By Billy
Leading in to race day – 31st July 2023, was 7 months of prep! Which constituted 142km of swimming, 7890km of cycling and 1240km of running. But let’s fast forward to the day. It was a 3am start, getting nutrition ready, following my meticulous planning lists and spilling an energy drink on the floor. (Not on the list). We arrived on site at 4:45am with plenty of time for setting up the bike, sorting transition bags, toilet breaks, warm ups and more toilet breaks. Last thing to do was walk down to the swim start and pour a flask of warm water into my wetsuit. A kiss goodbye to my kit-carrier/chauffer/wife and then it was into the water for a mass start of 600+ swimmers and 6am and we were off. This was only my fourth outdoor swim of the year and my first ever mass start, so it was a bit chaotic for the first 1000m whilst the packs of swimmers stretched out. (Usually referred to as the washing machine effect!) I found my rhythm but the return stretch of the lake was against the wind and much harder work. Katie was walking along side me in the water so I managed to give her a wave. I came out the water in 202nd place – I’d spotted my swim time on my watch and clocked that it was 3 minutes slower than planned so felt a bit disheartened. Transition was already heaving with nowhere to sit and get my bike gear on, so I had no choice but to do it standing in a moving crowd. Mine was the 45th quickest transition though so it was no bad thing.
On the bike and felt amazing – I quickly overtook a good number of people before the first loop and was averaging about 40km/h. Early on I knew that my pace wasn’t going to be as planned because the headwinds became an issue, and then at 75km in, my carb drink bottle glued itself to the bottle cage which then came off in my hand – ugh! So for the next 105km I was storing one of my bottles uncomfortably in the front of my tri-suit. On the way back for my third and final loop, the bumpy road surface caused my chain to come off on the fast section, so I lost a fair bit of time pulling over and putting it back on. From that point on I managed to push myself hard to make up time because I knew that between the headwinds, bottle cage and chain, I was going to be 15 minutes behind planned. But it was a balancing act – push too hard and I’d have stomach issues during the run. Back into Holmepierre Point and I was greeted by the loudest cheering from Team Wreake which really caught me by surprise – it was awesome and really fuelled me for the run. In the end my bike time was 5:11:23 – an average of 34.5km/h against 25km/h winds. Another swift transition and I started the run feeling the best I’d felt in the full 7 months of training. I couldn’t work out how far behind schedule I was to meet my sub 10 goal but I’d aimed
to run 5min/km which I was comfortably doing, banking 10-15 seconds per km. However I noticed I was losing 20seconds/km on the return 2.5km straight due to headwinds – which I’d have to repeat 4 times. It was TIGHT. Everytime I passed the finish stretch I was lifted by the loudest section of the crowd – with Team Wreake cheering my name. Each time it gave me the adrenaline rush I needed to persevere. By lap 3 I couldn’t face any more gels (15 in by this point – not including carb drinks) which probably hindered me on the fourth lap. I never stopped pushing though, even after realising that my sub 10 goal was out of reach – I still wanted to give it my best effort. The lovely events organisers at Outlaw allow you to run the finish line with loved ones, so my girls were waiting at the start of the carpet and dragged me down to the finish line with no regard to my fatigued state! I could hear loud cheering which was amazing but felt in a bit of a
haze. I ended up completing the marathon in 3:25:26. I felt so drained at the finish line but it was great to hug the kids. Now I had the problem of getting my legs to move again, it’s amazing how the body stops working when it knows there’s no reason to. And the first thing you have to do after finishing is climb a flight of stairs to the
recovery area! My finish time was 10:01:34 – but in a 10 hour race with three disciplines, not everything can go to plan or is within your control. I placed 25th individual overall, 10th in my category (out of 64) and was 35 minutes quicker than my last effort two years ago. Whilst it’s a shame not to have the sub-10 under my belt (yet), the level of support I had in the race completely overshadowsmissing out on that 1:34. https://www.outlawtriathlon.com/events-listing/