Whirlwind Ambassador Diane Warren

After months of training it finally happened on Sunday 27^th July. Nottingham Outlaw full Ironman distance triathlon. Well ,all I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW, what a weekend. 

A 3.30am alarm to get the porridge and banana in before leaving for the venue. Bike was racked on the Saturday so just needed to check tyre pressures. All good so loaded the bike with food, dropped the swim to bike and bike to run bags on the hooks in transition, then 5.45 in the water for a 6am start!

The swim is my weakest discipline and I’m a real wuss in the sea. I’ve been training at Trevassack Lake twice a week, ever since it was warm enough to leave the monotony of the swimming pool. I thought it better to stick to the lake as my event was a lake swim. Gradually increasing the laps of the lake to make the full 2.4 mile distance , which by the way, is 6 big laps of the lake. 

The bike training is pretty much what we do anyway, just a bit longer. My 4 Bike, Coffee and cake friends were all competing, as well as other friends who aren’t so daft, so I always had someone to ride with. Built it up to the longest week of 250 miles, that consisted of a 40 on Monday, a 60 on Tuesday, a 100 on Thursday and 60 on Saturday. 

Then it’s taper time and we spent less time on the bike and more in the café!

Running is what I do, so the run was just a progression towards a 50k distance at the Serpent Trail in Hampshire at the beginning of July. Slower runs building to 18 and 20 miles, chatting and eating along the way. 3 or sometimes 4 runs a week, a club run, 1 or 2 chatty runs and a longer run. As with anything you have to build in a recovery day per week, Saturday was normally my day off, only to be seen volunteering at parkrun !

What is often forgotten is the 4^th discipline of Triathlon, the nutrition. For me my problem is remembering to drink enough. My plan for my weight said I needed 500ml of fluid with 1500mg sodium per hour and 60 grams of Carb. per hour I didn’t think I could stomach that much so planned to do as much as I could. I started eating sandwich thins of Nutella and the same with Marmite, cut into bite size pieces, as soon as I got on the bike. Add to that marmite flavour cashews and Battenburg cake, then Precision Hydration blocks with 60 grams of carb. I used my own Precision Hydration electrolyte in water at the checkpoints and made sure I drank regularly. 

When I started the run, I swapped to Precision Hydration 30G Carb gels, along with flat coke and crisps at the food stops. The main thing is to not use anything you haven’t tried out in training. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a crisp fiend!

After a 2.4 mile swim, 113.5 miles on the bike and a 26.2 mile run in 14 hours 35 minutes I went up that orange carpet and under the gantry. I became an Outlaw and won my age category. The man who won the same age category was an hour and a half behind me. 

#doingitfortheoldbirds