Long Course Weekend 2019 – Barney’s Story
Note: This is Barney’s version of events at the 2019 Long Course Weekend, competing alongside Stu, another Stu and a big gang from their Tri Club. Stu’s version can be found here.
As we started the journey to Tenby the Sat Nav was showing 200 miles and around 3.5 hours to get there. Though a long way it was a very simple route. Straight down the M4 and keep heading west once the motorway finished.
The slightly scarier bit was that once we arrived I (along with Stu and several other members of the club) would be covering 70% of the same distance in the following 48 hours powered only by our own bodies.
Long Course Weekend – Wales was finally upon us and the nerves were starting to kick in. Was it realistic? Could I overcome everything it would throw at me? My first sea swim, my first marathon, lots of hills and the overall distance.
The journey was smooth and easy. As we crossed the bridge Claire and I both racked our brains as to the last time either of us had been to Wales. The answer was – a very long time ago.
After arriving at Haven Kiln Park campsite at bang on Midday we set about staking our pitch, getting the awning up before taking the short walk to Registration to meet Stu and Stu along with their families. They had come down the night before and were already settled in at a different campsite with their Caravans.
Registration was slick and amongst the normal “freebies” included the cycling top that was included as part of the VIP pack looked like a win, so that was tomorrow’s wardrobe choice made.
After some discussion and investigation we secured access for the others to join us at our pitch at 5pm so we could all walk down to the beach for the first event of the weekend. The 2.4 mile sea swim.
Fisticuffs and Jellyfish
The swim was the event that concerned me the most. I was ok with the distance. It’s a long way but I knew I could complete each of the two laps within the 1 hour time limits permitted – in a lake. In the sea though I was concerned, I had never done an event in the sea and not being that strong I knew I would struggle if conditions were poor. Tonight though we were in luck. The sea was like a mill pond, flat as a pancake and with almost no wind.
We walked down the zig zag path to the beach and got suited up just before reaching the sand. Children’s events were happening on the beach already and thousands of spectators, supporters and competitors filled all the vantage points. It was an impressive sight.
Before we had even got to the sea we spotted our first jellyfish. Splayed on the sand, it was imposingly large. The word went round there were more of them in the sea.
We waded out, a long way, to take a quick acclimatisation swim. Temperature was ok. Second jellyfish sighted drifting through the swimmers as we returned to shore.
All too soon it was time to say goodbye to our support crew and head into the start pen. 2500 swimmers standing and chatting. It was a self seeding setup so we positioned ourselves towards the rear of the pack. As a mass start we knew it was going to be busy and thrashy and none of us were chasing specific times. The target was to get through all 3 events and complete LCW to get the additional 4th medal and put a tick in the box.
The siren went and we were off. We gently jogged down the rapidly shrinking beach and into the water. After a short swim we turned left at the first buoy and headed for the second one. Fortunately before the start they had told us that it would feel like swimming through treacle to get to as we would be heading into the current. I was glad I had heard that as this proved to be very true, especially the later part of the leg.
The thing that became evident as well was that we were also swimming into the Jellyfish as they moved with the current. Football size and larger. Many were a couple of metres down and could be ignored. Others were at a depth that arms would drag through them during a stroke. And then there were the ones that were just below the surface that came straight at your head. I made the decision to not take them on, I stopped, swam round or where possible drifted over them. It sometimes resulted in be being clobbered by another swimmer but I’d take that short term discomfort over a slow healing sting.
The second buoy finally arrived and getting round it was like negotiating the Arc de Triumphe at rush hour. Slow, noisy, a little scary and at points painful. Finally around it the next leg was much faster now swimming with the current. Sighting was now a challenge; the buoy being around 1km away meant the competitors spread out over a wide area. I ended up drifting too far left and had to swim across the current at the end but once round that buoy the next target was the beach. We were now swimming straight into the sun so you couldn’t see anything. I just trusted that the splashing arms I could see ahead of me were going in the right direction and tried to stay somewhere in the middle.
It was with only about 50m to go that the sun was finally blocked by the buildings at the top of the cliff and I got my first sight of the beach and the big red arch we were aiming at. It was directly in front, so kicking my legs to get some blood flow going I swam until it was shallow enough to make wading quicker. I jogged through the arch and turned right heading back to the sea for the second lap. A quick check of my watch showed just under 42 minutes for the first lap. Happy with that.
