Challenge Roth 2023 race report

Challenge Roth has long been on my list of bucket list races that I wanted to put away. For the past few years I have been trying to gain entry on the Monday that online general admissions open only to fail to have fast fingers as the event sold out in a few minutes. In 2022 I managed to get one, and as I had Lanza lined up , I knew it was going to be a tough ask to get two completed in five weeks. I'd give it a good go though.

Lanzarote had been a tough day out, but I'd secured a decent finish of 12 hours 39, and had managed to run the marathon from start to finish. I had no muscle soreness after and had been in good nick. My hamstring injury would have to wait to be fixed, and by the time we left for Germany, I would have added a neck problem which restricted mobility to the left hand side. 

We travelled to Hull and then took the overnight ferry to Rotterdam. From there, we drove to Bonn, where I would do a last minute leg freshener run on the Friday morning before leaving for Bonn, but would cut this short when I felt my calf stiffen. Worried about the run, we travelled to Roth for the registration at Triathlon Park, before settling at our Hotel in South West Nurembourg which was 20 miles from Roth and 25 miles from the swim start.

Raceday

Getting to the venue proved stressful. My race start was 7.30am and the journey was supposed to be no more than half an hour. After leaving at 5.15am and thinking we would have plenty of time, we discovered the traffic into the event was terrible and got parked up at 6.50am. A quick dash to transition and I just about made the start albeit in the next wave of 7.35am starters. My official time includes the extra five minutes.

Swim 1.30.11

This is a simple canal course and is a case of swimming from bridge to bridge. My swimming is not great, and I was still unesy from the morning rush, and I suppose I didn't settle into the swim until about 45 minutes in. By that point I was finding feet and saving energy. I was aware that I had been in the water a long time, and was not surprised when I got out and saw 1.30 on my watch. That's toward the back of my iron distance efforts but reflective of my current swim ability ! 

Bike 5.36.59

Given the calf issue and the frankly insane heat being experienced and forecast for the day, I deceided to dial down the effort accordingly. I would aim to keep around my watts average for the first loop, which included the brilliant Solarberg climb, and then as the heat intensified, play it by ear and see what I could come up with. I'd estimate lap 1 was about 2hrs 42mins and lap 2 in around 2 hours 54ish. It was what it was on the day, I came into T2 in 5hrs 36 minutes, calf protected, hot and bothered, but well salted up which had served me so well at Lanzarote.

Run 3.54.55

Onto the Marathon and how would be calf hold out. First couple of miles OK, I was up on my toes in the Alphaflys and to be fair the hamstring was giving me more to worry about as I could feel that more than I had in the weeks leading up. At mile 3 though, I had a calf twinge and thought that might be that. I stopped running on my toes, slowed down and shortened my stride which seemed to do the trick. I had relaxed into my long run training pace of c.9 minute miles and seemed to be able to tick over at that level - the calf pull threshold if you will ! Although hot, we were at least shaded in parts when we hit the towpath, and I managed to keep cool with water, sponges and on a couple of occasions, ice down the front of my tri suit, the kilometre markers flying by and I knew if I could get to 26 km which was the marker at the exit of the towpath, then I could run/walk to the end if I needed to. At said 26 km I was still moving OK, so km 32 was the next target which would give me just 10 km to go. 

Into Roth, saw Heidi which was very welcome, and then just an out and back up/ down slope to Buchenback. Incredibly relieved to finish and the stadium was fantastic ! 11hrs 16 mins + 7 seconds.

Iron distance no.9 put away, some rest and physio now, and then ramp it up again for Ironman Wales in September which as I write this is just 9 weeks and 5 days away !

Big June

There was a thing when I worked in the Branch called Big June which was basically a sales push. That was 20 years ago though but it looks like I'm bringing it back but replacing the sales with training miles ! 

Following on from Ironman Lanzarote a couple of weeks ago, I have Challenge Roth at the end of June , so it has been back into a couple of big weeks for that.  This meant some bigger runs that resulted in a couple of races being thrown in and as I was organising the Wheelers TT on 6th June - I thought I'd do a rare outing ! 

Derby Half Marathon 1:49:39

This was my second outing with Northern Pacing Volunteers and given the proximity to the Ironman just past, and the 100 mile ride yesterday, I opted for a conservative 1hr 50 min flag, and it worked perfectly. Unsure of the exact distance , I had a mile pace for bang on - 8:24, and if it was long at say 13.2 miles, that was 8:20. As it transpired, I managed to keep the miles to an 8:21 average, and on a hot day where the sun really burned, came in on a 13.14 mile course, 21 seconds under target.  Really pleasing to have so many people say thanks afterward.

Woodhall Spa 10k   47:39

This one was the long run which was scheduled two weeks before Roth. I had done the long bike the week before and the long swim the day before with a 39 mile TT ride in the afternoon - this event would round off a 3 hour run and therefore a great training weekend and the start of the taper period. I turned up early and was the first car in the car park, well, a win is a win. The plan was simple do a 2 hr-ish run before hand and then have a pick up in the 10k. It was the morning after the Champions League final so of course I wore my City shirt for the 14.5 mile warm upo which went well (let's hope I can run like that in two weeks time). Onto the 10k and I lined up near the 50 minute marker. I guessed I could up my pace to sub 8 miles, but had 10 mins to wait and in that time had started to get a little stiff in the legs so first mile of the race was difficult to pick up. Then the magic happened and easch mile got a little quicker - it was very warm, but I was sensible and ended up with a 47 minute finish which was a good result all things considered.

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