#Bont News
Issue 7
Welcome back everyone to the seventh issue of the club’s newsletter.
Triathlon as a sport is a very broad church which accommodates all types of athletes, competing in all kinds of events, over all manner of distances - this is what makes it so appealing right! For this edition however, I thought I’d concentrate on the big event appearing rapidly on the horizon - Ironman Wales on September 11th, in glorious Tenby. There is a large group of club members taking on the Dragon and will be stood nervously on North Beach at 7am on that Sunday morning, along with dozens of supporters from the club , I’m sure!
Ironman Wales History
The first Ironman Wales took place in September 2011. Being the first time the event was run, there were several subtle differences that more recent iterations of the event are missing. In that first race, the swim was scheduled to take place off Tenby’s South Beach with a short run up the South Beach zig zags to T1. Plans had to be changed at short notice in race week however, as the tail end of a hurricane was due to cross the Atlantic and lash West Wales with strong winds and waves. As a result, the organisers hastily took the decision to switch the swim to North Beach where there would be more shelter from the elements. They then had to figure out how to get the athletes to T1 - there was no other option than to have the athletes run through town to get to T1 above South Beach - and the iconic run through Tenby town was born! The athletes loved this aspect of the course and it became a no-brainer that this should not be changed in future years.
Another major difference in the first year was on the run course through town. That first year saw athletes run down past the harbour, and then make their way on a loop around the lifeboat station before appearing back on the main street just above Castle Beach. Unlike the switch to North Beach for the swim, athlete’s gave this part of the run the course the big thumbs down and it was subsequently dropped from the run course and the course was extended elsewhere (further up into New Hedges, I think)
(Nb - if you look closely at this picture, you can just about make out the leading athletes pegging it down to the end of North Beach before getting into the water. The organisers hadn’t put a marker buoy close to the swim start, so athletes took advantage of this to shorten the swim with a bit of a run! Subsequent years have seen a left turn marker buoy placed just to the left of Goscar Rock to stop such an occurrence happening again!)
The course
The swim - the now legendary North Beach swim course is a 2 lap course with an Aussie Exit around Goscar rock. Mass starts seem to be a thing of the past for many events, and IMW now asks athletes to self-seed themselves based on their anticipated swim time. This means that the swim event itself goes on for longer than during mass start times, as some swimmers won’t get into the water until up to ten minutes after the initial starting gun.
The swim isn’t too complicated and should be relatively weatherproof (the exception being if there is a significant easterly wind blowing, which can generate some unwelcome wave chop, particularly on the long leg across the bay). Sighting markers are usually suggested as the lifeboat station as you make your way to turn buoy 2, and the big gap between the buildings up on North Beach Esplanade, as you head back to the beach.
The Bike Course
Many of us have ridden some, if not all of the bike course - yes it's hilly! There is about 2500m of elevation over the 112 mile course. Many a seasoned IMW racer will tell you to rein it in for at least the first 30 miles as this part can be deceptively fast and the sting in the tail definitely comes in the back end of the bike course. For those of you wanting to really push out the watts, the male bike course record (held by Stefan Schumacher of Germany) is 4 hours 40 from 2019. For those with such aspirations, it might also be worth noting that year’s winner Arnoud Guilloux biked nine minutes slower than Stefan, but ran 16 minutes quicker - bike for show - run for dough!
On the women’s side it’s a bit more straightforward, 2019 winner Simone Mitchell set a new bike record of 5 hours 22, but was able to also record the fastest female run of the day by over 10 minutes.
The Run Course
The 42km run course is over 4 laps, partly through Tenby town itself and then on that seemingly never ending drag up Narbeth Rd and almost up to the New Hedges/Saundersfoot roundabout. As with the bike course, the run course is “challenging” with over 700m of elevation.
Notable previous winners in the Pro Field
For those Pro’s chasing a win, IMW sits quite late in the Northern Hemisphere season, and is past the Kona qualifying cut off, so anyone taking a slot knows they have about 13 months after qualifying before they fly out to the Big Island.
GB’s Lucy Gossage is perhaps the undisputed queen of Ironman Wales with victories in 2018, 2017 and 2013, whilst on the men’s side, South Africa’s Matt Trautman was victorious in 2108 and 2014. The sporting phenomenon that is Australia’s Cam Wurf (he went to the Athens Olympics as a rower, and is currently a member of the Team INEOS pro cycling team), won Ironman Wales in 2017, and then went on a month later to break the Kona bike course record!
Club athletes racing
The following is a list of people from the club who I believe are racing IMW this year (apologies if I’ve missed anyone - relying on the Spond list, or if you are named but are no longer racing)
Phoebe P
Nathan T
Gruff G
Lucy J
Leigh W
Jon D
Justin P
Jamie H
Christie C
Craig F
Helen L
Christopher D
Christian A
Jason H
Dean M
Everyone in the club wishes you all the best - have your best day, be safe, enjoy as much of it as you can, and in time honoured IMW style “Don’t be sh*t!”
Where to watch..
Apart from the inspirational athletes taking part, what makes Ironman Wales so special is the support throughout the day out on the course. If you are planning to go down and cheer on fellow club members (and of course all the other athletes), here are some tips for spectating……
Swim - It gets super busy along the top of North Beach, so if you want to be up there, get there early! Other good vantage points can be the beach itself, the lower promenade from the harbour along towards Goscar, or for a more panoramic view of the whole swim course, try the Prince Albert memorial on the hill just up from the lifeboat station.
If you’ve had your fill of watching thousands of people in black neoprene and brightly coloured caps, the next must-do is to get up into town to watch athletes run from the zig zags through town and into T1. Get a good position here and you can also watch them going out from T1 on the bike too. Anywhere from the war memorial to the Five Arches and beyond is good for this.
Bike - there really is only one place to be for the bike leg - that’s Heartbreak Hill or on any other day, simply the road leading out of Saundersfoot towards New Hedges. The bottom part of the hill on the very steep section tends to be completely barriered off and this is where the crowds are at their densest (and noisiest!). The crowds thin out a bit as you go up the hill, but the atmosphere all the way up to the very top is tremendous and not to be missed.
(Hint on walking from Tenby - if you leave Tenby via Narbeth Rd, you can miss out the main road section by walking up a lane called Slippery Back which brings you out at the bottom of New Hedges - it's probably about 20 minutes walk from Tenby to the top of Heartbreak Hill)
Later on if you’ve had enough of the noise and pandemonium of the hill, head back into town and back towards transition to see the athletes heading out of T2 - note how “relatively” sprightly many of them are running at this stage!
Run - there are plenty of opportunities to see athletes on the run course. As it is a 4 lap course, it's easy to see athletes multiple times anywhere on the course. One particularly good spot is opposite Well Park caravan and camping site in New Hedges. Runners have to run up past you here, turn around at the Red Bull station, then pass you coming down the hill, turn the corner and run up into New Hedges village itself, before running back down into Tenby again - so you could see an athlete 3 times on one loop just by standing in one spot. The finish area will get busier as the afternoon goes on - remember that if you want to see the first athletes in, you will need to down by the finish area on the esplanade overlooking South Beach between 3 and 4pm.
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