Best open water performance by a fair bit,especially since I've never actually swam a continuous 1900m before!

Not much.

Time includes the 30 secs it took to reach T1 from the water.

Since I don't have a power meter I had to base my effort on HR (and how my legs were feeling), so I tried to keep my HR around 85-87% of LTHR. This was no problem for the first 2 laps, but on the third lap, although my speed was about the same, my HR started to drop a little to around 82% and down to about 79% by the 4th. Since my pace wasn't slowing and I didn't want to risk burning up my legs, I decided not to push any harder.

Quick tip number 1: If you hear a dog barking and you decide to look to make sure it's behind a fence or gate, make sure you notice which way the road is going before turning your eyes away. After noticing the dog was behind a locked gate, I looked forward to notice my wheel as about an inch from the curb as the road had started bending to the right. I had enough time to turn my wheel so it didn't hit straight on, but I still clipped it and down I went. Thankfully, no damage to the bike and only a cut thumb for me which bled for about the next 30miles of the bike (it happened in the first 2 miles or so!).

Keep eyes on the road!

I kept some spare socks in my running shoes as there was rain forecast and I wanted to make sure I had dry socks. Unfortunately this slowed me down a little getting them out of the shoes before I could put them on.

Keep spare socks next to my running shoes, not in them!

No idea how, but that run felt like it was up hill all the way out AND back!!
Well, the goal was to kept to about a 9min/mile pace and try and keep the HR below 170 until the last mad sprint to the finish. Seems those 2 goals were met. Shame I had to slow to a walk for the last 2 uphills with about 1.5miles to go.

Quick tip number 2: If you are really desperate for a pee (there were no loos on the route at all!), make sure that the long grass you are about to stand in isn't hiding stinging nettles that reach up to your knees as running 9-10miles with tingling legs is a strange sensation!

Not sure there was much I could have done differently bar train more at longer distances

Truth be told, I'd never swam more than 1500m in one go, cycled more than 42miles or ran more than 10.5miles before the race, so lack of longer distance training probably hampered me slightly.


A very well organised race with plenty of volunteers and aid stations. If I do another HIM distance race it may well be this one again.