2009 Enduroman Double Ironman Race Report
My problem is that I don’t like missing an opportunity.
I’m easily lured by an apparent bargain and I get led like a slack jawed child by seductive advertising. Such characteristics make for some interesting life experiences: one day you are coming home from Lidl with a butane powered culinary gas torch, the next you find that you have entered a double ironman.
That was it really: no big epiphany that my future was in ultra distance racing, no lifelong ambition to achieve – I simply heard that there were only a few places left for DIUK09 and that it was pretty cheap to enter. I wasn’t planning to do it….it just sort of happened.
I knew that an event of the magnitude of DIUK would really need proper planning and a serious training regime if I was to get round safely. I knew that, but obviously I didn’t do anything about it because a) making a real plan looked too onerous, and b) I’m too old to learn new stuff.
So my plan was to do IM Lanzarote in May and then, er, do some other stuff and then do the race in August. I know it can be dangerous to have such a rigid plan, but I was ready to be flexible if needed– if it wasn’t working I could do more or less of the other stuff. So really the only fixed things in my schedule were to do Lanza and DIUK. Sorted.
I hadn’t ground to a complete halt over the winter so when January 1st rolled around I was still commuting the 30 mile round trip to work by bike about 3 times a week and did loads of running in January leading up to Tring to Town, a 40 mile run race along a canal. T2T was fun and gave me some confidence that I wouldn’t turn into a pumpkin – or a gibbering wreck – if I ran over the magical 26 miles.
Through the months leading up to Lanza I knocked out a few decent rides including the odd Sportif and I even managed a PB of 3.36 at the Blackpool Marathon which was a nice bonus. With steely grit I managed to keep out of swimming pools, apart from a couple of pre-Lanza dips just to confirm that I can’t swim. Pleased to say that I was right on schedule there.
Lanza came and went and I had a great week, knocking a few minutes off last years time and chalking up my tenth IM finish. After a light week post Lanza I was ready for a Big Month in June.
Sometime in March or April I decided to do a couple of races before DIUK and this developed into a bit of an event fest in June. I knew that it would be helpful for DIUK to have some big weekends of back to back training in the bank, so I ended up with three consecutive weekends of events for the last three weekends in June. On the first one I rode 100+miles to Bala on the Saturday then raced in the ½ IM on the Sunday, the next weekend I did the 156 mile Flat Out in the Fens sportif and the weekend after I rode 100+miles up to the Lake District on Saturday and then did the mildly taxing A Day in the Lakes ½ IM on the Sunday.
I know that TC fits in this sort of training before breakfast, but to me it was fairly high load. I felt a bit of cumulative fatigue but happy that I could still keep going fairly well on consecutive days.
July was meant to be another big month but it didn’t really work out that way. I did however get a couple of decent bikes in including one from 00.30 until 04.30 to test out lighting set up. My lights were good enough to come down the unlit Woodhead Pass at 40mph so I reckoned they would be OK for the double where 4mph was more likely. In June I did manage to get in a 6k swim in the pool which felt relatively easy, although getting permission to use a wetsuit in the pool proved even harder than that time I asked permission to film myself taking a dump off the diving board.
As July, rolled on I gradually eased up on the training (although I wasn’t doing much anyway to be honest) so I was then able to concentrate fully on obsessing about kit and equipment, and to start getting paranoid about minor ailments of which I had had a few over the last month. These included suspected epididymitis (b0ll0ck tube related soreness) piriformis syndrome (butt to leg related soreness) and a day off work with manflu and headaches. My favourite one though was an insect bite right at the top of my Dagenham cleavage which swelled up like a golf ball. Still it was good to have something to worry about aside from woefully inadequate training.
Race Weekend
I packed the car on Friday morning which basically meant throwing every bit of cycling and running kit that I own into boxes alongside a huge tent, boxes of food, lights, batteries, chargers and my bike squeezed in on top. And some spare wheels, pedals, tubes and….you get the picture. I did stop short of packing spare bar tape in case a fancied a change of colour during the bike leg, but only just.
