Kev told me that having just been on holiday to Gandia there was a lovely iron Man distanced aquabike and triathlon in the town – not to be missed! Having never done their long distance event before I thought why-not try that next year! Nice to have a goal and to have an event with guaranteed sun!
From about May I slowly increased my swimming but hadn’t been doing a huge amount of riding – not helped by taking four weeks off peak training season to go sailing to Norway. Trying to squeeze in belated leg conditioning in the 4 weeks leading up to the event cramming in long rides where I could – on one such rides I hit a pothole on my titanium road bike and the frame spectacularly fractured in two. That really scuppered my training and was a premature end to a decent ride -thankfully I was unhurt!
For stop those that know me well know that logistics and not my strong point and trying to coordinate flights transport bike hire especially in a unfamiliar location was a bit of a mission. I had naively assumed that I could swim without a wetsuit because – because it was the Mediterranean. In the week proceeding I reconfirmed my bike hire and went about making last-minute preparations and read the race instructions. Wetsuits were mandatory. With only tiny hand-luggage booked I was going to have to wing it and try to buy one in Valencia. After a failed attempt at Decathalon I went online and came across a swim coach who specialized in selling very expensive pro wetsuits – thankfully he had a second hand one of available which I collected from his apartment 10 minutes later. Then to the bike shop – it turns out the road bike I had hired was size small (I’m over 6ft) and unsuitable for me to ride – the only bike instore which fitted me was a aluminium touring bike with 3.2 mm gravel tires. It was going to slow me down but there was no alternative.
And so with the kit collected I jumped on a train down to Gandia and cycled down to the port to work out what to do next. It had been my plan to cycle to my very lovely hotel that was 10 km away that night and to cycle back in time for the race in the morning but at the briefing it became clear that bikes must be checked in the night and I was left bike-less looking for a taxi. After an hour of waiting a taxi arrived to take me to the hotel – and I did a deal with the driver to pick me up in the morning. The only downside of the plan was that the only time he had available was at 0520. Arriving in pitch black 90 mins early having had very little slept the night before was not the best for my pre-race nerves. But I enjoyed sitting next to the fishing boats in the harbour watching the water swirl with shoals of fish.
At check-in the day before I had befriended what felt like the only English person undertaking the event and I was pleased to see him again as he was preparing for his full distance – we exchange notes on our transition setups and with that we were ready to race. By this point it was still pretty dark and the sun still hasn’t risen when we went to the holding pens.
With nerves building we warmed up before being led to the harbour wall to jump the 3 meters to the water before a circa 150 meter swim to the start line. By this point the sun had just about risen and I was ready for the race to get underway. I was chuffed that in my new wetsuit I was able to keep up with the main pack and found that I was even overtaking some people from earlier waves and was keeping up with some of the elite half-distance competitors who joined as I entered my second lap. As I headed up onto the beach, a little tired, I had been amazed at how much I’d enjoyed the swim and the thrill of having a live race to the end where I was tussling for position for the entire 3.8 kilometres.
Into the transition the wetsuit came off easily I dried and jumped into my cycle gear. Running to the end of the transition box I found my English friend again and I wished him luck as we both set off on the bikes admittedly his was a better bike and he stormed ahead of me. Ahead was 4 & 1/2 laps of a beautifully flat course with smooth roads, firstly along the beach and then out onto country roads – it was so nice to have a traffic free event and was really well marshalled. There was beautiful scenery, including gentle bends through roads through sugar cane fields and mountains in the distance, but there were some sharp corners around the circuits and a couple of hazards to dodge.
I realised towards the end of lap 1 that my seatpost was not so steadily lowering and I was in a horrendous body position. I persevered for lap 2 but seeing my average time fall rapidly I decided it was worth the delay in stopping in the mechanical station for a quick repair ( tightening the quick release). Lap 3 felt so much better for being back in a strong body position but I did feel exhaustion kicking in towards the end of the lap but then again rallied for lap 4. But again faded by the end of it. I was really hoping that adrenaline would ick in for my final 20K half-lap – but it never came and it was a real struggle. By this point, the course had thinned out and the winds, which had been slowly building throughout the day made the cycle out incredibly hard work and even with it behind my hips were in agony and I had screaming pain from the balls of my feet. It wasn’t a hot day I’m not used to the sun and tried to keep my liquids up but was definitely flagging by the end.
I was very very grateful to get to the final transition box but nearly got disqualified for unclipping my helmet early – a rookie error. I quickly donned on my trainers and ran the circa 400m to the finish line crossing in just under seven and a half hours. I was really chuffed with my swim time and I’d only set-out to finish the event was an achievement in its own right but I was a little disappointed at my cycling performance – as its always been my stronger sport, but I probably can place some of the blame on my bike. And it was only the next day that I realized that I’d came 10th overall in the Full Distance Aquabike, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been.
After some time enjoying the recovery zone – free pizza and paella – I went to the running course to give my new English friend Joseph some support on his bon penultimate lap – he was running strong. Cycling back to the hotel I stopped in the old town of Gandia where I ate dinner by the cathedral, had a celebratory beer in a busy town square and sat back with an immense sense of achievement. I knew that biblical rain was forecast for the Sunday but I was unprepared for quite how biblical it would be. The courtyard of the hotel began to fill with water and the owners told me – good luck getting back to Valencia. After failing to find a taxi the owners were kind enough to drive me into town. Finding that all trains were suspended I was told to wait behind the station for a rail replacement bus (it’s not just the UK which has dodgy public transport). Eventually making it back to Valencia and return the hire bike I enjoyed a day of site seeing before flying home.
I enjoyed the event and would recommend it to others looking for a flat ironman distance race. That being said, it was definitely Type 2 fun, especially with all the logistical drama that comes with multi-discipline sports in foreign countries and the faff of the wetsuit, hire bike and disrupted public transport were all needless frustrations. I’m not sure I have another full distance in me for a while, but I have already got a half-distance in the diary for February and am looking forward to having a focus for my winter training and a need to keep cycling and swimming through the coming dark months.
