Nah. Power of the crowd would have helped you make your Maurten move 
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Yep the long solo rides suck; hunched over tri bars on crap roads.
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When I was a bit more dedicated I did some 50/100 TTās to get used to the position and a few sportives to break things up and occasionally ride with people, the routes were often similar to Bolton.
But thereās very few of either left!
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I didnt do any over 75miles and they were all road bike. Probably why i always felt ok for a half and shit at 70miles every race!
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I must have overtaken @Mr-me at least twice where his bottles ejected in Bolton last year 
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Itās about time for me to sign off from this thread, but I thought Iād give a bit of a summary of my recent experience in Barcelona before I do. Disclaimer ā itās pretty long.
Many thanks to @gingerbongo @jeffb @buzz @FatPom @Adam for your comments and for following along on the tracker
This year was all about sub nine for me. Having come so close last year in Copenhagen (9.01), I made the decision to throw everything at it this year. The plan was to get the job done the second time around in Copenhagen in August but I entered Barcelona this time last year as a backup in case Copenhagen didnāt go to plan. As things turned out, I had the race of my life in Copenhagen (8.57). I briefly toyed with the idea of transferring my entry from Barcelona to Portugal. With sub nine ticked off I was less concerned about time and more interested in securing a slot for Nice 25 with an idea that the Nice WC would be the final Ironman of my career ā it would be number 20 and it would come exactly 10 years after I had raced in Kona. However, it quickly became clear that the cost of going to Portugal would be considerably more so in the end I stuck with Barcelona which came seven weeks after Copenhagen.
Iād had a good build leading into the race. After a week off following Copenhagen, I went straight back into another build followed by a week recovery and then another short build before going into the taper. Iād managed to avoid injury which is a massive win for me. Going into the taper I was relieved the season was coming to an end but felt pretty fit nevertheless.
I arrived there (very) late Thursday night and on Friday managed to register and have a splash around in the water. It was pretty warm and at one stage it looks like it might be a non-wet suit swim. It was also extremely choppy which would have made things pretty challenging on race day.
Thankfully, by the time race day arrived the water had apparently dropped sufficiently to be a wetsuit swim and on the morning itself the sea was not far off being a pond. Going Sub 9 in Barcelona seems to be very weather dependent. Back in 2019 Iād done 9.05. Conditions that day had been pretty good and lots went sub 9. However, looking at the results there have other years when none (in my AG) went sub 9. This year it seemed like we were going to have a good day weather wise and on the morning of the race I knew that it was potentially sub 9 conditions.
As always, I seeded myself at the back of the 60 minute group and after a rather too preachy speech from Paul Kaye. I hit the water just a few minutes after the first starters. The swim was pretty uneventful. I found it difficult to get into a good rhythm and difficult to find consistent feet. On the return leg I found myself caught in a group that was a bit too big for my liking. It was hard to find space and clear water. Having said that, I knew that I wasnāt going to be able to swim fast enough to bridge over to another group so in the end I settled down and spent the rest of the swim just trying to dodge the hands and feet of the others around me. Coming out of the water I saw 1.01 on my watch and knew another sub nine was now not beyond the realms of possibility.
The forecast for the day was for temperatures getting up to 26 and heading out on the bike it immediately started to feel warm. In 2019 I had absolutely hated the bike primarily because of the organised drafting. It had got me so wound up that Iād ran out of T2 in such anger that blew up my own race as a result. This time around I was determined to ride my own race as much as possible and not to get too wound up by the packs.
As it turned out it was massively better than 2019. I think I was also closer to the front end of the race this year which also helped. There were groups but for the most part they seem to be at least trying to make an effort to ride legally. At this point I was moving through the field so it wasnāt having too much of an impact on my race.
It was at the far end of the first loop that things got more difficult. I came up on the back of a massive pack of about 40 including some of the pro women who were definitely not riding legally. it was around the same time that a motorbike official pulled up alongside the group and handed out a few penalties. It was going to take a massive effort for me to get past this group and there was no way I was going to try and do that whilst the officials were there ā there was just too much of a risk I would get a penalty too. So for about 20 minutes I sat way off the back of the group, whilst the motorbike did a decent job of trying to break it up. With that having been achieved I now had to put an absolutely huge effort to get past the group and leave them behind. I was riding 300 watts for 10-15 minutes or so. Having left them behind I settled back into my own rhythm and was picking off the occasional rider in front of me. It was as we were heading back towards Barcelona that I saw some of the groups behind - some of them with about 40 riders and definitely not riding legally. I donāt think I left them left in any doubt as to what I thought about this.
