Posts Tagged ‘ironman’

Back in May, Jonas Deichmann set out to try and complete 120 long-format triathlons in a row. Last week, he finished it. This surpasses Sean Conway’s previous record of 105. Congratulations, Jonas!

In 2015, James Lawrence, also known as the Iron Cowboy, set the world record for number of full distance triathlons completed on consecutive days: 50. In 2021, he raised the bar to 100 and then in 2023, Sean Conway raised the bar to 105.

Last week, Jonas Deichmann kicked off Challenge 120: an attempt to complete 120 full distance triathlons in 120 days. For reference, that is a 3.8 km swim, 180 km cycle and a 42.2 km run (full marathon) each day. You can follow him each day on his live tracker and there are daily updates on Instagram, too.

Alongside the main event, IRONMAN Copenhagen run a 4-18-4 sprint triathlon and a children’s event named IRONKIDS.

The distance varies by age with under threes doing 300m (often carried by parents), 3-6-year-olds do 600m and the over 6s do 1k. It’s a pretty tame affair compared to the 2k Venla runs at junior parkrun but she was keen to take part.

Registration didn’t really work. We turned up at 10:30 for an 11:00 start and joined the queue. It didn’t move much and got longer and longer behind us. By 11, they gave up and just started spraying bib numbers and safety pins at everyone.

The event itself was a little more organised. They had a fun warm-up before the run started. The course was an out-and-back followed by a loop around the building to the finish arch. It was a nice touch having an inflatable IRONKIDS-branded finish line.

The pit-and-back went well but the loop of the building was carnage. There was a municipal maintainable vehicle parked on the course. One kid fell over and then half a dozen others tripped over him, going down like a pro peloton crash. Luckily, we were behind and managed to dodge it all.

Every child got a medal and a drawstring bag that Venla did not let go of for the rest of the holiday.

IRONMAN Copenhahen is a full-distance (3.8/180/42.2) triathlon that takes place in Denmark. You swim in Amager bay, cycle through Zealand and run around the waterfront of the city centre. I registered for this race back in 2019 as a way to challenge myself to race in another country. After an additional two years of COVID delays, it was finally here.

Registration and racking

IRONMAN events are an entire weekend in themselves. On Friday, we headed down to Amager Strandpark to register. They have six waves based on swim times and you get to pick which wave you want to be in at registration. I went for wave 5 (1:18-1:24) despite planning to swim a 1:40, as I wanted to avoid weak swimmers who constantly stop, switch to breaststroke and generally get in the way. They had an incorrect date of birth for me, which also happened in Weymouth, but that was soon fixed.

We headed back down to the park on Saturday. This time, I cycled down. The cycling infrastructure is great in Copenhagen so the only challenge was navigating there. Luckily, I found a pack of other athletes heading in the same direction and followed them. Getting to the park and back so many times was a pain as it was about 6km from the finish line where we were staying. Bike check-in consisted of racking our bike and swim-to-bike bags, and dropping off our bike-to-run bags that would then be transported to the city centre.

Race day morning

It was a beautiful morning as the sun rose over Amager. I had pre-booked a taxi to get me to the start line and luckily it arrived right on time. Pre-race was pretty chilled as the only things I needed to do was set up my bike computer, place my nutrition on my bike and add a few bits to my bike bag. That allowed plenty of time to get through the 20-minute toilet queue.

The commentators proudly and repeadly told us that it is the only IRONMAN event that takes place in a capital city. I’m not familiar with all of the IRONMAN events but I’m pretty sure Tallinn is the capital of Estonia.

I did not want to carry bottles of Lucozade across borders so I took some gels and bars and decided to buy the rest in Copenhagen. I managed to find some Powerade and Lay’s crisps which did the trick. Alongside that I had bags of Haribo, Rawvelo brownies, the last OTE Duo I had been saving for this and a mixture of Torq and Moutnain Fuel gels.

There was a swim warm-up area next to the start where we could get in and do some strokes before setting off. It was shallow and warm. The official water temperature was 20.3 degrees, which is a couple of degrees warmer than usual and almost too warm for swimming in a wetsuit.

The swim

After all the waiting, finally it was show time. Pre-race, I was worried they wouldn’t get us in to the water on time and therefore we would have reduced cut-offs (roads gradually start re-opening at 14:00 regardless of what time you start). However, they were ahead of schedule and my 7:40 wave was all in the water on time.

