Ironman Versailles 70.3, 11 Oct 2026

I had originally planned to do this Ironman 70.3 in July but sadly it was postponed to October due to the brutal July heatwaves in Europe. In a way I am glad as the new October date was much cooler and more comfortable to race in than the 40° it was meant to be on the original race date.

I was very excited to be racing in such a historic and beautiful area. We lined up at the swim start line by the ornamental lake with loud music blaring and the Ironman pyrotechnic team in full force with the blue smoke machines and fireworks. This was my first IM 70.3 so I was impressed with the theatrics, it made a buzz around the start line. We set off in sets of 6 athletes 8 seconds apart. Unfortunately the lake was still rather shallow, 1m in places (they had to move from the original lake due to that drying up!) Which meant some athletes decided to walk the start and slowed the start line down. Fortunately, as I'm not particularly tall I was able to swim and after 200m or so started to get a good rhythm going. The silt was so churned up from walking I couldn't see my watch, and was surprised but happy to see 33:35 on my clock face which is fast for me!

A short run to the bike for the longest transition I've ever seen. It was about an 800m avenue of bikes with a narrow lane in the middle. Due to the chilly lake (15° I was told) and it being about 13° outside I decided to put on some layers in transition which I'm very glad I did. It was a nice rolling course with about 3 tougher climbs. It did go through a lot of small French villages with narrow streets so I wasn't able to go as fast as I planned in training but I heard a lot of athletes had this issue too. I ended up with 3 hours 19, an average speed of 26.6km/h which I was OK with.

Back into the world's longest transition again, it had started to warm up a little now and the sun was nearly making an appearance. I stripped off the arm warmers I had, put on fresh socks and was out in the centre of Versailles on the run course. It was a 3 loop run on a variety of surfaces- hard packed trail round a lake, gravel, road and cobblestone. I'm glad it was dry or some of it would have been slippy! The first lap was challenging whilst I got my head around the route and all the surface changes. On the second loop I got into the groove and got a good rhythm going. The atmosphere in Versailles was amazing with lots of supporters out cheering. Only 15% of the field was female so I got lots of cheers of "Allez le femmes!" which was encouraging. 

Around the 10k mark I saw my mother who was cheering for me which motivated me too. I was feeling strong until about 18k when my legs started to feel like logs. At this point I was just trying to get something from every aid station to keep myself motivated and moving forward. Around the 15k mark I thought I may have been onto a sub 2 hour half marathon but realised this wasn't quite possible.

I went down the famous red carpet in a time of 2:08. Total finish time was 6 hours 21, which was 22 minutes faster than my last race of this distance. I was happy with this as I felt the training had paid off and though it's hard to directly compare races it's always satisfying to see your times improve. It was my PB in the Half marathon which was cool. Overall I’m glad I persevered when it was postponed as it allowed me to get fitter and I really enjoyed the challenge.

Sarah Fisher