And so that is that. Two marathons, an Ultra Marathon, an Ironman and 128 days without an alcoholic beverage. What a year it has been.

The Ironman, unfortunately, ended on a slightly more sour note than the others, but I made it through, and what a day it was.

The lead up in Zurich was quite dragged out, having an activity a day to attend to and having a lot of free time where I had to resist doing anything too taxing. We landed on Wednesday morning to glorious weather that was expected to stay all week until Sunday, event day, where it was due to thunderstorm all day. Great. After putting the bikes together, Steph and I took them on a small spin to make sure they were working fine. The rest of the day was spent trying to acclimatise to the weather (sunbathing) and then out for dinner where we learned very quickly how expensive it was going to be in Zurich!

The following day registration opened and we planned to cycle up one of the hills that was on the course once we were registered. When we woke up, we went for a swim in the Lake. With my expectations fully written out for a non wetsuit swim, I didn’t take t to the lake. Boy that was slow. In hindsight, some of the slowness can be down to not knowing if I was crossing a ferry path or not… But it was a lovely swim. Clear, cool water with beautiful views of the mountains. At lunchtime we headed up to the expo and we received our bag along with our transition bags. We were in. The expo was just being built, so the opportunity to waste money on stash I didn’t need was taken away from me. Bonus! Once we had registered, we grabbed lunch from the food hall – by far the most economic place to eat! The pasta bolognese was lovely – mass produced food that was the same quality as restaurant food. Note that, schools, hospitals etc.

And off we went for a practice up ‘Heartbreak Hill’. We looked at a map to work out where we were going, turn right after Kilchberg station. Simple. We did that, climbed a hill that was taxing but nothing horrendous. We met at the top and spoke about how simple it felt. We cycled the next section and stopped at a turning with a steep incline – maybe this is Heartbreak?! A sign next to it, written in German, said something about Ironman Zurich on Sunday 19th July. So we did this hill too – tougher, but very short. The views were phenomenal.

We cycled back to the hotel, and the rest of the day was ours to relax as we liked. That evening I took a look at where we cycled online and realised that neither the first nor the second hills were Heartbreak Hill – so a third attempt to find it was required! It was harder than the others, but still not too challenging – the thought of it after 175km was a different matter though! At the English race briefing was the first time all 11 of us racing were there together, it was a great crew of people doing the event and we chilled for the afternoon before attending the pasta party that evening – all you can eat food! Saturday was the quietest day, we had to hide from the sun and check our bike and equipment in.

Race day. The alarm went off at 4.25am – a lie in compared to when some people got up. Breakfast at the hotel – porridge with apple sauce and some croissants. Back to the room to collect the rest of my stuff and get changed. The text I received from Ironman the previous night contained the bad news of wetsuits being banned due to the temperature of the water so that stayed in the room. We got the train to the start and were with our racked bags and bikes by 5.50. Water bottles and nutrition on the bike, sun cream on the body and in the run bag and I was ready.

The swim.

We lined up in our expected swim time – I went in the 70-80 minute section as that was my targeted wetsuit time – I figured everybody else would be doing the same. Off we shuffles in our waves of 10, every 5 seconds going into the water. And into the water I went. Going in waves was brilliant, it was still tight and there was still a bit of fighting for space, but nothing compared to mass starts. I tried to settle into a rhythm and then thought about anything other than the swim. That didn’t really happen and the first straight went on for a long time. I worked my way around to the Australian Exit – lap 1 complete. Up on the island and ran around a few people, they were walking – I didn’t get that so I may have had to nudge a couple of people out the way and splash gracelessly back into the water. Lap 2. You couldn’t see a thing going back out, swimming straight towards the sunrise you had to rely on other people and your instinct in swimming towards the buoy. It wasn’t ideal, but I was there. My swim hat was coming off, which was annoying and eventually towards the end of the swim it came fully off. Under the bridge once more and up onto land. I clicked my watch and couldn’t believe it – 1h26. I had expected 1h20 with a wetsuit and therefore around 1h35 without. I was delighted, especially when I saw I had swam 4.2km instead of 3.8km! Transition, grab my bag. Dry my feet, socks on, shoes on, cycling helmet, glasses, toilet, bike.

