Midnight Man Iron Distance Triathlon

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Comments

  • I'll be doing the 100 - how about you?

    For all those having sleepless nights, the waiting is nearly over - the race report is almost ready..... image

  • Thank goodness HH.  Get on with it...image

  • I'm waiting for my proof reader to get back to me with her coments image

  • Sorry i read that as poof reader!!!

  • Here we go....

    Having missed the swim cut-off for the Outlaw, I thought I could spend the next 10 months or so wondering if I could actually do this silly swimming thing in a race within the time limit, or enter another one this year and just do it.

    Midnight Man had been on my radar for a while and I thought why not? It had a low entry fee, and the overnight format looked interesting. The other plus was that, as far as I was aware, no-one I knew would be taking part, so from my point of view there’d be a lot less pressure on me.
    Registration and racking were very straightforward, with the only downside being the flying biting things - insect repellent should have been on my kit list!

    Swim

    Putting on a wetsuit when you’re sweating buckets is an interesting experience, but after a few contortions I managed it! With that done, I headed out to the start buoys and soon we were under way……to sum this section up, I was very slow (2.07), 2nd to last out of the water but the most important thing was that I was inside the cutoff!

    T1

    Not sure how, but I was ‘only’ just over 4 minutes – helped by having my tri top & calf guards on under the wetsuit I suppose…

    Bike

    Despite being 18 laps of 10k, I didn’t find the course that boring – there were plenty of opportunities for getting aero and the lack of traffic on most of it made it enjoyable. The speed bumps at the far end of the course were a bit annoying, but the exciting chicanes and mentalists at the turnaround point pushed that to the back of my mind each time. I was a bit disappointed to see some riders without lights on, but the Tron neon bikes did make me smile image
    The bike leg actually seemed to go fairly quickly and soon I was heading back into transition with a time of 6.10 – not that speedy, but I was happy with it as I’d only done one 56 mile ride since the middle of June. 26th fastest of 55.

  • T2

    Not too sure how long I was in here, but I think around 7 minutes – no doubt trying to tie my shoelaces was a factor in this…

    Run

    I’d heard that the course was complicated and confusing, so I took the first lap carefully, just to make sure I didn’t get lost! It turned out to be fine, so I crossed that off my worry list and got on with running. The mentalists were still there, and along with other pockets of spectators around the 6 lap course, helped to make the run enjoyable. Of the 3 disciplines, running is the one that I’m happiest with so I merrily popped a few gels and got on with making up time. I’d estimated around a 4 hour finish, but whilst going round I realised I was going too fast! I felt comfortable, but didn’t want to go bang on the run having got through the swim ordeal, so I eased up a bit – in hindsight I needn’t have done that, but hindsight is a wonderful thing image
    I was tempted to have a wee stroll as I was nearing the end of my final lap, but spotted another runner ahead and thought ‘go for it’ – I sped up a bit and managed to catch and pass him just before the turn down to the finish. I kept the pace going and crossed the line in 12.19.11, a PB by 29 minutes! I’d also managed to go from 2nd to last out of the water to 29th out of 64(?) starters – I really should work on my swim…..

    I really enjoyed the race – it was well organised, friendly, very good value for money and I’d recommend it. I’ve a feeling that part of the enjoyment was that it wasn’t a massive field (around 125 for the full and half) – parts of the bike course could get congested if more competitors were involved. The smaller field also meant that there was plenty of friendly banter on the run - even the TriTalkers were friendly! image

    A big thank you to DTB for coming along and supporting all night – I hope you didn’t cry too much during my swim image

  • Top bombing there HH- was there any lighting on the bike course and what were you using lights wise?

  • Thank you image

    It was on on well lit roads - I had normal bike lights on as it was a case of making sure that you could be seen, as opposed to using them to see....

  • Great report HH, I bet you ponced round the run. 

    Sounds like a nice low key event.

    Get the swimming sorted out for the next one image

  • Ponced - moi? image

    It was very good ineed!

    Swimming? Next one? image

  • Swimming is the new running fast   image

    Nice report by the way image

  • A fish would say that though image

  • JjJj ✭✭✭

    image

    Splendid report, your hairiness.

    (I love it when nice people say they're "disappointed" by others' actions.) 

  • Awww, great report HH and I am really pleased it came good for you and you beat the demons from Outlaw image

  • I did cry a bit in a stressy way watching him the swim, but only cos there was one swimmer behind who wasn't going to make the cut off, and I couldn't tell which was HH, and was desperately hoping he wasn't the last guy - and I didn't want to have been standing being eaten by horseflies for nowt image

    But then I wandered over to the Beefeater and had a steak and a banoffee pie, which is deffo the way to support.

    And then went and stood with the mentalists, until about 6am, which was different.... after a while my hands were very bruised from clapping. image

    And then a tritalker mooned us. image

    Funny old night. image

  • From the weather we had last weekend doing an overnight IM distance race seemed the perfect solution.

    Thanks for the report - sounds like a good event, and the lapped approach doesn't sound half as bad now as when I first heard of the event.

    Love the bike training sandbagging.

  • When is Ceasars? It's very local to me, so I may wander down and heckle, I mean support!

  • Nice report HH,  don't be getting too much swim practice in though or I'll have no-one to beat out of the waterimage

  • Great going HH. Sounds like a great idea for a race - I hope they run another next year. Reading your race report makes me wish I'd stayed in the UK last weekend - travelled for Challenge Vichy in France, only for it to be shortened to half in the heatwave. Definitely looking closer to home in 2013!

    Congrats on a great race.

  • Great report, and very well done - Iron hair!!
  • Top Bombing.

    So you beat my PB 3-minutes! You gave away 52 minutes on the swim and 10 minutes on the bike. You must have been really quick through transition!

    However I must say that it is an unusual way to keep Ditchy up all night image

    M.eface

     

  • Congratulations HH, lovely report! image 

  • Thank you image

    It was on on well lit roads - I had normal bike lights on as it was a case of making sure that you could be seen, as opposed to using them to see....

  • The tron bikes we blokes form my local triathlon club, they're a really nice lot. Might have to enquire just how they did it.

  • nice one hairyarse image

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