Weymouth Ironman 70.3, 19 Sep 2021
After 11 months of preparation, on Sunday 19th I went down to the transition area at 5:30 am, to start Ironman Weymouth 70.3! As the sun came up we went into transition, played the national anthem and set off at 7:30. The water was 18C and incredibly calm, making for a lovely swim. I kept out of the main crowds, with the only “choppiness” being generated by other swimmers. I deliberately kept slow to remain calm and save my legs, and 43 mins later I was out running into transition.
Onto the bike I felt a bit tired in my legs, but after an hour I warmed up fully and was into a nice pace. Plenty had passed me but I kept to my speed, and got to 33km after and hour and a half. It was a hot day and the gels in my bottle had upset my stomach so I took a lot of water on board, and carried on. Suddenly I was over halfway on the bike, and cycling with others kept morale up and passed the miles.
My stomach was still unsettled but the bike passed fairly quickly, even with 2 steep hills in the last third where I pushed the bike. After 4hrs 5, just outside my goal time of 4 hours, I came into Weymouth finishing with a downhill, and straight onto the run.
With it being a hot day and with stomach problems I hadn’t been able to take any food on and had sweated out most of the water, so walked at each water station to take enough on. I ran consistently for the first hour and 10, but my legs were finding it hard in the 20C heat. With a 3 loop course up and down the bay, psychologically it was really hard having to run right past the red carpet, but my family cheered me on and helped massively. On the last lap I ran for 5 mins and walked for 3 on rotation, but as I knew by then I would finish the race, I walked with a smile on my face!
7hrs 40 after setting off, I ran down the red carpet and can’t believe I’ve finished a 70.3 Ironman!
Despite stomach problems and a hot day, I’m incredibly happy with the race – there’s areas to work on, but an experience I would definitely do again!
Eleanor Wells
