Ironman Poznan 70.3

The rationale: following a 10-year abstinence, it was back to an Ironman™ branded event. My last outing was the inaugural Ironman Mallorca, a race so rammed that the swim was a fight to survive and the bike a horrendous draft-fest. Since then, my racing $ have been spent elsewhere: Challenge, Outlaw and small events. But after a high-speed, pothole-induced, double-blowout at Outlaw Half last year, I once again yearned for smooth Euro tarmac. Also, with rolling swim starts now de rigueur, perhaps it was time to end my ‘boycott’. Delighted to say that Poznan 70.3 did not disappoint – a great race, from gun to tape.

Full gas on the bike (click for larger images)

The training: after my double hernia repair in December, I was starting from a low base and had to tread carefully, slowing re-building strength, speed and fitness. Swimming was going well, thanks to all the work I put in for BEST Fest. Short-course bike and run speeds were returning, evidenced by an age-group win at the Wilmslow sprint, and smashing it around the Mallorca Olympic. But did I have the endurance for longer course racing? 

Brief respite at an aid station

Final Preparation: Friday - arrive in Poznan; register at HQ. Saturday – Poznan parkrun; drive out to Kiekrz, rack bike in T1; back into town; deposit run bag in T2; race briefing; early to bed. Sunday – over 600 athletes descend on platform 10 at Poznan Glowny to catch the 7:30 Ironman Express to Kiekrz, the excitement is building; back into T1, set up bike; brief warm up; don wetsuit; and finally, watch the male pros go off in a mass start at 9:30, followed by the women a few minutes later.

Slipping to 6th. Hats off to Johan Ewald, an 'ok' swim, followed by a good bike and a barnstorming run. 

In the moment: lining up in the start pen, the music was so loud that my solar plexus was thumping! Not great for calming the pre-race nerves, so it was a relief to get in the water and escape the madness! As promised, for the age-groupers, it was a rolling start, with six athletes entering the lake every 10 seconds, beach-start style. At 21.4 degrees it was very nice, and with plenty of space I quickly settled into a good rhythm. No dramas, overtook plenty along the way and emerged in 31:xx, a great start to the day. After a smooth T1 it was out on to a ‘perfect’ bike course. The roads were fully closed, and the tarmac was beautiful - not a single pothole in 90k! The single out-and-back loop meant very little congestion or drafting. With a slight tailwind, it felt fast, and indeed, the first 40k took just over an hour. After the turn around, the headwind slowed things down plus I faded a bit in the last 20k. Dismounted in under 2.5 hrs off a normalised power of 185W, job done. Another smooth transition, and I felt good on the run, clipping along at a nice pace, at least for the first few kilometres. But then reality struck: it was pretty hot and I just didn’t have the depth of fitness to follow a solid bike with a strong run. I knew I was losing time and field position, but no bother, I kept grinding and before you know it, I crossed the finish line in 4:50:46.

Pre-race prediction was that if someone could smack out a 4:31 they'd defo win the M55-59 AG. My target was 4:45, but in the end that would only have been good enough for 4th, so this year was faster and/or more competitive than 2022 and 2023

The race: based on the two previous (and only) editions of this race, the podium slots in the M55-59 age group were won in times of 4:35 – 5:00. As I was shooting for a 4:45-ish, maybe I could be in the mix? My swim turned out to be the fastest in the AG, as were my transitions, so coming out of T1, I was in first place. At 5.8k into the run, I had only dropped one spot, but by 17.4k, I had dropped another two, and agonisingly, in the last few kilometres I dropped another two to finish 6^th. The irony is that the swim used to be my weakest discipline, while the run was my weapon.

The afterglow: the competitor in me was initially bummed to have dropped out of the mix, but upon reflection I had a great race. 2024 started from a low base and the data show I hadn’t regained full fitness: last year, my CTL and FTP peaked at 122 and ~240W respectively, whereas ahead of this race, they topped out at 89 and ~220W.  And while the early season focus on BEST Fest meant my swim was in good shape, and while my overall race execution was very good, I had only just started to feel strong on the bike, and I knew I hadn’t done enough run volume. But to be fair, I think I had done as much training as my life allowed, so taking all this together, to end up only ~5 mins off target was not bad at all. So yeah, overall, pretty happy.

After peaking in 2023, I lost a lot of fitness due to smashing it up short course racing, an enjoyable off-season and a lack of motivation ahead of going under the knife. So 2024 started from a low base but 8 months of consistent and conservative training paid off and I was in pretty good shape come September 1st. (Blue = fitness (CTL); Pink = fatigue (ATL); Yellow = form (TSB))

The recommendation: what a great race, defo recommend, 9/10! The overall organisation was really good, especially the train ride out to the lake on race morning. I really enjoyed the civilised swim, the bike course was perfect, and the 4-lap run course was good for aid stations and supporters. I’d do it again just for the bike course. Poznan is a very nice place to visit, and the next day, exploring the old town with my number 1 supporter was a great way to spend our 29^th wedding anniversary.

