Dave Hodkinson takes on Lanza 70.3

For the last 5 or 6 years (apart from the obvious Covid restrictions) I have been over to Lanzarote with others from my Tri club around February time for a training week. There were 3 of us looking to go again now that travel had become easier. While looking into dates that suited us all, I noticed that the usual Lanzarote IM 70.3 that takes place in October was being held in March for 2022 and as 2 of us had deferred places for the Lanzarote full IM in May it made sense to tie the trip in and compete in the 70.3 to gauge how the training was going !!

I'd also been over twice towards the end of 2021 on holiday and made a point of reccying the bike and run course while there – and for someone who lives in pretty flat Lincolnshire, it was going to be a tough day !

Registration and bike racking were all straight forward and pretty un-eventful even with the loosely adhered to COVID measures that were in place. But, disappointingly, the event seemed lacking in much atmosphere, the EXPO was embarrassing with only 2 stalls not selling anything that I fancied.

One thing that did surprise me was the weather. The long range forecast from a week out was showing the wind was to drop right down (which for anyone who knows Lanza is a rarity) and to be relatively cool with cloud cover – that would be ideal !! The thing is, that forecast never changed and was actually bang on for race-day which was a huge bonus.

With a 7am start, I decided to climb into bed just after 8pm and see if I could sleep and I managed to get to sleep fairly easily. I had no pre-race nerves and managed to get some really good shut-eye. I can only put this down to being thoroughly prepared by Paul – I'd rehearsed my race, I knew my plan and I felt confident with how the training had gone so my mind was at ease.

So up at 4.30am, eat some porridge and get geared up. I took an electrolyte drink with me on the way down to the start. The swim start was a self seeded affair but it was all a bit unclear were the areas were so I hung around with 2 others from my Tri club who were doing the race. The pros set off at 7am and then we're drip fed in, 3 at a time every 5 seconds after they had gone. Again, no nerves – just get in the water and get on with business. The swim went fairly well in terms of having space and no real argy-bargy at the start. My right goggle lens however decided that it liked water inside as well as outside the lens and at 500 yards it was pretty much full. It was either stop and sort it or swim with one eye closed – I opted for the Cyclops style swimming !! That all seemed to go OK until the last turn and the long stretch back to the marina as the sun was low in the sky and this was causing me sighting issues. I just followed feet and hoped they were swimming straight. The last 200m or so as you entered the marina were the most challenging part for me as it seemed to get quite narrow and congested with swimmers. This was the only time I had much contact with others with one particular swimmer to my right persistently smacking me on the head – so I gave him a few back and he soon got the message !

Out from the swim in 40.55 which I'm fairly happy with on what appeared a 100m too long course and on to transition. This went well although as I'm not a shoes on the bike kind of guy, clip-clopping about ¼ mile out of transition in bike shoes isn't great.

On to the bike and I knew what was coming, pretty much straight into a long climb (which we would do 3 times in all). But I knew how I was going to ride it and the first lap went bang on to time. The second lap was a few minutes slower as I think I just didn't get the power down on the descents like I did on the first lap. The third time up the climb was actually the quickest one which surprised me but the bike leg done on a slightly long, challenging course in 3.04.44

T2 was a quick change of shoes and sort everything else out on the move – sun visor on, shades on, race number on (which you could leave off for the bike if you wanted and just wear it on the run)

In training, my running has to me been the most improved. I'd never fully run a 70.3 leg before so that was a definite aim for me. What wasn't going to help was the 2 scaffold bridges they had erected as the run course and bike course crossed each other twice. The run was 4 laps of a hilly course so these bridges had to be negotiated a few times. The problem was that the ramp up on them, although short, was at around a 45 degree angle – not good for tired legs. Despite all that, I managed to complete my target and pushed through to a 1.49.16 run time with no stops.

I'll summarise by saying that I have a personal ambition to not go over 6 hours for a 70.3. I've come close in the past and initially I thought this would be the race to finally end that for me. As time went on and the training went well I finally believed that I could get under the 6. The end result was a total race time of 5.44.40 which I'm happy with.

I woke up on the Sunday after the race and felt a bit ropey but put that down to fatigue from the previous days exertions. I think to Paul's dismay, I spent the next 2 days biking all over the island to reccy some of the Full Ironman route instead of taking it easy and recovering (you've got to make the most of your time – right?). I flew home on the Tuesday afternoon, happy with a good weeks activities. But I was struggling on the flight with a runny nose and a bit of congestion – great, I've got a cold !! As I was due back to work on Wednesday night, and as a requirement for work, I did a Covid test on Wednesday morning and you guessed it – not a cold but Covid !! All I can say is I'm glad that the testing to come home has stopped or I'd have been stuck there isolating for a while longer. Luckily, it seems that I don't have any long lasting effects from it.

That's the first race of the season successfully ticked off now bring on the Full in 7 weeks !!