2024 Mash Up
2024 left me gobsmacked. So many things I’ve always wanted to do, a bucket list of joy and so devastatingly interrupted by the passing of my Uncle Phil. I needed sport more than ever to keep me going.
Sitting around doing nothing is not a good way to recover from loss.
Not for me, anyway.
I trained in #lanzarote and #mallorca , climbed #sacalobra (again) completed my first #ironman 70.3 in Venice (when sick!) raced #annecy #triathlon olympic distance, went paragliding over #lakeannecy climbed #alpedhuez for real, learned to fly a drone @djiglobal sea kayaked the length of #menorca camping on sandy beaches with just the best people @muchbetteradventures raced Weymouth 10k, circumnavigated #portland by kayak with @channeleventsuk and saw a dolphin, learned to roll my kayak (work in progress) Dived with #lundy seals and bought some shares in racehorses!! I don’t think I’ve been caving or cave diving once, but there is more to life and I’ll get back to it when the mood takes me.
People keep trying to get me to slow down. Why would you do that? I like my life how it is. Why would I want to slow down? Life is too short, so make the best of it now. It’s not a dress rehearsal....
Ironwoman Part 3
I felt fit, but my lungs had other ideas.
The lady marshall held her arms out to create a barrier for my group of 6. Every time an athlete ran into the water her shoulders got hit as they barged past her. She just smiled and propped herself back up for the next 6.
I mouthed ‘Thank you’ – these volunteers do an amazing job and have a very long day. She smiled and gave me a fist bump before the count down.
3…2…1…
She lowered her arms and I trotted off down the sandy beach into the sea. As soon as it got to hip height, I started to swim.
The water thankfully wasn’t cold enough to take your breath away and I settled in steadily towards the first buoy.
Well, I was off.
I tried to find a reliable strong swimmer to draft but honestly, it was carnage. Most people in my pen couldn’t actually swim very well. One guy was doing backstroke which apparently is legal – but because he couldn’t see where he was going, he zigzagged all over the place, going just fast enough that I couldn’t get past him.
Another woman kept stopping every couple of minutes to ‘meerkat’ and doggy paddle then set off again, carving everyone else behind her up. As the swimmers got more strung out, I found some feet to follow but they didn’t stay straight, and it was more of a hindrance than a help.
I decided to stay wide at the final few buoys as the ones who couldn’t swim decided to use the buoys as a safety float and there was some significant congestion to go around.
Despite this, I found some free water and concentrated on having a clean exit.
The guys at Channel Events who had got me started in sea swimming, advised that as soon as your fingers touch the sand, it’s time to stand up.
I waited for that first touch of the sand then got up to waddle out of the sea. 44 minutes. Considering I was trying not to get out of breath and start coughing, I was happy with that. I was well inside the swim cut off too.
Swim exit. One job done.
Deciding that playing it safe was the order of the day, I walked to transition as did many others. I took off my goggles, swim hat, ear plugs and unzipped my wetsuit as I went.
So far so good.
I went straight to my blue bag and kicked off my wetsuit. Grabbing a towel I tried to dab my feet dry and pulled on my cycling socks, pre-loaded with talcum powder to make them easier to get on.
Cycling gear on, I stuffed my swimming gear back into the blue bag and shovelled down half a sandwich and stuffed some goodies in my jersey pocket. I trotted off to find my bike.
“Lane C, just past the parking sign on the right”. I found Orro and popped my bike computer on before wheeling her to the mount line. I was delighted to see others taking their time and not running. I’d learned my lesson about getting out of breath in T1 at the start of the bike. I wouldn’t let that happen again.
I hopped onto Orro and set off, starting the eating and drinking early. My plan was a 3-hour bike. This would leave me lots of time in the bank for the run, which I already knew would be a disaster.
I tried to reach 30kmph without getting out of breath and trying to keep my heart rate down. I rested on my tri bars and tried to settle down. The first 3rd went well and was quite quick. I soon found that any time I tried to put any power down my lungs protested.
As the bike went on, I just felt weaker and weaker as whatever I had started to really get hold of me.
Despite this, I didn’t stop until my planned wee stop at the final aid station which had porta loos likely to be less busy than transition.
I pulled in and the marshalls held my bike while I sorted myself out. My legs felt like jelly and I still had 20km of cycling and a half marathon to go!
