Adventures & Mishaps in Vitoria Gasteiz by Paul Sellars

After mine and Ann’s European Tour in 2023, I started to look for races that could be included in a similar tour in 2024. Ironman Vitoria Gasteiz looked favourite as we had choices of a long ferry to Spain or a short ferry to Northern France followed by a drive, and then either way after Gasteiz we could head back into France for the summer.

Race booked, ferry booked, campsites and Gasteiz hotel booked.  Soon afterwards Bill Galvin returned to the SEC fold after 15 months out of training following a nasty bike crash, declaring his intention to race Gasteiz…..and soon after that Louise Sinclair joined the party.

Fast forward a long while and we travelled out of the UK on the 30th June to Bilbao and a campsite 40 miles from Gasteiz. Soon afterwards Bill and his wife Kate left for Northern France in a VW van and arrived at the motor home park in VG 6 days before the race.  Louise (who lives at the top of Scotland and has nightmare journeys to get anywhere) left Aberdeen early on Tuesday morning and arrived in Santander airport 10 hours later via Amsterdam.

As any diligent triathlete does with time on his hands, I had set about recceing the swim and bike course. The lake was beautiful 20-22 degrees, clear, calm and just a pleasure to be in.  I also recced the larger (72km) loop of the bike course - verdict - rolling, exposed and a bit breezy if the wind was up, but potential to be a very nice ride.

The 3 of us planned to ride the smaller loop on Wednesday, but as Louise’s bike and cases were having their own mini-break in Amsterdam for 30 hours, that was left to me and Bill to complete. All good, and similar feeling to the big loop, although the cheeky 10% incline at 155km might be interesting on race day!

With Louise still waiting for her gear on Thursday (bad luck number 1), Bill went for a 40 min swim in the lake…..well that was the plan! After 1:15, Kate messaged me to ask if there was any logical(training based) reason why he would double the length of his swim……err no - cue Kate finding the Ironman media crew at the official swim start…..who put their drone up and located Bill coming back from an unexpected direction - seems his sighting is still a “work in progress”…..but who doesn’t love a 4km swim in race week😂😂 (bad luck number 2).

Now what everyone was blissfully unaware of at this point was that I had just returned from doing my pre race 4*1km intervals….after 2km of which my wonderfully unpredictable heart had decided to pop out of rhythm 😡😡 (it happens occasionally) - cue 3km walk back to the car and medication taken (bad luck number 3)

So by bedtime on Thursday night, Louise’s luggage had arrived at her hotel, Bill was safely back in his camper van and my heart had returned to proper rhythm - excellent!

Ann and I transferred into Gasteiz in the Friday and we all cracked on with our race day preparations. The only thing none of us tried was to get onto the run route…..complicated doesn’t cut it - leave that till race day!

Now Vitoria Gasteiz is a fabulous city - the outskirts are quite industrial, but once in the centre, it’s beautiful.  Ironman, of course, had taken over every available “Plaza” with registration, expo, merch, finish line etc. the whole place was full of pinchos bars, restaurants and good vibes.

Logistics for this one are fun! T2 is in the town centre - you leave your run bag there. Then you take your bike and bike bag to T1 / swim start at the lake - around 20km away. There’s shuttle buses for athletes on Saturday afternoon or if you have your own transport, you can park around the lake on Saturday afternoon. So I did all of that, then watched Kam Wurf swim in the lake with his dog for a bit and headed back into town.

Sleep was good, and a relatively leisurely start time of 8:30 meant catching the shuttle buses at 6:30ish.  Ann and Kate had somehow managed to avail themselves of VIP passes, and were allowed to travel with the athletes rather than on later spectator buses, so we arrived in transition around 7 am with an hour till it shut. No dramas, everything checked, double checked, checked again…..then Ann shouted “your faffing now - stop it!” as I shuffled my bike 5mm along the racking for the 10th time to makes sure I was happy with where it was!

Off to the swim start and the usual IM pens, I went “bullish” at the start of the 1:05 pen - planning on a swim around that time. The pros started and the usual announcer motivation ensued before the first age groupers stated at 8:22. I started bang on 8:30 - nice and easy to calculate things from. I had guessed that it was a straight 1500m to the first turn buoy then about 800m across before turning back for the final 1500m home.  I knew then that the 3rd 10 min alert on my watch needed to be half way along the back straight. I settled into a group that felt to be going at a good pace - I was working hard but not too hard so I guessed I would be moving along nicely and indeed the 30 minute alert came when I hope it would - i snook a look at my watch - 1900m - nice.  On the stretch back home, the buoys didn’t seem to be quite so well aligned and the group split in 2 different directions…..a moments hesitation and I picked the wrong group - smaller and slower, so I had to push on a bit for the last 1500m……exiting in 1:03 - I’ll take that.

As my watch saved….I noticed my max and avg HR for the swim….hmm that’s a touch high!

