Over the weekend of 6th – 8th September, a big group from the club took part in the inaugural Long Course Weekend Yorkshire. It was a fantastic event but it certainly wasn’t without it’s challenges.
Here’s Donna’s report on her experience of the weekend which definitely didn’t go as planned. Get comfy and enjoy the read.
LCW Yorkshire……the race report that is the total opposite to the one I thought I’d be writing.
I can’t remember exactly when I signed up for the LCW in Yorkshire. What I can remember is that my training had been going really well, I’d done the Cotswold Classic 70.3, the Dee mile, had really good swims at both and had found the confidence to step up and test myself with the Full Ironman 2.4 mile swim distance. On top of this I had really stepped up my bike training, taking on some big challenges including 5 consecutive days of long, super hilly rides on the NC500. I hadn’t completed the 112 mile distance yet but again felt confident that I could get that done. The one thing I wasn’t confident about was my running. Only recently returning to running after a long standing hip injury I had developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot and so had only managed shorter runs with a couple of longish (7.5 mile) runs thrown in. Taking this into consideration I decided the half marathon would be best and this distance would actually be pushing myself to my limits.
Day 1: The swim
Swim day arrived. We had driven to Yorkshire and met up with Anne and Martin before heading into Masham to register. The weather was fairly pleasant and we had a brief look around the event village before beginning the 50 minute drive to the swim location at Grimwith reservoir. It was evident in the car on the way to the reservoir that the weather was changing. The calm from before had gone and the trees were blowing wildly. A few messages from the club members who had been doing the early swim confirmed that it was very windy and the water was very choppy. This definitely wasn’t what I wanted to hear but having recently completed the Mersey swim which I thought was quite choppy at the time, I was trying to remain confident and positive……until we stepped out of the car into gale force winds and views of the very choppy water. The wind was howling and the event flags were blowing wildly. Immediately the fear began to rise within my body. I could not do this.
Words of encouragement and reassurance from everyone persuaded me to get into my wetsuit and enter the water for the ‘acclimatisation’ swim. The water was very cold but that wasn’t the problem, it was so rough with what felt like endless chop. My heart was pounding, I turned around and got back out. There was no way I could do this.
Anne was amazing, she came to me and offered to swim together as we had done many times before. We agreed we would enter the water last to avoid the pressure of all the other swimmers and take it easy. The countdown began and we were soon walking into the water. There was another lady looking more terrified than me and I persuaded Anne to leave me and do her own swim. I tried to persuade the other lady to get in with me but she refused and got out.
I started to swim. I was hyper-ventilating with the panic and my breathing was sharp and ragged. I couldn’t put my face in
the water as I didn’t have enough breath. I tried to front crawl with my face out of the water which I have done many times until I relax enough to breathe but the chop was in your face and constant so every time I tried to breathe, the water was just hitting me in my face and going in my mouth. It felt like I had been in the water for a long time and I turned around to see how far I had progressed to see Melissa standing about 30 meters away from me on the bank, I had hardly moved. In my eye line I could see people getting dragged out of the water into the safety boats and I knew I had to get out.
The voice in my head telling me to be brave and you can do this had firmly been replaced by the ‘what the hell are you doing, get out now’ voice. I turned around and swam back to the start and knew that I had absolutely made the right decision. Finding out that out of the 280 swimmers who had entered, over half had either not started, not completed the full distance or had been rescued confirmed I had definitely made the right call. Seeing a man being getting carried out of a support boat, being laid on the ground and surrounded by paramedics is a sight that will stay with me for a very long time.
Getting changed and supporting the remaining swimmers was the best part of the day for me. I am in total awe of what they achieved. Yes I got a DNF but I was happy to accept that.
Day 2: The bike
I only found out the actual bike route about a week before the event. Matt had shared a video of ‘Lofthouse’ climb and it was one hell of a hill. I wasn’t too worried about this apart from the fact that I was going to have to do it twice as the full route consisted of 2 x 56 mile laps. I had a plan in my head that if it was as bad as it looked I would get off and walk so as to save some energy for the second lap.
Myself and Dani were the only females doing the full distance and so agreed to ride together for company. It was a sportive and so there were two food / toilet stops per lap. We arrived at the first food station together but by the time we reached the second stop at 40 miles in, Dani being the stronger rider had pulled in front and it became a solo ride. It was a tough route with what seemed to be constant climbs, some of them too short to be recognised as a climb on my Garmin but steep enough that your legs knew about it. The weather was grim, thick mist and very damp, I had to take my bike glasses off to be able to see or be constantly wiping the water from them.
