SEC Athletes raid the south coast at Ironbourne

Following the Lakesman exploits, myself and Danny Bluff were looking for another UK to use our fitness up on. As for everyone, its been a strange year with race entries, and we had nothing else booked until the end of August, and needed some focus…..enter Ironbourne – a new event by a team in Eastbourne who are running a number of events in the area – a 70.3 and 140.6 on offer.

I went for the 140.6 as my strengths lie in longer and slower, Danny fancied a tune up ahead of the Challenge Championships so went for the 70.3. There started a lad and dad long weekend on the South coast. For once, it looked the weather was going to play game, and travelling down on the Friday the temperatures were rising.

There had been a lot of chat ahead of the event about currents in the sea and complexities on the bike course, so we set about some investigation! Sea swim on Friday afternoon revealed a strong current along the coast – enabling us to swim easy at 1:30 per 100m one way, and 2:30 per 100m back the other!!

Lots of checking of the bike course and we seemed to have the route sorted, so took a quick recce of the first 10km out if T1 (its always nice to know where you are going when your head is still full of sea water!), and the last 10km which featured the biggest climb of the day. We followed that with a quick (for me!) 5km up and down the prom, and then took to the beach for lunch and chill time before registration and racking.

The best bit of COVID and triathlon has to be the expansion of transition areas and the space created around you bike, and this continued here – another clean transition with a big box supplied for all your gear. Locked and loaded and back to the B&B for more food via a very nice ice cream palour!

03:55 alarm on Sunday morning for breakfast, then the 20 minute walk to T2 to drop off nutrition on the bike, and special needs run gear for me, then a 10 min walk back to the pier for the swim start. One of the USPs of this event is the swim start which features a 2M jump off the end of the pier….so off we went, sort of 2 at a time – long distance at 5:50, middle soon after 6:00. The current behaved as predicted and I was delighted to reach the Aussie exit in 30:30, before diving back in for the long slog against the tide. Back round the loop and out in a PB of 1:02 for a spot on 3.8km.

Chuffed with that, but not the 200M uphill run to T1 . T1 executed swiftly (no extra layers) and off on the bike course. The first 50km is good quality, undulating roads, pretty quiet on a Sunday morning, and I was getting good speed for low power which made me very happy! Nutrition plan was the tried and tested Tailwind syrup in a bottle on the down tube, collecting water from every aid station to mix in my aero bottle with the syrup. This worked fine again, and we cracked on round the more rural part of the first lap, back to the main roads and round we went again on the second lap. Power was on point and pace was good – averaging 35 kph at 215 watts. Sadly, the last 30kms of the bike course were very twisty and whilst the roads were in generally good condition, the sunlight was coming through the trees throwing that dappled look onto the road, so too much time was spent off the bars making sure there were no hidden dangers. This coupled with the last 15km featuring the 2 big climbs – 250m in total dropped the average speed to 33.5kph, bringing me in under 5:30 which was the aim, having consumed the planned 6 bottles of fluid, 15 scoops of Tailwind (450 grams of carbs), 5 sachets of PH 1500 and 2 Clif Bars just to stop the stomach rumbling!

Coming in to T2, great to see Danny Bluff and Will Law (who had already completed the 70.3) and Bill Galvin and his wife Kate who had come across to support.

In and out of T2 and settling in to what promised to be a long and sweaty afternoon! Great to hear Bill giving some sage advice on the way out – “negative split Paul” – in other words – no heroics at the start!! The plan was the same 3km run, then 90 seconds walk that did me well at the Lakesman. This got altered a little to make sure I was walking through the aid stations which were every 3-4.5km. Tailwind in my race belt bottles (refilled at special needs every 13km), PH salt tablets in my trisuit, water and coke from the aid station, and a fantastic hosepipe shower at each aid station saw me “happily” through the first 38km with support from Danny, Lee Kennedy and his mates, and a lot of locals and tourists on the run route up and down the prom.

The course featured a lot of out and back sections – a 2km section uphill to the west, then a 2km flat section to the west and finally a 8.5km flat section to the east. Both 2km sections were done 4 times, and the longer section 3 times…..sounds complicated, and it did in the race briefing too….but all made sense on the day as it usually does!!

Whether it was psychological or heat related, but the last 4km seemed to be extra hot! By this time, I knew I was winning my AG by at least 30 mins, and the only thing that would prevent me from picking up the trophy was not finishing…..so with that in mind, I dropped the pace and put a “jog 1km, walk 90 secs” strategy into place.

Crossing the finish line with a 4:12 marathon and 10:46 overall time, which was 15 mins longer than target, but, that was almost the plan from the start with it being so hot, and knowing I had the AG win in the bag!!

Meanwhile, in the 70.3 event, Danny started 10 mins after the full distance and exited the water in a drama free 31 mins (except for a bit of goggle misplacement on the jump in!). Through T1 and off on his weapon of choice the Canyon Speedmax setting about business as usual of catching anyone that decided to exit the swim before him. Armed with the trusted GU Gels and PH bottles, Dan found the course very similar to myself - fast to start, then slightly annoying at the end - averaging 40 kph for the first 70kms, then slowing on the twisty roads and hills, but entering T2 in 4th place posting the 2nd fastest bike split of the day. 1 min 28 seconds later and he was out on the run, hitting sub 4 min kms for the first 10km, which unfortunately featured a extra 900m run passed a turn cone on one off the out and backs that wasn't marked up, but still saw him take 3rd place and start to close on 2nd. Then came 4 kms short of target pace as he waited for a portaloo to appear - they were only in transition (that's one of the pieces of feedback). That sorted and back to sub 4kms to consolidate 3rd place in a sub 4:30 time. A good baseline to now work on 70.3 specifics for Challenge Championships.

Will Law had this race on his calendar as prep for IM Wales in September.....he arrived in Eastbourne to the news that Wales had been cancelled - not the prep you need. We had a quick chat at registration and his mindset was spot on - ignore that for now, and do myself justice here!

Will had also recce'd the swim course and knew what was in store, and exited the water in a fantastic 35 mins which was ahead of expectations, and given he clocked an extra 150 meters, his pace was well above expectations (note to coach - need to swim in straighter lines!!). In and out of T2 and the same story on the bike course, finishing that section in 2:49, again just ahead of expectations.

The run was a little unknown as Will is a very heavy and salty sweater, not a good thing for a steaming hot run, but he held it together to finish in just over the 2 hour mark, and a sub 5:30 total time to finish 16/50 in his AG. Job done....and on to the next challenge.

Once again the SEC team doing themselves justice!

Decent event for the first time of running it – an honest course – full distance in all disciplines, and generally well organised. A few feedback points for the organisers, who seem as though they will happily take it all on board, and I think this is an event that will grow in popularity over time.