I’ve left it a couple of weeks to scribe this one, I’ve come over all a bit bipolar regarding my thoughts on the race, in the venerable words of the Post-Punk-Pop Uber Meisters, one minute ‘I’m layin’ in the afterglow’ and the next ‘all that I choose has come unbearable’. It’s easy to explain this dichotomy. Any Ironman finish is a good finish. These things are genuinely frigging hard, and every finish will come with its moments of absolute triumph and its moments of absolute despair, but when you cross that finish line, both of those extremes become golden. I’m not sure any of the others I’ve done over the last 10 years have quite taken me to the extremes that this race did, perhaps the 2015 European Long-Distance Championships in Weymouth, but that’s it. On the other hand, I fell apart very badly on the marathon, calamitous would be a good word, even spectators were wincing, I guess it was a bit like looking at an impending car crash, you don’t want to look but you can’t take your eyes off it! Or perhaps that was just my tri-suit.

Anyhow, this race really started on January 1 2019, nine and bit months before the mad dash into the Mediterranean Sea off Calella beach on race morning… No question this was the best race preparation I’ve had. In the final 16 weeks prior to race week, I’d averaged over 10km per week swimming, and I’d ridden beyond 150km on eight occasions, four of which were at race output (204 watts average). In addition, I’d run for 1.30–1.40 hours directly off rides of 4 hours, again at race watts output, on three occasions. Those runs were all at a 3.30-hour marathon pace, and I felt very comfortable doing them. I’d also run beyond 2 hours eight times… You get the picture, I had prepared to go a lot quicker than I did, and my race plan wasn’t pie in the sky, I was doing the numbers… But as Iron Mike Tyson once said, ‘everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face’ –  and oh did I get a right good seeing to!

With the Barcelona race being so late in the season, it gives us what is quite a leisurely start time, waiting for the sun rise, the race gets underway at 8.10 am with the last age-group athletes starting their swim around 9 am. The upside here is the almost civilised breakfast start of 5 am. I didn’t sleep great; I rarely do before these things. The best description I can give on that is from the moment I get in bed, I just feel wired, swim 3.8km, bike 180km, and run 42.2km is a massive undertaking, and despite having done a bucket of these, it still freaks me out. As well as not sleeping great when I woke up, I was soaking wet I’d sweated up something chronic, I felt ok, not sick, but it wasn’t great prep for the long day ahead… as well as the breakfast feeding frenzy I was conscious of making sure I was reasonably hydrated and I’d got some confidence in my electrolyte levels… Right, finally on to the race!

Swim 3.8km

One of the many good things about this race is that they let you into the water before the start and only ask you to come out 5 minutes before race start, I like this, you don’t spend time poaching in your wetsuit you can get acclimated to the temperature, a beautiful 21°c as it happens, and you can turn your arms over for a few strokes to be better ready. The swim pens started at 50 minutes, all I could see was a couple of dolphins and a seal in there, it wasn’t busy, plenty of space… the pens then went all the way back to 2 hours 10 minutes, that’s a long day out! I put myself at the front of the 70-minute pen, as you could probably guess, it was really freakin busy in there!!

I love the new swim start system five into the water at a time through turnstile gates each five separated by a start siren every three seconds… very civilised, until we get about 50m out into the sea then we just start battering the fuck out of each other with every man woman and knob head angling for the same line into the first buoy a 90 degree right hand turn 300m out, it was carnage but then again when you’ve got an Ironman race with 3,500 starters what else. We then had a long straight of 1,300m or so before another couple of short turns and commencing another long straight, and the swim towards exit and transition 1. The carnage didn’t really subside down that first long straight, goggles knocked off once, a heel in the face, a couple of clacks over the back of my head, the type my Mum used to give me. In fairness threw a couple of right jabs and I recognised that one of them connected, and despite being battered continually, I felt immediately guilty. The poor guy stopped and looked at me as if to say WTF have I done! Despite the bedlam I felt like I was turning my arms over quite nicely and the strokes of those around me looked quite reasonable so I guessed I was going ok… thankfully after another couple of turns and commencing the second long straight things thinned out a bit and I got in with a small pod of four or five and was having to work really hard to even stay on the back, this was really good news… I’d guessed I’d swum ok and this was confirmed on exiting in 70 mins for a swim that my Garmin measured at 3,920m. Pretty happy with that…

Onto Transition 1. This is a big transition 3,500 bikes racked on a 4G artificial football pitch, and to be honest I’m the sort of bloke that could get lost in his own house, so I was bloody delighted to have the low AWA bib# 376 this meant that my bike wouldn’t be lost in the middle of it and difficult to find it would probably be easy to locate and one end or the other, that proved to be true I had the last rack slot on the second row, plenty of space and easy to get in and out. Whilst I’m being honest, I’m generally pretty shit at transition and I’m generally guilty of not practising and not thinking about it enough, so it came as a surprise when I was in, changed and out in a little over 4 minutes, that is pretty stellar for me on a transition that big, so that big, so all good there.

