1.5km Swim / 59km Bike / 15km Run
So this event was never supposed to be on the cards for me this year, it was in my head as a possibility for 2023, never even thought I could get it done this year. I first heard of this event from the GTN YouTube channel. I binge watched quite a lot of their content when I was first getting into triathlon, and they had a video about it from 2020 when they and a load of pro’s did it.
Fast forward to a tri club meal out in Redcar, casually talking about how I wanted to get another longer distance event before the end of the year, and Andy (club chairman) pops up with Helvellyn. My first thought was, na, no way could I do that, but it quickly changed to, what if I could do that, and not long after, I was pretty much set on doing it (even though I absolutely dreaded the thought of getting up ‘the struggle’ on my bike).
Aims:
- To finish it! As with the middle distance triathlon I did in the lakes in June, I just wanted to finish it. But, I did have a time of around 6 hours in my head.
- For the swim, I did want to stick with my typical open water swim goal of under 2:10/100m.
I ended up booking a hotel about a mile down the road from transition for the night before, I really didn’t fancy almost a 2 hour drive at 5am on race morning. Got down there on Saturday afternoon to register and pick up my race pack, all nice and easy, one less thing to do in the morning. Checked in at the hotel, put my bike together all ready for tomorrow and the hotel had a lockup that they let me (and a few others) store our bikes in overnight.
Got a half decent sleep, a couple of coffees, the toilet and some breakfast (and more toilet), and I was ready to go. I was leaving my car at the hotel, so I packed up my transition bag and rode down to the race. Transition setup all went well, a minute silent for the Queen, race briefing and then headed down to the water.
Swim
Water was reported to be around 13-14 degrees, but felt a lot warmer to be honest. I was in wave 2 of 3, with us leaving a couple of minutes after the first wave, and then wave 3 leaving about 15 minutes after us. Had a little swim around, warmed up a bit and got my face in the water, and felt ready. Had a few minutes to spare, so tried a wetsuit wee for the first time (another triathlon achievement unlocked).
The claxon went for the first wave, so I moved up ready and thought I would get into the thick of it instead of hanging back and off we went! I noticed straight away I had a piece of reed, or something stuck between my toes, which really distracted me for a while, trying to get it out. I realised I was very out of breath as I was going too hard, so calmed it down a bit, slowed my stroke down quite a lot, and I started overtaking people quite quickly. Before the first lap was done, I had swam past quite a few people from the 1st wave, which were supposed to be the fastest of the 3, so that gave me a nice little boost. Sat on a few peoples feet before passing or losing them. Got a little bit rough at some of the buoys as we were turning, but I gave as much as I got, so can’t complain. Before I knew it, I was sighting for the last buoy and on the home straight, once there, it was just a little swim to the shore. Felt really good about the swim to be honest, I noticed my watch was under 30 minutes by the time I had stood up and hit my lap button, I put down 32 minutes for my swim prediction… so far so good.
Not too far to run for T1, and it was on grass, so no painful stones.
Bike
Completely forgot to take my goggles and swim cap out of my hand before pulling my wetsuit over it, so had a tough time getting my hand out with all that in. Other than that, T1 was quite uneventful. I did have a cycling jacket in transition, just in case, but did not end up putting it on. Legs cramped a little bit when putting my socks and shoes on, but that always seems to happen when I get out of the water.
Got mounted no problem, and out onto the route. I had already set my garmin up with the route just in case, so that all came on without issue. About 300m down the road, I hit a bump and my water bottle between my handlebars came loose and started bouncing around, which also had my garmin attached to it, and my chain started slipping, so pulled over to the side, reattached the bottle, and hoped my chain would sort itself. It never, at least not straight away. It was slipping very randomly until around half way into the bike, which was quite annoying, but thankfully sorted itself out before Kirkstone Pass.
The start of the bike was quite a lot of climbing, more than expected, so I got overtaken by quite a lot of people here. After the climbing, we went out onto the A66, and I got some good speed up here, and overtook quite a few of those who got me on the hills, ha!
