Does that not have the potential of āblockingā a lot of spots for people who didnāt enter this year? Not that Iām going back you understand!
Yes, completely agree. Will be interesting to see how many 2019 entrants will go back
Itās usually a ārepeat offendersā affair this one.
Iāll be there.
Iāve still too many things yet to learn to risk a Euro race.
Iām taking a three month sabbatical in 30 months time, so a Euro race will coincide nicely with that.
Itās too near IMUK ā¦
this year doesnāt put me off though
One of those thingsā¦!
Yeah totally. I canāt really see what else they could of done.
The DOMS in my quads atm are making me think twice 
Iām fairly certain Iāll be back just need to chat with my wife
Kinda feel like I have unfinished business there now
My mates going back he saidā¦
Those puddles looked bigā¦!
Thereās a few vids but tri talk wonāt load themā¦?!
I could hardly walk on the Mondayā¦ woke up weds as if nothing had happenedā¦?!
Strangeā¦
I really get the unfinished but, Iām going to do IMUK again and try and find a faster full that doesnāt clash ā¦
Stick at it!
What do you need to learn, the local language? 
You canāt control the weather, so Iām not sure what risks there are; the only issue I can think of is monetary investment, but thereās nothing to learn there.
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How to swim a sub 60 easily again.
Those 65-70 minute swimmers are an aggressive bunch!!! Itās far more relaxed and less congested out in front. -
To not get wind during the swim. Deflatine/Wind-Ease has helped with this, but the bloating affects my ability to stomach anything for the first 30 minutes on the bikeā¦
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ā¦how to fuel well/properly on the bike. And run.
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How to pace the bike. BBS power course should help with this, but I also need to use that in training
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Time to improve my FTP to near 4W/kg. Allowing a far easier bike effort to produce a nice run.
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How to run a nice IM marathon. After five of these, youād think Iād know by now! My pacing is abysmal.
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How to enjoy myself during the training and event itself.
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create a more symbiotic relationship between work-home-exercise.
I could be in Dublin/Edinburgh/London working next year, so thereās also the spectre of that hanging over me.
Then I fear your search for the golden unicorn means you will probably never adventure aboard 
Why do you need to have perfected all of those things before you do an IM branded event?
Iād argue your issue with the first point is solved by rolling starts (I find a local sprint start with 100 people in a wave more chaotic than a 2,500 participant IM swim now), and on 7, I think a destination race provides the motivation by itself.
Itās the same dilemma Iām going through. The stress of signing up to a fast Euro race where the internal pressure will be on to go fast, or just do IMUK and challenge myself by going well outside my comfort zone with the climbing. The problem is itās Bolton, and a domestic race is just not as motivationally inspiring.
@Poet Like you, up until last weekend I had only ever done UK non-branded events. While IMCH didnāt work out for me, Iām itching to go back. The Ironman branded experience was awesome and I loved the international flavour and the athletes from all over the world. Thereās always a risk that the day wonāt pan out and you canāt control everything. Anyway, Mrs Wheezy really wants to head off to Copenhagen next summer, so thatās where weāll be going for me to get this IM monkey off my back. 
Ah we have more in common than I thought! 
Itās not about an IM branded event.
I donāt give two hoots about that.
Itās the fast course.
If the Lakesman was anywhere near accurate, Iād have entered that for next year already.
UK race: Drive there on Saturday, drive back on Sunday. Four days unpaid leave for century rides = 1.6% drop in income.
EU race: Drive/fly home from work on a weds, pack and fly Thus, fri-sat-sun-mon abroad, fly back Monday, unpack and see family Tuesday, fly/drive back to work 5am Wednesday.
6 days unpaid leave + 4 for the century rides = 4% drop in income.
Why unpaid leave? Because my leave is spent with my family, or going on actual holidays, or weddings, or home improvements.
Why not ride on the weekend? I enjoy Saturdays as a rest day and always have. Even riding on a Sunday at 6am isnāt for me. Getting back at 11am, after a quick brick and shower, youāre still looking at 1pm before youāre ready to do anything else.
