Woburn Blog
Race Reports and Idle Thoughts
Suzy was aiming to complete a Double Ironman – as fiendishly simple as it sounds. She would complete a full Ironman race on Saturday then, after a few hours of sleep, do it again on the Sunday. In addition to this, there was also a group aiming to complete the Continuous Double Ironman: an unrelenting 7.6km swim, 360km bike taking them through the rural unlit night, and a double Marathon to finish.
I saw five “handlebar dismounts” in the forty five minutes I was standing there. The fatal combination is decelerating hard with your weight too far forward. A cyclist would approach the line with too much speed, swing their leg over in preparation, then realise they were going way too fast to start running.
I have been talking about giving cyclocross a go for years. I have several friends who are evangelists for riding their bikes through the muddy wintry woods, and I have always thought it looked like fun. I confess I have been a little intimidated in the past, partly through lack of the correct equipment – I only had a (very heavy) mountain bike.
They say you get what you pay for. The Ironman experience is taxing, and not just on the wallet. The time and sweat that’s required to get to the start line is as draining as the price tag; but the experience is incomparable. The Ironman brand completely took over the town of Calella for the weekend, and we felt like VIPs at the party.