It was a hard start to the swim. The first buoy was all about people finding their lanes. But as we came up to the first bridge marking the 600m I felt panicked. It felt like I had been swimming for ages (it was probably 15 minutes in) and that I hadn’t even made a dent in the distance. I thought about swimming to the shore and getting out. Then I got myself into self-coaching mode and decided to do some easy breaststroke to bring my heart rate down. After all that, I was the annoying athlete who switched to breaststroke! But at least I was out of the way by this point 😂.

From then on it got easier. As we headed up the bay towards the inlet it got weedy and shallow. At the final turn buoy most people got up and walked. At first I was determined to swim the whole thing. Then I thought self-compassion might be a better skill to develop. In the end, the practicalities of trying to swim when everyone else was walking was too much and I decided to get up and walk for a bit too.

One of the things I loved about racing in Europe was that all the signage was in metric. They had distance markers on each bridge, road signs every 10k on the bike course and kilometre markers on the run course, all without the hassle of having to convert it from imperial to standard measurements.

Transition 1

I was very pleased to be done with the swim. T1 went fine. I was in and out in under 12 minutes. That’s a long time for most athletes but over six minutes faster than I went through T1 at Outlaw. There was no messing about: change, sun cream, eat my crisps, have a wee and then the long run to get my bike and get on the road.

If you’re wondering “why not wee during the swim and save time?” I did. In fact, I spent most the final third of the swim urinating the entire time. Most of the Baltic passed through my bladder.

The bike

The first kilometre passed quickly. If only it all felt that easy. We went out through the city centre, industrial parts of the city and then onto the coastline. It was gorgcious. Riding through the city was lovely but then the coastline was beautiful beaches all of the way up. Afer that, we headed inland where the terrain was a little more rolling but took us through some lovely forests that provided shade. In total there was about 1,000 metres of elevation gain so fractionally hillier than Outlaw but still very much a flat course with no real climbs.

Towards the end of the loop you reach Geels Bakke, the course’s equivalent of Solar Hill at Challenge Roth. It is barely a hill but there were plenty of spectators cheering on the first loop, including one woman who came and ran alongside screaming, and music playing at the top. After this point there is the third aid station and then you either go on to your second lap or head back to the city.

Unfortunately, just after I had gone through this I opened my gel flask to take a second gel and then hit a pot hole. Gel went all over my hand and handlebars. It’s so sticky. I tried to wipe it off with a tissue but the tissue just stuck to it and made the problem worse. The only thing I had on my bike was two bottles of Powerade so, in the end, I resorted to washing it off with the sports drink and accepting that everything was going to be sticky until the next aid station which was a long way away.

When I finally got there, I grabbed a bottle of water and hosed down my arm, handlebars, aero bars and back pocket. The whole bike course was quiet: it’s IRONMAN so the roads are closed and there weren’t many other athletes. By lap two, the aid stations were quitening down as well. Geels Bakke only had a few spectators left. I went a bit off-script on the second lap and had a banana. I don’t like bananas but after eight hours of hard cardio your taste buds don’t care so much.

Transition 2

The final 10k was hard. I kept switching from “I’m nearly there, I can hold the aero position for 20 minutes” to “I can’t be on a bike for a second longer” and constantly riding out-ot-the-saddle to stretch my bag. At T2, volunteers were there to collect and rack our bikes at the dismount line.

This made for a pretty short transition but I wasn’t in the mood to go flying through, so I changed, put some more sun cream on, ate my crisps and carefully re-racked my transition bag before talking a leasuirly walk to the run exit.

The run

The run consisted of 4 x 10.5k loops that went south past the finish line, then turned up north and went along the docks before heading back to the T2/finish line area. You collected a different colour wristband on each lap so that by the end you had a rainbow to prove you had done the required distance.

The aid stations were poorly organised. On lap one, one of them temporarily ran out of cups. As the laps went on, this became terminal. Each aid station was a pot luck of what they had left. Some had Gatorade, some had Red Bull, some had water. The lack of cups meant they started using the hosepipes that had been cooling sprays to spray water directly into people’s mouths. With no cups left, they just started pulling 330ml cans on Red Bull on the table and I ended up running the second half the marathon with a can in my hand.

It’s not uncommon for this to happen at races. But also makes me sad because if you want to be as inclusive as possible, you want your final athlete to get the same experience as your fastest. I think, if there was ever a next time. I would take a run special needs bag and place some caffeinated energy bidons in there just in case. I did this at Dalesman and it worked well.