I rode by myself for the second half of the first lap but after turning around I could see that the massive pack that I had made such an effort to drop were still together and not that far behind me. About five or 10 minutes later, they all came past me one by one and it was hard not to be disheartened knowing how many matches I spent tried to pass them the first time.
This time I let them go and try to settle back into my own rhythm but halfway through the second lap they were back in sight and I knew I was either going to have to sit behind them or make another effort to pass them. There were a couple of sections that took you off the main road in order to make up the distance and these generally went uphill on the way out and then downhill back to the main road. It was after one of these detours that I decided to go past the group again. As with the first time, it took another massive effort of around 300 W and this time I continued to push after passing them to make sure that they didnāt just sit on my wheel.
Whether these efforts were going to help or hinder in the long run I wasnāt sure but at least I was now riding solo again. At one point on the first loop my average speed had been up to 24.4mph but it was now down to 24 miles an hour and I was expecting it to drop slightly further before T2. Iāll never know how the Copenhagen course is faster than Barcelona. In Copenhagen the roads are less smooth, there are more hills, itās more technical and itās longer! As I arrived in T2. I could see that the bike was going to be short (probably about 2.5 to 3 miles which is crazy given that there were three out and back sections that they had used to make it the correct distance).
I came off the bike in 4.35 (5.39 total time)
T2 was pretty uneventful and as I stepped out onto the run course I was feeling pretty good and almost immediately I noticed that the heat that had been steadily rising on the bike was bow starting to plateau. There was a bit of cloud cover now too which made things considerably easier.
itās a three lap run course and itās slightly convoluted going back-and-forth on yourself several times albeit on different sections of road. I could see that Keith Murray (who I know of but donāt know well) was about five minutes behind me but I guessed that he had started further back. By the time we were onto the second loop, I could see that I was putting time into him and at this point at least I was still feeling good. I saw that @Adam had commented that I had gone through the halfway mark in 1.33. I can believe thatās true. My dad told me that at one point the tracker was estimating me to finish in a time of 8.45. There were numerous times in the first half where I tried to deliberately force myself to slow down. Iād been much better at this in Copenhagen but just wasnāt disciplined enough to do it in Barcelona. I kept telling myself that what felt easy now would feel very difficult later on, but the body wouldnāt listen until it had no choice. It was around the 15 mile mark that things definitely started to bite and the splits started to slip. I made a deal with myself that at the 18 mile mark I would allow myself to look at the overall time and then work out how close I was to sub nine. When 18 Miles arrived I saw that I was at seven hours 55 minutes. So as long as I was running under eight minute miles I knew I had it in the bag.
By this time I was really struggling and just focused on trying to hit 7.30 miles. I had a definite low patch at around the 18 mile mark but things started to come around again (with the help of Coke as always), after 20 miles. At the 22 mile mark I knew that unless something catastrophic happened sub nine was probably in the bag. One of the standout memories of the day was passing T2 for the final time before heading towards the finish line. As I came around the corner, there were two guys (athletes) on the verge of having a punch up. I donāt know what happened but there was some serious aggro. To make it more comical there was a guy just behind them emploring them to ācalm downā in a proper scouse accent - something that belonged in a comedy sketch.
My dad had come out to the race with me and heād been doing his best to navigate the Ironman tracker app. Iād seen him a couple of times on the first lap and he told me that I was in in fifth place. I saw him again on the final loop and he told me that I was still 5th with 4th about 11 seconds up the road. This was pretty motivating in terms of the effort required to maintain 7.30 miling.
As I came around to the finish for the final time (you run past it 4 times), I could see that I was pretty close to going under 8.55. I decided that Iād rather enjoy the finish line a than putting in a final last effort to get below that mark. I must have passed the guy who was in 4th at some point on that final loop but Iād not been aware of it at the time. In the end, I crossed the line in 4th place in the age group in a time of 8.5516.
I was surprised and buzzing not only to have managed another sub nine but to go faster than Copenhagen. Having said that, thereās no question in my mind that Copenhagen was a better performance from my point of view. The Copenhagen course was legitimate in terms of distance and I paced the run much better that day than I did in Barcelona. Although I went faster in Barcelona, itāll be Copenhagen that I think about in the future when I look back on my sub nine campaign.
The main objective had been a qualifying slot. Iād achieved that and I was interested to see what would happen at the rolldown the next day.