About 5 miles after the second food stop the ‘big’ climb began, and boy was it big. Ironically there was an ambulance parked at the side of the road on the way up. The gradient increased and I made the decision to get off and walk to conserve some energy. This kind of back fired as the strain on my calves from walking up such a steep climb was not pleasant. I was feeling pretty down in the dumps when I saw a friendly face on the right hand side of the road. Cathy was there with a huge smile and words of encouragement which worked wonders and it gave me a much needed boost. I got back on the bike and completed the rest of the climb, crossing a cattle grid at the top before beginning the descent. This was super steep and the road surface really wet and I remember my fingers cramping as I clung in to the brakes for dear life.
Coming towards the end of the first lap I got chatting to a fellow cyclist. We were both riding strong and we entered the town square one behind the other to begin the second lap. It was then that we found out we were 6 minutes outside of the first lap cut off time and would not be allowed out on the second lap. Later, when I checked the timings of my ride on my bike computer I discovered that we had started the ride 6 minutes late because there had been a large queue to use the ladies toilet. Funny how these things work out.
I wasn’t too upset about missing out on the second lap. My legs were tired, I was cold and wet and if I’m being honest, I just wasn’t feeling it. My legs had felt really heavy from the start and I just felt like something was amiss. I guess it just wasn’t my day. Because I had entered to complete the full 112 miles and only did 56, I got my second DNF of the weekend. Worse still, Jon was out on his second lap and being much faster than me, he had taken the car key. All of my dry, warm clothes along with my money were in the car. I had no food, couldn’t get a hot drink and had a very lonely hour wait before the other group returned from their lap of the course. Melissa ushered me off to her car and gave me her dry robe and Vicky bought me a hot chocolate to warm me up. For the second time that day, I was extremely grateful to be surrounded by the most amazing and supportive friends.
Day 3: The run
This was the part of the weekend I had been nervous about. I hadn’t done nearly enough training, but in my head I was determined that even if I had to crawl to the finish line, there was no way I was not going to complete that run. The heavens had opened and on the coach to the start point for the half marathon, the rain was biblical. Once we arrived at Fountains Abbey, we had a 2 hour wait before our run start. There was a large group of us doing the half and spirits were high as we treated ourselves to a second breakfast in the cafe. By the time we set off on the 25 minute walk to the start, the heavy rain had passed and all that remained was a fine drizzle.
The temperature was warm so I was grateful for that. Bag drop done, last toilet visit done and the start was upon us. Hugs and good lucks given and we were off. I had a strategy of a slow jog/walk up the hills and try and make up speed on the downs. This was working really well until the plantar fasciitis in my foot reared it’s ugly head. Then walking became harder than running and so I maintained a constant shuffle as much as I could. The miles ticked by and it was great to see supporters dotted along the route. The rain had become heavier again but soon I had covered more distance than I had left and time passed by more quickly. There was a great downhill section about 2.5 miles before the end and I felt really strong as I pushed hard to get it done. Coming into the finish funnel I couldn’t stop smiling and it was amazing to be greeted by club members who were a mix of supporters, half marathon, full marathon and 10k finishers. I took my place amongst them and waited for our final runners to come in.
So, in summary, my weekend consisted of 2 x DNF’s and and one completed run distance. I’ve been weighing this up in my mind. Do I take away the DNF’s as they were intentionally given, as a did not finish, or do I focus on the following. I put my wetsuit on and got into extremely choppy water to at least try and swim when I was actually terrified. Every instinct I had was to turn around and run like hell, but instead I persuaded my violently shaking body to get into that water and give it a go. I didn’t complete 2 laps of the bike course but what I did do was complete one strong lap of over 4,500ft of climb in just 56 miles. So is it a did not finish or as someone pointed out, a ‘did not fail’. I turned up and put myself on the start line and that speaks for itself.
A well timed phone call from my Mum while I was sitting shivering after the bike ride confirmed that it was definitely a ‘did not fail’ She had seen a video of the swim conditions on Jon’s Strava and rang me to say how proud she was of me, proud that I had made the decision to get out of that water when I did. I was almost in tears, as was she.
The weekend definitely didn’t go as planned but equally, I definitely did not fail.
