The Big Woody - Part I

This was it. We’d made it. Well, sort of. We’d lost a few of the original ‘entrants’ (debatable as to how many had stumped up the cash…) along the way:

Dan Marshall – sent an email pretty early on in proceedings saying he couldn’t commit to the amount of training.

Barnes – sent a lot of emails saying he was going to commit but never showed up. The Richmond Park marathon was the end for him.

Cardiac Chris – feigned heart problems to get out of it… we’re still awaiting the official medical report.

Flynn – did at least admit that he hadn’t done enough training and bowed our gracefully (if you ignore the incident on the Falzarego).

Mark was another worry. He had spent the prior 2 weeks in agony. Firstly with lower back pain which made walking, sitting and putting on his socks absolutely impossible. After seeing every chiropractor, doctor, sports masseur and ‘quack’ over the last 2 weeks he finally went for an MRI scan on Thursday, 48 hours before he lined up to start the BW to check there were no structural (ie disk) issues [at the time of writing we still don’t actually know what the result of this scan is]. The specialist that he had seen the day before had read in his notes that he was entered to run an ironman on the Saturday, his response to which was: “I’m not even going to discuss that”. A ‘bolt of lighting’ moment in the middle of the night around Wednesday transferred the agony to his hamstring and suddenly [comparatively] he was a lot more mobile. His chances of lining up on the start had gone from about 5% to 80%.

Those more cynical members of the group thought this was all a put on in light of the results that emerged later in the day.

We had taken the day off work on Friday to drive down to Rockfield just outside of Monmouth, settle into accommodation and then head down to Lydney to register. We were staying in the Coach House at Rockfield Studios where both Queen and Oasis have recorded in the past. They probably had a slightly different type of weekend to the one we had!

First job on arrival was to sort out our stuff and head to registration. Split transition required some preparation ensuring that everything you wanted for each transition was in a plastic bag (blue for bike, red for run) which was then transported to the relevant area. In hindsight this was a good thing as it meant much less faffing at 4.30am on race day morning. We tucked into the pasta at Taurus Crafts Café ‘pasta party’ and then headed back to Rockfield for pasta round 2 [lasagne]. The weather was looking ominous to say the least: this was the view from the van on the way back to Rockfield that evening and I can confirm it was even worse when we were driving to Dayhouse Quarry at 5.30am the next morning...

A nervous looking bunch at registration / T1 / Taurus Crafts:

Standing on the finish line - where we would all hopefully be in just under 24 hours time:

 

We had gone to bed and woken to a rather ominous looking sky. Like the Cowman the weather forecast was not showing the big man upstairs to be on our side. We prepared for the swim in the shelter of the café at the National Diving and Activity Centre. It wasn’t just raining. It was p1ssing it down. There was a mixture of banter and complete silence amongst the group. The last layers of Body Glide were applied and 'good lucks' offered to all around. Em also spotted my Goretex jacket come off and quickly opted in to look after it. Waterproofs were pretty key in this environment if you weren't getting in the water. 

The drugs in full effect, or just the early start? Pughy's peck's looking smaller (!) to the right and WJD looking deliriously happy at the prospect of the swim in the background:

Nervous smile. Just wanting to get on with it by now. 

As you can see from the photos it was pretty dark to kick off and the rain was torrential. They’d told us we might need head torches for the run but not the swim. We soon realised the perils of entering a competition that relied on the Welsh weather in August. Maybe Nice or Zurich would have been more pleasant after all?!

The BW was a relatively relaxed affair, so much so that as we were receiving our swim briefing the safety guys in kayaks were still putting the buoys in place. I counted 4 other ladies. Once down by the water the enormity of the task in hand was now only too close to commencing. But there was also an element of calm now amongst the TGS members. Relief: all the hard work was actually behind us and all we had to do now was put all that into action. Myself (showing the lack of 'guns'), Will, Jonny, Pughy, Mark - all looking remarkably relaxed just before the swim briefing:

A quiet moment of reflection before the swim brief...

We were soon dipping our toes in the water – somewhat warmer than the recce weekend when it was 13C – which was hitting 17C on the mercury. With just 40 competitors in the water it was a somewhat less manic affair than Cowman but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as I did there by starting at the front and neither, it would seem, were William and Mark. So we held our ground towards the back of the line up knowing that there wasn’t a huge field to work our way through.

Rounding the second buoy on the swim.