At the ceremony they did the womenās 2025 Kona slots first and there were very few slots that rolled for that. It was a different case when it came to the menās Nice slots. There were 10 slots for my AG and I was the first person in the age group to accept the slot. in the end the 10 slots rolled about 20th place. That being said, they didnāt get to the point in any of the age groups where they were having to ask if there was anyone in the room who wanted the slot.
Iāve been doing this Ironman thing for 12 years now and thereās no question that this has been by far and away my most successful year. Iāve been swimming consistently under 1.05 (apart from after Iād broken my ribs) for a while now and whilst the bike is definitely my strength I havenāt seen any major improvements there for quite some time. What has made the difference this year has been the run. In the past I was a 3.18 Ironman marathon runner. I think I ran 3.18 at about five or six different races. When youāre not swimming under the hour and you add on transitions that makes sub 9 almost impossible. Iād manage to avoid running injuries for the most part this year and I think this really helped bring that marathon time down to a level at which sub nine became a possibility. My capacity to tolerate carbs on the bike (16 scoops of tailwind and x3 Ph caffeine gels ā thatās 106 grams per hour) has also been a game changer.
I think I mentioned in the Copenhagen race report that Iāve actually done much less in terms of training hours this last year. Although I think that this has been key to keeping me injury free I do think that the previous 12 years of big training have probably helped in terms of building that endurance base.
Looking ahead to next year thereās not much else I want to do. I ran a marathon Pb in February this year in Seville going 2.49. For a long time Iāve had ambitions of going sub 2.45 and that is pretty much my last time based athletic goal. Iām going to give that another go in London next year.
After that Iām going to do Ironman Leeds. A bunch of my training buddies are doing this and I didnāt want to miss out. Also, with it being a fairly local race itās logistically and financially much easier than going abroad which is useful given that Iāll be heading to Nice in September. It was several years ago that I let go of the dream of returning to Kona. Iām really looking forward to Nice (particularly the bike course) but I think that in order to really enjoy it I need to find a way of going there without trying to compare it with Kona.
Thereās a bit of a question mark for me post Nice. This Ironman business is basically the way in which I cope with an emotionally demanding and often pretty unrewarding job (child Psychotherapy). If I really am going to give up Ironman after Nice Iām going to need to make some pretty significant changes in my life. Without Ironman, Iāll need to find another means of alleviating stress that is as successful and efficient as Ironman is or otherwise Iām going to need to find a new job. These are pretty big questions that Iām going to be grappling with over the next year or so. Apart from anything else Iāve also really enjoyed the process of getting good at Ironman and itās hard to contemplate the possibility of giving up something that Iām good at when I donāt have to or need to. Itās more that I think that I should give it up.
Either way, neither Leeds or Nice are sub nine courses so for me this is probably the end of the line on this thread. Iāll be hoping that people who visit here in the future might take some motivation or inspiration from this to help them believe that sub 9 is a realistic game. As I said in my Copenhagen report, Iām not a naturally gifted athlete at all. Iāve just been taking it seriously enough and doing it long enough to allow it to slowly become a realistic possibility for me - and at the age of 47 thatās not bad.
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Excellent report - well done!
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Loved reading that & the insights about what motivates / has motivated you along the journey
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Brilliant read, and an absolutely brilliant season 
love to hear what youāve put in, and that idea that itās performance rather than time that matters despite how much youāve chased sub-9
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Great report and race, was hoping youād write something 
Even in M45 I was surprised about 10 slots but I guess the fact the ladies are separate now helps. I did see Keith swimming earlier in the week but didnāt get chance to ask. Iām fairly sure heāll have taken a slot.
Donāt worry about finding new targets, weāll introduce you to the trail and ultra thread and you can try a couple of them 
By that time youāll be eligible for the over 50ās thread where life begins! You can then learn about bike touring and other ways to break yourself while calculating your pension
BTW get out on the hills in Northumberland before Nice, you arenāt going to get the really long climb and descent but some reps on the ryals should help
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Greta result. Great write up.
As Jeff said. Itās allllll about the trail ultras now!
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Great write up and race @Mr-me, well done
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Brilliant read and totally inspiring. 
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Loved it, thanks for sharing!
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Well done again @Mr-me & a super report, thanks for sharing with us. Good luck with the 2:45 mara & will be looking forward to tracking you in Nice.
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the part about not going back to Kona? 
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A great report - thanks for sharing , and well done !!
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Congratulations @Mr-me that was an enjoyable read. Looking forward to reading about next year and beyond
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I have admired your approach to IM and the write up is the essential guide to good racing. I cannot wait to see how Nice turns out for you next year.
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Well done (again)!
Good man
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