Nice report!
Do you think the panic attack in the swim might have been due to the temperature of the water? When I did the IM there in 2011 I had a tight chest and difficulty breathing a minute or two into the swim and I put it down to the cold water and not being able to get used to the water temperature before the start.
That’s a good point. Weirdly when i was swimming last night (just walked to the sea and dived right in) i had a real tight chest for the first ten mins. I could swim fine etc, but was struggling a bit owing to the fact that it felt like i was pulling in 70% of the oxygen that i needed for the work. Just like when my asthma kicks in.
Now i thikn about it, it then settled in and went away. I thought it was my wetsuit (unused for a year) that was too tight. But it may well have been the cold from what you’ve said there.
The WC had WC spots?
Yes, fairly sure it did advertise that
Yeah maybe, not sure
Yeah, I didn’t know this either
Cheers for the report Davos. Getting there was well deserved, I’ve followed you on Strava since I joined & your training has been inspirational.
Love you 
Is that Mark Allen?? 
I thought he was on about Laura 
🫣
It is
Ahh – I remember (doing and reading) full blown race reports. Shame there aren’t more of them these days, it was reading those that really got me into the sport.
Anyway, I’m not planning on doing a full report here. Dave has summed the experience up pretty well and there’s not much I can add really, other than to say how nice it was to meet him – the first TT’er that I’ve met in real life!
My day was a race of two halves. Had a great swim (for me) 1.05. I’d been pretty apprehensive before the swim on account of nearly suffering a panic attack in the practice swim on account of the cold. On the day itself I poured some warm water down the wetsuit before starting, wore earplugs and two hats and that really seemed to help. Would almost go so far as to say I enjoyed it. Was a bit surprised and daunted to feel the heat of the sun through my wetsuit in the final 20 mins. That set the tone for the rest of the day. Testament to how strong Dave’s swimming is that he can have a panic attack and still swim faster than me!
Bike course was great. I was smiling ear to ear pretty much the whole way around. Awesome scenery, easy climbs and rapid fast descents (they got pretty sketchy in the wind mind). I knew I had to be cautious of the heat and so deliberately rode easy – my lowest ever power and hr output for an IM bike. It was brutally hot but the breeze meant you only noticed it when going uphill.
Noticed a few cramps I my quads at the top of Snow Canyon about 100 miles in but didn’t give it much thought – I’d never had cramps before not in Kona and not in the blazing heat of Outlaw 2013. Found I couldn’t swing my leg over my bike when dismounting and then found I was barely able to walk in T2. Was a real struggle to get my shoes onto my now badly spasming legs. That was a real ‘oh shit moment’ and marked the turning point between it being a great day and an agonising one. Really wasn’t sure I’d be able to get round 26 miles at that point. Walked the whole of the first mile in agony before I managed to get shuffling. On the first lap I’d made a deal with myself to at least run/ hobble between the aid stations and I managed to do that till the steep decent back into town at the end of the first lap. By this time the downhills were more painful than the uphill’s and I was having to stop every 20m or so to try and deal with the cramps. He heat was insane – full cup of ice in the hat and one down the trisuit at each aid station and it would all melt before I reached the next one
The second lap was just survival. Still managed to shuffle up the uphills but had to walk the downs and by mile 21 the pain was so bad that I was totally unable to run at all and had to walk it in. Too painful even to run down the finish line. 5hrs for the marathon and a personal worst for me in terms of finish times.
Disappointing because I had plenty more to give I terms of fitness and cardiovascular effort – I just couldn’t get past the pain of the cramps. I’d taken a fair bit of salt in during the day but clearly not enough. There was a thick layer covering my trisuit and face by the end.
Agree with Dave that they know how to put on a great event in the States. St George itself isn’t really that big and most people tended to stay a bit out of town (including me) so I wasn’t actually in town that much which detracted from the kind of all-encompassing atmosphere that they had in Kona or even in Wales. The expo was pretty miniscule and very few of the big name brands were there and certainly weren’t using it as a platform to launch new stuff.
The big question ‘will it remain in Kona long term?’ remains unclear but what seemed to be 100% clear from what Messick was saying was that the St George race will be the last time the IM World Champs is a one day race. 2 days from now on like the 70.3. Whether Kona wants to accommodate a two day race every year will certainly factor into their decision but my impression was that they felt that St George went pretty well – I think it’ll give them confidence to take it elsewhere. At the welcome banquet there was a lot of symbolic stuff depicting the flame being passed from the indigenous Hawaiian islanders to the indigenous native Americans – a passing of the torch moment I would guess.
I had a great time in Utah – I met up with an old friend from the UK who lives I the States now (and who definitely doesn’t do triathlon) – we got to do Bryce Canyon (which was amazing), Zion, and some mountain biking. I suspect in years to come it’ll be those thigs I remember rather than my race.
I’m still registered for UK and Wales but had signed up for them before St George. Had wanted to transfer UK to (the now reopened Copenhagen) but Ironman wouldn’t allow it despite me having forked out about 7K to them in entry fees over the last 10 years. Just another thing which leaves me feeling like I’m coming to the end of my relationship with the IM brand if not the distance. Don’t mean to sound jaded - overall the St George experience was a great one– just think it’s time for something else.
To make thigs slightly worse, after arriving at Las Vegas airport 4hrs early and getting to the gate with 3 hrs to kill they paged me an hour before I was due to depart wanting me to go back to the ticketing lie which is a half mile walk a tram ride and a security line away – they wanted the keys for my bike box. Despite raising concerns about missing the flight they wouldn’t expedite me back through security. I missed the flight and my 20hr journey home is now gonna be more like 36!!! Stuck in CDG Paris as I write this. Perhaps should have left the dust to settle before writing this!..
Sorry to hear about your flight woes. When we got home from IM St George in 2011 we found notes from Las Vegas airport security in both bike boxes telling us that they’d searched them after we’d checked them in. My Scicon box had combination locks which they’d managed to open and Mrs W’s BikeBoxAllan had travel padlocks, which I guess they have master keys for
Great write up.
I always enjoy honesty like this 
Thing is, are you in crap part of CDG, or the nice part 🫣😂
Thanks for the reports, great stuff. Learnings filed for the 70.3 WC in October
Not an actual word.
Thanks 
Great write ups @chickenboy and @Mr-me
Always a pleasure seeing your training on Strava and tracking you on the day!
Sorry to hear about the woes on the return and the cramps, but generally sounds like you had a good time and as you say will look back at the other experiences in years to come and think it was good.
It will be interesting to see what happens about Kona longer term, the history is obviously there but we’ll need to see how the locals feel about a double race day every year and more athletes. I’m sure it will make a lot of money for some people but a big annoyance for others.
What time? I don’t want to listen to this for nearly 2 hrs
