Ironman Wales 2023
Official Times:
Swim – 1:30:14
T1 – 12:53
Bike – 7:37:13
T2 – 8:07
Run – 4:40:13
Total Time – 14:08:40
895/1941 (1625 finishers) – Overall
161/250 – Age Group
Before I get to the race report, I wanted to add a bit of a prelude to explain what brought me to this point, a full distance triathlon at Ironman Wales. Apologies in advance, it is a long one.
Back in 2021, I had never given any thought to doing a triathlon, I had ran on and off for most of my adult life, but nothing serious, and never anything faster than a low 50 minute 10km in my mid 20s. Unknowingly, I had been putting on a lot of weight over the last year or so, until my parents sent me a photo that they took of me when I visited them for my birthday in August 2021, and I realised I had ballooned and when I weighed myself, found that I was at a not-so-dainty weight of 17.5 stone. Time for a change.
I entered into a few local 10km races to spur me on with training, and then I was shown other races on offer and one of those was a sprint triathlon in York in August 2022. That sounded like a challenge, mainly because I could swim to a point of stopping myself from drowning, as long as the pool side wasn’t more than a few metres away and I hadn’t ridden a bike properly since my BMX days when I was 13.
Towards the end of 2021, I had lost enough weight thanks to diet change and running to be confident enough to start thinking about swimming practice. My Dad had been talking to his friend at work (Nigel Fleming) about what I was doing, and he suggested I come along to a Redcar Tri Club swim session. I messaged the Facebook page and got a friendly reply back from Andy who encouraged me to come along and try a couple of sessions, so in December 2021 I came along to the pool and was given a lot of encouragement from everyone there, including John (the old swim coach) who had me doing something that looked and felt like swimming fairly quickly.
From there I really started getting into it. Being part of a club with people in or who had been in similar situations and not all elite athletes was a big confident boost. As well as this, I joined at a similar time to quite a few others, including Laura and Steph, so it was great going through the journey with them as well.
In 2022, I ended up doing 7 triathlons, including a middle distance triathlon in the lakes in June 2022 with Andy and Jenny which nearly killed me, but I was hooked after the first one I did in May. With encouragement from Andy, I entered into the Helvellyn triathlon in September 2022 and realised that for some reason, I really enjoy suffering for long periods of time.
So, fast forward to September 2023, and I am driving to Wales to compete in an Ironman. If you had told the fat lad in the picture that I would be doing this 2 years after that photo was taken, he’d have snorted in amusement and tucked back into his parmo.
It really helped getting to Wales a few days out from the race, gave me a chance to relax, enjoy the area and take it all in. Did a recce of some of the bike route to make sure the bike was all in working order after the trip, and then had some great family time on the beach (I took along the wife, my daughter Ada and my parents). I was quite worried about how relaxed I was, until race morning.
Alarm set at 3:30am, but I was already awake, probably got about 4 hours sleep that night. Downstairs, coffee, porridge and toast in, electrolytes and water done and started getting ready. The last couple of days were spent working my way through to 5 difference coloured bags I was given for different parts of the race and all those, along with my bike, had been dropped off and setup in transition the day before, so all I had to do was turn up with my swim gear and my pink bag (stuff to get me from the beach to transition).
My support crew had decided to spend the full day in Tenby to make it easier, rather than messing around and navigating round road closures. Halfway there someone asks who has the house key. They were all looking at me as apparently I left the house last, I was wearing a wetsuit with no pockets, so I know I didn’t have it. Shit. They dropped me off so I could go put my nutrition on my bike while they went back (turns out I had locked the door, but left the key in the door), not sure why they would give me such a huge responsibility, today of all days.
Anyway, nutrition on the bike and checked over everything else and I was ready. I waited for the crew to join me, and they cut it fine, but got to see them and hand off some stuff before I headed down to the beach. I had a wee in my wetsuit in the middle of Tenby while waiting for them. It was quite nice actually, until I noticed it trickling out the bottom of the wetsuit and into my sock and shoe. Excellent. I said my goodbyes and headed down to the beach. Found my numbered hook for my pink bag and joined the queue to get down to the beach. I did try working my way forward further up the self-seeded start line, but got to a point where nobody seemed interested in letting me get any further. Welse national anthem, followed by Thunderstrook, and I must admit, I started to feel a bit emotional and overwhelmed, what the fuck was I doing stood here? Looking around and seeing some absolute athletic specimens stood around me, I thought I was doomed to fail. Then the song kicked in and started to pump me up. It was another 5 minutes before the line started to move towards the water and I had another wee while I was walking towards the start line.
