Long Course Weekend 2019 – Stu’s story

Note: This is Stu’s version of events at the 2019 Long Course Weekend, competing alongside Barney, another Stu and a big gang from their Tri Club. Barney’s version can be found here.

Thursday, 8:00 pm

We’d arrived in Tenby late afternoon, after a long but fast journey. Most of the route was motorway and even the last thirty miles were fairly quick, only slowing to a rural crawl as we got within a few miles of our destination. Set up in our base we bombed out and grabbed a good meal with Stu, Claire and Poppy. Barney and Claire were joining us tomorrow for the start of the biggest challenge of my life to date, the Long Course Weekend – a full Ironman distance event, spread over three days, with the Wales Sportive making up the bike leg, the Wales Marathon the run.

There were 1000 triathletes taking part in the Long Course alone, alongside thousands more just doing the individual events, half distance swims and rides, or the 5k, 10k, or half marathon taking place at the same time.

I’d signed up for the full event, drawn by the lure of a quality and spectacular set of medals (one for each event plus a fourth for anyone that finished the full long course inside the cut off times) that combine into a multilevel diorama, but hadn’t initially appreciated just how hilly the area was. As we’d driven in, we’d all been a bit alarmed by the humps and bumps we dragged ourselves over. Initially, when booking, I’d read that the bike course included 1200m of climbing – challenging but doable, I thought. I was thrown into a panic when Fiona from the club told me later there was 3,300 m of climbing which was a quite literally a mountain to climb.

Actually, based on the UK standard definition of 600m above sea level, it’s nearly five mountains to climb.

Finally after some careful consultation with the internet, Barney confirmed to me it was 2,100m – bad (only three and a bit mountains!), but I felt with the additional training I’d done I’d be able to get through it.

Stu had nonchalantly turned to Claire and said ‘You know how long it’s been from the bridge into Wales to Tenby? That’s how far we have to ride, but with more hills’ which blew all our brains a bit. It had taken over two hours in cars. The whole event was a monster.

This had turned out to be one of those dates in the calendar that had brilliant representation from my local club with over 10% of members taking part, and the bulk of that for the full Long Course. I’d had a lot of chats with people I felt I now knew well and had been surprised that many were having a wobble about one element or another. For a while now I’d been blithely waving a hand at the challenge of the swim and the ride telling everyone I knew I could do them, but was terrified of the run.

Now it was all so close I was worrying that I’d been too cocky about the first two events and it was about to bite me on the bum.

We had a couple of small beers, knowing we had nearly 24 hours before things kicked off, and relaxed, surprised even that night by how interested the locals were, and how positive they were about the event as we chatted to them about the area.

Friday, 10:30 am

Mid morning we arrived for registration at the Tenby sports center – we got there relatively early and the buzz was already amazing as foot traffic built rapidly. The first thing we walked into was the huge expo where I could quite happily have bought everything from salt tablets through to top end wheels or bikes, with shoes, sunglasses and wetsuits in between.

As we registered for the Long Course, we were given a fantastic haul of goodies – I’d added the VIP option to my sign up which included photos and gave me a LCW cycling top in addition to the standard LCW polo shirt and dozen other genuinely useful pieces like the ethically produced tote bag and local LCW branded beer.

On top of this we had the option to purchase from a load of what we felt was very reasonably priced branded merchandise compared to the ‘other’ big triathlon event brand (the technical shirts, we were assured, had been made from last years collected water bottles). I bought an additional cycling top with the LCW distances on the back and a Wales sportive t-shirt but although I looked longingly at some of the custom medal frames on sale, I felt buying one of those now was tempting fate and would definitely jinx me finishing.

I forced myself to walk away. I’d decided in my head what one I was having though.

Jo and Dom were also in a spending frenzy and bought themselves supporters tops as well as souvenir hoodies for their 5k run on Sunday.

Nice touches abounded with a big wall board listing each of the LCW athletes by name, and a well manned information room that was genuinely equipped to deal with every last minute panicked query. We met up with Barney and Claire about half way through the process, and quickly brought them up to speed.