The Bike

The first 28.5km is a flat ride around the lake. I couldn’t get my legs to settle into any rhythm on the bike, it was seeming like a chore instead of what should have been an easy start to the bike. Part of this was the course, in my head I had convinced myself it would be dead flat – not sure why but that’s the way my head had processed it. It wasn’t hilly at all, and as roads go, it was as dead flat as you shall see but the longer slight inclines wound me up slightly, which is ridiculous. I said I wanted to have the first 30km done in an hour, as I turned at the roundabout at the end of the lake, we started a climb. Pretty simple climb and a few rolling hills for the next while. 30km – 56 minutes. Delighted. Up next was The Beast – a hill named locally as this. It was pretty steep and longer than I thought. Small cog, about half way on the rear cassette and spin. It was a fun hill, but the heat was getting up. Cheeky descent and then another climb. This one a long shallow but grinding hill, big cog territory but it was getting warmer. I reached the top of that and realised I was going to fall slightly shy of my 3hour first lap target, shame but I was happy that I didn’t blow lots of energy on the first lap – so I thought! At the aid station I picked up my cheese and ham baguette. Real food was beautiful. And down some lovely descents, back onto the lakeside and a flat around the Heartbreak Hill. I was excited for Heartbreak, the videos and the talk before was that it was like Tour de France – crowds cheering at the side and a narrow single file space to climb through the crowds. In my head, I had pictures this to be all the way up, but in hindsight that’s ridiculous, that would be 3000 people! I kept myself spinning up, not wanting to smash up it. This went well until the last 100m when the crowd was there. It was brilliant, out of the saddle and smashed it up the final bit. It was such an amazing atmosphere. Down the final descent and back to the start – 1 lap done. 3h04. Just outside what I wanted. Towards the end of the first lap, my back had started to stiffen up – a problem I had got rid of until the Ultra Marathon a few weeks ago. I tried to settle back onto my tri bars for flat section but couldn’t get comfy. A toilet break eased it a bit but it still wasn’t great. I got around to first climb and the temperature had got ridiculous. My nutrition plan was borderline gone, and when I hit The Beast it fully went. It was too warm to eat the bars I had on my bike, so I had a gel at the bottom and had picked up an extra isotonic drink at the stations and moved to a liquid only nutrition for the final 60km. As I was climbing The Beast I genuinely felt like my tri suit was melting to my body, it was horrendous. At this point, I reevaluated my target times. 6h40 on the bike, 4h run. In these temperatures I would still be delighted with that. As I got back to the lake for the final time, I felt awful. I went along the flat in a poor cycling position knowing it was costing me precious time but it was the only way to be comfortable and I knew my back would ease up on the run.  Heartbreak Hill round 2 was less busy but I still couldn’t resist the out of the saddle finish on the top through the crowds. Descend and a bit of flat and I dismounted, 6h36. Happy with that. Now for the bit I was most looking forward to, the run!

The Run

I knew my nutrition was down, so I walked through the first 3 aid stations to ensure I took enough on. After 7km I felt good, I started to hit my rhythm and was going well under my 4h target speed and I was happy, smiling and enjoying it a lot. And then things went wrong. As I stretched a step out, I felt a huge twang in the hip flexor, followed by a piercing pain and the smile quickly vanished off my face. I tried to stretch it out and run it off but to no avail. I walked whilst I figured out what to do and when I had found a shuffle that half worked, I felt my left hamstring not being happy so that stopped quickly – the last thing I needed was the other leg going too! This was when I got into a sulk. I had worked out I had 3 and a half hours of walking…. I walked for an hour of that before trying something new. I was completely defeated at this point and I had settled into a walking routine next to another guy who was too tired to run. This frustrated me more, I had bundles of energy. I wasn’t too tired to run, I wasn’t malnutritioned, I was just injured. What a rubbish way to end the year. I had walked/experimented running techniques for 15km by the time I found one that worked – kinda. It was basically one legged running, dragging my right leg along. But it worked. I got up some momentum and kind of some speed and managed to get myself to the end. It was nothing short of a horrible mental experience, one which my stubbornness was actually a valuable asset! It may have been a 5h04 marathon, which I am embarrassed to write after all my running thing year but it was the hardest thing I have done. Ever.