The first lap felt good and Elina and Venla came to cheer me on. The second lap I felt empty. I had to start walking bits because I was so tired. I try to make it to the half way point before I start caffeinating and almost made it: I was at the last of the six aid stations when I switched to Red Bull. This perked me up for laps three and four. I was surprised at how much of a difference it made. Unfortunately, as discussed, they were out of coke and low on Red Bull by this point, so can-in-hand it was.

The support on the run course was good. People were cheering and some were reading everyone’s athlete bibs and calling us out by name. There was music along the course and I had a singalong to Never Going To Give You Up and Blinding Lights. There was even a Rammstein corner out by the docks.

The finish

I stopped at a porta potty with one kilometre to go so that I could freshen up and do my hair for the finish photo. Whenever I thought about finishing earlier in the day, I had to hold back tears because of what this race meant to me. I had been waiting 1,049 days to see if I could fly to a place I had never been before, manage all of the logistics of long-format triathlon and complete the race. But when I got to the finish line, it all happened so fast.

I heard the commentator talk about how excited I looked, but it was all such a blur that I didn’t even here him saying “you are an Ironman!” I should have walked it in like I did at Outlaw X. But no matter how slowly you try to take it, the end is always overwhelming and you cannot take it all in.

On the flip side, I did make it under the 13-hour mark. By 27 seconds. I barely looked at my watch all day as I was here to “enjoy it” so I had no idea what time I was on. So, it was a nice surprise when I found that out. Not quite as fast as Outlaw but faster than everything else.

12:59:33

Foolishly, many athletes went faster than I did and finished in broad daylight, which is horrible for photos. On the other hand, I and my fellow athletes who waited until 9pm to finish received the beautiful light of the magic hour.

The splits were:

I am pleased with all of that. My swim time was comparative with last year. My transition times were to plan. My run was never going to match Outlaw, which was an all-out PB attempt, and even taking it easy (whatever that means twelve hours into a race) I was able to run faster than Dalesman.

After the race, we received a finishers t-shirt, massage and plant-based burger that was all included in the entry fee. When toy finish a full distance you’re exhausted and night is on the way, so I pulled on my leggings, base layer, HPH hoodie and the bobble hat I won at Llanberis to stay warm. In the changing tent I heard someone say “I wasn’t expecting the bike course to be so hilly.” God help that guy if he ever visits Yorkshire. My night’s sleep wasn’t too bad given the caffeine and soreness but my aging body was limping around Copenhagen for the next two days.

Conclusion

This race was not just a race to me. When I first started triathlon in 2018, I did so more to grow as a person than for any sporting reasons. I wanted to prove to myself that I was stronger than I thought I was. Now I am sitting writing in an apartment in Copenhagen, itself a miracle on the background of how much I hate travelling, as a six-times IRONMAN triathlete.

It’s easy to start telling ourselves, “I’ve done it before, it’s no so hard”. But it is that hard. We’re just stronger than our self-doubt tells us. I like full distance racing because it is so hard and so long. You can’t just grit your teeth and push through for a little bit: you have to sit with the pain for hour after hour after hour. You have to make friends with it and get comfortable with it. And that is a skill that often neglect in life.

I don’t know if this is the end of the journey. But it probably is the end of a chapter. I’ve now done 52 triathlons, six of which were full distance, and achieved everything I set out to achieve. And I’m excited about the next chapter of my life which is going to have more of a dessert cookbook theme.

My third and final full distance triathlon of the year. It was a little Déjà vu as I booked it last year as a replacement for Copenhagen but Dalesman was then cancelled too. I ended up re-booking this race a few weeks before when I again couldn’t get into Denmark. I went in with the intention of having some “fun” rather than to set a time.

I couldn’t find any accommodation in Ripon so I stayed at home and drove up in the morning, leaving the house just before 4 am. This made for a long day!

The swim

Two and a half laps of the lake in the middle of Ripon racecourse. There was a lot of plant life and reeds. Even more so than Outlaw as at least in Nottingham, you can swim away from them. But at least here the water was clearer than I have seen at any swim and so you could see what you kept grabbing handfuls of.

It all went well: only a few swimmers lapped me and those that did gave plenty of room. I was a little chilly towards the end. I did successfully do a wee while still swimming, though, which was a big timesaver compared to having to stop and tread water.