Delighted with our gear, we headed back to the campsite to fully prep the bikes and bike kit for the day after – it was going to be a late finish and an early start and we wanted to maximise the rest we got.

Friday, 5:30 pm

With the day still hot, we parked in Tenby and followed the army of triathlon bags making their way into the town center. Walking through the five arch gate into the old walled town, we soon found ourselves heading down the zig zag walkway onto the beach. We’d been able to hear loud music for quite a while and were picking our way through thousands of people, in the town, on the walls, and on the beach itself. We wanted to take full advantage of the 6:00 acclimatisation swim, and clearly plenty of others shared our plan.

It was Barney’s first sea swim and he was a little nervous of the unknown. Although the weather couldn’t have been better and the water was a flat as a millpond as we wandered across the beach there was a two foot jellyfish stranded on the sand. Laughing, I told him I was sure it was the only one. As we waded out a long way into the knee deep water, we speculated that we might be walking the whole swim. At this moment we realised just how fast the tide was coming in. We also saw another jelly fish swimming free, twice as large as the one on the beach. I cracked up and told Barney I was sure THAT was the only one.

Soon enough, we’d managed to throw a couple of spurts of crawl in and it was time to join the solid crush of swimmers slowly making their way into the start pen. Barney was still a little nervous but determined; we knew he’d be fine.

We’d all decided not to push too far to the front; with 2,500 swimmers in a single mass start we knew it was going to be a bear of a swim. I shook my head when the commentator asked who was doing their first OW swim and predictably a number of hands went up at the very front of the pen. I didn’t give much for their chances and they were going to be a proper pain for the rest of the fast swimmers.

Within minutes, the starting gun went off, spectacular fireworks were launched from a boat in the bay and the race was on. Swimmers marched chest deep into the sea (which had come in so far and so fast it was causing a number of issues for the spectators nearest the sea) before throwing themselves forward. Like Alcatraz, the sea seethed with swimmers as we fought the incoming current for the first buoy. Before too long, I hit a truly massive jellyfish, four or five feet long. Expecting it to collapse like a carrier bag I was really surprised when I rebounded from it like it was a trampoline or an exceptionally large football. I’d plough into several more before the first lap was over.

The truly epic start meant we were fighting for space and direction all the way to the first buoy then compressed almost to a standstill for what felt like tens of seconds as we struggled to round it, before the field stretched out as the strong current swept us down the long leg. Some swimmers got swept outside the ranks of boats marking the course and had to drive back in, but it felt like only moments later we rounded the second buoy and turned for home.

The setting sun directly in front of us blocked any chance of sighting properly but for the longest time I knew I was swimming too far to the right. There were so many swimmers packed into a tight space all heading in the ‘wrong’ direction that it was utterly impossible to correct my course – I gave up and swam with the rest hoping it would sort itself out as we got closer to the exit.

This was a two lap race with my first ever Australian exit, where you get out of the water after the first lap, run around the giant rock on the beach and plunge back in for the second. This was exciting for us and great for the spectators who had a chance to cheer their swimmers on. I’d asked Jo to tell me how far behind Stu I was and to tell Barney how far behind me he was. As I ran around the curve and spotted our team there was a moment of stunned silence then cheering, but no useful timings – it turned out later I was unexpectedly 30s in front of Stu, something no one had anticipated, and by the time the shock had worn off I was in again.

I’d expected the second leg to be considerably more spaced out than the first, but the ‘self-seeding’ nature of the start and the substantial distance still to swim meant I was surrounded by capable swimmers and had to fight just as hard all the way back to the first buoy. This seemed to take a lot longer as the current grew stronger. To add to the fun, as we turned onto the fast leg a chop appeared from nowhere caused by the new current, but once again we flew down the straight.

