Ironman Wales 2014

This is not me being adventurous in any way, but it was so impressive I decided to post it anyway. 

Sunday 14th September 2014 saw the Ironman Wales event take place in Pembrokeshire.  

Starting and finishing in Tenby, the participants begin with a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim in the sea off Tenby. Having got out of the water they then have to run up the hill into Tenby town to transition to their road bikes, ready for a 112-mile (180.25 km) bicycle ride through the beautiful Pembrokeshire countryside. As if all that isn’t enough, on completing the bike course they then have to swap their bike shoes for running shoes, and complete a marathon! 26.2-miles (42.2 km) of running after all that!

These are obviously epic distances, but the Ironman has a strict time limit of a total of 17 hours to complete the race. The race starts at 7:00 am, and cut off for the swim is 9:20 a.m. (2 hours 20 minutes), the bike cut off time is 5:30 p.m. (8 hours 10 minutes), and the mandatory marathon cut off is midnight (6 hours 30 minutes). Any participant who manages to complete the triathlon within these timings becomes an Ironman, although I think that anyone who can keep going for 17 hours deserves some recognition, even if they don’t finish the entire course!

The day began for us with me walking over to my friend’s house, and then she drove us to Tenby. We were hoping to see some of the swimming, but by the time we had caught the park and ride service that was running for the supporters, and made our way through the crowds, we realised that it would take a while to make our way to the area where we would be able to see the swim. Unfortunately we didn’t manage this, but soon after our arrival the first swim finisher came running towards transition. We found that we had a good spot to watch the swimmers run in towards the transition point, where they would transform into cyclists, and whizz back past us in the other direction.

Some of the cyclists are still getting things ready this soon out of transition

Running in and cycling out, past the town walls of Tenby

We stayed in that place until the very last competitor had gone through. Sadly many people didn’t finish the swim – some had never swum in the sea before, and simply weren’t prepared for the challenge. Others sadly succumbed to seasickness due to the choppy conditions – this seemed really awful, as all the preparation they must have done simply ended in an unavoidable early finish.

Even this early-on however, we got to see some really nice examples of the sportsmanship of the athletes taking part: there was an accident with a cyclist falling off. I couldn’t see it happen, but from people who had a better view I think this was because a couple of bikes were close together, but they had to brake to avoid spectators who were crossing the road. These crossing points were controlled by marshals, but at this point there was some lack of thought going into it, and they were letting too many people cross at once – meaning that the pedestrians couldn’t squeeze through the gap in the barriers quickly enough to be out of the way when more cyclists came – there were lots of ‘boos’ from the crowd at this. Anyway, the outcome was that one cyclist came off his bike. He had to fiddle with the bike quite a bit to get things running smoothly again – a finely tuned road racing bike can be delicate to falls. While he was struggling with this, another cyclist came round the bend and saw him, and stopped to help! The roars of the crowd when these two got on their way again were huge. Lots of support for those two!

Another guy had his wife and tiny son (about 2 years old maybe?) waiting opposite me to cheer him on. As he came into sight the wife pointed out to the little boy “Look! There’s daddy!” The dad spotted them too, and pulled over to give them a cuddle and get a photo taken! Very cute!! Afterwards the little boy was so excited, and kept calling out “We saw daddy! We saw daddy!” A bit of a melty-heart moment!

Most importantly for us though, was spotting our friend Chris as he went past. I’ve known Chris since I was about 12, when I joined Scouts. His dad Harry was the Scout Leader, and it was a really great group. Sadly, Harry died from cancer last year, and Chris decided to take part in the Ironman to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. This is also a charity close to my own heart, as their help and support was invaluable when my own dad was dying from cancer back in 1999. Even more impressive is that just last week Chris was in an accident while training on his bike, getting knocked off by a tractor! His JustGiving page is here if Macmillan is a charity you like to support.

Chris (in the blue top) beginning the cycle ride

Once all of the cyclists had gone past, we made our way back to the park and ride bus service, to get the car and move on somewhere to watch the cyclists. 

Tenby Loves Ironman (and -woman!)

We went a short way to the village of Carew, where we were able to sit on the wall of a small bridge and cheer on the riders. This section was a 2-lap section, and on the first time around many of the riders were in great spirits – lots of smiles, shouts of thanks for the support, and even some funny comments as they whizzed by! 

Cyclists at Carew

We spotted Chris here on both of his laps, but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to get a good shot of him unfortunately. The only picture I did get was this one of him as he headed up the next hill. He’s the bottom rider in a blue shirt in this picture, but he proved a strong climber and was overtaking other riders up the hill until he was no longer in sight.