The bike

The bike was hilly. Almost 2,000 metres of climbing compared to 850 at the salt flats of Nottingham. To an extend that is just how Yorkshire is, although Newby Hall where the Yorkshireman is based is right next door and has a much flatter bike course. Garmin classified seven stretches as climbs, and it was a two-lap course, so 14 in total. Nothing too bad, though: we did go through the moors but they were all short and not too steep. Nothing compared to coming up Chevin Bank, for example.

I certainly felt the sting, though. It was my slowest average moving speed of any full distance. Even slower than my first ever, but thanks to fewer stops, I was still faster overall. My average power was slightly lower than Outlaw (149 Watts vs 157 Watts) but the normalised power was higher (184 Watts vs 172 Watts) showing the stop-start effort as went up and down the hills.

I spent a lot of the time on the bike thinking about my life choices. Every time I finish a long-distance race, I somehow forget how much it hurts. And then I find myself back in this situation. Other strategies for passing the time included singing along to some Billy Talent and re-writing Harry Potter as a Mary Sue fan fiction.

I ate more solid food than I planned. My gel flask had leaked and I could not find any on the first aid station so I was making do with energy bars, sweets and sports drinks. I felt sick pretty much the whole race but barely anything came up so I just kept putting more fuel in in some kind of dare game with my stomach.

The run

The sun came out for the run. It also rained. I was trying to take it easy but also aware that if I ran a 4:33 marathon I would go under 14 hours. This was appealing even though I deliberately came in with a few of having fun. I ran when I wanted to and walked when I needed to without focusing on the time.

I was planning to drink Mountain Fuel energy drink at each aid station but the only drink they had was water, so I went for a combination of water and mini sausage rolls. On lap two I grabbed my Lucozade from my special needs and then on lap three I pulled out my bidon filled with Red Bull. That first taste of caffeine was the highlight of the race. I gasped so audibly the woman in front of me turned around to see what was going on.

With the three big laps out of the way, the two smaller laps were easier. I decided to stop eating and hope my all-day fuelling would carry me through. I finally started feeling good (as good as you can 13 hours into a race) and gradually picked up the pace, running a 5:03 for my 42nd kilometre. The course finishes with a final “glory lap” around the transition and event village and I was all smiles. No slowing down, though, as I wanted that sub-14. I hit the finish straight with two minutes to spare and took a leisurely stroll across the line.

The result

I finished with:

13:58:21

Lovely to get under the 14 hour mark on a relatively hilly course. My splits were as follows:

After Outlaw, it was nice to get back to a transition that isn’t a kilometre long. Plus, my fastest full distance swim by several minutes.

The event

Organising a full distance triathlon is a huge task and can only be more difficult during a pandemic. So thank you to the TriHard team for putting it all together.

That said, there were niggles compared with IRONMAN, OBS or Freebird. Race information came out in a patchwork fashion and TriHard deflected emails: they asked us to wait until the final email promising answers, then sent a final email to say they didn’t have time to answer emails anymore. Water temperature was not checked in the morning. Transition did not open until 5:15, despite the race briefing being at 5:45. There was only one toilet in transition and I ended up queuing in T1. They had “Mountain Fuel” on the aid stations but this seemed to mean different things for the bike and run. Nor was it clear how many aid stations there would be. Multiple athletes got lost on the run.

None of this is a disaster and much of the event was flawless. And it certainly does not detract from the hard work that all of the volunteers put in, all of whom offered plenty of encouragement and were kind and supportive. Plus the photos were included!

Summary

Now that I am sitting on my sofa I am glad I did the race. But I am also looking forward to a little more relaxation and some shorter format races.

Outlaw is a full distance triathlon that takes place at the National Water Sports Centre. A 3.8-kilometre swim, 180-kilometre cycle and 42.2-kilometre run around the scenic Holme Pierrepont country park and wider Nottingham region. What better way to spend a Sunday?

The swim

The swim takes place in the regatta lake which seems to be some kind of water-based plant nursery. I was swimming quite far out and I was still grabbing handfuls of the stuff at points.

It was long and hard. I had a wee panic attack on the out lap and had to switch to breaststroke to get my breathing under control. Having dealt with that, I allowed myself a quick look at my watch only to discover I was only 36 minutes in! Thankfully, I managed to settle down and the return leg was a little easier.