Itās quite unfair on the family to expect them to wait around for you until then. Plus, I do actually want to do stuff at weekends with them, other than ride my bike.
I think we forget the sacrifices we expect our families to make for us, sometime without delving enough for their honest opinions.
If Iām asking my family to accept a 4% drop in my income, plus time away, plus the race and associates feesā¦I want to be sure that I can go under ten hours and be done with it.
I ran through that bit and splashed all the supporters on the car park 
FWIW: I really did enjoy myself on Sunday. Meeting @adam @pacha and seeing some old faces once more was brilliant. But just the total lack of pressure for a performance was light relief, too.
RE: Rolling swim starts - Iāve also read the opposite. From where folks scared of missing the concrete bike cut off, self seed higher up. Plus, I can realistically top 20 at Outlaw (on a good day), so itās nice to be able to actually sort of slightly āraceā the run
2010, 2011 and 2012 I didnāt experience a swim like that. Sunday was comparable to London Worlds 2013.
I need to get back to doing the first 200 in <2:45, then another 200m of position jostling, then finding some feet and settling in. Some nice 3km sets with 200m TTs thrown in should get me back used to that.
How much out is lakesmanā¦!?
Itās only a couple of kmsā¦?!
Your post makes me realise how much free time I haveā¦
IMUK is the answerā¦
But that would depend on the question
Bike was short by 4km, due to unexpected coastal erosion. So thatās fine. Nothing can be done about that.
A club mate clocked the run at 39.2km.
Others around him had up to 40km.
However, I wasnāt there, so donāt know.
But, seeing that has made me wary of entering it.
The same with Boltonās notoriously short old run course.
You canāt avoid last minute course changes for safety on the bike (Lakesman 2019 and Bolton 2018)
But for a looped, out and back run course to be short is nuts.
Couldnāt they add a bit onā¦
I m not bothered about branded, Kona or all that jazz but I want to do a fast ish full distance race while I still can ā¦!
IMUK is really not my type of bike course, thereās so much Iām loosing downhill, but I know 15-20 who are doing it next year, and double that ā cyber tri friendsā who are in for 2020ā¦!
So it becomes a proper ā raceā ā smack downā
I had no disasters but it didnāt go well in any dept either the effortless 1:10 swim was a nice surprise ā¦
Thereās rumours of changing the bike, and extending the cut off ā¦
They should certainly do the latter.
Just been told thereās 1000 in already ā¦?!
But thatās unconfirmed
Well thatās your problem. I donāt think youāre going to get a āfast courseā in this country because of the roads. Sure, with training you can still go sub10, but the course itself isnāt going to contribute to getting you past that threshold.
Do you work away from home? Seems so with the ādrive back to work bitsā. That obviously complicates stuff if youāre not at home generally anyway, so I see the motivation of not eating into family time at weekends.
I still think youāre making more of the travel aspect than there needs to be. At Elsinore, one of the guys I was on the train with was flying home the evening of the race. OK, thatās not possible for a full distance, but for a Sunday long course race in Europe, you can easily be home by lunchtime Monday. I had my bike box packed after Copenhagen by about 8pm the night of the race.
Ultimately, everyoneās life is different, so Iām not going to tell you what to do or what is appropriate for you. But I do find the necessity to take unpaid leave a bit strange. Everyone I know, single, married, kids, the lot, has time to do their āown thingā for a few holiday days each year. Now what you choose to do with those days is up to you of course, but taking a Friday and Monday for annual leave isnāt unreasonable for anyone I know.
Iām on a lads golf weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun) next weekend. Weāre doing it in the UK this year because one of the guys had just had his second child. Weāve normally done 3-4 days in Europe. Iām the only one of the group not married or engaged, and at four of them have very young children.
Itās all about priorities of course, and everyone is different. And if a long course race is lower down the pecking order than family stuff (or diy?!), then thatās no problem whatsoever! Iām just saying a Euro race doesnāt have to be more than 1 extra day off than a domestic race.
Iām with @Poet . With school holiday cover, family holidays and the fact if i ever take a day off i end up with a job list that would take a british builder a month to complete even a day or two out of annual leave for āmeā is impossible.