Carole (Mrs. Repoman) had valiantly agreed to crew for me so we left the kids at home with Carole’s mum resident as crowd control, and headed down to Lichfield to check in at the Holiday Inn, and attend the briefing at Esporta over the road.
As soon as we got to the briefing it was clear that everything you may have read about the atmosphere and organization of this race is true. Steve and Eddie from Enduroman Events are simply fantastic and couldn’t be more helpful, and it was clear that they were going to do their best to get everyone round. There was a good buzz at the briefing with athletes from Malta, Denmark, Ireland the Cayman Islands and France joining the Brits making for a nice international flavour. After the briefing we headed up to the race HQ to pitch the tent ready for the morning - Although I wasn’t starting until 13.00 it was one less thing to do the next day. A fairly mediocre burger but a rather better pint of Perroni at The Hedgehog pub over the road ended the day.
Well, it started out very neat and organised at least...
Because I wasn’t off until 13.00, race morning was very relaxed and I was able to potter about the tent filling bottles, laying kit out and getting orientated. I peered into the pool a couple of times to see swimmers from the earlier waves (06.00 and 09.30) grinding out the laps and starting to head out on the bike. By mid morning it was drizzling, soon to turn into full on rain: 1st August and the “Barbecue Summer” had arrived. Pretty soon it was time to bag up my bike kit which I gave to Mrs. Repo on poolside and get ready for the swim. Needing any advantage I could get I leapt at the chance to wear a wetsuit and spent some time getting lubed up and making sure my wetsuit was properly fitted and nice and comfy.
I was in a lane with Triandy 59 (who Mrs. Repo was also crewing for – I pimped her out by email the week before) and Richard Ginn and after a gentlemanly chat (no, not that kind) about the order and overtaking we were ready for the off….and without much more ado we were indeed off.
Within a few lengths it became clear that Andy was fastest, I was in the middle and Richard slowest and we developed a very easy and civilized routine of feet taps and passing at each end. I swam the first 1000m without a break and thereafter stopped every 500m for a slurp of my usual homebrew energy drink made from maltodextrin powder and a Nuun tab. Amazingly I was feeling great and loving the extra buoyancy from the wetsuit – I never thought I’d say this but I really enjoyed it and kept clicking off the 500’s at a steady rhythm.
I went through the first 3800m in 1.15 (an IM distance PB for me!) but faded a little over the second half. I could see the adjacent lanes thinning out a bit and soon Andy was out and we were down to two. I was almost sorry to get the 2 lengths to go signal from my lane counter but delighted to get out of the water in 2.38. I had been genuinely worried about the 3.30 cut off before the swim and had figured that 3.15 was realistic. It was a good start, but a long way yet to go. I had drunk 3 x 750ml bottles during the swim and had a couple of gels and felt OK as I clambered out.
Coming out of the pool after my longest ever swim....
I had a leisurely transition in the changing rooms and jogged out to the pool exit where I could see that it was now properly pi$$ing down. Still only 224 miles to go: it would probably be a different season by the time I finished. Yeah, winter.
The bike course is to be fair virtually perfect: it rolls down and up again but the 14 mile lap breaks the bike leg down into manageable chunks. I had driven it the night before, but it’s not until you are in the saddle that you get a proper feel for the bumps, gradients and landmarks. My first lap felt great and I was flying along at what felt like a good pace, passing a lot of athletes from the earlier waves who to be fair had now been on the road for up to 7 hours longer and were a lot wetter. It wasn’t long before I was also getting moist from both inside and out but I felt good as I pulled into transition after one lap and picked up my pre-ordered Philadelphia and chicken bagel from Mrs. Repo.
It's going to be fine, honest...
mmm....Mrs. Repo always ready with a nice cup of tea
It was by now about 5pm and I continued the first few laps on the same formula of about 50 minutes per lap with a 5 minute stretch and food break after each lap. I kept on the gels and tried to get through a bottle of drink each lap too. Adrian73 and family were there in transition giving great support and the friendly faces each lap were great to see. After 4 or 5 laps I had a longer stop to change my base layer and jersey as I was getting a bit clammy and this perked me up. Pretty soon afterwards it was time to don the hi viz jacket and lights as dusk turned to night. Thankfully the rain started to ease off but there was still a lot of standing water on the road
Camaraderie out on the bike course was great albeit muted as everyone locked into their own zone. I remember passing Rev. Graham when he already had 8 laps / 112 miles in the bank and feeling really jealous, and I think that about lap 7 I had a very down moment when the enormity of what was left overwhelmed me for a bit. Still, the legs were still going round and a good bowl of hot pasta from Mrs. Repo got me back on track.