BEST Fest 2024, 26th to 31st May, Colònia de Sant Jordi, Mallorca

The 2024 BEST Fest swimming festival – the 10^th Anniversary edition - involved seven events over six days, three Colonia Classic races interleaved with three Challenge swims, finished off with a 4x 500m relay race. All seven sea swims take place in the beautiful bays around Colònia de Sant Jordi, a small town on the southern coast of Mallorca, about a 35-minute drive from Palma airport. 

Race headquarters is the BEST Centre, a small sports complex founded by two former Olympic swimmers. Centred around a wonderful 50m open-air pool, it hosts a variety of swim clinics and training camps. I signed up for all six races, Jacky opted for the three Challenge swims. BEST Centre also organise an Olympic triathlon the day before the Fest, so we signed up for that as well!

Another day, another dollar!

We flew out on Wednesday, oriented ourselves on Thursday and picked up hire bikes from Team Double J. Friday, we recced the bike course and tested the water. It was wonderful but at 20 degrees still on the chilly side, so wetsuits would be needed for the events. Saturday, we toed the line at the triathlon, but that’s another story.

Sunday, Day 1 - Colonia Classic 1. A 5 km point-to-point race. This required an early bus from HQ to the Sa Rapita beach. I was a bit anxious about what lay ahead but the young team from Napoli’s Posillipo Nautical Club were on the bus which created in a rather ‘lively and distracting’ atmosphere - LOL! It was initially overcast but the predicted good weather soon arrived and indeed, conditions all week were great: clear skies, mid/high-twenties, calm – at least in the mornings. Final check-in was on the beach and the atmosphere was quite relaxed as everybody got on with their final prep - sunscreen and body glide being liberally applied. 

After a short briefing, 261 swimmers entered the water: 170 in skins, 91 in wetsuits. 127 women and 134 men, including 8 ‘elites’, 5 ‘elite’-juniors, 7 ‘non-elite’ juniors and plenty of age groupers, including 69 in my 50-59 age group. We finally set off at 9:38 am and next thing you know, it’s over. 1 hr 37 minutes later I emerged on the beach back at Sant Jordi, 144^th overall, 30^th in the wetsuit division. There are some very talented swimmers present. The first male got out in under an hour, the first woman – an ‘elite’ junior – in just under 1:04. But there is a big range; for example, 34 swimmers arrived between 2 and 2.5 hrs. And indeed, the whole event felt very inclusive. The atmosphere on the beech before each event was very civilised, as were the swim starts, and after there was a lot of fun, with post-swim energy, refreshments, medals, music and the daily raffle. Our hotel was right on this bay, so it was a short walk home for lunch and some sleep.

Day 2, the Corberana Challenge sponsored by 220 Triathlon magazine, so you had a choice of 1.9 or 3.8 km, reflecting the half and full ironman distances. So it was 4 laps for Jacky and 2 for me, in a beautiful small bay off the small beach at Cala Galiota. The routine is now becoming clear; breakfast, walk to beach, register, get prepped, short briefing, cross timing mats to check all swimmers into the water, line up, hooter, swim. On exit, your timing chip and a manual register check to ensure that all the swimmers are back on dry land. It was all incredibly well organised and felt very safe. The kayak safety team were excellent! Jacky had a great swim and enjoyed her longest sea swim to date. The ‘elites’ skipped this one but there are still some cracking times, with Paul Newsome – Mr Swim Smooth – emerging first in the 3.8k race in 54 minutes, and the British Army Team came away with a big haul of medals.

Day 3, Colonia Classic 2, a 1500m race, a deep-water start at 10:30 am from the Es Dolc beach and finishing in the adjacent Port beach. The elites were back, but not just the Italians, the Germans had arrived! The number of full-length Arena Powerskins on display skyrocketed. I ramped up my anxiety a notch, agonising over whether to ditch the wetsuit. Temperatures were rising, the water was very calm, so I finally decided to go for it and donned my Huub swim skin. It was quite liberating, and the wetsuit never reappeared. 247 finishers in the skins division, with the top 30 dominated by the elites and juniors, times ranged from 16 to 19 minutes. The first ‘oldie’ was Paul Newsome (40-49) in 36^th with a 19:14. I emerged after 27:46, 162^nd, a bit faster compared to Saturday’s triathlon which was in the same bay but not quite the same course. Again, the post-race atmosphere was a lot of fun, with food, medals and raffle prizes

But the day wasn’t over. At 3 pm we were back for the Tell Me Your Time Challenge swim. At check-in you provided a predicted time for the 2.5k course, which was a variation of the one used in the morning. No timing devices were allowed, and the winner is the person who emerges closest to their predicted time. But there were two twists: the course was definitely long, more like 3k, and the afternoon wind had picked up considerably, so it was very choppy, making it a hard swim for both of us. We came in on 1:01 and 1:09, 13 minutes off our predicted times. The winner finished in 1:02:48, 13 seconds off their predicted time. Only 137 in total took part, with the elites back in the pool, but the post-race atmosphere was still buzzing.