I had timed my fluids so that I had just one small water bottle remaining. This was to save some weight in the last 20km. When I came out of the porta loo, a young volunteer with a big grin informed me he’d filled all my water bottles.
Bless him.
I thanked him, got back on the bike and when I was out of sight, poured 3 of them away. He meant well.
The last 20km was on rough tarmac and into a headwind. Drafting isn’t allowed on the bike part of a triathlon and getting too close to another competitor can lead to a disqualification. So, we sat and suffered, taking the full brunt of the wind. I started to flag but kept the peddles turning and concentrated on saving my legs as much as I could for the run.
I got off Orro at the dismount line and thanks to my recent loo stop, my legs weren’t too bad. My 3-hour bike was 3 hours 38. It was a 90km personal best for me, but I was fuming. On any other day I’d have smashed 3 hours.
I racked Orro in disgust and set off to my red bag. Helmet off, jersey off, cycling shoes off. I changed into running socks which was a good plan as I didn’t have a single blister afterwards. Trainers on, sun visor on, shades back on. I always leave my cycling gloves on to make wiping my nose easier!
Cycling gear got stuffed back into the blue bag and I put on my camelback which had some nutrition and was part filled with water.
This turned out to be a godsend. The sun was out and it was getting quite hot. The aid stations only offered small cups of water and cola. The ability to swig off my camelback whenever I wanted was a huge comfort.
My plan of running 07:30 minutes, walk 03:30 minutes went out of the window pretty early on. My lungs and throat were audibly wheezing and if I even began to get out of breath, the coughing started.
This was damage limitation now. My 7 hours was gone. I just had to finish and even that was looking necky at one stage.
I jogged when I could and walked when I couldn’t.
The run was three laps and psychologically this was awful. As time went on, more and more people finished and just assumed I was on my final lap. One guy shouted “Come on, only 2km to go”. Bless him. He was completely unaware that I actually had another 9km to go!!
The assumption must have been that I was just fat and slow. Nobody knew I was sick as well!
It was the worst feeling in the world.
As I passed the car park for the final time with 7km remaining ahead of me, I did consider just walking to the car and driving home in disgust.
It took all the strength I had to keep going in just an attempt to finish. I jogged when I could and walked when I couldn’t – and repeat.
I kept an eye on the clock and made sure I was always in a position to finish within the cut off time of 8 hours 30 minutes. Beyond that, I would be listed as ‘DNF’ or ‘Did Not Finish’.
Over my dead body was I going to do all that, only to be listed as not finishing!
I jogged when I could, walked when I couldn’t….
I was really starting to feel quite ill.
Pain is only temporary.
You only have to do this once.
I started to worry about getting back to the car and the hotel. I didn’t think I’d be able to collect my bike. Would they sell it if I didn’t go and get it? Could I afford another Orro if I just left it there? It would save packing it for the flight home…
If only my ‘friend’ who said she’d come and support me had actually turned up. If only my family cared. If only my Uncle was still here…
Thoughts whirred around in my head and I tried to block out the comments from people as I passed them. They had no clue.
The finish was in sight. I was going to make it, albeit my aim to have a 7 in front of my finish time had gone. But only just.
As I turned into the red carpet, I managed a jog. The finish line marshalls were amazing and I ran through a Mexican wave of arms and lots of cheering.
The tears came immediately, and they kindly waited for me to gather myself before presenting me with my medal.
People I didn’t even know came up to say well done and all the way back, during my VERY slow walk back to transition to collect Orro, people high fived and clapped.
Now I was barely able to speak. My voice was hoarse and my cough worsened.
I loaded the car which was trashed and drove the 10 minutes back to the hotel.
On arrival they had already reserved me a table and I feasted on all my favourite things hurriedly, before I could no longer taste them.
Scallops, steak and champagne later, I was ready to turn in.
The next morning was like the black death in my room. I wouldn’t let the cleaner in in case she caught whatever I had, so she just posted boxes of tissues through the door and said to call if I needed anything.
Hotel Atlantico, Jesolo are just the best.
I desperately wanted to look round Venice so after some rest and when my cough had cleared up, I headed to the water taxi stop.
Venice was even more incredible than I imagined, and I couldn’t have picked a better venue for my first Ironman.