We set off on 4 laps of the quarry and I got into a good early rhythm although surprisingly I noticed my brother swimming off one shoulder. To make it worse I couldn’t shake him off. This was a little distressing as I know from all our training that he shouldn’t have been holding on like this. I tried to keep my focus and remember all the things I’d learnt in training: high elbows; pull through; regular breathing. He was still there. And for those of you that may have seen him swimming you will also realise that he has no ability to swim in a straight line. Even giving him a decent draft in the water, this didn’t change. The photo below shows me leading the way with Will to my right.

As he swam into me for about the 10th time I did try telling him to f*ck off under water but he probably only saw bubbles. I pushed again on the first leg of the third lap and on the way round the next buoy he finally dropped off. Now Mark was just off to one side along with another guy taking a draft off me. No sexism in this sport! But we were making good headway and continued to move through the field although as we (Mark and I) approached the final lap I noticed a large number of green caps in front of us. The Little Woody (half ironman distance) had started just in front of us. I thought it could be like Cowman all over again. This meant we spent the last lap picking our way through the slower LW swimmers although in the clear waters of the quarry this wasn’t too bad as vision was good and seemingly we managed to overtake a few more BW competitors while we were at it. We came out of the water in the top half of the competitors.

Our view from transition back out over the quarry: 

Once we’d jogged up the pretty steep ascent from the quarry (I nearly fell over trying to pull my trainers on by the water) we were into transition and attempting to get our wetsuits off. JK was already there and off pretty soon after we arrived. As I ran in I was faced with a 50+ year old man completely butt naked with everything on display. Mark was just relieved that there were people around him to help pull his socks on. Will and Pughy arrived shortly after.

Will leaving the water looking strong and relieved that he hadn't drowned. He admitted later to having completely cooked himself on the swim trying to keep up with me. Serves him right!

Now to the bike. Out of our blue bags came our bike kit which we tried to pull on over wet skin. Another pair of shorts (I needed the padding), a bike top, clear glasses (this wasn’t the weather for sunglasses) and then into the clip ins and away out of the car park. As I hit the A48 and started pedalling the rain started soaking through my top and the water from the road started filling my shoes and splashing up the back of my cycling shorts. My legs felt like lead. Whether it was the run out of the water or the ‘taper’ over the previous week I’m not sure but it took a long time to get into any kind of rhythm. All sorts of demons started creeping in at this point. Would I finish the bike course with anything left in my legs? How would the hills play out? Would I get a puncture, mechanical failure….? Shut up brain. I needed to function. I needed to eat. And then I just needed to ease into this and enjoy it because I was going to be on the bike for 6+ hours. I needed to be patient.

Mark came past pretty quickly. Normally on training rides Mark and I cycle at a similar pace, but whether it was the painkillers or any multitude of drug concoctions that he’d taken to get to the start line, this man was on a mission. He went steaming past and I had no hope of keeping up. Saying all this he does have a history of putting in some pretty punchy times on the bike in triathlons so he had previous.

From our group session in the transition Will should have been the next one to come past but he didn’t appear for ages so I continued along the A48 worrying that he’d had issues with the bike. He appeared some time later. All fine apparently. He’d been busy eating sandwiches and hence wasn’t pedalling so fast. And that was it. TGS were on their way. I didn’t see any more of them until I hit my first lap of the run. Luckily there were two things that kept me entertained. Firstly the amazing countryside: the area we were cycling around was absolutely stunning. Secondly: the support.

The supporters that came down to Monmouth for the weekend actually deserve a blog all to themselves. They had given up their bank holiday weekends for a guaranteed three days of rain in Wales. And to spend 12+ hours watching us idiots do laps of a very long triathlon course. The line-up consisted of:

Neeshe & the bump – Mark’s wife and baby due in October

Mummy & Daddy Durden – Will and I’s parents

Paddy – my boyfriend

Em – JK’s girlfriend (of Cowman fame)

Kim – Will’s girlfriend

Mr & Mrs Pugh

Paddy Flynn - general logistics / gruff support

Rach – sous-chef and general banter

Hels & Pilch – the rimming bride and her faithful lover

Gibson – aka Cardiac Chris
Uncle David (Daddy's D's brother) & cousin Rebecca

As I came onto the A48 for the second time I cycled up towards the race HQ and as it came into sight I also saw a healthy group of supporters standing by the side of the road. At this point we could stop and receive assistance and I did just that, mainly to load up water bottles and say hi. I can’t explain the lift that I received every time I was cheered like a pro athlete. OK, so it wasn’t quite the reception Wiggo got going up Box Hill but I’m sure it had the same effect on my pedalling.

See Part II for the rest of the bike and the final stage: the small matter of a marathon to finish off.