Lap two was tougher. Same number of jellyfish but that first stretch against the current seemed to take for ever. I think my lack of speed was really showing here and it just dragged on and on. Finally getting to it, and despite the field naturally having thinned out the turn was still very busy and fighty.
For the long return leg I was conscious about trying to stay further to the right than last time but I still ended up being pushed left. At one point as I swam hard right to avoid a boat and the buoy it was tied up to I was clobbered by another swimmer and ended up pinned against the buoy and it’s rope, pushed on to it now by the current. It took a couple of seconds of effort and swearing to get myself off it and heading in my desired direction.
Round the last buoy and now the turn back to the beach, once more completely unable to sight any landmark to guide myself I trusted in the other athletes around me. Eventually I could see the beach; or rather the mass of humanity stood on what had once been a large beach but who were now huddled onto a much smaller strip of sand as the tide had come in so far.
I pulled myself out of the sea, ripped off my goggles as I ran through the arch and this time turned left to head for the finish line. I overtook more people in that short 50m run than I had in the whole of the swim.
Medal Number 1 Done! Relief. At points it had been a very physical swim, but I had got through it and unlike many others I had avoided getting stung. Apparently a lot of swimmers had been pulled out, either due to being overwhelmed by the physicality or by having been freaked out by the Jellyfish. I can fully understand both of those.
Stu and Stu had finished within 30 seconds of each other about 20 minutes ahead of me.
We climbed back up the path and walked back to the campsite.
5:30 am was the agreed time for meeting the next morning for the 6:30am bike. Food, drink and sleep were to fill the next few hours.
Hills and Haribo
When you registered for LCW you had to put down your estimated time for each of the events. We had initially put down something like 7 or 7.5 hours for the bike. Even then I was concerned this was a bit optomistic as I imagined the terrain would be tougher than our local area. As they were going to use this time estimate to set your wave for the ride and there were strict cut offs I decided to do some research. This confirmed my suspicions, so I made the decision to change my estimated time to 8.5 hours. Stu and Stu followed suit.
This change worked well as it put us in Wave 1 and meant we could start at 6:30am. And so it was we were in the first 20 cyclists to rollout on Saturday morning. Another perfect weather day, cooler than Friday and almost no wind.
My tortoise Mascot – Sheldon – had asked to come on the ride, so I had zip tied him to my stem so he had a good view of the trip.
The course was made of two loops. The first one took you west from Tenby down into the dunes and then back east, this one you completed once. The second loop was north and east of Tenby and was hillier and was to be completed twice for those of us on the 112 mile route.
We had decided to start the ride together and see how things went. Stu led the way for much of the first loop, enjoying his first long ride on his shiny new bike. We were less than two hours in before some of the Top 10 athletes from the previous days swim came past us. They had come down the start ramp at around 7am, so that showed how much quicker they were.
Some of the views on this first loop over the coast were a pleasure. The most exciting part came when Stu managed to cycle directly into a traffic cone on one section. Her stayed upright, and despite us ribbing him mercilously he did narrowly avoided repeating the same move about 500m further down the road.
Just after starting the the second loop we reached our first feed station. Refill bottles, haribo sweets, crisps, cheese sandwiches and quarter oranges. Toilet breaks. And then we were off again.
In the first loop there had been plenty of hills but there had also been flat stuff as well. Now the hills became constant. We were either going up or down. There was no opportunity to recover. It was now that we realised Stu was starting to slow a bit. We had waited at the top of one hill and he had told us to go on. We stuck together for a while and then after a few more miles we arrived at the second feed station. When Stu rolled in a few minutes later we had a quick chat. He was doing what he always does, pushing himself to keep up, tough as old boots. We all agreed that this was counter productive so we cut the mental rope. Mr Holbrook and I headed back on course and left Stu to stock up and carry on at his own pace.
As we neared the end of the second loop we knew we had Saundersfoot to tackle. A short steep hill followed by a long drag up afterwards. What I wasn’t aware of was Wiseman’s Bridge Hill that we hit about a mile or so before hand. I had dropped Mr H on the descent into Wiseman’s and when I saw the 16% incline sign I gulped and decided to get that out of the way before slowing to allow him to catch me.