Almost 3 weeks on, I’m back into training but my lungs are still struggling and I feel weak. With Annecy Olympic distance triathlon (half a half Ironman) looming, I’m desperate to maintain and even increase my fitness, but it will be one day at a time.
I cannot thank those people – they know who they are – for taking time out of their personal lives to support me, coach me teach me, advise me and inspire me.
I apologise now to anyone I have forgotten.
In alphabetical order…
Adam Raines Sports Massage
Andy Sparrow
Caroline Bramwell
Caroline Lance Sports Massage
Cath Pendleton
Dan Brice & the Channel Events volunteers
Ed Collins
Hotel Atlantico
Jason PDQ cycling
Jayme Fraioli Harper
Joan Woodward
Kelli Coxhead
Lisa Page
Louise Minchin
Mark Julier
Maxine Bateman
Mendip Cycling Club
Michele Reed
Mint Cycle Works, Priddy
Nienke Hensbroek
Paul Duckworth
Redd Rises
Russel Carter
Sheena Warman
Steph Dwyer
West Country Triathletes
Click here for a flavour of the day.
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Ironwoman Part 2
Training at work is unique. Running on a treadmill on a moving boat is an art form. Seven Kestrel is 125 metres long and 24 metres wide. There are not many places you can go. You can’t pop back to land when you fancy and the amount of mileage you can clock up in a day, mostly spent at the computer, is very limited.
The boat is always moving, even in the calmest of weather. The diving bells are up and down, the 120 tonne crane is always busily leaning over the side, lifting and lowering things and the ship’s heading changes regularly.
In rough weather, despite being quite stable, the vessel lifts, rolls and heaves and sometimes the bang of a wave against your porthole makes you jump out of your skin.
Seven Kestrel working at a windfarm. Image: Subsea 7
Russel and I use Training Peaks combined with Strava to track my progress. We converse mainly over WhatsApp which is the offshore communication channel of choice. Our schedule has to work around weather, port calls when the medic (me) is super busy, and crew change days which move multiple times over one week.
The great thing about having a coach is they do all the number crunching for you. It wasn’t long before Russel got the measure of what I could and could not do and he was soon dialled in to giving me training sessions that were spot on. Hard enough to get me fit and faster and stronger, but not so hard that I couldn’t finish them.
Jesolo 70:3 came around and I’d planned the whole thing meticulously to perfection. The hotel was superb and had a nice spa to relax in. I rented a car so I could get about easily and run up and down to the Ironman village for registration and shopping.
Oh my word – shopping!
There were so many lovely things in the Ironman village I had to restrain myself from buying all of it!
Registration was painless and I took the time to write a little note for my uncle Phil who I’d lost only a few weeks before. He was basically the Dad I never had.
I was going to miss his funeral. But I’m certain he wouldn’t have wanted me to throw away all that hard work on his account. I knew he’d be watching and behind me all the way.
I popped my wetsuit on and walked down the pristine sandy beach to the water’s edge. It wasn’t as cold as expected and the waves had gone away as the weather started to settle. I didn’t really feel like I had much energy, so I just did a slow 400m swim and got out.
Russel said I was likely to feel sluggish during tapering week, so I put it down to that. Then I went and changed by the car and jumped on my bike.
My Orro venturi went beautifully with her new tyres and tune up at the Ironman village. The Italian traffic though was a little scary, so I bailed early and ran for safety back to the car.
The evening was spent packing the Ironman specific bags for transition.
Transition is considered the fourth discipline of triathlon. It is where the athlete switches from one discipline to the next, dumping swimming gear for the bike and then the bike for running gear. There are two transitions; T1 is from swim to bike and T2 is from bike to run.
For the professionals, races can be won or lost in transition. In regular triathlons, your bike, trainers, helmet, shades, cycling shoes, towel, race belt which holds your race number, all reside in a neat pile under your bike which is ‘racked’ on your numbered station, usually hanging on a scaffold railing among hundreds of other bikes.
At Ironman events, things are done slightly differently, otherwise the transition area would look like a burglary at a jumble sale.
Athletes are given coloured and numbered bags: Blue for Bike, Red for Run. They hold all your equipment you need for the next phase of the race.
Transition opens the day before the race and athletes started to congregate at the entrance to the two huge transition areas.