It was great to see the Slackos marshalling one of the turn points and dispensing good vibes and cheesy Abba tunes, later to be relieved by Brian (Endurance UK) who was another welcome sight in the dead of night. I can’t say enough how great all the marshalls were.
I think it was some time around lap 12 or 13 that I started to get some psychological heebie jeebies, probably due to it being about 3 in the morning and maybe 15 hours into the race. For a while I had been counting cars coming towards me to give me something to think about. I also started to count other cyclists coming at me too, and I had also been counting the number of people that I passed. Now you would think this wouldn’t be too difficult, but in my state just keeping hold of 3 separate totals in my head seemed impossible. “2, 3, no, er 6? 3 cars, and 2 bikes…ahhh fcuk it…1, 2…” Everything blurred into one and I decided eventually that the answer to everything was 8. Or was it was 6. I was getting a bit cranky, but worse was to come in the shape of The Pygmies.
Most people had taken the wise precaution of going for plenty of lights rather than just one. This is fine for seeing with - and being seen – but in practice it really freaked me out. Each bike had it’s own character created by the position of the lights and how it looked approaching you out of the darkness. First there was Beady Eyes – 2 lights mounted under the bars, close together, then there were a couple of Terrahawks – lights mounted level but wide, and there was at least one Lazer Cyclops – super bright solo light. But man…the pygmies man, why did they have to do that? One light down low, another at bar height and then a head torch. But hang on…..what’s this? There’s another light above the headtorch? How can that be? But then I figured it out…..these cyclists were giving piggy backs to pygmies and they had head torches too! I mean why? Why would you want to carry a midget with you? And there wasn’t just one either. Bastards. It definitely didn’t seem to be in the spirit of the rules and they were getting away with it under the cover of darkness.
As the laps ticked by (“ticked” sounds quite quick doesn’t it? “Glaciered by” is more like it) I managed to just about keep feeding and I stopped again for a change of clothes which felt better. Coming into transition from the dark of the course was fantastic: a respite of light, people, support, food and all the good stuff that wasn’t out there on the dark hurty bits. I noticed that the pygmies made themselves scarce in transition too. I remember having a quick chat with Putt Putt at some point on one of my breaks but very quickly he was reprimanding me for hanging around gassing and told me to get back out there.
Eventually the night slipped away, the pygmies receded into the trees and a bright clear dawn emerged. This definitely lifted the mood although it meant that the climb back up the second half of the course was seen as well as felt. Somehow this made it worse, but I guess it was the cumulative effect of what was now 200+ miles in the legs. You would think that the last bike lap would have been euphoric but it was actually pretty grim: I was really quite happy to get off…..Having said that my bike (Planet X Ti with clip-ons and PX50s) performed faultlessly and it was very comfortable. I also escaped with the floppy bits intact too: when I got changed I was expecting to see extreme scrotal trauma but was pleased to discover only mild chaffage.
Coming back into transition for the last time on bike I checked with Eddie that I had indeed done my 16 laps and flopped into a chair in the tent to get changed. Mrs. Repo was still in great form despite being up as long as me looking after 2 athletes and she assisted me as I bimbled around getting changed for the run, trying to put off the inevitable.
This picture looks like I'm barely running, but that's not quite right. I was barely walking.
The 1.25 mile run lap at DIUK is a two edged sword. It’s relatively short, so you see your support crew and supporters frequently but the number of laps you have to complete can seem overwhelming at times, particularly when you’ve just been on a bike for about 15 hours and got 42 laps of running in front of you.