Granny gear engaged and it didn’t take long before I was out of the saddle and grinding my way up the hill. It wasn’t a long hill and I had just spotted a point about 20m ahead where the gradient seemed to start to slacken when I saw the rider a couple of places ahead of me topple sideways and hit the deck. People falling on steep sections is not unusual as they fail to unclip when they simply grind to a halt, so initially not thinking too much I focused on not doing the same myself. As I rode past I looked to check on him and it was clear he wasn’t reacting the way I would expect a normal faller.
I and a couple of other riders immediately jumped off to see what we could do to help. Ambulances and the Event emergency numbers were called. A few minutes later a GP competing in the event stopped and took control. At this point there more people around than could help so I had just made the decision to move on and leave the experts to it when Stu appeared, having walked up the hill. We clipped back in an headed off, with heavy hearts, we chatted briefly before Stu dropped me on the decent into Saundersfoot. I encouraged him on as we went under the arch at the start of the King of the Hill section and climbed up out of Saundersfoot.
I hadn’t seen Mr Holbrook since before Wiseman’s. He had missed the fact I had stopped and had carried on naturally assuming that the cluster of people were dealing with what ever had occurred. Having plenty of liquid and fuel I bounced the Tenby feed station in the slight hope I might catch him.
The run out to the turn for rejoining the second loop again was much longer than I remembered so I was glad to finally arrive at the original feed station. Toilet break and top ups done I headed back out. I had no issues on the cutoff times but my mind was in the mode of just get this done. Counting down the kilometres to go.
I bounced the final feed station as well, the lure of scampi and chips had been there but with around 30km to go it was now about getting home safely.
Wiseman’s Bridge felt too tough mentally and physically so I walked half of it. Saundersfoot however was fine and then I was back in Tenby. A quick wave to our supporters as I went past and then through the finish line. 8 hours 22 minutes.
Medal Number 2, crisps and a slice of Dominos pizza (one of the sponsors).
Getting back to the team was tricky with all the people and bikes but we met up. I was surprised to hear Mr Holbrook had come in about 8 minutes after me. Strava flybys later showed I had passed him whilst he was stopped at the final feed station.
Then we waited for Stu. He had lost about 30 minutes on the final loop, had finished well under 9 hours, but was feeling broken.
We headed back to the campsite, and after showers, change of clothes etc we met up once again at a pub for a much deserved dinner.
Stu was talking about not being strong enough to do the marathon tomorrow. We told him he was worrying too much and to sleep on it.
There was no way I was going to let him not at least start the marathon. If we could get him started he would almost certainly finish it. The only question would be whether he could do it within the 6 hour time limit.
Later that evening after getting back to our campsite we discovered a couple of others members from our club had stopped to help the guy on Wiseman’s Bridge Hill, one of them being a nurse. Eventually the guy was airlifted to hospital and was in intensive care.
My First Marathon
Sheldon had enjoyed the ride so much he insisted on coming on the run as well. It took a bit of fiddlng and two belts but I got him securely attached along with carrying my phone, some food and my race number.
With a far more civilised start time of 10am for the marathon the guys arrived with us around 8:30 and we headed back to the town square to get ready for what was going to be the toughest of the 3 challenges from an impact point of view.
My first target was to finish it in under the 6 hour time limit. My second was to complete it in around 5.5 hours. In my head I thought 2.5 hours for the first half and then 3 hours for the second seemed vaguely sensible and achievable. But this was all uncharted territory for me. I have never run more than a half marathon before. And the terrain was going to be anything but flat.
We lined up in the starting funnel, not far behind the 5km runners which included Jo and Dom. They started at 9:55 and then all too soon it was 10:00 and off we went. I chatted to Sasha from the club for about the first 500m through Tenby but quickly realised her natural pace was faster than mine, so I told her to carry on at her own pace. I hadn’t even got out of Tenby when my watch buzzed. The notification told me that Claire had sent me a message. My heart sank – my immediate thought was that Stu had succumbed to pain in his knees and pulled out before leaving town. Knowing there was nothing I could do if that was the case I decided to ignore it and hope that wasn’t the case.