My intention was to speed T1 up a little (by my standards). I had gone with my tri shorts so that I could wear them for the entire race (previously I had done a full costume change). Somehow, I took longer. It did not help that transition was over 600 metres long: 1,300 athletes were mostly on two rows of racking that stretched along the lakeside. Wrestling with my top, applying sun cream, taking care of my feet and snacking on non-portable foods added up quickly. I did avoid sunburn, though, so probably worth it in the end.

The bike

The bike starts with a beautiful lap of the lake before heading out onto the roads. These were great. They’re not fully closed World Triathlon Leeds. But we did sometimes have a lane coned off, or the roads were quiet, and at almost all of the junctions, they had traffic management stopping cars and giving us priority. I think I only had to stop once at a roundabout and then only for a few seconds. There were a couple of roads where cars were holding me up but it usually kept moving as side roads were closed to stop them from turning.

I was religious with my nutrition and made my way through OTE, Clif, Haribo, Torq gels and several bottles of Lucozade.

The course was fast and flat. Technically, there was one hill in it which briefly maxed out at 11%. But nobody from Yorkshire would describe it as a climb. I spent a lot of time on my aero bars simply because it was more comfortable: the lack of elevation meant I could spin at a reasonably high cadence and protect my lower back.

The discomfort was mostly in my bottom from being sat in the saddle for so long. That and a kind of low-level-pain boredom. Only in full distance can you get to the two-thirds point, 120 kilometres in, and think “only the last little bit to do now” and yet still have two hours of cycling ahead of you. I might need to look at my cleat position, too. It was stressing my plantar fascia and for a nine-kilometre stretch, I unclipped and rode on the flat side of my pedals so I could move more onto the ball of my foot.

I stopped at aid station four just to try and kill the loneliness and take a minute to just not be on the bike anymore before taking on the final leg back to transition. T2 was a much-welcome sight. I took almost as long in T2 as I did in T1 and I have literally no idea how because I can’t really remember it. I didn’t eat anything or change my outfit (other than my shoes) but the time just disappeared.

The run

I walked the first few hundred metres as I ate some crisps and then set off in earnest. Some on-the-run maths suggested that if I ran a 4:17 marathon I could finish in under 13 hours. I had no idea how possible that was. I ran a 4:40 marathon at Yorkshireman but I was on for around 3:40 at Evolve Trio when better rested. I thought if I kept myself roughly in the game we would just see what happened.

What happened was it hurt. A lot. I was somewhere in the 5:30-6:00 range, plus walking the aid stations. I grabbed a High5 energy drink and a slice of orange at each one. My plan was to make it to 20 kilometres before moving onto coke (sweet caffeine) and for once I made it. By that point, I was doing High5 and coke at most of the aid stations as I could feel my calves tightening up.

Around 12 kilometres in my stomach started churning. I found a portapotty but I was so dosed up on Imodium that it didn’t help. I kept running. With it being a two-lap course, I was expecting to spend the first lap being overtaken by faster runners on their way to finishing their second lap. But almost nobody did. Most people were walking. A few were running at a much slower pace than me.

Despite a constant feeling that I was slowing down and that there was no point trying because I would never manage a 4:17 marathon, I kept trying to accept the pain and keep moving in the hope that it would pass. It did not pass but my watch kept saying 6:00 per kilometre and I reached the 32-kilometre mark I at least gained the comfort of “only one more hour of this”.

By this point, I could have potentially done some run-walking. But not much of it and I wanted to allow some time for emergency toilet breaks, the course measuring as longer than 42.2 or any cramp that would force me to slow down. So, I kept pushing knowing that if I got to 40 or 41, the adrenaline would push me through the final 10 minutes.

The finish

They should make the finish chute a kilometre long. A whole day of suffering for a finish that lasts 30 seconds. There were 30 great seconds, though. There was a big crowd cheering me down the line. It is impossible to take it all in. I wish I could freeze that moment in time, or at least remember to pause and walk it, but I was so fatigued, caffeinated and excited that it was difficult to think straight.

You might expect that crossing the finish line is the end of the suffering. But (in my experience) that is not the case in long format racing. If anything, it gets worse. my body stiffens up and it is hard to get up and down. And I just feel ill. It took me two hours to stomach anything and that is a surprisingly quick time frame compared with previous races.

My final time was:

12:50:05

My splits are below. While I am counting this as my fourth full distance triathlon, I compare it to my first in the table below. Both Woolenman and Evolve Trio are more recent but their event format was slightly different so Yorkshireman is the most compatible.