13h20. 1h50 shy of my target, but given the conditions I would have been happy with my mid-race re-evaluated target of 12h20ish. The final nail in the coffin was the injury. Over the race I managed to lose 3kg and burnt around 9000 calories – which shows you the stress that the body goes under in such conditions.

I’m happy – I did it. But also disappointed, after having a good swim and cycle and feeling good it was my run which I was excited for the most and that’s where things went wrong. But nothing that I could have helped, it wasn’t lack of training, it wasn’t that poor of a performance on the day. I shan’t be doing another one for a few years, but I definitely need to do another one to see if I can nail all 3 disciplines on the day without luck/fate taking over and tarnishing the day slightly.

And that’s me done. Thanks to all who have helped me over the year, thanks for all who have donated. On Monday I had my first beer for 128 days and it was a fantastic feeling to know that I am finished and can have a social life back again!

Aaaaand breathe. That was tough. Cobbles, PB, target achieved, resisting the cheap Czech beer – great weekend away.

It is the end of an odd part of the year – having events so close to each other was difficult to work out what to do between them – looking from the Brighton Marathon, I needed to recover, ease my way back into training – however at the other end, the Prague Marathon, I needed to taper my training – lowering what I did. Whatever I did, it appears to have worked. I took over 5 minutes off my Brighton time when I completed Prague this weekend – setting myself a new PB and achieving the marathon target I set myself at the end of last year of a sub-3.15 marathon. 3 hours 14 minutes & 17 seconds.

Having spent the weeks before Prague fitting in small runs and cycles, I flew to Prague not too confident of improving my time from Brighton. I thought that I hadn’t done enough over the 3 weeks & that the cobbles may cause me too many problems with my history of ankle & knees injuries. The alarm went off beautifully early on Saturday morning to fly out, 4.30 we were out of the door and on our way to Stansted, arriving in Prague at 10.30 local time, where (thankfully) there was a lovely English speaking lady to sell public transport tickets & draw the route I required to take to get to the expo to get my number & goodies. The expo had a lot of stalls in, but with this being my third expo in as many weeks, nothing really interested me as I had already spent all my money. Our hotel was right near the centre of Prague, fantastically placed for the Marathon, all transport links & seeing Prague. We checked in and then chilled. I sorted my race number & clothes before heading into the Old Town square to meet Alex and Tui, who had been given the local tour by Tui’s Uncle who has lived there for 25ish years. I tried to calm Alex’s nerves, but I don’t think I was successful. One thing I do have going for me, is I don’t get nervous – downside is that I don’t really know how to deal with other peoples nerves well – sorry Alex!!

On to the race. 10,000 of us gathered around the Old Town Square on Sunday morning, waiting for 9am to come and for the pro’s to sprint off at their ridiculous pace. The first kilometre was difficult to get going as the streets were pretty narrow and there were a large amount of people trying to get their rhythm. Once we crossed the river for the first time, it was time for the most important part of the race – toilet break. The first bit of green since the start appeared at exactly 1km and hundreds of men (and a few women) dashed into the grass to relieve themselves. From there, not only did I feel more comfortable, I had more space to settle in at a comfortable pace. The first 5km went quite slowly in my head, which initially was a worry as this part of the race normally flies by. Maybe it was something to do with passing by the 33km sign and thinking about how far there was to go. But after then, I found myself over half way without having counted many of the other significant distances and only the cobbles causing me a bit of discomfort Halfway was reached at 1.33.15 – almost 2 minutes ahead of where I had planned to be – I felt pretty good. I reached 26km without much trouble, but it was then that I started to feel it. My hamstrings, the guys who gave in first at Brighton, were starting to feel tighter and I had to plan what I did with my pace. I slowed myself down ever so slightly to try and let them settle. It worked perfectly. One issue with running a race that doesn’t have many English people in is that you don’t distract yourself much, meaning your brain settles in on other things. Luckily for me, this is where I saw Alex. Approx. 1km in front of me on one of the out and back areas. This took my mind off of the hamstring, and I forgot about it – for the rest of the race. The rest of the race was time management. I thought that Chloe & Tui would have set themselves up at aound 32km – so that was my next part. Get to them and then there’s 10km to go. I got there and I knew 3.15 was on. I looked at my time and knew that as long as I didn’t have a dramatic crash of energy I was going to complete the final 10km in less than 50minutes. I knew it would be tight, but I felt good.

