’d had 3x 60g carb chews (had planned to eat a 4th on the last lap, but stuck to liquids) and about 800ml of carb/electrolyte mix with 80g carbs in, had planned to drink twice that. Then about 3 cups of water per lap, so maybe 1l water, again less than I’d hoped. 646 overall.
Overall time 13:15.17 for 634th overall out of 1937 finishers. Which for my first full distance event I’m fairly pleased with. I was hoping for 12-13hrs, but the slow swim and wet bike made things a bit more difficult. Other than having a bit of a gassy stomach, which I’m used to and had fully expected, there were no issues at all. Hadn’t planned to look at any other full distance events in the future, but may have to start looking at others for something to aim towards…
In hindsight, I would liked to have swam more in the 12 months before (only managed 16 hours in total, which is nowhere near enough), maybe done a couple more 100+ mile bikes, and run more long distance (>21km) as although I ran regularly 12-21km, I didn’t want to do 30km and injure myself and impact training for weeks afterwards. I had planned to do more swimming, long bikes and long runs, but in reality I didn’t have the time to fit them in, without causing social unrest in the household.
In the 12 months leading up to IM Wales (before I started my taper) I had done 16hrs swimming, 280hrs biking, 145hrs running. As an ambitious aim, I was hoping for 500hrs, so 435hrs with a total of a few weeks of illnesses and a knee problem last October, I think was about as much as was achievable. At least now I know how much training is needed for a full distance, to complete at least, so it does give the opportunity to try again in the future.
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dangerous…
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Nice write up @Robin
In complete contrast I was probably as ill prepared to tackle the race as I could have been. I did one century ride back in June and I’d say before the marathon my longest run of the year must have been 8km. I’ve swam OW plenty of times but only fairly short swims.
The goal was simply to get round, didn’t care about a time, just get a finish.
Main theme from the day was that it just rained all day. Never pissed it down, just the fairly steady stuff that soaks you to the bone.
Got soaked in the starting pen, no Joanne Murphy or Paul Kaye on mic duties (clearly bigger fish to fry)
Sea looked calm from the beach, it so often does doesn’t it. Maybe I’m just really crap at sea swimming! First lap there was a surprising amount of swell after the turn at the RNLI ramp, this whole section was shit to swim in. It made me feel dizzy and sighting was really hard. End of the first lap, watch said 36 which I felt was ok for the effort level. Second lap was a shocker. It felt like I was either swimming stationary fighting the tide at the far turn that Robin described or the bouy was moving as it sure as shit wasn’t getting any closer. My GPS track wasn’t too bad looking back - so yeah, just wrestling the sea.
Got in just over 1:22 - so pretty poor, but generally looked a slow swim day, not many had a good time in the bay.
T1 was a plod, just over 10 minutes. Enjoyed the crowd and stuck a cycle jersey on as another
layer.
The bike I think was the first race that I didn’t over bike, just rolled around (I didn’t have the fitness to push). I really wanted to enjoy this but the constant rain and the first section out to Angle was a bit shit. Just riding around in a cloud really. Conditions obviously weren’t great but I’m one from the class of 2017 and it wasn’t as bad as that. Plenty of people with punctures and quite a few crashes. Kit Walker for one, on the side of the road lying under a blanket. A fellow clubmate too crashed (dislocated her knee apparently) it’s funny I always remember the big climbs, Narberth, Wiseman’s, Saundersfoot but there’s so many other drags that just go on forever and really sap the life out of you. The climb through Templeton for example. They’re buggers! Especially for someone very undertrained and unfit…
I was probably ok until around 130km then I just felt a bit knackered. I finally came in just under 7 hours and felt like I’d been overtaken by the whole field.
This would obviously continue on the run which was just pure survival. The first lap was ok, but after two, my goose was well and truly cooked and it quickly became a game of just moving. Looking at the splits it’s clear to see much suffering was endured. I was sorely tempted to throw the towel in but kept telling myself I couldn’t go home and tell my kids that I quit, so I stubbornly kept going. Did I mention it rained? Yeah it did that on the run too. Again, never pissing it down but just enough to soak you. Anyway, I eventually managed to drag my arse through the finish line, well over 5 hours, I haven’t actually looked at the time but my overall was over 14 hours but hey, it was a finish which was all I could hope for!
Had a post race chat with a club mate, gathered my kit and went off to the car for a kip. I’d parked in the North Beach car park which reopened at 1 am and promptly drove home. That was a test in endurance in itself being a four and a half hour drive (including a couple of stops). Climbed into bed at 5:30 - work up at 7:30 and cycled to work. I wasn’t actually too bad but conked out once I got back from work!
So next time I mention entering an Ironman, give me a virtual slap. I cannot put myself through that again. The chafing, blisters and doms are awful - It’ll be half’s at most until I’ve finished my degree (I’ve just started year three of four)
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The drive home and then cycling to work is the maddest part. Amazing stuff! 
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Well done Adam and Robin
That actually happened at LCW in 2015 with the first turn bouy. FMD, was nearly in Swansea before we rurned 
I’ve only done that run course twice (started IM Wales 3 times with one DNF). By far, my best run was the second time because I was really disciplined.
I used a bike shake out ride on Friday to work out exactly where I would run and where I would walk, right down a specific point like lamppost or driveway and stuck y to it.
That worked well until the last lap where I had to walk more, but overall was a much better experience than the year before.
I hope heavenly Sisters and Pope were on the bike course giving their blessings? 
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I did see a collection of nuns at the top of Wiseman’s Bridge, on the first lap. I can’t recall them being there on the second time around, so they may have been called away for prayer.
At least I wasn’t the only one. I wasn’t sure if it was because the I’ve not swam with so many people before and that was causing the water to be a bit confused, or if I’d swallowed some sea water as I was feeling a bit sick, but it wasn’t really that pleasant. I had noticed it was spring tide, so that will have meant a faster tidal flow than some years, it was at high water, so shouldn’t have been that strong initially, but would have picked up after the first hour. I reckon a fair few of the people pushing the swim cut off time would have been in difficulty rounding those marks.
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I’ve done that swim course 6 times ( 3 xIM and 3 x LCW). I’m a diesel swimmer, but have always found the best sighting mark on that homeward leg is to aim for the gap in the hotel buildings up on Fourcroft.
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Sleeping in the car, cycling to work 
, oh my!
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So, Adam and fruity both in for Lanza 27
Well done for just surviving both of you! It was wet when I did it but not as bad as that!
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And well done for doing so well in a grueling event.
I was talking to someone at my OWS Saturday that did it in 2024 (and a club mate), they took just under and over 2 hours in the swim when they expected and normally swim 1h20 - 1h25, the upper end is what they expected. The other ended up just missing the cut off (in fact the paddle boarders where asking him if he wanted to be pulled out.)
I said that was the year the tide really affected the later starters, speaking to others that did it. They said that another club / teammate, 1h05 - 1h10 swimmer did it in 1h15m… so it all stacks up.
Because of this I was going to say seed yourself a bit earlier in the day, but I was concerned it would add to concern and stress. The tide seems to be a theme on the second lap.
As a slower swimmer one of the reasons I’ll never do it.
Great event though for those more able.
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Two great race reports from what sounds like a rather soggy Tenby. Well done to you both.
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