That was good enough for a top-half finish: 502 out of 1053. My run split was the 136th fastest. And nearly 200 athletes took even longer than I did in transition 😂.

What’s next? I’m not sure. I have IRONMAN Copenhagen booked but I have also got everything I wanted out of full distance triathlon so not particularly inclined to do another. Time will tell.

Evolve Trio is a new event for 2021 run by the Blue Lagooners team. It is designed to be an accessible form of triathlon with the swim, cycle and run split over the bank holiday weekend with one on each day. Additionally, the course is split into four laps and athletes can choose how many laps they do, making the distance standard to full.

The swim

22 of us were on the start line on Saturday for 1-4 laps of the one-kilometre swim course. The swim is not my strong point: I did a four-kilometre swim in the pool before Yorkshireman, as well as a 3.5-kilometre open water swim in which I got cramp, then I did the Yorkshireman itself, which I also cramped and found pretty traumatic.

After that, I decided I would get in the pool and swim four kilometres every week. Then COVID happened and no lake or pool opened for more than an hour. So, my preparation was not where I wanted it to be. However, since the pools opened last month, I have managed to fit in 23 swims including a 10.5-kilometre week as part of the 7in7 challenge.

As a result, I was sure how it was going to go. But it went well! I got around in 1:35:58. That was good enough to pick up the lanterne rouge by 15 seconds. Potentially, I could go faster at Outlaw given the course is 200 metres shorter and there may be less stopping for snacking (may!). 12 of us completed the maximum four laps.

The bike

Sunday brought the bike course. It should have been 1-4 laps of a 45-kilometre loop. However, roadworks added an extra 47.2 kilometres, making it 178.8 kilometres in total. Officially it was sportive rules so it wasn’t cheating when a bunch of us were drafting a tractor. But tractors also go slower than we can cycle. There were other riders for the first hour but after that it was lonely. Thankfully, there were race vehicles on the course and the marshals cheering us on.

Womersley is flat so I was able to get plenty of speed. I went through the first 30 kilometres in under an hour and averaged 29 kph. Part of it was also increased power: at Yorkshireman, I output 153 Watts and averaged 25.3 kph and 156 Watts with an average of 24.4 kph at Woolenman. This time I output 188 Watts so I like to think that had something to do with going an hour faster and finishing in 6:37:46. Seven us of completed the maximum four laps.

The last lap was hard. Despite constant eating, I was still hungry and probably quite dehydrated by then. Or maybe the sunburn was kicking in on the few areas of skin that I missed, despite sun creaming three times. The final time I did while cycling: new skill!

The run

Finally, the run. Getting up at 6am was not my ideal bank holiday but it comes with the territory. The other days started at noon and 11am which gave my stomach time to settle. The early start was harder, though, and my stomach felt uneasy the whole way around. I still managed to eat enough, though and kept a good pace the whole way around.

Because of my sunburn, I decided to run in my Under Armour HeatGear base layers. Luckily, it wasn’t too warm and went between sun and shade most of the morning. I started feeling good in the final two kilometres when my mind settled down and focused on how close the finish was.

I finished the run in 3:38:30, more than an hour ahead of my Yorkshireman time and even further ahead of my Woolenman time. Six of us completed the maximum four laps.

The result

My total time was:

11:52:13

Officially, it was a personal challenge and there were no prizes. But unofficially, that was good enough for third place out of the six of us that completed all four laps of all four disciplines. Which meets my fifth place at Hubble Bubble.

Although it puts me over two-and-a-half hours ahead of previous full distance triathlons they do not directly compare as I was able to rest between each discipline. Also, the swim course was 200 metres longer, the bike course was nine kilometres longer but had much less climbing, and the run course was shorter. Still, it has been a big confidence boost for Outlaw.

I got a different medal for each event and they fit together like a jigsaw.

A big thank you to Bev, Morg and the whole team down at Blue Lagoon for keeping us safe and looking after us for the entire weekend.

James Lawrence, better known as The Iron Cowboy, is the triathlete that completed 50 Ironmans in 50 days (the 50-50-50) and is now on a new challenge: #Conquer100. Which, as you might guess, is an attempt to do 100 Ironmans in 100 days. All of this is amazing and in this post, I want to focus on just one area of that amazing which is how much he needs to eat.