Swim – 1:30:14
Then, across the start line and running to the water, finally! I had already poured a bottle of water down my wetsuit to help acclimatise, but with the adrenaline pumping, I don’t think I would have noticed the cold. Swim felt good, a bit busy and clashing around the buoys, but I remember getting battered about and having a massive smile on my face. I absolutely loved it. About half way round I got a whiff of diesel followed by about 3-4 minutes of fish from all the boats that were parked up, horrendous.
First lap was done, out the water (another wee while walking back onto the sand) and back onto the beach for the Australian exit, then back into the water. I was very happy looking at my watch and seeing that I had done the first half in under 40 minutes! The 2nd lap didn’t quite work out the same. Coming up to the last buoy and it felt like I was going backwards. I kept sighting and just could not see the beach getting any closer. At the time I figured I was just fatigued, but seeing other people say the same afterwards, it turns out the tide had turned and only affected the slower swimmers, or those starting towards the back of the queue, and added about 10 minutes onto peoples times. My second lap was done in almost 47 minutes, so about right. Apparently there was a guy who flew in from Japan to do the race and didn’t meet the swim cut off as he got stuck out in it so DNF’d before even getting onto the bike, that would be devastating!
Onto the beach, looking up and seeing so many people watching was crazy. My pink bag was right at the start of the first ramp, so easy to find. Did another wee there while taking my wetsuit off (starting to think I drank too much that morning) and doused my feet in baby powder to get rid of the sand, shoes on, wetsuit etc, chucked into the pink bag and started running/walking up the ramps and running through Tenby into T1 (about 1.5km). I saw Andy and Jenny when running to transition and then the family a bit further down the road, always a great morale boost seeing people cheering you on!
T1 – 12:53
Longest transition ever. Aside from the fact it was a 1.5km run from the beach, the transition area is HUGE. Around 2,000 bikes. You go into a transition tent first with benches, to get your bike gear on and put your swim stuff away before heading around to get your bike. Tried to be as quick as possible, but wanted to make sure there was no sand on my feet before putting my socks on as I didn’t want any chafage. I had my cycling jersey already loaded up with most of my nutrition stuffed in the pockets, so jacket on, shoes on, race number and helmet and I was off to grab my bike and head out.
Bike – 7:37:13
A very quick version of this section would be: hilly as f**k.
The bike course has 3 loops, one not so bad loop which you do first, and then 2 laps of a very hilly loop. When I headed out onto the bike, I felt quite fatigued in my legs already, and got quite worried. I had been doing a lot of walking around Tenby the day before and was down at the beach pretty much all day, so I presumed it was just catching up on me.
I Went through the first 30km and started to feel my legs come back to life. I had read a few tips online for the bike course, and one of them was don’t get sucked in by the 1st loop, take it steady so you have some left for the 2 hilly ones to come, so that’s what I did. Started on my nutrition plan and started getting solids in on the bike early as I knew it would be difficult to get them in later and especially during the run.
My first lull came at about half way, 90km in, I was getting bored of gels, couldn’t stomach anything else solid, my electrolyte drink was making me a bit sick and just felt rubbish. I decided to stop and get off the bike at the next aid station to sort myself out. That soon came about so I jumped off, quick wee, topped up all my waters and decided to fill my front hydration unit on my bike full of gatorade and on the way out, grabbed a banana. That did the trick, I felt like I had just got on the bike for the first time that day with fresh legs. I shot off from there in a very good mood and feeling great again, and loved the new taste of the gatorade instead of a very weak orange from the High5 tabs.
My mood carried on like that for quite a while. There were a lot of climbs, ranging from short and sharp to long drags along that loop but got through most of them okay. I flew past the house we were staying at which was on the bike route and saw all the signs my family had put up and all the writing on the floor from them and that gave me another huge boost. It was around here that I saw Nikki Bartlett fly past me (the Female Pro who ended up winning), gave her a shout, then realised that she was going back to Tenby to go to transition while I still needed to do another loop, ha.
I knew I was coming up to some of the major climbs (Wisemans Bridge and Saundersfoot), but I remembered them from the days before, so I was confident going in.