By 2pm we were getting pretty hungry, so we headed back to Tenby again to get some late lunch. Already there were Ironman athletes beginning the marathon, so we followed the course up through town, cheering them on as we went, until we got to a lunch spot. Refuelled, we spent the rest of the afternoon moving from spot to spot to cheer on the runners. The marathon was a 4 lap affair, so as more cyclists finished and got their trainers on for the run, the course got busier and there were more people to cheer on. 

The athletes were given coloured bands to wear, a different colour at each lap, so you could see how far along they were. The lead male and female athletes were also accompanied by a cyclist displaying a sign telling you they were in the lead - plus the motorcycle film crews. Here is the lead male running past:

We were pleased to see this guy too - we had spotted him going to the transition on his sticks, and were amazed to spot him a few times on the marathon circuit:

He was richard Webster, an ex-Wales and British Lions rugby star. He was using the crutches to take the weight off his legs after a long rugby career requiring multiple knee operations.

After a while we found ourselves on a small side street. A lady opposite was cheering people on by name, and we realised that the athletes’ numbers, which they now had to wear on a band around their waists, had their names written in small letters beneath the race numbers. So when this lady moved on – having spotted the athlete she was looking out for - we began cheering their names as they passed. We are both very quiet normally, and we really surprised ourselves with how enthusiastically we were shouting! We soon really got into it, spurred on by the gratitude some of the athletes showed at just having a little extra support.

Our cheering spot

So enthusiastic were we, that soon the whole street-full of supporters was shouting on the athletes by name! We saw Chris go past this spot twice, although we only just spotted him the first time as he was no longer in blue, having changed into his Macmillan top for the run!

A bit of a smile this time, and a thumbs up!

We had to move on after a while, as my friend’s little boy needed the toilet. The street near the public loos was pretty quiet, so while we were there we took up our cheering tactics again, and soon had more people cheering on the athletes again. 

Another inspiring athlete, carrying on despite injury. I hope he made it!

Our next spot was on an uphill section. The pain on the faces of the runners was so evident, and we shouted even harder to encourage them up the hill. By this point our hands were red and swollen from clapping, our voices were very hoarse, and it was getting dark. We stayed as long as we could, but it was a Sunday and my friend’s son needed to get to bed, ready for school in the morning.

We both felt guilty that we couldn’t stay to support everyone right through – we had been there for over 12 hours, and would have gladly stayed until midnight I think, as we had so thoroughly gotten into the spirit of it! We had even been filmed a few times by the cameramen capturing the event, as they were so impressed with our cheering!

I hope all the athletes who took part are having some well-earned rest today! 

Geographical Journeys at the RGS

Yesterday evening I had the great pleasure of attending an event at the Royal Geographical Society in London. I was very excited to be able to attend an event there, as the Society is obviously steeped in history and enshrines such famous names as Livingstone, Stanley, Scott, Shackleton and Hillary. Greats indeed in the history of endeavour and adventure.

The event I went to was about expeditions on a slightly more modest scale, but adventures none-the-less. And to make it all the more exciting, the reason that I was there was that one of the speakers was a friend of mine and she had invited me.

‘Geographical Journeys: Microlectures’ featured seven speakers who had all undertaken travel, either for exploration, science, work, or simply for the journey. Each speaker had only 10 minutes in which to deliver their adventure, and so we heard about how Emma Baker went to Sierra Leone on a volunteer program and had the experience of a lifetime, how Faraz Shibli and his girlfriend travelled to Laos with their new bicycles to travel the country. The cycle journey ended when his girlfriend injured herself in a fall and they had to turn to hitch hiking instead, but it was not all disaster as they got engaged on the trip! And Levison Wood told anecdotes of his journey to South Sudan, the World’s newest country, to lead a Channel 4 crew who were making a film about fishing in a war zone.

My favourite tales were those of: 

Keith MacIntosh, who did not cancel his trip to Ladakh, a mountain desert area high in the Himalayas where it never rains, when in the middle of the night a rare cloudburst event flooded the area causing massive damage to this rural, undeveloped region. Many inches of rain fell in minutes during this poorly-understood phenomenon, and the mountainous terrain funnelled the water into the valleys – exactly where the population all made their homes. The flooding and mud slides caused huge damage to homes, the minimal agriculture in the region, and uncountable loss of life. Keith still travelled to the area, but replaced trekking with conducting any unskilled labour he could to help the stricken area: repairing irrigation systems, helping bring in the harvest, clearing wreckage and recovering people’s belongings from the mud slides. He was also there when HH the Dalai Lama visited to unite the people and give them strength. Quite an experience!

