Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire

IronmanUK announced that they were going to out on a new 70.3 event in Staffordshire, demand was expected to be high but I was not that interested in doing another Half Ironman at the time so didn’t bother.  Dave did and managed to get a place in the event, demand was indeed high and it sold out in an amazingly quick time.

 

I now felt a bit like I actually wouldn’t have minded giving it a go but too late all places had gone. I mentioned to Jennie that we should enter a relay team when they opened entries for that, she enjoys the swimming! So we did and it was set, Jennie would Swim, I would Cycle and she would Run.

 

We travelled up early on the Saturday as registration was due to close by 13.00 on Saturday, on arrival at Shugboroughtraffic was quite bad getting in the car park but eventually we were in and made our way to registration.  Dave an Jennie were a bit behind us but we spoke to them just before 11 and they were in the queue to get into the car park. 40 minutes later they arrived at registration.

 

Registration was painfully slow, in the massive tent about ¾ of it was given over to trying to sell stuff and the final ¼ at the far end was where registration had been squeezed in. When we got to register various comments were made about not enough athlete rucksacks being provided for all competitors, bit of an oversight, they knew ages ago how many had entered!

 

We just about made it to the briefing, which was about twice as long as it needed to be, I really could have done without listening to the presenter talking africaans to the 3 South Africans in the tent. They started off by stating that they had not expected the majority of people to register on the Saturday, my reaction “Why not?” I would have expected the majority to come down on the Saturday, a lot of people work on Fridays and would not have taken the day off.

 

Logistically it was always going to be a nightmare, one single track road into Shugborough and no vehicle access to Chasewater where T1 was. So we all had to walk over a mile with Bikes and Bike gear bag to be racked and then back to cars to make our way to the hotel.

 

The following morning we were up at 3.30 to drive to Shugborough to get the shuttlebus back to Chasewater due to no parking at the start, unless your name was Gordon Ramsey and then you could park your Range Rover right next to T1!

 

Having checked the bikes we then had several hours to wait until the start, there was very little undercover areas for the athletes to wait, indeed we ended up sitting on the floor in one of the buildings.

 

Dave was first of our group to start followed by Nicky and finally it was Jennie’s turn along with the other relay swimmers. We saw them all off into the pen and then made our way back to transition so that I could take the baton from Jennie when she had completed the swim.

 

Jennie then had to get to Shugborough in time to take the baton back and complete the run, this wasn’t going to be a problem as there were shuttle buses laid on. Apparently there were very few buses and most of the relay athletes were getting worried that they would not get back there in time,they were all moved to the front of the queue and on the first bus available. Amanda had to wait over an hour for the next bus and just about managed to get to Shugborough about the same time I did! Fortunately Jennie was in transition waiting for me but had only got there about half hour before me.

 

I then went to cheer the others on from the Relay meeting point an when Jennie came round for the 3rd time joined her on the final run into the finish, then it was off to wait for Dave to come round to finish, having cheered him home I collected my bike from transition and joined the queue to exit Shugborough, about an hour later we were on the road home.

 

I must thank all the Volunteers and Marshals that looked after us on the day, they are amazing and deserve all the thanks we can give them. As for doing another IM event I think I will steer clear and go for the other non IM branded events, it seems that IM has become too commercialised and less about the athletes.

Tour of Cambridgeshire

When I saw the Tour of Cambridgeshire advertised I thought it would be a nice event to ride and it had a few personal connections.

The event started and finished in Peterborough which is the place I was born. Sue Ryder were the charity connected to the event and they have a hospice at Thorpe Hall, this used to be a hospital and was where I was actually born!

So I had entered the event and now I had to actually ride it! I left home about 6 am and drove to the arena, arriving about 8.30 which seemed a good time to register. The queues were non existent and it was straight through very easy.

The only issue was that when I entered one question was if you had a licence, now I checked a few times to see if there was any reference to Full or Provisional, not having found anything I duly answered Yes due to the fact I have a provisional licence.

I obviously wasn't the only person to get this question wrong as the other 2 people registering at the same time as me were also informed we couldn't go on the racing pen.

Anyway having registered I returned to the car and rested prior to heading to the start pen. I joined the back of the queue for Pen 2 at 10.30 and already there were plenty of people in front.

The event didn't start until 12 so there was quite a bit of waiting in the Pen but when I looked back I was glad I had joined the queue when I did.

When we started off it didn't take too long to get going and we were out on the closed roads. Interestingly most of the riders stayed over to the left of the centre line leaving the right hand side of the road quite empty!

I rolled along initially next to the A5 Rangers who had quite a group together, before stretching my legs and passing quite a number of people. About 7 miles later a blue train of A5 Rangers came steaming past!

I spent most of the ride leapfrogging various riders sometimes not realising they had come past me again, I think my speed stayed fairly constant but others around me seemed to jump on wheels for a bit before dropping back.

About 50 miles my computer stopped working so I had no idea how far we had gone or how much further to the finish, so I just had to keep going until I saw some landmarks I recognised.

At one point I was at the back of a small group traveling along at a fair pace and something happens just in front and 2 of the riders hit the road quite hard. I just managed to miss the young lady in the middle of the road.

All of the group stopped to help out I put myself and bike in front of the lady on the floor to guide the oncoming riders around her whilst her friends helped her.

Once her and the other rider were on the side of the road and out of danger the other people with them said they were ok and thanked me for stopping, so I was on my way again.

I was still unsure how far was left to the finish so just had to keep going, eventually as we turned a corner the marshals were shouting encouragement including the fact that there was only 2.5 miles to go!

As we came back into the arena my legs found enough strength to sprint a bit, well it felt like it to me anyway.

So there it was I had finished the Tour of Cambridgeshire!

Thanks must go to all those involved in the organisation of the event, the people out around the course cheering us all on and the various councils for allowing the event to take place on closed roads.

Yes there were things that could have been done differently on the organisation front but it was the first time this type of event had been run in UK. The organisers have said they will take on board all feedback, not that there was much improvement needed.