There were several side events and after the Tell Me Your Time we attend a fascinating talk by champion free diver Miguel Lozano. The next day, we attended a talk hosted by Paul Newsome on ‘How to prepare for a 10k race’, with expert input from elite marathon swimmers Alex and Beatrix Studzinski. For this BEST Fest, Paul was accompanied by an army of Swim Smooth coaches who hosted on a range of pool-based and open water skills sessions, including 1-2-1 video analysis. It’s a shame we couldn’t take advantage of this, but our week was already pretty packed!

Day 4, Wednesday, it’s the next Challenge swim, the Es Carbo Italian Volcano, another point-to-point, this time from the Es Carbo beach back to the Port beach. After check-in, it’s a bit of a hike to the start but it’s worth it because the swim back meanders along the coast through some beautiful waters – lots of fish and I saw a cool octopus! Just as I was about to turn into the finishing straight, I saw Jacky and she proceeds to beat me out on of the water. ‘Either she’s had a great swim, or I’ve had a bit of a shocker’. It was of course a bit of both, Jacky did have a great swim, with this being her favourite event. But the week was catching up with me and I felt pretty tired. But it was all good, back to the beach to enjoy the festival atmosphere, this time with large paellas on offer.

Day 5, Colonia Classic 3, a choice of either 10k or 7k, 6 loops or 4, in the bay we finished in on day 1. I was never going to do the 10k, and even if I started the 7k, I was thinking maybe just 2 laps then call it a day. However, I was really tanked. 16k swimming in 5 days was a lot for me. Also, despite planning on taking the triathlon easy, I had smashed it (it was great fun and worth it but … …!). The 5k on day 1 was a big deal, plus agonising about ditching the wetsuit on day 3, meant I had probably expended quite a bit of emotional energy. Three back-to-back skin swims in cool water probably also took more out of me than I realised. Plus, I’m, no spring chicken anymore. So I bailed. We did of course go along to watch, and the atmosphere was great. A lot of emotion at the finish arch; some swimmers very hyped, others tearful. Great comradery amongst the various teams, especially the young Italians and Germans. That afternoon we headed over to the BEST Centre for a chilled-out pool swim.

And finally, Day 6, the 4x 500 relays. We had planned to do two legs each, alternating. But the weather had turned; it was grey, windy and choppy, so we didn’t fancy it. But again, spectating was fun. The team comradery we saw yesterday amongst the youngsters went into hyperdrive and was quite inspiring. And again, that afternoon we took advantage of the pool time available to BEST Fest entrants.

Would we do it again? Yes! Neither of us are fishes, so the festival pushed us both well out of our comfort zones, but we really enjoyed it. I would certainly do a few things differently next time to try to complete all 7 events. It was the right decision to bail on the last two, but while spectating I definitely had a case of FOMO. I’d love to take on the 10k. Next year’s dates have been announced: 24-30 May 2025 with registrations likely to open in November.

What happened to the rest of 2023?

After my 2023 A-race ended in disaster, I still had a large deposit in the Bank of Fitness and I wanted to spend it. I considered a late-season middle-distance race, but didn’t really fancy anything.

So I decided to focus on local short-distance races and over the next seven weeks I absolutely caned it around South Manchester and Cheshire. 

I raced at my absolute max 14 times in total, including five hill climbs, three 10 mile time trials, four 5k races, one Olympic triathlon and an aquathlon.

It was great fun and intense, at one point I think I raced four times in five days.

The highlight was the Deva Olympic where I came 11^th overall, 1^st in the M50-54 age group in a time of 2:14:04, some 2.5 minutes ahead of the next guy. 

An 18:19 5k Sale Sizzler wasn’t too shabby either, and a 23:39 10m TT was only 8 seconds off my all-time best. Flying around Sale Waterpark at 3:53 mins/k pace in the aquathlon was a personal highlight.

While I continued with easy training in between events, I was cashing cheques like crazy and not making new deposits, so my balance in the Bank of Fitness was eroding fast. And then just like that, I’d had enough and not interested in another race. It’s amazing how your body tells you what to do.

A week later my off season started with a couple of trips and holiday. After a relaxing summer I tried to kick off winter training at the start of September but in anticipation of going under the knife I never really got into any kind of rhythm. 

In the end, my op wasn’t scheduled until 16^th December and while my aim was to retain as much fitness as possible before an enforced rest/recovery period, my mojo went AWOL and so my fitness continued to decay, reaching its lowest point in many years. 

But by January 1^st, my two-week recovery was over, my mojo was back and so I began rebuilding for  2024. 

14 all-out short-course races in 7 weeks

Deva swim exit

Deva Olympic bike

Deva Olympic run

I built up a great fitness reserve training for Outlaw Half Nottingham which I then put to good use with 14 all-out races in 7 weeks. However, cashing cheques while not making deposits into the fitness bank can only go on for so long.