Ironman Italy 19th September ’26
After an anxious few days I lined up on the beach in Cervia ready to start my first Ironman.
I’d been sick on the Wednesday and then carried on feeling nauseous all week. Whether this was race nerves or a bug I don’t know but I did know I was under-fuelled.
Then on Friday I had a flat tyre which initially refused to inflate but thanks to the Ironman mechanics it eventually stayed up but needed a 5.30am check with Mike Moss standing by with his back wheel just in case a last minute swop was needed.
Back at the start it was great hearing the race intros and of course thunderstruck – major goose bumps. Then we had an anxious hours wait as it took forever to get through the start and into the water.
SWIM
So the swim, lots of jellyfish and felt very choppy but got I out in 1:29, a minute below my estimate, so all good.
T1 & BIKE
The Italian transition is the longest in the world (I think that’s what they said) but it went quite smoothly and I was off on the bike leg.
Unfortunately, I started to feel really sick and anything I ate made me feel worse and I just didn’t feel I was getting any power in my legs.
At some point, the heavens opened (I honestly can’t remember how far into the race this was). The rain was torrential and the dry roads were suddenly swimming in water with about a foot of water on one of the corners where officials were wildly waving red flags.
Things felt really hard and I just decided I’d keep going as hard as I could and only stop if they made me. Then, amazingly, at 80 km the sun came back, I started to feel a bit better and I was able to up my speed.
Unfortunately I hadn’t zipped up my waterproof bag when it rained so my snacks were swimming in an inch of water which definitely did not make the Jaffa cakes look very appealing! Luckily, as anyone who’s ridden with me knows, I take a good selection of food so had some choices and started to get some food down.
There was one hill on the course and it was a proper hill, and it definitely got steeper on lap two!
T2 & RUN
After a very long ride, which was much slower than planned, I arrived in T2, got to my bags and changed my shoes.
On reflection, I think that my bike nausea was motion sickness from the swim and when I was bending down to change my shoes I had another bout of dizziness / nausea.
I remember saying to myself you can have 30 seconds to rest then you’ve got to get moving. I left T2 a little unsteady on my feet frightening the life out of Michelle, Mike, Anne & Vicky. They told me to walk a bit which I did then I started to run. It was like a miracle. I felt alright and as I kept running I continued to feel OK and dare I say even good. I decided to ditch my 8:2 walk/run strategy and just walk through the feed stations instead.
It was probably the best run I’ve ever had in a triathlon. I was tired but my breathing was OK so I just kept going. Turns out that I was about half an hour quicker than I had expected, which made up for the long bike and I hit the red carpet knowing I was well within the final 16 hours cut-off deadline. And what a red carpet it was! What a great feeling. All the hard work & missed glasses of wine suddenly all became worth it to hear ‘Julie Cullen, you are an Ironman’.
Completing an Ironman had always felt like something way beyond my capabilities but being a part of our club and seeing people doing amazing things week after week encouraged me to sign up and give it a go.
The support and encouragement along the way was amazing, really helping me to keep going and I know for sure this would never have happened without everyone at TTTC – so thank you – you are all amazing and I’m so grateful to be a part of it all.