Arrive the finish line, I looked at my watch (which was reading that I had already completed a marathon…) and I was almost there. I could see the finish line, but it wasn’t until I was about 50 metres away that I had the confirmation that I had hit my target. Easily too.

I enjoyed the race a lot – it says something about how good a race was if you can’t remember much of it – it means that you are focused for one. Loss of focus is never a good sign for me as I then settle in at a slower pace naturally and everything goes to pot. The cobbles were bad – but that is part of the charm of the Prague marathon – running through the old & the new parts of the city. The crowds need some work! Where there was crowd, there wasn’t much noise. Now I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been blessed to have run the well supported events of Paris & Brighton, but the crowd give you energy and they need to work on that in Czech Republic! Maybe they were feeling their 9am beers.

I now have 7 weeks until the next event – one that I am completely unsure about. Ultimate Trails – this won’t be one that I shall be sprinting around. I have 12 hours to complete it and if it takes me that long then I have no issue. This is one about completing it, not about a time. Over the next 7 weeks my training will change dramatically, focus will switch to cycling more than anything else with any running sessions being through woods or up and down hills. Ideally, I would only be training for the Ultra, but I haven’t given myself that privilege so I have to sacrifice the time to make sure I split it so I can complete the Ultra and hit my target time for the Ironman. Whilst playing cricket every week. Free time = zero.

Monday was painful. I hadn’t slept much, every movement during the night caused me to wake up due to the pain. My legs were not happy with me and they were making sure that I was fully aware with that fact. I knew I had to keep moving; if I had spent the day in bed it would have taken longer to recover.

I got myself out of bed and into the garage. This isn’t as strange as it sounds, in the garage is my turbo trainer with my second bike sitting on it. I had a 15 minute very light spin, trying to get the blood flowing around my legs. It wasn’t pleasant or quick, but it was useful. The bath that followed had the same target – that was more enjoyable than the cycle. The rest of the day was spent with my mate Chris, wandering around, purchasing and installing various things for his new flat. I hope I didn’t hold him up too much with my slow walking – he didn’t moan too much. In the evening was my normal swim class. Luckily, the class planned didn’t have a huge amount of kicking involved, otherwise I would have been sinking to the bottom of the pool! 50 odd lengths later and I was feeling a bit better and got myself home and to bed. I slept better and was now feeling okay when walking on flat surfaces. Stairs, however, were like climbing up and down Mount Everest. Agony!  Tuesday was a bed day. Awful TV shows and films for 80% of the day, with stretching and foam rolling in between! I know how to live….

I gave myself Wednesday and Thursday off, with just stretching involved. Your body needs time to heal and I had to make sure I gave it the time, given such a short space before the next marathon. On Friday I got myself back in the garage onto the Turbo Trainer. A couple of laps of Zwift Island had me panting a bit. Zwift is this new game where it takes all of your readings from your various bike sensors and puts you up against other cyclists around the world that are doing the same. It is quite something – any cyclist who enjoys an indoor session but needs better entertainment – look no further – Nothing like a competition to be entertained.