The first two laps felt surprisingly good and I jogged round at a slow shuffle getting to know the course. On lap 3 however I had the worst real wobble of the race when without any warning I suddenly had a massive energy crash, going from a jog to a weak kneed, trembling, sweaty wreck within a few hundred metres. I guess that my fuelling during the final laps of the bike hadn’t been as diligent as earlier on and I now got the payback. Thankfully I recognized it for what it was and administered immediate therapy in the form of a bacon sandwich, two almond slices, some jelly babies and a cup of tea. I perked up instantly, secure in the knowledge that I had eaten well and I had a mere 39 laps to go.
To be honest it’s tough to pull a gripping narrative out of running 52 miles up and down a road in Lichfield: it’s not really a slo-mo, running across a beach Chariots of Fire kind of environment. But it was it’s own unique field of dreams, and as the laps shuffled away I pieced together a picture of how everyone was doing, their highs and lows, their elation as they approached the finish or despair when it still seemed so far away. There were so many stories out there: Old Nick with a trance like focus, TC flying along, Mash 180 dipping and recovering brilliantly, the Rev grinding out with no chance of giving up and Claus demonstrating the skills that recently earned him Denmark’s national smiling title.
Throughout the run Mrs. Repo had been coming out to run the odd lap with me and I bet she did a good 20 miles or more (Very considerate of me that: even while I’m racing I was able to find time to support her in her training for the Anglesey Marathon). Having someone along as company really helped: Slacko ran a couple of laps with me too which was great. I think the secret to getting through it is to focus only on the moment and ignore the big numbers, and a shuffling buddy helps.
In just a couple of shakes of a lambs tail (they shake about once every 6 hours evidently) I had just 3 laps to go and boy did that feel good. My late order for a cheeseburger from the catering van was thwarted because they had run out but Mrs. Repo’s alternative of cheese bagel and twiglets went down well. Because I was in the last wave the field had been progressively thinning and I started to take more notice of who else was about to finish. Coming back through transition with 2 laps to go I was planning to change into my Tritalk Tri suit but I heard that there were 3 of us from wave 3 all on the same lap. I scrapped the costume change idea and headed back out on a mission.
On the penultimate lap I put enough distance into Claus for him not to be a threat but Paul was still in view on the last lap. You run the last lap in reverse so that you can say goodbye to your fellow athletes which is a nice touch. You don’t, as I had first thought, run it backwards, looking over your shoulder in some cruel “It’s a Knockout” style twist. Anyway I (comparatively) raced down the road glancing over my shoulder to confirm that Paul wasn’t in view and then back up through Blair Witch woods, grunting a thanks to Brian at the turn point, confident now that I wouldn’t be caught.
Coming back up the incline into the leisure centre felt the easiest it had all day and the final 50m up to the line past the cheering crews was the sweetest run I have ever done. As a first timer my objective was genuinely just to finish inside the cut off but I secretly hoped for 32 hours. To finish in 30 hrs 57 minutes and 22nd place was the icing on a brilliant weekend shaped cake.
Double Iron UK is a simply amazing event and I can’t recommend it enough: You get superb organization and an amazing atmosphere in a real niche event. It’s hardcore but welcoming, and the ethos from everyone involved is to do everything possible to support the competitors. What’s not to like?
My race wouldn’t have been possible without Mrs. Repo’s support over the weekend and her long suffering indulgence in the months before: you really do need a great crew to do this - Thanks: mwah. The TT support was absolutely fantastic too: The Slackos, Mrs. Mash, Adrian 73 and family, Endurance UK, Poet, Pookey, Pink Sally and many more were hollerin’ from the side lines through day and night. Thanks guys, and thanks to the Pirates too who were great fun all weekend. Steve and Eddie from Enduroman are brilliant race organizers and they have a fantastic support team – thanks to all the marshalls, particularly the cheerful Air Cadets. And most of all thanks and respect to all my fellow competitors: it was great sharing a weekend with you.
I ended the night propped up in bed back at the Holiday Inn with a big burger in one hand and a strawberry milkshake in the other. I don’t remember going to sleep, but I do remember feeling pretty damn good in the morning.
