Ironman Vouliagmeni (Greece) 70.3, 23 Oct 2022

Where oh where to begin?! It's been a long season, waiting for this event - but it was totally worth it!

The last 6 week training block felt incredible, so leading into the race I was just praying that I didn't come down with any of the colds/flu (or even Covid) that are going around as we hit autumn. Fortunately for me, arriving in Greece I felt fit as a fiddle.

First step before the race was to re-assemble my bike, which always has challenges for me it would seem. And this year was no different, after attempting not to deflate my (tubeless) tyres too much for the flight, my front tyre still needed the wall reinflating, so a quick trip to the bike mechanic and 10 euros later, that issue was fixed. Then the next thing was that I snapped a bolt in my right aero bar (woops!), but luckily I swapped my garmin mount to the left bar and with weight going into the aero bar it was still able to hold firm. Finally a quick adjustment of the front wheel alignment after a very wonky ride down, and my bike was good to go! One day the bike assembly process will be seamless (I hope).

Anyway on to the race!

Swim - After last year's swim being cut to 900m and being the scariest swim of my life, I was super glad to wake up on race morning to beautifully calm water. The setting for the swim was gorgeous with the sunrise and hills in the distance and crystal clear water. Now I've definitely been feeling good in the pool, but open water race swims are a completely different ball game. Going into the swim, I just wanted to go at what felt like a comfortable pace, and not get kicked/elbowed in the process. With this in mind, I took the buoys a little more cautiously, occasionally doing breastroke to avoid a foot in the face. The long stretch after the first turn I was able to get in to a good rhythm, only occasionally being interrupted by people swimming off course. Then on the final long stretch (after 2 left hand turns), I kept a bit further left to avoid the mass of people that never really seemed to string out and was able to have a much better swim in free water. Final turn in and I could see the white archway so headed straight for that speeding up slightly, also got a bit confused when everybody was swimming so far to my right. Turns out as I made it out the water, the swim exit was not directly in front of the white arch so everyone else was being much more sensible. Oh well, the extra 150m on the swim meant I hadn't been hit, and made it safely to T1!

T1 - normally transitions are pretty uneventful, but I wanted to document this one! I felt good coming out the water so sped past quite a few people, managed to swig my drink to get rid of the salty sea water taste, put my bike stuff on and then ran for my bike. As I was leaving T1 with my bike and throwing my gel wrapper in the bin, I managed to smack into it, wooops! Luckily it was cardboard so no damage to my bike, I managed to shout 'Sorry' to the volunteers and carried on my merry way.

Bike - On Friday in the expo one of the locals had warned us about the Greek roads and how bad they were. We assured him being from Britain, the roads would be delightful! And thankfully, we were right! The route was a 2 lap, out and back course along the coastal road, so no significant hills but consistent rolls throughout. The first lap I was flying and feeling very comfortable on my bike in TT position despite the semi broken aero bar. I did try and slow a little realising my heart rate was a bit higher than normal, but things kept going well so I wasn't too concerned. I stuck to my plan of drinking every 20 minutes and a gel every 10 miles. I played cat and mouse with a couple of people on the bike leg, which I quite enjoy and helped me keep focused. The second lap was a bit tougher, but HR was more under control, a head wind on the way back meant the pace slowed, but I was delighted to come in under 3 hours!!

T2 - nothing quite so eventful, went to the loo and had a nice lady help do the back up on my tri-suit!

Run - where to start, this course is anything but rolling in my opinion, a two-loop, out and back course, meant there were a total of 8 hills, 8! And they were not small. Shortly into the run I realised my goal of a sub-2 hour half might not be possible, but my goal of sub-6 hours still was possible. So although a little deflated, the overall time was my main goal so that spurred me on. Rather than killing myself on the hills I decided to run (very slowly) as much as I could before I took a walking break (on hill 3 and 7 this was much easier as the aid stations were 7/8ths of the way up the hill, and I always walk the aid stations as drinking and running is not a skill I currently possess). Other than the hills, the course was beautiful, and it was incredible to see the Iron Brothers on the course (truly inspirational). The main aim of the run was to keep the temperature down, so every aid station I threw water over me and took on both water and iso drinks. Generally throughout the run I felt really strong, it was great to see my brother and 2 others I'd travelled with along the course, providing continued motivation. At the halfway point, I checked my watch and was still on track for sub-6, wahooo! So I kept pushing on and it was only with 7km to go did I feel I the need some more fuel, so grabbed a banana, which did the job. 5km to go they had run out of cups so were handing out 2L bottles of water, I tipped the whole thing over me (Laidlow and Frodeno style) and was left with squelchy shoes, but feeling considerably cooler. The last 2 hills were then complete by 18.5km and I started to pick up the pace. What goes up, must come down and the last 2.5km were delightfully downhill. I checked my watch again, and I was on track to beat last year's time (which only had a 900m swim), so again I got spurred on. Coming on to that red carpet, I was so happy and when I crossed in 5 hours 43 minutes, I couldn't believe it; 16 minutes faster than I hoped and 7 minutes faster than last year, utter madness. And only just short of a 2 hour half-marathon (2 hours and 34 seconds - so close!)

Over the moon with my race and couldn't have done it without Tim and his excellent coaching and pacing to get me to the starting-line despite some injury struggles for a lot of the year. Onwards and upwards to the next race season.

Lottie Lindsley