The weekend was triathlon filled – in the wrong order and in small doses, but still, triathlon filled. The alarm rang at 6.20 on Saturday morning, never pleasant. I got up, grabbed myself an orange and head up to Box End for my first open water session of the year. As I arrived, the lake looked beautiful and the water was at a (for this time of year) huge 13 degrees! Two laps of the lake went rather quickly, I had hoped for three but a bit of chafing on my neck started and I did not feel like having a wet suit love bit after my first date of the year. Each lap equates to approximately 800m, so I was happy to go around them in 16 and a half minutes average – there’s a long time to reduce that time. This was the first time I tried my fancy GPS watch out in open water swimming, and it was amusing when I got out the water. Firstly, I knew it would say more than 1600m as I definitely do not swim in a straight line, but to say 2000m was funny to see. I did not swim that much out of the way, or did I swim that quick!! On analysis, there was a section where it obviously struggled for signal and then randomly threw me 100m out of the water and back in. I like to think I’m a talented guy, but swimming through land is not something I can do – not even Jesus could do that. Maybe that was one of Chuck Norris’ various skills.

I got back and tried out my new trail shoes – I wanted to run 10km through the woods, but my legs just weren’t there yet. I really struggled and it wasn’t really until the last kilometre on the way home that I started feeling normal – running legs officially left in Brighton! Home and a shower & lunch later and I set myself of the task of taking apart and cleaning my best bike, Bonnie, ready for the cycle on Sunday. Yes, she has a name. Yes, she’s a she.

There was a small matter of a trip to Wembley to watch Arsenal dominate (struggle against) Reading and make their way into the FA Cup Final. It was a very Arsenal performance in that at times, we looked fantastic, and at times we passed the ball to the Reading attackers and stepped out of the way to let them through.

Sunday morning meant time to get out on the road with Bonnie. I planned a 50km route out, got myself some breakfast and spent 25 minutes looking for my kit. I found it all except for one glove, which took an extra 10 minutes – always the way. The route was rather simple, or it should have been but I convinced myself I had gone wrong at one point so turned back and found myself randomly cycling looking at road signs and following them. When I found out where I was, I had to invent a new route that would take me to the 50km point – I got around 46km in the end, so I wasn’t far off. It was good to get out on the bike, I didn’t feel too bad but there is a lot of improving to do. I averaged 27km/h for the ride, I will be targeting 29km/h during the Ironman. Unfortunately, Hertfordshire is a difficult place to cycle around. I wouldn’t call Hertfordshire hilly, as that description belongs to places like Yorkshire and such, but it definitely is not flat. We’ll go with undulating. It’s difficult to get any rhythm when you’re cycling as you don’t go very far until the road changes gradient – and even then the hills aren’t long enough to get into a proper rhythm! It’s annoying, but I’ll get over it.

I’m now two weeks away from the Prague marathon, effectively into tapering mode again. I need to keep myself busy enough whilst not overexerting – it’s a strange part of the training as you want to start back training after one event but can’t because the next event is so close. I shall be at the London Marathon next weekend as a supporter of various friends, but mainly for Chloe, who after six years of balloting finally got her place. Good luck to all involved, and just remember that every step takes you closer to the finish.

This post took me a couple of attempts to get finished. Not really due to not knowing what to write, but due to not being able to sit down for too long before my legs go dead. I am definitely suffering after the Brighton Marathon, but it’s definitely worth it.

I had a 14km run last Sunday, which I was meant to take easy but my legs felt heavy, so I tried to push through that to get them loose. It worked, and I had a surprisingly quick training run to lead me into the final week, which was planned to be low key.

Monday was swimming day, a good session on Bank Holiday Monday, smaller attendance always means more lengths to do! Tuesday was a light spin on the turbo trainer in the garage, nothing too extreme just keeping the legs alive. Wednesday was a glorious rest day followed by a small run from work to Finsbury Park – my final run before the Brighton Marathon.