So there you have it. It started as an impulse and ended with a milkshake. The trouble is, I’ve just discovered that there are only two places left for the Triple next year…Ah fcuk it, here goes – there’s only one left now: I’m in
_________________
I’m easily lured by an apparent bargain and I get led like a slack jawed child by seductive advertising. Such characteristics make for some interesting life experiences: one day you are coming home from Lidl with a butane powered culinary gas torch, the next you find that you have entered a double ironman.
That was it really: no big epiphany that my future was in ultra distance racing, no lifelong ambition to achieve – I simply heard that there were only a few places left for DIUK09 and that it was pretty cheap to enter. I wasn’t planning to do it….it just sort of happened.
I knew that an event of the magnitude of DIUK would really need proper planning and a serious training regime if I was to get round safely. I knew that, but obviously I didn’t do anything about it because a) making a real plan looked too onerous, and b) I’m too old to learn new stuff.
So my plan was to do IM Lanzarote in May and then, er, do some other stuff and then do the race in August. I know it can be dangerous to have such a rigid plan, but I was ready to be flexible if needed– if it wasn’t working I could do more or less of the other stuff. So really the only fixed things in my schedule were to do Lanza and DIUK. Sorted.
I hadn’t ground to a complete halt over the winter so when January 1st rolled around I was still commuting the 30 mile round trip to work by bike about 3 times a week and did loads of running in January leading up to Tring to Town, a 40 mile run race along a canal. T2T was fun and gave me some confidence that I wouldn’t turn into a pumpkin – or a gibbering wreck – if I ran over the magical 26 miles.
Through the months leading up to Lanza I knocked out a few decent rides including the odd Sportif and I even managed a PB of 3.36 at the Blackpool Marathon which was a nice bonus. With steely grit I managed to keep out of swimming pools, apart from a couple of pre-Lanza dips just to confirm that I can’t swim. Pleased to say that I was right on schedule there.
Lanza came and went and I had a great week, knocking a few minutes off last years time and chalking up my tenth IM finish. After a light week post Lanza I was ready for a Big Month in June.
Sometime in March or April I decided to do a couple of races before DIUK and this developed into a bit of an event fest in June. I knew that it would be helpful for DIUK to have some big weekends of back to back training in the bank, so I ended up with three consecutive weekends of events for the last three weekends in June. On the first one I rode 100+miles to Bala on the Saturday then raced in the ½ IM on the Sunday, the next weekend I did the 156 mile Flat Out in the Fens sportif and the weekend after I rode 100+miles up to the Lake District on Saturday and then did the mildly taxing A Day in the Lakes ½ IM on the Sunday.
I know that TC fits in this sort of training before breakfast, but to me it was fairly high load. I felt a bit of cumulative fatigue but happy that I could still keep going fairly well on consecutive days.
July was meant to be another big month but it didn’t really work out that way. I did however get a couple of decent bikes in including one from 00.30 until 04.30 to test out lighting set up. My lights were good enough to come down the unlit Woodhead Pass at 40mph so I reckoned they would be OK for the double where 4mph was more likely. In June I did manage to get in a 6k swim in the pool which felt relatively easy, although getting permission to use a wetsuit in the pool proved even harder than that time I asked permission to film myself taking a dump off the diving board.
As July, rolled on I gradually eased up on the training (although I wasn’t doing much anyway to be honest) so I was then able to concentrate fully on obsessing about kit and equipment, and to start getting paranoid about minor ailments of which I had had a few over the last month. These included suspected epididymitis (b0ll0ck tube related soreness) piriformis syndrome (butt to leg related soreness) and a day off work with manflu and headaches. My favourite one though was an insect bite right at the top of my Dagenham cleavage which swelled up like a golf ball. Still it was good to have something to worry about aside from woefully inadequate training.
Race Weekend
I packed the car on Friday morning which basically meant throwing every bit of cycling and running kit that I own into boxes alongside a huge tent, boxes of food, lights, batteries, chargers and my bike squeezed in on top. And some spare wheels, pedals, tubes and….you get the picture. I did stop short of packing spare bar tape in case a fancied a change of colour during the bike leg, but only just.
Carole (Mrs. Repoman) had valiantly agreed to crew for me so we left the kids at home with Carole’s mum resident as crowd control, and headed down to Lichfield to check in at the Holiday Inn, and attend the briefing at Esporta over the road.