We literally mowed down a few slow swimmers still on their first lap – there was no option as for big chunks of the course we were shoulder to shoulder many abreast. I could see some of them panicking as we closed in and assumed we weren’t the first tidal wave to hit them. Before long I was out of the water, a minute behind Stu who’d unleashed his frustration with the crowding on a storming second lap, and shortly before Barney who’d had an incredible first sea swim.

I had a minor, and Stu had a spectacular, jellyfish sting on our necks; over the course of the weekend you could see a lot of LCW athletes with welts on their necks from stings. Some of our club had had tougher swims either batting jellyfish out of the way with their faces or just struggling with the size and numbers of both human and blobby swimmers, but I was hugely proud that everyone from the club had come through well, including Steve who sat comfortably in fourth overall, which represented a superhuman effort from an exceptional athlete.

While acclimatising and racing, we hadn’t realised how busy the beach had become – it was rammed with swimmers and spectators and the noise was incredible. Eventually we were able to get off the beach and back to the cars. As we walked up, we heard the announcer telling the crowds there were ten minutes to go until the cut off. I looked out at the course – there were a lot of swimmers still out there, with a way to go. I suspected not all were going to finish.

By the time we’d cooked and eaten and decompressed a little it was nearly half eleven in the evening. We all crashed out and were asleep as soon as heads hit pillows – tomorrow was going to be an early start and a tough long day.

Saturday, 4:45 am

Despite the incredibly early start we were all in good spirits as we forced down some cereal and threw on our cycling gear. The consensus was it had been a brilliant swim. We’d seen the aggressive bike cut off times (there was a 1pm cut off for starting the second loop 120km in regardless of what time you started) and maximised our chances of completing the brutal course by entering a conservative ride time when initially registering to secure a start in the first wave at 6:30.

Although this worked, and we’d planned to ride lightly all day it would turn out that no one was going to be able to take it easy on this Wales Sportive course. When the flame cannon fired to signify the start of the ride, we were in the first block of twenty riders to leave on the closed road route, laughing and furiously waving at our team; as some of the other cyclists slowly started to slip past we happily let them go – we had a plan and we would ride as carefully as it took to minimise the damage that the big hills were going to do. We knew the elite riders would be leaving 30 minutes behind us; I guessed that they’d catch us up inside of 20k.

The plan couldn’t have worked better for the first 60k, which was a standalone loop we completed before beginning a different lap we would ride twice. We averaged a comfortable 25Km/h and rode as a loose triple, with me tending to fall to the back going up the larger hills, and Stu doing the same going down, but no one was pushing too hard and we quickly came back together when the terrain flattened out even a little. We had completed almost double my earlier estimate when the pro’s came flying past. We’d ridden out past the huge local power station, across open moors and down to beautiful local beaches on sandy roads that weaved between dunes. The scenery often took your breath away.

With 600m of climbing completed in the first chunk I was feeling pretty good. Every junction was manned and there was very little of the course that didn’t have spectators somewhere around, cheering you on and keeping you going.

All to soon things started to change – as we’d left the feed station at 62k a LCW veteran had told a puzzled Barney ‘And now the Tenby hills start’ – we wondered what the hell we’d been fighting over the first third of the ride. We knew that there were two monster hills we had to ride each lap we’d yet to meet (Wiseman’s Hill and Saundersfoot Bay) but surely this meant that the rest of the loop must be flatter than what we’d seen so far?

Quickly we realised that this was not the case as the hills started to come thicker and faster – I was having to work much harder than I wanted to catch the other two up and there wasn’t enough respite – you’d grind up a savage 15% hill at 10km/h, plunge swiftly down the other side then repeat the process almost immediately. Finally, at 90k and with half the ride under our wheels, I managed to persuade Barney and Stu who had been holding back for me, to ride on and let me ease off to make sure I finished.

As they headed off I was able to refill my bottles with electrolyte, stuff my face with crisps and flapjacks and regroup mentally.