The weekend turned up! Woke up Saturday morning, packed my stuff (about 3 times, I have a habit of forgettings things) and got the train down to Brighton. The train journey was an interesting mixture of people travelling to Gatwick to go on holiday, people travelling from Gatwick after being on holiday, marathon runners, people heading down to enjoy a sunny weekend on the beach and people heading down for a few nights out on the town. The variation in conversations was good to eavesdrop.

Once we arrived, we headed for some lunch (pasta, obviously) and checked in at our Airbnb place. The place I had booked was 20 minute walk from the start line, perfect distance to get the legs warm enough. The main issue was I had forgotten that the marathon finished on the sea front and Brighton is situated on a mountain if you’re trying to get back up from the beach, but that was going to be Sunday afternoons problem! The Expo was interesting, I had been to Paris the year before which was ridiculously big, I got lost 3 times. This one was much smaller and selective.  I picked up my number and then took a wander around. I heard a sales pitch from the guy at the Osmo stall, a nutrition type I had looked into before (it was a successful pitch, I ordered some stuff last night!) and there was also a health check going on. 10.9% body fat with 61.5% hydration (target 55-65%). Bang on! We had a guess at the amount of apples in a box, Chloe guessed at 596 & the answer is 594, we are waiting to hear if she won.

A mandatory trip to Brighton pier to win some tickets followed before back up to the top of the mountain for dinner and relaxation.

Now onto the race. Sunday morning came and the 6.30 alarm went off. Breakfast is the same thing before every race – porridge with raisins, croissant & a banana for the walk to the race. I got into my race pen very early, there was an opportunity to be right at the front for the start – which I completely bottled. I would probably trip over and get stampeded or something! The buzzer went and I set off. I started reasonably quick, but I wanted to get off into some space and settle into a zone. I past the 3.15 pacer & set myself into a steady rhythm. My target average split was 4.37/km and I wanted to settle in at that after I had some space – this unfortunately didn’t happen. I got caught up with the pace I was running and put a bit too much in early doors. The first 10km had flown by – 44.36 minutes – and this is when I found a running friend (Nick) to run with – he was suffering with the same problem as me – he was targeting 3.15 and had set off too quick. We settled into a rhythm together, slowing our splits down bit my bit, crossing the half way point in 1.34.37. It wasn’t far after this that I started feeling it. I had had one gel, and we had our 3rd out and back section. I didn’t feel awful, I just noticed that my comfortable pace was dropping – and I let it. I knew I had gone off too quick and that I needed to manage myself through the second half. We reached 30km (still with Nick) at 2.16.48. Still nicely ahead of the pace.

This is where I think Brighton need to rethink their course. The final out and back is around a power station, on what on a map appears to be an island. Not many supporters venture out there and the road surface is awful. Just when you enter your final 6 miles and you need the help, you find yourself running on broken tarmac with a handful of supporters cheering for you, instead of thousands. I hit the wall massively. I lost Nick just before this, I found some new energy that I would guess was the last bit of proper life in my legs leaving my body as the next 9km was hell! At 22 miles, the 3.15 pacers overtook me. I tried to push with them, but my hamstrings were starting to feel it and I had to make the decision to complete the race with a good time, instead of pushing myself to failure. The final 4 miles were pretty horrible, running very slowly in comparison to what I am used to. And then I came back into the crowds. And then I saw the finish line. 300m to go. I looked at my watch and saw that I could sneak under 3 hours 20 still. One last push. Stride increased, and with 75m to go, I felt the cramp. Both hamstrings. There will be some classic photos towards the end of a man in multi coloured gear running with two straight legs near the finish. I didn’t care, I made it.

3 hours 19 minutes & 50 seconds. Not sure why I sprinted, I had 9 seconds to spare… Ranked 476 out of the 9400 people who started. I will take that.

A note on my attire: wearing brightly coloured clothing 100% gets you more attention for the cameras and the cheers. Having your name on your top is the best thing ever also, thousands of people (I now refer to them as my fans), cheering you on by name. Definitely helps. So thanks for my thousands of fans in Brighton for cheering me on!

On to the next one. 19 days until Prague Marathon!