There must have been another bike event on, as around half way, I saw some signs saying to turn off, and seen a few people do so, but my Garmin told me not to, so I did as I was told, which was the right thing to do, as it wasn’t for us. It was at this point I really started to get nervous about the climb up ‘The Struggle’ so much so, I needed a nervous wee. Not one to stop and disturb my progress on the bike, I waited for a little downhill, and yep, you guessed it, did a wee on the bike again (think this is my signature move at this point). I also saw it as shedding some weight before the big climb, lol.
Pretty soon, I saw signs for Ambleside, and knew it was coming. I decided at that point that I would get up, without coming off my bike. No matter what my head and legs were saying, they would be ignored until they got me to the top without doing the walk of shame.
Got to Ambleside, crossed over the little roundabout, and Jesus Christ, that starts quick. Almost immediately into double figure inclines. My Garmin was telling me there was a climb and it was beeping at me to GO! I knew it was quite steep at the start, but there was a flat/downhill bit in the middle, and then a big incline up to the top. I stayed seated as much as possible, as to not give too much too quickly, but I knew I was struggling already.
I cleared the first major inclines, and got to some single figure sections which gave me a chance to recover. I could see a flat section coming up on the Garmin climb map, so I knew there would be a bit of respite coming up, and felt good knowing I was coming up to half way. The flat section was short lived, and I was soon back into double figure inclines, but I was onto the last section, according to the Garmin. However! I started to realise that I couldn’t see the pub, and I knew that I should have been able to see it when I started the 2nd section of climbing from videos I have watched. The stupid bloody computer was only showing the first part of the climb, as the rest couldn’t fit on the screen. It moved over once I had passed a certain point, and it was at this moment I realised I wasn’t even half way yet! My heart sank a little bit at that point, and i am pretty sure a single tear rolled its way down my cheek lol!
So, I got to the real middle section with the flat and downhill, and I barely peddled to try and save my energy. It was around now that I could see the pub, and the winding climb to get to it, I believe my words at this point were something along the lines of “holy fucking shit”.
The flat and the downhill were very short lived, and didn’t offer anything in the way of a rolling start for the cimb ahead. Straight out of the saddle, watching the incline percentage go up and up, seeing it tip into the 20%’s was a killer. Still, I had already decided on getting up it on my bike, and I knew that walking up it would hurt more in both pain from the inevitable cramp that would set in, and in my ego, as I walked past everybody waiting at the top whilst trying to hide all mentions of RTC on my suit, as to not cause any embarrassment for the club. Anyway, it didn’t come to that! I (very slowly) wormed my way up, weaving up the road to try and take some incline off, and just kept peddling. Out of my saddle the whole time for this main climb, I could see the pub, and started getting cheered on by people, which helped a surprising amount. Finally, there, I could see it, flat road at the top, it did exist!!! By the time I cleared the climb, I was making all sorts of grunting noises, sweat dripping from everywhere, but, I had done it, the thing I feared most from the event was behind me! Also, it is nothing like Clay Bank, do not listen to Mark.
The downhill was VERY fun. I did start in my tri-bars, very quickly came back up onto my hoods so I could get to my brakes. Wow, it is quick down there, and quite winding. I was riding my brakes pretty much the whole way down, and still managed some very quick speeds. There were quite a lot of cyclists on the side of the road, repairing flat tyres mostly, but I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. At this point, I was very glad I replaced my brake pads on the front the day before, as the ones in there were down to the metal, and I think I almost definitely would have crashed here.