Wisemans Bridge is by far the worst. Pretty sure it is the steepest of all the climbs and goes under the shade of trees for most of it, which was a nice respite from the Sun, but it made it feel like you were on the climb for ages. Support round here was good though and powered through. Saundersfoot next. I remembered there was a massive descent on the run up to the worst of the climb and wanted to make the most of that. Absolutely flew through the main part of town and the climb started on a sweeping left turn so I didn’t touch the brakes, left my bike in a decent gear and absolutely powered up that first and worst section, flying past people who slowed down on the downhill for some reason. After that first big kick up in gradient, it was a long slog for the rest of the climb, but the support was phenomenal. The street was lined both sides with spectators, ringing cowbells, shouting, playing music, just another level of support, it didn’t feel right to just sit and churn away at the pedals with all that, so I was up and out of the saddle, inhaling the energy from the crowds, unbelievable. Had to sit back down when I got to the person ahead of me as because of how close the crowds were, it was single file, so I got my breath back a bit. One of my favourite parts of the day was that climb.
After that it is a fast descent back towards Tenby and out onto the last 66km(ish) loop. Just before that though, there is another aid station to collect your special needs bag. Didn’t really need anything, but thought it was a good idea to stop and stock back up on nutrition just in case.
I heard shouts from the family as I flew past the roundabout and then out onto the 2nd loop. It felt really good knowing I was heading out onto a section which will terminate at T2, but also knowing that all of those climbs are to be done again.
My food and legs were still feeling good at this point, I was taking on more food now as well, which I was happy about. I started sticking with Gatorade from the aid stations for some extra carbs and to cover the electrolyte side of things and that seemed to work well.
I got to about 140km in and hit a bit of a wall. Legs were aching, feet were aching and the realisation of all the big climbs to come sunk in (I was trying to keep the fact that there was a marathon after this out of my mind for now).
While support in and around Tenby is outstanding and through the smaller towns along the way, there are huge sections with no support and crowds, which, even though I am not used to having people cheer me on, it is weird how quickly you come accustomed to needing that to get you by. I remember a section of a long slow drag uphill. I was just overtaking a girl in front, very slowly, so we were side by side for a little bit, we went past a lady on the side of the road spectating, who I recognised from the first loop. The first time around she was cheery, shouting well done etc. the second time I saw her, she made eye contact and just said “Hello again”. For some reason it really made me laugh out loud, and the girl on the bike next to me said “Wow, the support has really dwindled on this second loop” and had a bit of a laugh together. Funny how something so small and stupid can change your mood from miserable to laughing.
I was soon past most of the bigger climbs and passing our accommodation again, seeing the signs etc. gave me the same feeling as it did the first time and I knew there were 2 big climbs left, then a fast descent into Tenby and out onto the run! That really got me going and I was filled with adrenaline by the time I had gotten down the descent into Wisemans Bridge. Started strong and then turned into the shaded bit under the trees and saw quite a few people off their bikes and walking up, that gave me another boost and I got up out of the saddle and just grunted it out. Got to the top of that and felt amazing and like absolute shit all at the same time. Knew I had to get my breath back for Saundersfoot so let the downhill do the work here.
Same tactic as the first time coming into Saundersfoot, built up a massive amount of speed on the downhill and flung myself around the corner without braking and just powered up that hill trying not to lose momentum. Bit of a flat section to catch your breath and then back to the long slog, lined with spectators, even louder than before. I imagine a good few alcoholic beverages had been consumed since the first time I went up, and I was glad of that, the shouts and screams, people telling me to hurry up, cowbells and air horns going off in my ear. Fucking fantastic, can’t think of any other words to describe it.
Cleared that hill and knew it was a fast downhill back to Tenby and then a little hill up to transition, felt like another shot of adrenaline was surging through me. I saw Andy and Jenny on the descent and got another shout from them. Almost brought me to tears when I took the turn for T2 rather than the 2nd lap. I Saw the family as I was about to go into T2 and then I was jumping off the bike. Jesus christ it felt good knowing I wouldn’t be sat in the saddle again.
T2 (8:07):
Took longer here than what I should have done, but wanted to take my time and get myself sorted before the marathon. Bike racked and then a longish walk into the transition text.Had a sit down, a stretch out, lubed up and made sure I was hydrated and sugared up before heading out.
Run (4:40:13):
I knew it was hot, but hadn’t really noticed it until I headed out onto the run, I was dripping with sweat. I saw the family again heading out onto the run, a nice little boost to get me started.
It felt amazing being off the bike, my arse and back were killing me towards the end so it was great to be running. Just 4 laps of about 10.5km to go!
