I asked my mate for any info & he said he used a tow float with bladder & that although fine in the water he was cold at T1 while getting changed. There was food in T1 but nothing on the run. They had poor weather leading up to the event so he wore trail shoes last year to combat the mud on the trails. Iāve looked at the run route on Google Earth & there seems to be a fair bit of road.
Hadnāt seen that about the swimmers, hopefully we can use them to sight & catch some of them .
Training is reasonable, but I think I peaked 2 or 3 weeks ago when I did a 2hr swim. Now knowing I can do that I no longer have The Fear that motivates me to do loooong swims. Happy with my running though.
Yeah hopefully they donāt take dodgy lines. Seems straight forward, but during a race I seem to struggle remembering things!
Good to hear youāre in good shape for it. Great to have a big swim ticked off. I need to do that. Back to the pool tomorrow after 6 weeks offā¦ Going to cram a few in and see what happens. Donāt feel to concerned about the swim (famous last words!) Run on the other hand, Iām really out of shape. Atm Iād be happy with sub hour. Feel training is now having an impact though so hopefully get to a decent point.
Iāve been looking for a nice hill to climb in the afternoon, have you been up Penygader? Better alternatives? Iāll be heading back towards Manchester.
Wrt the swim with a decent incoming tide a bag of Doritos could beat me if I didnāt train a bit.
I tried the gel up the sleeve thing today & was happier doing that than using a camelbak. I had a pair of goggles snap on my last Tri so Iāll stick an old pair of goggles in the pocket of my tow float.
I donāt think many - if any - will break the hour. This fella ran himself into 2nd place last year & didnāt manage it.
Cadair Idris would be a great climb to bag on your way home. Iāve not climbed it to the top but was in a fell race about 20yrs ago that got turned around before the top because of inclement weather.
@d.t I got a bit excited last night & entered the 4km āBeat The Tideā swim that the WeSwimrun guys organise.
It takes in the first 2km of our swim so I thought it would be good familiarisation of their set up, trackers & hopefully I can squeeze in a wee recce of the end of our run.
Ah great! Weather doesnāt look too bad for the weekend, look forward to hearing about it, enjoy!. I watched the video for the Beat The Tide and he made a good point about breathing. I tend to breath on my right every 2, I might have to do some every 3 drills this week.
Sub 90 for you? Right, Iāve clearly been keen on my estimates, I assumed youād be faster than me.
I had a look at the 13k run course on google maps - you can step through a lot of it via streetview, a mix of road, grass and paths. Quite a few fields to go across and potential to go the wrong way. Iām going to see if my watch can use a run route as part of a multi-sport activity.
Not bad for swimming though as it was pretty calm, but any spectators would have been utterly soaked.
Handy, big car park near to registration at the yacht club which was easiest to pay for by the āpaybyphoneā app as none of the 3 ticket machines were accepting my moneyā¦Ā£2.20 for 4hrs.
The timing tracker was a fairly cumbersome unit & definitely wasnāt going to fit in a trisuit rear pocket. As wetsuit swimmers didnāt need to use a towfloat I decided to embrace the freedom & place it in the small of my back between my wettie & rash vest all the while hoping that it didnāt lacerate my wetsuit or lower backā¦all was good in the end. Water temp was comfortable enough for me to wear my thinner wetsuit & hopefully wonāt drop too much in the next fortnight.
The idea of the event is that we swim 2km to an easily spotted outcrop with the tide & time it so that at this point the tide turns & we get a whooooosh back to the start.
The swim out was pretty good & with only 30 or so swimmers biffless. The only problem was that unaccustomed as I am to swimming at 1min/100mtrs the buoys & anchored boats came up on me fucking rapidly. The return was a bit more demanding as I didnāt benefit from the outgoing tide until the last 300mtrs.
After the swim I recced the final 3km of the run - in dogshit weather - that weāll be doing for the Dyfi X Aquathlon. It was fairly well marked already as the SwimRunners were using it but definitely a trail shoe environment. Like you @d.t Iāve seen lots of runnable stuff on Streetview but with weather like I had today I would have been on my arse a lot.
All in all I enjoyed it & got to see a bit of the SwimRun event that was taking part at the same time & has got me thinking about things to do next year
Top job, a sub hour for the 4k with the tide is a cracking job! The pace graph says it all for that brutal return
Fair pay doing the 3k post swim in the cats and dogs, goiod brick session though. Thanks for the shoe tip, I will pack a couple of pairs and decide on the day
Iāve done a couple of swmrun events and had a blast, look forward to hearing what you decide to do.
Taper time has sort of been forced on me. It was too cold for me to get a decent OW swim in over the weekend & after recklessly racing a J11-14 at a parkrun I pulled something in my groin. The groin is getting better & I think that itās one of those injuries that becomes less painful as it warms up, so that may be something I have to deal with after the race.
It is indeed good news that we donāt need a tow float, we should benefit from those aero gainz as we swim into the wind.
The trackers have been playing on my mind. Iāve decided to cut the cuff off the arm of an old wetsuit to act as a sleeve for it to protect my back & wetsuit. Not too sure how reliable the trackers are anyway, only about a third of them seemed to work at Beat the Tideā¦but all seemed ok for the 13km swim last year
The weather has been much dryer this week & Iāve been trying to see how much off-road there is on the run with a view to using road shoes. So far I can see there are 3 sections
2km after the MacDonald Hotel complex
a very muddy section from 5.3km to 7.3km
the couple of kms of field & trails I recced towards the end
I may get a look at some of it as weāre taking the caravan over tomorrow & staying until Monday.
Found a few pictures of the magnificent Glandyfi railway bridge that we go under at 10km.
(ETA just received email from Mike - the organizer - looks like the Beat the Tide swimmers were the guinea pigs for trackers that turned out to be a bit shit. )
Hopefully the cold water will help with the healing! Do you have a running belt for the tracker? I have a salomon zipped pouch, just hoping it will be big enough. A panic buy might be on the cards for a slightly larger bag .
Pictures look ace, looking forward to swimming and running it! I am going to bring some shoe options with me, I think I might need trail if thereās any mud. My mate is able to run muddy trails in road shoes, but I struggle even when itās flat and muddy in road shoes! If itās a technical descent, I am the first to put the brakes on! I created a streetview timelapse of the course if you fancy a cool runnings moment Streetwarp Result
Weather watching maybe Cadair Idris is off my list unless I want to get soaked. Main plea is no thunderstorm for the race
Iām no expert. So please correct me if Iām wrong. But as I understand it your feet are always going to be wet in an aquathlon, regardless of the weather.
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, Iām not sure I could claw back the 4hrs head start Iād be giving folks after the sw1m 
Are you going to be the first sub hour unless youāre also carry some bags of sand?
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maybe Cadair Idris is off my list unless I want to get soaked. Main plea is no thunderstorm for the race 
hereās some weight savinz 