Bike 180.2km

This is where I go proper techie and also dispel some myths that surround that Ironman Barcelona bike course… other than waking up soaked in sweat, this is probably where my problem started. I’d been preparing to ride for 5 hours at 205 watts with the vast majority of that time in aero, and I was really dialled into that, 205 watts would mean that I’d be riding at an intensity factor of .75, this is a solid benchmark for a ride of that duration and should mean that the exertion level was just right to maximise my race opportunity and not have me burning too many matches on the bike. As an aside, when I added my personal data and equipment info to the BestBikeSplit Portal, and the prevailing weather conditions were factored in, BBS estimated my bike split at 5:04.30. I rode 5:04.59, more affirmation to my mind that when I hit T2, I’d pretty much nailed the ride. As it turned out, not only was I probably burning those matches, I was having a bloody bonfire! Here’s the problem, there’s a lot of people on that bike course and groups form so you are constantly surging or backing off to avoid drafting (cheating) in effect the ride turned into an interval session, looking at the variability index of power output on my ride following the race, this number was very close to that of Ironman Wales, I’d never of guessed that, in effect I’d been preparing for the wrong f*cking race this as it turned out was very energy sapping. What I would say is that it didn’t stop it from being fun, it was an amazing ride, and IMHO brilliantly well marshalled. I got caught up in very large groups twice, once about 60km in and once about 130km in. On both occasions, the ‘peloton’ was very quickly joined by two motorcycle Marshalls, one midway along the group and one at the back. They would point you out individually and give you a very clear instruction to move forward immediately or sit up and back off; If you did this, they would smile and give you the thumbs up. So, no problem, if you didn’t, they would warn you; if you still didn’t comply, they’d issue a penalty. I see it like this: if you were issued a penalty or disqualified, you absolutely deserved it, and you were cheating; bad luck was not involved. This was a brilliantly marshalled ride. Coming to the end, I tired over the last 20km, I shouldn’t have, but that interval session had taken its toll. That said, that’s an Ironman bike personal best of 5:04.59, and I was more than happy with that! All in all, it’s a good track, gently rolling up and down rather than pan-flat, but that tarmac is just mint, very smooth.

Into T2 with no stressing about finding my spot and depositing my steed… another super-slick 4min transition which I’m really happy with, only my mood wasn’t a positive as it was in T1, I felt tired and that concerned me! But I’ve felt like that before and ran through to deliver a decent marathon, so I hadn’t given up on it just yet.

Run 42.2km

The moment I started, I felt tight in my quads. It was uncomfortable, but on clicking through the first couple of km, I was running ok from a time perspective, and I was crossing everything that things would improve and I’d start to feel better. Alas, that wasn’t to be. In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. It started to get calamitous at about 13km, the said quads that had been tight from the off had now started to cramp, spasm call it what you will high on my right hand side, I stopped briefly to stretch it out and as I did that my right hammie went into spasm, it was comedy gold, and I pretty much knew at that moment that I’d blown any chance of a decent finish, I walked a short while and it subsided, so I started to jog again, after about 3–4 minutes of running I could feel the cramp building again so I’d walk for about a minute and it would subside… this was the pattern for the next 3 and bit hours, it was torturous not in terms of the discomfort in terms of the mental turmoil, all those hours of training, the early starts, the exhaustion week in week out, and for what my race had gone… This is the misery I was faced with and the demon that tormented me for a very long walk/jog, the crowd were amazing and provided momentary but frequent respite from the torment. I shall never forget being chased by a Leprechaun wielding an inflatable hammer. As I got to 38km I was cognisant enough to do some maths and realised that my walk breaks weren’t an option if I was going to break 11 hours… my immediate thought was shit I don’t think that’s possible but I desperately needed to try to get something out of this race… sure enough by 39km I was pretty much limping, carrying that right leg and hoping that the spasms wouldn’t become too severe… what I did notice here is the crowd were urging everyone on shouting their support in a multitude of languages except when they saw me, they just winced and covered their childrens’ eyes, I must’ve looked like a bag of shit. But now I could hear very clearly the finish line commentary, and I absolutely did not give a damn about what I looked like… getting to the finish line in 10:59.30, hobbling my way to a 4:34 marathon. I felt very punch drunk and had a myriad of semi-rational thoughts on this relative failure. I don’t know whether I got close to pulling the plug on this one, I’d like to think not but I do know at the darkest moment when I was running out through the transition area on my last of three laps but still running away from the finish with I guess about 11–12km to go I could see people still coming into T2 with their bikes not just one or two of them but lots!! I thought WTF!!! I have absolutely no right to quit on this; their day hadn’t started to get interesting yet. My final thought is that it was a very embarrassing marathon. I basically limped, hopped and walked 42.2km, and it took me 4:34 hours… How the f*ck does it take people 6–8 hours to complete the London Marathon and other marathons? I have no idea, they must stop at cake shops or a Costa or stop to listen to the countless bands… It’s beyond me.

So that’s it, despite the torture, I have a lot of fondness for my day in Calella and have no regrets with punting big and coming up short, there’s nothing worse in life than aiming low and missing, so if you’re gonna fuck up, punt big… I also think I was pretty close. I know that makes me sound like a Monty Python Knight, “come on, it’s only a flesh wound, I bite your ankles off”, but it’s true, or at least I need to keep telling myself that.

Next year I’m going back, but I’ll have gone a few rounds with the Dragon in Tenby at Ironman Wales just four weeks before… now that’s therapy for this disappointment.