I was confused – with 1200m of climbing completed already, my maths was telling me there was less than 150m of climbing left on this loop, although we still had 30k to go before we began it again. I was starting to doubt the 2100m figure I’d been working to, and was suffering. It wasn’t anything that would cause a major issue if this was a standalone ride but all I could think about was the damage I was being dealt by the Welsh terrain and the marathon to come the next day.

15k further on I hammered down a steep technical descent into Wiseman’s Hill – I could see the road turn upwards and as we saw another 15% gradient, the rider alongside me who I’d been chatting to for a little while decided to pull over and walk – it was steep enough we could both see an uncleating accident in our future if we tried to ride it. Protecting myself for the Marathon was foremost in my mind so I gratefully agreed with her and did the same.

As we strode briskly up the hill (it was good to stretch out our backs at this point) we could see a fallen rider, surrounded by concerned athletes at the side of the road. I was very surprised to spot Barney – he’d been just behind the rider who had slowly toppled to his side and although initially responsive he had quickly taken a turn for the worse. While another rider was calling the emergency services, we were calling the LCW emergency number – eventually someone got through to both and a GP pulled up and took charge. Getting in the way at this point we rode on – to find out later that shortly after we left he’d stopped breathing and Max and Sasha from our club arrived and were able to work together to deliver CPR until the air ambulance arrived to take him away.

The food stations had been brilliant – flooded with volunteers loaded with giant jugs of electrolyte or water which meant they could quickly fill your bottles and be on your way – we’d been a little concerned that the first station wasn’t until 60k in but this turned out to be ok – we were dry by the stop but had managed to top up and down a few cups as soon as we arrived. We also looked enviously at the pub and disco offering scampi and chips at the stop at 92 and 122k but couldn’t risk the time to party as much as some of our team were able to.

A few miles further on, we arrived at Saundersfoot hill, a total beast with a timed sprint/KOM section and what can only be described as a supporter party taking place at the base including a massive drum orchestra.

Inspired by the noise and the always rewarding sight of friendly faces (Jay and Maisie, Amy’s family this time) I fought my way up this climb – surprised several times as I hit what turned out to be false summits before turning a corner and continuing to climb. I suspect this was well over a kilometre of steady grind and so steep I could feel my front wheel lifting at various points, but I refused to walk.

As we finally rode back into Tenby I was hoping the course would turn out to be short, but we then had approximately 8k driving out of town again before we started the second lap proper, giving us more or less the correct distance. We’d made the cut off for the start of the second lap by more than an hour and a half, so time pressures were pretty much done. I quickly checked the Garmin, surprised to discover that in addition to the initial 600m of climbing, we’d completed 1000m in the second third and that meant we had another 1000m to go for a total of 2600m. This was going to hurt.

Continue to hurt, more accurately stated.

I thought hard as I knew I needed a way to break this last 60k down into something more manageable. I knew that even if I included the two crazy climbs the last twenty five k had felt a lot more manageable than the first half of the lap, so I decided that if I could get from 120 to 155K even if I walked the two big hills I would be able to finish the ride. At that point I totally didn’t care about the marathon anymore – I just needed to complete the ride.

With that as my strategy, watching each painful kilometre click down to 155k, still every time I turned a corner I was faced by yet another huge incline with tiny neon specks struggling at the top in the distance.

I got to 155k. Things didn’t feel much easier at that point but I knew I now only had 25k to go.

‘That’s just a Monday night club recovery ride’ I told myself. Although a few (mostly LCW) riders had walked Wiseman’s Hill first time round, a lot of riders were walking the second time; I joined them but determined, I powered all the way up Saundersfoot mounted the second time as well.

This had all taken its toll – as I rolled into the Tenby finish to deafening noise, my knees and back were hurting murderously and my thighs had no strength left. This was not a normal post event feeling and there was no way I was going to be able to run my first marathon and make a six hour cut off in not much more than twelve hours time over the sort of terrain we’d been covering.