Weirdly, I’d never ran a marathon race before, I’ve done 50km and 50 mile ultras, but never just a marathon, so I didn’t really know how to pace it. On the run up, I figured my long run comfortable pace is usually around 5:34-6:00/km pace, so I figured aiming for 6:00/km pace would be a good start. However, apparently you can go anywhere in Tenby without hills; long hills, short hills, steep hills, hills around corners, pretty much every type of hill, none of them nice. That made me realise on the first lap that I wasn’t going to hit the 6:00/km target.
I decided on running the first lap, no walking except if I was walking through an aid station for a drink. I figured that would be a good plan as I could then decide which sections are runnable, and which aren’t, where to reign it in on the next laps and where I can push a bit.
You collect a band around 5km into the loop, so it is easy to see where everyone is, but it does make you very jealous when you see someone collecting their green band (the colour you get for the 4th and final lap) and you are only getting your first, but that just spurred me on.
The heat was really starting to get to me so I made sure I was hitting the water and gatorade on every aid station and munched down some salty crushed up crisps every now and again. I also kept going solid with gels and salt tabs. As a whole, I was quite happy with my nutrition, I probably could have done with a little bit more in places, but nothing that was beyond a point of no return.
On the way back on the first lap, there were a few kids with a sign saying put your thumbs up if you want the hose, this was class, and it was great getting a nice cool down in the heat. The 2nd and 3rd laps felt slower and really started to feel the fatigue build up in my legs, but I realised my legs were hurting whether I was walking or running, so I might as well just run, although at this point I was walking on the uphill sections. There were 2 big highlights of the laps, getting another band, and running through Tenby with all the support.
3 Laps in and I was severely fatigued now, the hills were just getting steeper and longer and I just wanted to get to that finish line. But when I passed the sign that said straight ahead for the finish line and right for another lap, I realised the next time I see it I’ll be headed for the red carpet. That flipped a switch in my head, this was it, 10km left, stop fucking about and get it done.
Heading out onto the last lap felt amazing, it also felt great passing people who were walking, picking people off is such a boost. I ended up keeping pace with a woman who was also on her last lap and seemed to be on a similar pace. Power walked the big hill out of Tenby, got my breath back and headed back down. Collecting the 4th and final band felt sooo good! Seeing that green band on my wrist made me feel quite emotional, knowing that I was going to finish and hear those 4 words, but at the same time, not wanting it to end. Such a weird mix of emotions, wanting it to be over as quickly as possible but also wanting it to last forever.
There was a Red Bull stand just after collecting your bands and I hadn’t touched it on the whole run, but thought, f**k it, sugar, caffeine and all the other shit thats in there, can only help me at this point. Chugged 2 cups of it (it was watered down so was flat) and off I went. 5km left and I was not walking again until I was across that line.
I don’t know if it was the Red Bull kicking in, the adrenaline, the crowd, I don’t know, but I got back into Tenby and I felt amazing, legs felt good and I was going for it. I decided when I hit 40km on my watch I was just gonna run as fast as I think I can keep going. I kept a 5:20/km pace for 2 km, soaking up every shout and scream and high five that I was getting along the way. I honestly don’t think I have ever been so pumped in all my life. I heard people shouting go on Shaun, fucking send it lad, overtake him, as most others were walking/lightly jogging at that point, and that just pushed me even more. I managed sub 5min/km pace for the last 0.5km, it felt like flat out sprinting, or as close to what my legs would give me at that point.
I came around that last corner and saw Andy and Jenny shouting in the crowd, all I remember is shouting/screaming “Come On!!!” in their general direction. I got to that sign that said straight ahead for the finish and right for another lap, and was so happy to be going to the finish.
Spotted the first timers bell and, excuse the language, but I rang the f**king s**t out of that bell, pretty sure I did some more shouting and screaming and then I took to the red carpet. To be honest, I don’t really remember going over the finish line, but I do remember the women saying Shaun, you are an Ironman.
What an amazing event! It is almost too difficult to describe. There isn’t one thing that made it for me, it was the whole experience, being in Tenby for a couple of days before, seeing the other athletes wondering around, the support from the town and the spectators been out the all day and keeping the energy so high throughout the run, even so late into the night. The weather definitely helped, it just felt like a perfect day. I will be back in Tenby and would fully recommend it, absolutely outstanding.
Excuse the watermarked photos, I haven’t got the code from Ironman yet to download the proper ones.