As soon as we got to the briefing it was clear that everything you may have read about the atmosphere and organization of this race is true. Steve and Eddie from Enduroman Events are simply fantastic and couldn’t be more helpful, and it was clear that they were going to do their best to get everyone round. There was a good buzz at the briefing with athletes from Malta, Denmark, Ireland the Cayman Islands and France joining the Brits making for a nice international flavour. After the briefing we headed up to the race HQ to pitch the tent ready for the morning - Although I wasn’t starting until 13.00 it was one less thing to do the next day. A fairly mediocre burger but a rather better pint of Perroni at The Hedgehog pub over the road ended the day.
Well, it started out very neat and organised at least...
Because I wasn’t off until 13.00, race morning was very relaxed and I was able to potter about the tent filling bottles, laying kit out and getting orientated. I peered into the pool a couple of times to see swimmers from the earlier waves (06.00 and 09.30) grinding out the laps and starting to head out on the bike. By mid morning it was drizzling, soon to turn into full on rain: 1st August and the “Barbecue Summer” had arrived. Pretty soon it was time to bag up my bike kit which I gave to Mrs. Repo on poolside and get ready for the swim. Needing any advantage I could get I leapt at the chance to wear a wetsuit and spent some time getting lubed up and making sure my wetsuit was properly fitted and nice and comfy.
I was in a lane with Triandy 59 (who Mrs. Repo was also crewing for – I pimped her out by email the week before) and Richard Ginn and after a gentlemanly chat (no, not that kind) about the order and overtaking we were ready for the off….and without much more ado we were indeed off.
Within a few lengths it became clear that Andy was fastest, I was in the middle and Richard slowest and we developed a very easy and civilized routine of feet taps and passing at each end. I swam the first 1000m without a break and thereafter stopped every 500m for a slurp of my usual homebrew energy drink made from maltodextrin powder and a Nuun tab. Amazingly I was feeling great and loving the extra buoyancy from the wetsuit – I never thought I’d say this but I really enjoyed it and kept clicking off the 500’s at a steady rhythm.
I went through the first 3800m in 1.15 (an IM distance PB for me!) but faded a little over the second half. I could see the adjacent lanes thinning out a bit and soon Andy was out and we were down to two. I was almost sorry to get the 2 lengths to go signal from my lane counter but delighted to get out of the water in 2.38. I had been genuinely worried about the 3.30 cut off before the swim and had figured that 3.15 was realistic. It was a good start, but a long way yet to go. I had drunk 3 x 750ml bottles during the swim and had a couple of gels and felt OK as I clambered out.
Coming out of the pool after my longest ever swim....
I had a leisurely transition in the changing rooms and jogged out to the pool exit where I could see that it was now properly pi$$ing down. Still only 224 miles to go: it would probably be a different season by the time I finished. Yeah, winter.
The bike course is to be fair virtually perfect: it rolls down and up again but the 14 mile lap breaks the bike leg down into manageable chunks. I had driven it the night before, but it’s not until you are in the saddle that you get a proper feel for the bumps, gradients and landmarks. My first lap felt great and I was flying along at what felt like a good pace, passing a lot of athletes from the earlier waves who to be fair had now been on the road for up to 7 hours longer and were a lot wetter. It wasn’t long before I was also getting moist from both inside and out but I felt good as I pulled into transition after one lap and picked up my pre-ordered Philadelphia and chicken bagel from Mrs. Repo.
It's going to be fine, honest...
mmm....Mrs. Repo always ready with a nice cup of tea
It was by now about 5pm and I continued the first few laps on the same formula of about 50 minutes per lap with a 5 minute stretch and food break after each lap. I kept on the gels and tried to get through a bottle of drink each lap too. Adrian73 and family were there in transition giving great support and the friendly faces each lap were great to see. After 4 or 5 laps I had a longer stop to change my base layer and jersey as I was getting a bit clammy and this perked me up. Pretty soon afterwards it was time to don the hi viz jacket and lights as dusk turned to night. Thankfully the rain started to ease off but there was still a lot of standing water on the road
Camaraderie out on the bike course was great albeit muted as everyone locked into their own zone. I remember passing Rev. Graham when he already had 8 laps / 112 miles in the bank and feeling really jealous, and I think that about lap 7 I had a very down moment when the enormity of what was left overwhelmed me for a bit. Still, the legs were still going round and a good bowl of hot pasta from Mrs. Repo got me back on track.