I was now in far and away the worst state out of the big group I knew, mentally it was bad too. It would be devastating to go home with only two medals out of the four I’d been hoping for (and I’d have to dispose of  the finishers cycling top I’d bought), but if I went out to try to run a marathon and physically flogged myself into the ground for nothing I’d be even more inconsolable watching the other nine members of my club collecting their fourth medal as part of the victory parade that I knew there was no way I’d be part of.

I was thinking that if I chose to quit before I started surely that would be better than failing for nothing? That thought process in itself spoke volumes about how messed up my thinking was.

Exhausted and upset, I incoherently tried to explain to the rest of the group my reasoning and told them that I’d either support everyone or join Jo and Dom for the 5k, but either way I was out; Jo just hugged me and told me to stop talking and see how I felt in the morning. We grabbed a carb heavy pub meal and then dispersed to bed – I was asleep by 8:00.

Sunday, 7:30 am

I woke up after a really good sleep still with painful knees and tired thighs. There was no way I was going to be able to maintain sub 8:45/k pace on the local ground but I also knew I couldn’t let the rest of the team struggle on without even trying. I joined the others on the start line in Tenby town center, trying to project a little optimism but knowing with absolute certainty I was going to wind up stranded somewhere on the run course.

I’d hidden a set of keys to the caravan (which was at 17 miles) in case I wound up stopped nearby, I was so certain that I would DNF.

We were all shocked to hear the announcer on the tannoy telling us that only 667 of the 1000 had completed the bike course last night – we’d already lost a third of the entrants, all of whom would at least had an idea of what they were letting themselves in for.

It was already hot and muggy and the mood was more determined than the exuberance of the day before.

As we started the run, something miraculous happened almost instantly.

My knees stopped hurting.

Everything was still tired, but if my knees weren’t going to be the limiting factor I started to wonder if maybe I was still on for the distance. At three K I passed Jo and Dom running the return leg on their 5k – as I darted over to their side of the road to swap high fives my delight was genuine. I just needed to keep this going for as long as I could.

Seven weeks before this weekend I’d twisted my ankle really badly and although I’d actually only lost a couple of weeks to full rest I’d been ‘managing’ the damage as I got through the busiest part of my season. Although I felt my ankle was now finally fully back to strength I’d missed out on some critical weeks of longer runs as I let it recuperate rather than risking further damage – I was woefully undertrained for distance and I knew it.

I was fitter than I’ve ever been, but didn’t know how much of my early season distance running was still benefitting and had never run a marathon, so this was totally unknown territory for me. I’d known from the start that this was probably a dumb first marathon to choose to tackle but it was what it was.

All of my more experienced mates, Stu, Jane, Vicky, Lou, Serina and Fiona had been telling me to adopt a run/walk strategy. I innately hate walking and have always considered it a surrender/failure on a run but after the previous day I knew I couldn’t and shouldn’t run all of the terrible welsh inclines. It was also a shocking surprise to see many of the athletes around me were also dropping into a brisk walk as soon as we hit anything steep.

Finally, I realised that for marathons, and certainly for this marathon, walking was nothing to be ashamed of.

As I tentatively put this strategy into practice a second miracle happened.

I found the walks up the steep hills actually (although slower) gave me a respite and allowed me to run easily but faster than I was expecting. It also gave me a chance to chat as I forced a brisk pace and I relaxed and really started to enjoy myself.

Despite the constant climbs I found myself banging kilometre after kilometre out ahead of my target pace and almost before I knew it I’d done the first half marathon distance at almost exactly the pace I’d planned for originally. Tiring, I was now struggling to keep myself running at the same pace but I quickly realised I didn’t need to. Under normal circumstances, I reckoned I could actually walk the remaining half and still squeak in under the time limit – even with this kind of ground to cover maybe I could do it?

I switched to a from Run flats and downs/Walk ups to Run downs/ Walk ups and flats strategy – still not sure when I’d hit the wall everyone who’s run a marathon talks about.

As I continued to force one foot after another in a fast walk and then drove legs to quickly turnover on downhill sections I found myself still pulling ahead of where I thought I would be, with each kilometre that passed.

