Top line – for those of you who only read the highlights ;) Ironman UK – 8^th Pro, with a PB marathon split of 2:48:53. That’s definitely moving in the right direction! Despite going 20 minutes quicker overall than last year, I still didn’t manage to crack the top five! Looks like the competition’s getting tougher…

Bolton once again was a great venue for the UK race – thanks to my homestay family (again!). Loving Ironman UK-style!

 Here’s an article from Triathlete Magazine online for the race report details:

http://www.220triathlon.com/news/radcliffe-reflects

And because pictures say a thousand words…

The top of Sheep House Lane... a lung busting climb

Running to a PB marathon split

So Ironman Austria was a cracking races for times on the day, with a new world record time being claimed (at least for a week). My race day went somewhat less smoothly than most. Despite exiting the water 12^th Pro, and getting into the groove on the ride, I wiped out at about 40kms on a downhill as my back wheel slipped against the frame and locked out. My fault entirely for not tightening it up enough that morning when changing a punctured rear at 5:30am in the transition area. Incredibly, I managed not to take anyone else down with me (Jerzy narrowly missed me taking him out!) and didn’t break anything. It could have been a lot worse. My aerohelmet went straight in the bin thanks to the large crack on the left side and the road rash down my right side and impact bruising down my left a reminder of how badly things could have turned out. The team Sugoi tri kit also saved me a lot of skin – and survived pretty much intact. Thanks Sugoi!

The upside, I got to see Kelly’s (amoung many others!) amazing finish from the VIP section where I nursed my wounds and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. From the comfort of a restaurant street table later I also saw the fourth member of Timex racing that day , Luis, run past in high spirits. So good job to all of you guys!

One thing I do remember thinking as I flew over the handlebars that morning was “NOT THE FACE!” … this isn’t just because of my vanity, but also because I was getting married the following weekend and didn’t want to mess up the photos with a black eye and bruising or worse : )

It took a while for my left glute to go back to normal size and functioning but all that’s left now is a few scabs. SOOOO lucky to have come out of that day relatively unscathed. Phew!

Highlight: getting to go onstage to represent GBR at the parade of nations at the event opening & pasta party

7^th May 2011

Definitely a ‘just for fun’ race for me, the North Face 100km China run near Beijing was a very late addition to the calendar. I received entry about 7 weeks ago, and even though I knew that I wouldn’t really get a chance to do any specific distance training or change my ironman training schedule to focus on the race, I still jumped at the chance. I’ve never been to Beijing and really wanted to see the Great Wall. Here was a race giving the opportunity to run on the Great Wall, through the Ming Tombs and surrounding mountains. Awesome.

With some trepidation I toed the start line at 4:30am, headlamp on, 100m climb up some stairs of the Great Wall just  few yards away as the ‘warm up’ ahead of the 500m climb up a ruined section of the wall just around the next corner. I stuck with the lead group for this first 8kms, right up until about 300m up that first mountain, by which point I knew I was going far too hard. These 50kg ultra runners were FLYING up that mountain, and I knew it was time to let some of them go – otherwise I was in serious danger of ruining my chances of finishing. From then on, it became a much more solitary race. The 200 strong starting field had been spread out on the first section of the Great Wall, and that first mountain trail blew the field apart completely.

I hadn’t been anticipating quite how much of trail race this was going to be. With a 20km section of the Great Wall to run and being near northern suburbs of Beijing I had expected much more road and hard surfaces to contend with. I’d imagined stone and stairs. I’d not been wrong about that – there certainly were stairs and Wall, but about 60-70% of the course was on single track, (the ruined section being boulder track), and much of that was goat tracks up or down mountains and heavily foliaged brush trails which,  had they not been marked,  I’m not sure I would have found. It was a run, a scramble, a climb, and – more and more towards the latter half – a hike though the beautiful landscape north of Beijing, though small rural villages, remote orchards and fields, and through Chinese history: The Ming Tombs at 70kms (see photo) were a hidden gem, found somewhere between a gradual 5km climb on road and a 400m stair climb up the next mountain.

By the time I had reached the Ming Tombs I was in quite a bad state. The section from 40kms to 70kms was tough, both mentally and physically. I could no longer hold the ‘natural’ pace that I’d been enjoying in the earlier sections (barring the uphills!), and the constant steep climbing and – more importantly – descending on twisting, uneven and often loose surface trails had made my calves (up), quads and knees (down) really start to hurt. The walk-run strategy had really started to kick in. I was glad of the Nathan hydration pack by this point too – temperatures had soared and I was sucking down between 1.5-2 litres of fluids an hour.

View back over a flat section

Ming Tombs on the race route

By the 70km mark, I knew I would make it. There may be some walking, but I would get there somehow. There were also more runners on the course now as the 50km race course converged with ours there, so I fed off their motivation and numbers, enjoying having company again.

At the finish I knew I was properly broken as I could not even run the entire last kilometre without having a walking section. I’d gone much further than my training should have allowed and my body was telling me to stop. So with 10:45 on the clock and 10^th place in the bag, I did just that.

But of course the next day we went sightseeing: 4 hours walking around the Forbidden City is a true test of how easy walking is (or isn’t). O yes, there are stairs in the Forbidden City too.

An AMAZING race. Highly recommended.

This is what team mate Will Kelsay and I are up to this weekend: The Beijing leg of the North Face Challenge Series – of which Will is doing the 50km race and I am doing the 100km race – is taking place this Saturday.

Here’s link to the course profile and maps http://www.thenorthface100.com.cn/en/bsxl.php

For me, the first 20km’s is on the Great Wall of China, and the rest is in and around the nearby tombs, mountains and forests. The whole route should be stunning. Not only is it a 100km route, there’s some aggressive climbs in there - like a 500m climb on the Great Wall in under 3kms (between km 9 and km 12). Sounds to me like that’s just a set of stairs! In fact the whole profile looks more like an ECG than a route profile. There are 200 entrants running the 100km, 400 running the 50km (which Will is racing) and several thousand I think participate in the 10km which is around the reservoir where all three races finish.
 
Race day is Saturday 7th May. I have a 4:30am start, although the early start will be probably be a little irrelevant as I am not going to have any idea what time of day it is as we arrive on thursday morning for the saturday race. I am hoping that my brain will not get to Beijing before Sunday. Planning on wearing the GT for the race as it should capture some great data.