It was great to see the Slackos marshalling one of the turn points and dispensing good vibes and cheesy Abba tunes, later to be relieved by Brian (Endurance UK) who was another welcome sight in the dead of night. I can’t say enough how great all the marshalls were.
I think it was some time around lap 12 or 13 that I started to get some psychological heebie jeebies, probably due to it being about 3 in the morning and maybe 15 hours into the race. For a while I had been counting cars coming towards me to give me something to think about. I also started to count other cyclists coming at me too, and I had also been counting the number of people that I passed. Now you would think this wouldn’t be too difficult, but in my state just keeping hold of 3 separate totals in my head seemed impossible. “2, 3, no, er 6? 3 cars, and 2 bikes…ahhh fcuk it…1, 2…” Everything blurred into one and I decided eventually that the answer to everything was 8. Or was it was 6. I was getting a bit cranky, but worse was to come in the shape of The Pygmies.
Most people had taken the wise precaution of going for plenty of lights rather than just one. This is fine for seeing with - and being seen – but in practice it really freaked me out. Each bike had it’s own character created by the position of the lights and how it looked approaching you out of the darkness. First there was Beady Eyes – 2 lights mounted under the bars, close together, then there were a couple of Terrahawks – lights mounted level but wide, and there was at least one Lazer Cyclops – super bright solo light. But man…the pygmies man, why did they have to do that? One light down low, another at bar height and then a head torch. But hang on…..what’s this? There’s another light above the headtorch? How can that be? But then I figured it out…..these cyclists were giving piggy backs to pygmies and they had head torches too! I mean why? Why would you want to carry a midget with you? And there wasn’t just one either. Bastards. It definitely didn’t seem to be in the spirit of the rules and they were getting away with it under the cover of darkness.
As the laps ticked by (“ticked” sounds quite quick doesn’t it? “Glaciered by” is more like it) I managed to just about keep feeding and I stopped again for a change of clothes which felt better. Coming into transition from the dark of the course was fantastic: a respite of light, people, support, food and all the good stuff that wasn’t out there on the dark hurty bits. I noticed that the pygmies made themselves scarce in transition too. I remember having a quick chat with Putt Putt at some point on one of my breaks but very quickly he was reprimanding me for hanging around gassing and told me to get back out there.
Eventually the night slipped away, the pygmies receded into the trees and a bright clear dawn emerged. This definitely lifted the mood although it meant that the climb back up the second half of the course was seen as well as felt. Somehow this made it worse, but I guess it was the cumulative effect of what was now 200+ miles in the legs. You would think that the last bike lap would have been euphoric but it was actually pretty grim: I was really quite happy to get off…..Having said that my bike (Planet X Ti with clip-ons and PX50s) performed faultlessly and it was very comfortable. I also escaped with the floppy bits intact too: when I got changed I was expecting to see extreme scrotal trauma but was pleased to discover only mild chaffage.
Coming back into transition for the last time on bike I checked with Eddie that I had indeed done my 16 laps and flopped into a chair in the tent to get changed. Mrs. Repo was still in great form despite being up as long as me looking after 2 athletes and she assisted me as I bimbled around getting changed for the run, trying to put off the inevitable.
This picture looks like I'm barely running, but that's not quite right. I was barely walking.
The 1.25 mile run lap at DIUK is a two edged sword. It’s relatively short, so you see your support crew and supporters frequently but the number of laps you have to complete can seem overwhelming at times, particularly when you’ve just been on a bike for about 15 hours and got 42 laps of running in front of you.