As we left Tenby the 5km runners were heading back in and I got to high five Dom and cheer Jo on. Then we met the big hill I heard people talking about – 1km long with sections at 14%.
I implemented my cunning plan. I walked the hill. All of it. At the top was the first of the water stations which was perfect positioning.
We then got to run along the gently undulating ridgeway with stunning views to our left looking down to the coast.
Over the next few miles I stuck with my plan. Running the flats and the downs and walking the ups, and this seemed to work well.
Just before getting to the picturesque town of Pembroke we did a sharp U-Turn and ran up a narrow path. My mind wanderd to the 122 runners that were roped together trying to beat the Guiness World Record. That was going to be a logistical nightmare for them I imagined.
Pembroke was beautiful and had a lot of support. Crossing the half way point in 2 hours 22 minutes I was pleasantly surprised. But I knew the second half was going to be tougher. Maybe something closer to 5 hour 15 might be on the cards.
As we left Pembroke there were lots of locals who had setup their own water and feed stations. Some even had sprinklers and hoses spraying onto the road to help cool the runners down. I took full advantage of those.
The support on the entire route was incredible. There was one group of 3 people that were handing out cold orange sections, cheering and holding up a couple of signs…
“Pain is just a French Bread”
“You run better than the Government”
The amazing thing was I saw them four times on the route. Not sure how they managed that, but massive respect to them for their commitment,
At around mile 15 we started to hit some longer hills. So I sent a quick whatsapp message to our supporters to give them a status update as I walked up one of them.
The next few miles were tough. I started walking on anything that looked vaguely up. But I was soon over taking some of the back markers from the people that started the half marathon in Pembroke about 20 minutes before I ran through it.
We headed down to and then climbed back up from the coast. It was around this time I started to wonder if I might be able to break 5 hours. And over the next few kilometres I swung from a probable “Yes” to a more likely “No”. As I descended the long 1km climb we had originally ascended the numbers swung back towards a possible “Yes”.
Once I got to the bottom however my legs were shot. I ended up walking a large chunk of the next couple of kilometres until finally realising it might still be on and kicking myself in to running the final descent into Tenby. The final up was brutal and I walked it. Once at the top I checked my watch – it might still be on. So I pushed myself into a run and as the line got closer and the gradient pointed gently down I hit my fastest speed of the day.
Waving at our supporters I kept pushing for the line and crossed it, giving Sheldon a big kiss. Not checking the official clock as I had started a bit after the gun I stopped my watch. From my timing it looked like I had scraped in under 5 hours by a couple of seconds. Amazed I broke into a huge smile and slowly made my way back to our supporters. We couldn’t get the official times as the timing computer wasn’t running.
After hugs and congrats we then waited for Stu. He had not got his phone with him so no one had any updates on how he was doing other than a report that he was around 30 minutes behind me at about the 17 mile mark.
And we waited. Then at 5 hours 40 Stu appeared on the big screen, looking strong and powering towards the finish. Awesome. He had done it!
4th Medal and 8 Seconds
With the 6 hour cutoff approaching we watched the big screen avidly, willing people to finish within the 6 hour cutoff. Then we saw a LCW athlete on the screen. He had less than a minute to cross the line. The whole crowd started screaming and encouraging him on. It took him a while to realise but he eventually picked up his pace and managed to cross the line with a couple of seconds to spare. The emotion was so strong there were tears being shed by people who had no idea who he was.
Then the LCW athletes had to collect their timing printouts and whilst wearing our official Polo shirts and our 3 medals we were able to then collect our 4th medal and make a guard of honour for the overall winners. I took my prinout and quickly checked the Marathon time. 4 hours 59 minutes and 52 seconds. I had broken 5 hours by 8 seconds! That amount of time seems to be a theme for me, one way or another.
What an amazing event and weekend.
The run had taken everything I had left but the whole experience was incredible. What an amazing place and atmosphere. I had finished 466th out of the LCW Athletes. Out of the 1000 that started the weekend only around 600 had completed it.
Now the only question left is would I do an Ironman? That’s something I need to think on over the coming weeks. It’s a big commitment. If I do, I predict it will be on a flatter course than Tenby.
If I do, Sheldon will have to learn to swim as he is coming on all 3 legs.