Blue bags are hung on pegs with your corresponding race number and the same for the blue bag rack. They started to fill up, with 2800 athletes taking part. I racked Orro on number 721.
I planned to walk the triathlon routes the next morning as it would look very different once all the bikes had been racked. It is imperative that athletes remember how to find their bikes or you could be in transition a lot longer than planned!
My next job was to go and find some food. I don’t have a sweet tooth and anything sugary or sticky will go untouched, so planning my nutrition for something useful to me that I would actually eat, always proves difficult. A mouthful of sandwich and focaccia seemed the way to go, along with some dried papaya, mini pizza crisp breads and tasteless carb powder for one of my water bottles.
I cut everything up into bite size pieces and put them in ziplock bags ready to stuff into my cycling jersey and transition bags on race morning.
As I walked round transition, I felt lethargic and had developed a dry cough. It seemed to come out of nowhere and initially I just put it down to the hotter climate. As the day went on, my voice changed and the coughing became more regular. I started to feel wheezy in my upper chest. I prayed it was an allergy of some sort but deep down I knew I was getting sick.
I forced a pizza down the night before the race but didn’t really want it and couldn’t really taste it. I drank full fat coke in an attempt to stifle my cough, but it didn’t work. I headed to bed early, struggling to get to sleep as I kept on coughing.
I woke the day of the race before my 5am alarm. The hotel Atlantico Jesolo amazingly had laid on breakfast super early for the athletes and the volunteers staying there.
I was still coughing. I just didn’t know what to do. I had to get on that start line in the hope that this was all a fuss about nothing. Better to start and not finish than to not start and find out it was just an allergy.
I stashed my food in transition, checked my bike tyres and changed into my wetsuit. Any bubbly excitement was killed by the incessant cough and generally feeling rubbish.
The party atmosphere was electric, and I desperately wanted to enjoy it, but I stood in the heat of the swim pen knowing full well I was getting sicker by the minute.
I figured I could only really die on the swim, so planned to get that part over and done with and the rest would be just academic.
For various reasons, the traditional spectacle of a mass start had been curbed to staggered starts. Swimmers were initially divided into ‘pens’ according to their swim speeds and then let go 6 at a time, 10 seconds apart.
Marshalls held the swimmers back and we were standing around in the heat for a long time as 2800 athletes started the swim, 6 at a time.
I should have started in a faster pen, but knowing I was sick I decided to play it safe and go in the slowest group.
That was a mistake.
As I got closer to the start line, we filtered into lanes on the sand. I felt quite emotional at this point. I was on the start line of an Ironman 70.3. This was real.
In a few seconds I would start swimming and would not let up racing for another 7 or so hours.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6mDHmIitMx/?igsh=c2hhN2k5eXJ0aDd5
Ironwoman - Part 1
“Everybody put your hands in the aaiiiiiirrrrrrr!!”
The tannoy boomed across Jesolo Lido beach, Venice, Italy as 2800 athletes dressed in wetsuits and wearing yellow swim caps, raised their arms in unison.
Stomp stomp clap - stomp stomp clap…it went on.
I wanted to join the party, I so badly wanted to join.
Instead, I stared into the abyss, knowing I was doomed to failure. I had started coughing the day before the Ironman 70:3 triathlon race – a dry, hacking cough and I’d started to feel ‘achy’ and just not right.
I’m in that lot somewhere….
My voice had gone hoarse, and I was getting breathless doing nothing, with my heart rate refusing to budge from 106. It was normally 56 at rest, owing to the 8 months of intensive training I’d done for this very moment.
Now, I was staring out to sea, looking for the distance between jet skis in case I needed to hail one for help. This was not how it was meant to be and the situation I had dreaded.
Ironman is probably the best-known brand of triathlon. Triathlon is a multisport competition, beginning with a swim, followed up by a bike course then finishing up with a run. In between each discipline is the process of ‘transition’ where the athletes must switch between sports, and this is all done against the clock as well and is included in the total time. Practising putting your socks on, with wet feet quickly, is a thing!
Triathlons have varying distances. From super sprints which are very short with only a few hundred metres of swimming, 20 or so km or cycling and a 3-5km run at the end. Then there is the extreme end such as the holy grail of the ‘full’ Ironman, which is:
Swim: 2.4 miles (3.9 km)
Bike: 112 miles (180.2 km)
Run: 26.2 miles (42.2 km) or, a full marathon.