The first two laps felt surprisingly good and I jogged round at a slow shuffle getting to know the course. On lap 3 however I had the worst real wobble of the race when without any warning I suddenly had a massive energy crash, going from a jog to a weak kneed, trembling, sweaty wreck within a few hundred metres. I guess that my fuelling during the final laps of the bike hadn’t been as diligent as earlier on and I now got the payback. Thankfully I recognized it for what it was and administered immediate therapy in the form of a bacon sandwich, two almond slices, some jelly babies and a cup of tea. I perked up instantly, secure in the knowledge that I had eaten well and I had a mere 39 laps to go.
To be honest it’s tough to pull a gripping narrative out of running 52 miles up and down a road in Lichfield: it’s not really a slo-mo, running across a beach Chariots of Fire kind of environment. But it was it’s own unique field of dreams, and as the laps shuffled away I pieced together a picture of how everyone was doing, their highs and lows, their elation as they approached the finish or despair when it still seemed so far away. There were so many stories out there: Old Nick with a trance like focus, TC flying along, Mash 180 dipping and recovering brilliantly, the Rev grinding out with no chance of giving up and Claus demonstrating the skills that recently earned him Denmark’s national smiling title.
Throughout the run Mrs. Repo had been coming out to run the odd lap with me and I bet she did a good 20 miles or more (Very considerate of me that: even while I’m racing I was able to find time to support her in her training for the Anglesey Marathon). Having someone along as company really helped: Slacko ran a couple of laps with me too which was great. I think the secret to getting through it is to focus only on the moment and ignore the big numbers, and a shuffling buddy helps.
In just a couple of shakes of a lambs tail (they shake about once every 6 hours evidently) I had just 3 laps to go and boy did that feel good. My late order for a cheeseburger from the catering van was thwarted because they had run out but Mrs. Repo’s alternative of cheese bagel and twiglets went down well. Because I was in the last wave the field had been progressively thinning and I started to take more notice of who else was about to finish. Coming back through transition with 2 laps to go I was planning to change into my Tritalk Tri suit but I heard that there were 3 of us from wave 3 all on the same lap. I scrapped the costume change idea and headed back out on a mission.
On the penultimate lap I put enough distance into Claus for him not to be a threat but Paul was still in view on the last lap. You run the last lap in reverse so that you can say goodbye to your fellow athletes which is a nice touch. You don’t, as I had first thought, run it backwards, looking over your shoulder in some cruel “It’s a Knockout” style twist. Anyway I (comparatively) raced down the road glancing over my shoulder to confirm that Paul wasn’t in view and then back up through Blair Witch woods, grunting a thanks to Brian at the turn point, confident now that I wouldn’t be caught.
Coming back up the incline into the leisure centre felt the easiest it had all day and the final 50m up to the line past the cheering crews was the sweetest run I have ever done. As a first timer my objective was genuinely just to finish inside the cut off but I secretly hoped for 32 hours. To finish in 30 hrs 57 minutes and 22nd place was the icing on a brilliant weekend shaped cake.
Double Iron UK is a simply amazing event and I can’t recommend it enough: You get superb organization and an amazing atmosphere in a real niche event. It’s hardcore but welcoming, and the ethos from everyone involved is to do everything possible to support the competitors. What’s not to like?
My race wouldn’t have been possible without Mrs. Repo’s support over the weekend and her long suffering indulgence in the months before: you really do need a great crew to do this - Thanks: mwah. The TT support was absolutely fantastic too: The Slackos, Mrs. Mash, Adrian 73 and family, Endurance UK, Poet, Pookey, Pink Sally and many more were hollerin’ from the side lines through day and night. Thanks guys, and thanks to the Pirates too who were great fun all weekend. Steve and Eddie from Enduroman are brilliant race organizers and they have a fantastic support team – thanks to all the marshalls, particularly the cheerful Air Cadets. And most of all thanks and respect to all my fellow competitors: it was great sharing a weekend with you.
I ended the night propped up in bed back at the Holiday Inn with a big burger in one hand and a strawberry milkshake in the other. I don’t remember going to sleep, but I do remember feeling pretty damn good in the morning.
So there you have it. It started as an impulse and ended with a milkshake. The trouble is, I’ve just discovered that there are only two places left for the Triple next year…Ah fcuk it, here goes – there’s only one left now: I’m in
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