Smashed through T1 as you can in hot weather - wetsuit off, helmet on, run to bike……I was amazed at the sea of bikes still in T1 - a good swim indeed!  Jumped on my bike and noticed my HR at 171……that’s too high and needs to settle sharpish.  Sadly the first 20km of the bike course is where most of the graft is - lots of undulations and HR was not behaving!  Well I felt OK and even though I was backing off the power to keep it in the 140s (15-20 higher than normal) I was hitting good speed, and a speed that would deliver me the target I wanted (2:10 for each big loop and 1:05 for the smaller loop - 5:25 and out on the run in 6.5 hours. I stuck to my nutrition and hydration plan - 5 litres of water and tailwind 400 grams of carbs plus 4 PH&F chews, over the course was the plan.  After 4 hours, I had no need to pee, so upped the fluids, taking a water bottle and PH bottle from the aid stations

. I ended up consuming 7 litres of fluid, all the tailwind and chews and was empty as I rolled into T2 - still no pee, but I did notice on one of the temperature signs in town - 38 degrees…..lovely!

Gasteiz employ bike catchers for you, which I think is a great thing - so bike dispatched, a short run to T2, helmet off, shoes on and out in record time with cap, glasses and gels in hand.  As I started my watch for the run, I noticed, 15:00 exactly- 6,5 hours and 8th in my AG- bang on plan!

I hadn’t seen Bill or Louise, but by the nature of the course, I hadn’t expected to until the run, and not seeing them on the side of the road was great! I settled into a rhythm planning to run between the aid stations and walk for a minute through every aid station from 1.5 km onwards. I checked my HR 163 - nope that’s not happening for 42km…..I carried on to the first aid station and walked as planned, HR recovered to 145 which should be running HR.

I then ran to the next aid station and the same happened and I started to feel a little “odd”.  I had planned to drop to 9/1 from halfway, so I went to that for the rest of the first loop and that seemed manageable. First loop, which was the longer by maybe 500m done in an hour…..I can live with that!  I saw the VIP WAGs in their special area and dared to think that I had this nailed!

Literally a few hundred meters later my HR shot up and no matter how slowly I ran, it would not drop, and even walking it stayed way too high. I dropped from 9/1 to 5/1 to 4/1……nothing made any difference and I just felt horrible!

Ann and Kate had moved from the VIP WAGs area at the finish line and had walked out to Gasteiz’s own version of the highway to hell - 3 lengths of 800m up and down the same road, which is halfway round the run loop.  I stopped and had a chat to make sure that both Bill and Louise were safely off the bike, and we agreed if nothing changed by the end of lap 2, i would call it a day.  I jogged a few 100 meters and walked a lot more to complete lap 2 in 1:10, but by the time I’d done that I was really feeling all wrong.

I broke my promise and walked for 3 more kms eating and drinking, whilst so many supporters tried to get me going, to see if I could gain any signs of anything returning, sat on a kerb at 23 kms, had a right good cry (yes blokes have tear ducts too!) - and short cut the course back to the finish line to complete my 2nd ever DNF.  On the way back I saw Louise running, and saw Ann and Kate to find out that Bill was doing what he always does on the run - Mr consistent!!

It’s a strange feeling DNFing when you’re still largely alive and not injured - I had no idea what to do, so I went through the recovery area and grabbed a couple of slices of Tortilla…..but sitting with “finishers” was not helping.  I exited, grabbed my bike and bags, went back to the hotel for a shower and a right good sulk!

I checked the tracker and rang Ann to confirm that Bill was 30 mins from finishing, and agreed to meet her at the finish line. The WAGs were back in their VIP area, and I managed to blag my way in there to join them in time to see Bill complete an amazing return to long course racing.  His time was 10:51 which gave him 7th in his AG - and that run - first half 1:51, second half 1:54 - 3:45 - if anyone tries to tell you 9/1 doesn’t work, I would tend to disagree!!

Roll on another couple of hours, and Louise too got her moment in 13:36 a whopping 30 min PB. Louise suffered too in the run, but did a better job of “manning up” then me, and left the contents of her stomach out on the course twice and on the finish line carpet - quality that!

Sorry, that’s been a long read, I feel like it’s also been part of my healing process!, so thanks for reading! What have I learned / relearned?

1. Medals and finishing experiences are very important but life lengevity trumps it. I have long said that there’s 2 ways off an IM course - through the finish line or in an ambulance…..I think I stopped a few kms in front of the 2nd way

2. Heart rate has no knowledge of pace or power…it only knows how hard it’s working to do what is required…..mine had clearly had enough of working that hard!

3. I’m a big lad, and I sweat a lot - 7 litres is more than Ive drunk on a bike course, ever…..but to not pee until 1.5kms into the run, is no good - it’s 10 litres next time!

4. Bad luck doesn’t always come in 3s….

5. Races come and go, you work hard to get to the start line, it costs a lot of cash to attend, but the finish line is a gift and should never be taken for granted! After racing over 100 70.3s and 140.6s I’ve now DNFd twice…..I had reached the point where I assumed I would finish and all that was negotiable was the time…..not true, and in part I failed to look after myself

What makes me so proud of SEC and my family is the messages that Ann received when the wheels came off and I disappeared from the tracker, and the pile of messages on my phone when I got to it - so many selfless people only interested in me and fully supporting how I had acted - to those that cared more about me on Sunday than their own issues - thank you

A massive congratulations to Louise, how just keeps turning up and collecting medals, and Bill on a outstanding return to racing 140.6

For me there will be more races…..starting on Thursday 25th July when I will start the Alpe D’Huez long triathlon…..with every intention of completing it!

For Vitoria Gasteiz……a fabulous event in a stunning location, one to do for sure……and I have no doubt I will be back to put this one to bed!