Conservation biologist James Borrell, who told of his experiences conducting fieldwork in the remote and beautiful Dhofar Mountains in the Arabian Peninsula. This region is an oasis of jungle on the coast of Oman, near to the border with Yemen, where the limestone mountains drive moist air upwards creating jungle in the desert. Here the team collected valuable data on the surprisingly diverse wildlife, and with camera traps they captured images of rare striped hyenas, honey badgers, and even captured the elusive and enigmatic Arabian leopard, an extremely rare subspecies thought to number less than 250 individuals scattered across Arabia – even fewer than its more famous rare cousin, the snow leopard.

Malgosia Skowronska, a mountaineer from ‘Afghanistan’s Secret Peaks’ project who described her journey through mountain regions of Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor – the narrow strip of land at Afghanistan’s north eastern side, pointing out towards China – to climb previously unclimbed mountain peaks. With modern-day Pakistan to the south and modern-day Tajikistan to north, this corridor was created when the British and Russian Empires created a buffer zone during ‘the Great Game’, and it is extremely remote. Malgosia showed wonderful photos of Wakhi and Kirgiz people, the women of these people unlike the common image of Afghan women hidden under burkhas, and instead resplendent in beautifully patterned and ornate bright red clothes and fancy jewellery. Afghanistan holds a special place in my imagination as I have been there with work and have spent a lot of time learning about culture there and also studying one of the Afghan languages, Pashto. I would love to visit the Wakhan area of the country, which has not been affected by the regime of the Taliban in the same way as other areas of the country.

The speaker I had been invited by was my friend Helen Spencer. Helen is fascinating. She loves travel and has been fortunate enough to do a lot of interesting trips – she has already been reindeer herding with the Sami people in Norway this year, and will be heading off on an Afghan adventure in the summer. Her work as a vet has also taken her to fantastic places and has had her working on incredibly interesting projects with different people around the world (Jealous? Moi??)

This talk was about the time Helen, as part of a group organised by specialist travel company Secret Compass, took part in the first recorded coast to coast crossing of Madagascar by foot, including summiting the highest mountain on the island (and the second highest by mistake too due to a slight misjudgement in calculations!)

Sambava on the east coast - journey's start (photo by Helen Spencer)

The expedition began on the east coast and moved west, initially on well-trodden tracks past local villages, camping in school fields or other open patches of land. The group were the first foreigners ever seen by most of the people they encountered, and they regularly drew large crowds of curious onlookers to watch them put up their tents, deal with their blisters, go for a wee in the woods…

A tea break with an audience of hundreds! (photo by Helen Spencer)

Eventually the paths petered out and the team moved into jungle that required them to hack their way through. Sometimes the undergrowth was so thick that they could only cover as little as 6km in a full day’s work. Navigation was seriously hampered as the close-up jungle obliterates landmarks and the dense canopy interferes with GPS systems, so the team used rivers where possible to aid their route finding. As they encountered more hilly terrain they broke in and out of jungle, getting treated to spectacular views that human eyes may never have seen before. Sorely needed compensation for the heavy packs, back breaking work, leeches, blisters and flesh eating parasites! 

Breath taking views (photo by Helen Spencer)

Making their way through the jungle (photo by Helen Spencer)

The Tsaratanana Massif region at the north end of the island contains, at 2,880 metres (9,449 ft), the highest point on the island. Not quite in the league of the Alps in Europe, though higher than our highest British peak of Ben Nevis. The team made their preparations for the summit, which included bringing a white chicken which they had carried in from the start of their journey. At the top the high fives were halted when the GPS revealed they had headed up the wrong peak, so down they had to traipse, across the boggy patch at the bottom, and back up the right peak.

The summit team at the highest point of Madagascar (photo by Helen Spencer)

More incredible views, possibly never seen before (photo by Helen Spencer)

 

Eventually, despite the inaccuracies of their 1962 French Foreign Legion maps, the whole team made it out of the jungle and down towards the western coast. No serious injuries were sustained during the trek, which was excellent luck as with no helicopters on the island, a casualty would have meant the team would have to carry them back through all of the difficult terrain they had already passed! (Now there’s an incentive to look out for your team mates!) That said, a few members did end up in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases with leishmaniasis – the previously mentioned flesh eating parasite, which is passed on by bites from sand flies. Yuk!

Journey's end on the west coast, and a well-earned rest for some tired feet (photo by Helen Spencer)

Becoming something’s dinner aside, imagine being the first to do something? The first to see that view, tread that path, make that achievement? Simply a-MA-zing.