Ironman Tallinn 70.3, 24 Aug 2025

The swim at Tallinn is 1 x 1900m loop in the sea. The sea is so shallow that you start the swim by wading out to a pontoon, climbing up and crossing a timing mat in the middle of the sea before starting the swim. After swimming through lots of jellyfish (they don't sting!) you swim in until you can't swim anymore, then wade, skip, run your way through ~100m of shallow water up to the beach and into transition. Considering the amount of time spent on my feet, I was happy with my swim time.

Onto the bike, a slightly long (91.3km) pancake flat course. I'd decided that it was going to be a day for a bike race. I settled in and dug deep, trying to keep down on my TT bars as much as I could. The rain which started around 20 mins in stuck around for the entirety of the bike course, making for a very cold second lap. Filling my hydration system was somewhat difficult with cold stiff arms! Coming over the line into T2 with a 6 min PB (despite a portaloo stop midway!) I was very chuffed!

I headed out onto the run at a steady pace, my legs were feeling surprisingly good considering I'd spent the entire bike leg telling myself I was over biking but having too much fun to reign it in. All was well until 8 miles when the wheels started to fall off and the legs started to slow down. That being said, I came over the line with an 8.5 minute 70.3 run PB and an overall 70.3 PB of 9 minutes. It wasn't until dinner that evening that I realised I had no recollection of it pouring with rain the entire run - it was then I realised quite how hard I'd been digging… 

A big thanks to Tim for all the help with training. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do at Interservice Middle Distance in just under 3 weeks time.

Chloe Simper