I had a couple of little lifts on the way:

• When Johnny the club chairman roared past on a closed road in a camper van yelling my name and honking I proudly turned to the runners around me and told them ’That was for me!’.
• When a little old lady offered to pour water over my head and it turned out to be so shockingly, deliciously cold that I yelled hoarsely with delight. A minute or so later I heard behind me a similar yell and knew someone else had taken her up on the offer.
• The families offering slices of watermelon or who’d set up sprinklers to cool the runners; all small things that lifted my spirits and helped me keep running on.

At one point I felt what I knew was a horsefly bite on my leg. Ignoring it I ran on and when I finally checked the leg three k later I was disgusted to find my passenger still attached, but maintaining my rhythm had been all consuming – far more important than a mere savaging from insects.

Tiring, I still pushed on – at this point I didn’t want to risk another twisted ankle or a cramp making me miss out.

I was now struggling to make the maths I was doing in my head work as I tried to calculate the arrival times based on different paces. My brain was foggy and I did the same sums over and over again. The arrival times just seemed too similar; eventually the penny dropped – a faster or slower pace didn’t make much difference anymore because I was so close to the finish, I just hadn’t been able to process it because the distance was so much further than what I was used to.

All the marshals had been brilliant but one lady who had to have been on her spot for over six hours begged me to start running at a particular landmark in her patch – I didn’t think I could but as I hit her marker, I somehow broke into a stumbling run and her cheer kept me going way longer than I would have believed possible at this point.

I ground my way up into town and as I ran the last four hundred meters I could not only hear the din in the town center but was spotted and roared on by Richard and Jane from the club who’d finished already.

The last couple of hundred meters were the most amazing finish I’ve ever experienced twisting down through the town and across the red carpet – a giant screen meant that Jo, Dom, Claire, Claire and Poppy knew I was coming and the announcers got my name out there as I was about fifty yards from the line, where a giant clock confirmed I had a full twenty minutes to spare before that cut off I’d been so certain was an impossible goal only that morning.

I got a massive cheer not only from my extended family of friends and club supporters but from hundreds of total strangers as I fairly flew down the final few yards.

I exited the finish funnel, turned right into the alleyway where athletes could grab water and fuel, and in relative quiet slumped against a shop window. Knowing I was very emotional I had a small sob to myself, trying to get it out of the system while hidden away from everyone else. My cunning plan was foiled when Dominic charged round the corner looking for me. I gave him a huge hug and pulled myself together before rejoining the group outside

Eighteen minutes later, with less than two minutes to go a LCW athlete could be seen on the screen charging towards the line and the whole town erupted willing him to continue his sprint and get over the line inside the cut off. A deafening roar went up as he made himself the final LCW finisher with ten seconds to spare.

I turned to the screen and could see several more LCW athletes struggling to get in with us all knowing they would now be outside the cut off, I felt a pang deep down as I knew how they were about to be feeling – I’d been sure it would be me.

Sunday, 4:30 pm

All the six hundred LCW finishers (having lost another 10% on the final event, and meaning in total we lost 40% of the initial entry list) were lined up inside the finishing funnel – every name was called out, every athlete was cheered on by the others and as Queen and ‘We Are The Champions’ rang out had been awarded our fourth and final medal. Each athlete was wearing the special LCW polo shirt we’d been given in the race pack and was wearing all four medals.

We were then the guard of honour, applauding and high fiving the winners as the podium places were announced. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face and everywhere I looked I could see my club teammates celebrating.

I couldn’t believe I’d managed to complete this incredible event and took a moment to tell myself to give myself more credit next time.

Although Tenby is an amazing place to race, and the locals pull together like no one else this has to be the most brutal Ironman event anywhere in the world. It would take a brave triathlete to choose IM Wales as their first Ironman; but with such a range of distances and choice of events available, LCW should be on everyones bucket list.

I got online and ordered one of those snazzy frames. I wondered…. Maybe I am ready for a full Ironman event? Maybe so, but it won’t be the welsh one first.