I don’t actually know what he is eating other than a few social media pictures but just calculating the numbers makes suggests that his is truly a test of GI tract endurance. Here is why.

Calories burnt

Lawrence is posting his Garmin workouts as he goes and he is burning around 5,900 to 6,800 kcals per triathlon, which is taking him somewhere between 16-18 hours. Then there is the 6-8 hours he is not racing, most of which is sleep, so we can assume another 600 kcals of basal metabolic activity on top of that. Therefore, he is probably burning through around 7,000 kcals per day.

Which means he needs to eat 7,000 kcals a day. And because he is mostly racing when he is not sleeping, most of that needs to be done while he is doing the triathlon.

Could he run a calorie deficit?

One option would be to eat less than he is burning. Except this is not an option in Lawrence’s case. Because he is doing it for 100 days.

Even a modest deficit of 500 kcals per day (modest when you are burning 7,000) would cause him to lose 0.5 kg per week. But he is doing it for 14 weeks, so that is 7kg he would lose. He probably only has around 7kg of body fat on him at most and we need some body fat to live. Men can get down to around 2-5% and still be okay, but when you only have 10% body fat, you cannot lose 10% body fat and except to survive. Of course, he could also lose muscle but that is a pretty bad idea when you are trying to do an Ironman every day.

In any case, he isn’t going for this strategy as he has been posting his weight in his daily updates and gained a little bit of weight over the last week.

Okay, so gels then?

One of the big challenges is that he needs to eat a lot of this while doing the triathlon.

Typically, we would minimise eating while exercising because the body needs to shift blood flow and energy to the muscles and so if we try and force it to digest food at the same time we end up with stomach cramps. To offset this risk we would typically use gels: they are made up of glucose and fructose that the body does not need to break down because it is usable energy.

In comparison, we would avoid eating protein because proteins are long chains of amino acids and so the digestive systems need to break these down into individual amino acids before it can use them.

But in Lawrence’s case, gels are not an option. First, his body physically could not process them fast enough. The perfect ratio is a 2:1 mix of glucose to fructose that allows us to take up 90 grams per hour (360 kcals). To get through 7,000 kcals per day, he would need to take a gel every 20 minutes for 20 hours per day. He is not awake that long.

Also, who could stomach 60 gels per day? And no, he can’t mix it up with anything else because nothing else has the magic 2:1 ratio of glucose and fructose. Start eating sugar out of a bag, for example, and it is not as effective because its a 1:1 ratio and the body needs to cleve the table sugar in two to get each part.

The only way to get the energy content in then is to rely on protein and fat to avoid the 90 grams per hour barrier.

Second, a pure sugar diet would not work because he needs to rebuild the damage in his muscles constantly. Typically, we would go out and do a hard race and worry about eating protein after as our muscles recovered. If this process took a few days, it no big deal because our races are widely spaced. But if you are doing nothing but sleeping and racing for 100 days, you don’t have this luxury. The body can only handle 20 grams of protein at a time and functions best when it gets these protein shots 5-6 times per day.

The iron stomach

In summary, he needs to eat around 400 kcals per hour, every hour, from a mixture of protein, fat and carbohydrates, and leave himself enough energy to digest all of this while swimming, cycling and running.

While 400 kcals is not a heavy meal, it is clearly a meal, compared to an energy gel (typically around 100 kcals) or energy bar (maybe as high as 200 kcals if you get a big one) and then he has to race on that basically all of the time.

I’m now an IRONMAN Certified Coach. I am already a certified coach with British Triathlon, but it is reassuring to know that my coaching skills also extend to looking after long format athletes and that I am not just winging it based on my personal experience completing full distance and 70.3 races.

I might write up a proper review of the IRONMAN U programme later but in the final assessment, your skills get put to the test when you have to design a detailed training plan for a fictional athlete looking to complete their first full distance event. It was tougher than expected but the work apparently paid off as I achieved 98%.

Many athletes spend years preparing for a full distance (Ironman) triathlon. But what if you only have 6 weeks? In this video, I’ll give it a go. To be fair, I wasn’t going from a standing start. I spent the first three months of 2020 on my training plan. Then COVID-19 happened, all the races got cancelled, and I spent the next few months running the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee.

Then, six weeks before the race, Dalesman announced they were going ahead with their full distance race. So, I thought I would give it a go. Is it enough time to get ready? Let’s find out!

Skip to 8:15 for the sexy training montage and 15:57 for some race day footage.