The ride back to transition was pretty uneventful after this. There were some temporary traffic lights which I managed to catch on green. As I came back to transition, my mind was still a bit of a blur after the climb and then the descent. My forearms and triceps started to cramp from hammering the brakes on the way down and all of a sudden, I just completely forgot how to get off my bike. I usually leave my shoes on the bike and jump out, but there was wet grass and I didn’t want to soak my socks. Before I knew it, the dismount line was there, so I unclipped one shoe, which immediately caused that leg to cramp, I panicked I was going to go over the line so I slammed by brakes on, this caused the back of the bike to pop up and nearly launched me over the handlebars. Worst. Dismount. Ever. It was Paige and Cathy from Cleveland Tri Club on the line, I made my best efforts to blame cramp and shuffled myself into T2. Disgraceful dismount.
Run
Took my time in T2 as well. I was doing some recording on the bike, and needed to transfer the camera to my chest mount to record the run, so this added a little bit of time on, but nothing major. Trail shoes, bag and sunglasses were on, and away I went.
Started off pretty nice, but the scale of the climb on the run soon hit me. My legs were cramping pretty badly at this point, and I remember I picked up some salt stick chewable tablets on Mark’s recommendation. These things are amazing. Within a few minutes, the cramp had gone, and on I went. I kept looking behind me as the views were absolutely incredible, looking down to Glenridding and over Ullswater.
The climb just kept going up, and up, and up. Lots of false sumits and I refused to look at my watch anymore as the KM’s were ticking away too slowly. Hit a bit of a flat, and wanted to get running to stretch my legs out, but it was short lived before we hit another climb. Soon, we were headed up past Red Tarn, and the mist started to come down, and got really cold. Stopped to change out the battery on the camera and put a jacket on. Immediately I felt much better. I remember talking to a guy about the climb, and asked if we went up that (pointing to some craggy rocks that I now know was Swirral Edge), he said from what he remembers from the last time he did it, we didn’t. Well, he lied. We did go up there, all the way up there.
We were soon in single file, pretty much rock climbing for about 10 minutes with sheer drops either side, until we finally reached the summit, where the marshall told me that this was the highest point on the run. I stayed there for a couple of minutes to gather myself and get some photos before heading down.
Got off running straight away to keep the legs warm, and started to enjoy the downhills and start knocking some distance off. I misplaced my foot and rolled my ankle a little bit on a rock, but no lasting damage thankfully. A few more uphills, and then just downhill, all the way back to the finish line.
This was by far my favourite part. I love running downhill, so just let myself go. I must have ended up overtaking about a dozen people on this section. I kept feeling cramp creep into my quads, but kept popping one of the salt stick tablets in and the feeling was gone within a minute (Mark was getting a lot of praise at this point). Got past all of the switchbacks, and knew I had racked up some mileage, so checked my watch and seen I had about 2-3km’s to go. That must have given me a second wind, as I picked up my pace even more, overtaking a few others and felt like I was flying down. I got into the top of Glenridding, and went past a pub called the Travellers Rest. This is the pub I was at the night before, so I knew I was very close. Kept picking up the pace and got into the main part of the village where there were people cheering and clapping, which usually after an endurance event makes me a little emotional, but it just pushed me on more. I kept peeking at my watch and my pace was showing between 5:00-5:30/km. No idea how I was running that at this point, even with the downhill, but I felt great. By now I could see the finish line, was routed around the field by the marshals, and then onto the final straight and over the line! Done it!
Honestly, I am very chuffed with myself for completing this triathlon. If someone had told me this time last year that I would be finishing a triathlon that is advertised as one of the toughest in the world, I would have laughed in their face, and gone back to eating my parmo.
My swim pace was 2:03/100m, which I am really happy with. Didn’t quite finish in my rough 6 hour target, but almost there. As always, the bike leg time let me down.
Absolutely loved it. Not a great time, but something to improve on for next year. During it (especially going up the Struggle and Swirral Edge) I was swearing blind I wouldn’t do it again. But, I’m pretty sure I will be on the start line again next year.
Official Results
Swim: 29:46
T1: 3:52
Bike: 2:54:42
T2: 5:22
Run: 2:45:38
Total: 6:19:19 (weirdly, my big lime time was 1:19:19)
252/321 Overall