In total, a full Ironman Triathlon covers 140.6 miles (226.3 km).
Given I work on a ship at sea 6 months of the year, a full Ironman wasn’t realistically achievable. Despite being surrounded by the ocean, it is not permitted to swim. It’s probably not the best idea to hop off a North Sea dive vessel into 160m of water with 6 thrusters going, saturation divers and ROVs in the water and currents running…besides, it would be considered a suicide attempt, and definitely career-ending.
Despite this, you can’t explain this to folk at home who just say, “Can’t you just swim off the boat?”
No, I cannot. And that is why.
My office, Dive Support Vessel - Seven Kestrel, working at a previous office, the Claymore platform, North Sea. Taken from another previous office, Boka Atlantis.
So, swim training is limited for me. I only get so much time I can reasonably spend in the gym and the gym on board is also limited. Some days, you cannot go in due to bad weather and some days other people will be using the equipment you need, and your time window has passed.
When I get home, I have to run my house and do adulting things, plus try to make time to see friends that I miss when I’m away so much. It can be a lonely existence just training all the time without having any social time with people I know. Most of them are at work midweek when I’m off on shore leave.
So, it is not as idyllic as it sounds.
I figured a half Ironman, or an Ironman 70:3 was achievable and still quite a challenge.
I was aiming at an Olympic (standard) distance triathlon (Swim 1500m, Ride 35.5km, Run 10km) in my favourite spot Lake Annecy, France, but was worried about getting registered and getting a slot. I got itchy feet and wanted an interim challenge.
It was as if Facebook read my mind. A Venice-Jesolo Ironman 70:3 advert popped up. A pan flat course for both the bike and run seemed idyllic. Without blinking, I signed up.
Then I told my coach.
Russel Carter is a legend in cave diving circles. Understated, but hard core, his mantra is well known within the Cave Diving Group of Great Britain: “If you weren’t hard enough, you shouldn’t have come!”
A significant support diver in the expeditions in the 1990s in the Doux de Coly, France, Russel moved on to Ironman triathlon and didn’t do that by half either, finishing no less than 10 full distance Ironman races. Some of these were on particularly tough courses, such as Lanzarote and Mallorca.
Russel Carter racing Ironman Barcelona. He’s in there somewhere!
He had been following my progress as I dabbled in sprint triathlon over the last few years and was always on hand to offer advice or check in on how I was doing. It was no surprise then that when I asked, as a level 3 triathlon coach, if he’d like to coach me to Annecy. Of course, he agreed on the proviso that I kept his 100% finisher record intact.
A half Ironman wasn’t on the table. Now we were going to have to get down to work.
An Ironman 70:3 is basically half the full Ironman distance. I guess it suited me, being little miss average. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Good enough, but never the best.
Given I’d limped round sprint distance triathlons finishing in the bottom 20 with no real clue about how to train for multi-sport, this would be a proper challenge.
I’d held an amateur jockey’s license in my 20s, riding in 3-mile steeplechases and raced kayak marathon, finishing mid-divison – and I won the high jump on school sports day and 2nd in the 400 metres! I was on the school netball team – always goal attack, never goal shooter even though I scored the most goals…and I was in the hockey team and went to ‘away’ school competitions. So, I wasn’t a complete slacker at sport. I considered this an achievement, given I was not blessed with athletic genes, or the sort of parents who come to watch me compete. Neither of them turned up to my first horse race.
My second race on board Clashbridane.
But athletics was another game altogether.
I mean, why be crap at one sport when you can be crap at three?
I grew up knowing how to ride a racehorse but couldn’t ride a bike. Everything I did was in the shadow of an absent father and an uninterested, unsupportive mother who said no to anything that cost money or involved any effort on her part, such as getting out of bed early or driving anywhere.
Triathlon is not a cheap sport. I could only embark on it once I had learned to ride a bike in 2020. Plus, I had to get myself a decent job to be able to be able afford it.
I spent the deep winter and early spring taking myself away on solo training camps in between my work rotation, first to Lanzarote then to Mallorca. The sea was calm and warm enough to swim in and the cycling is world class. The running through the volcanic landscape in Lanzarote was preferable to the streets of Alcudia in Mallorca, but I kept on increasing the mileage under the daily watchful eye of Russel.