Ironman Kalmar 2023

The second and last Ironman this year. It was as usual a pretty epic experience.

It started on the Tuesday of race week and jumping into the big red truck with my friend Zara and heading to Dover for the ferry. Yes, I drove to the other side of Sweden! Mad you may think, but it wasn’t as bad as you would have thought. Apart from the 1am traffic outside of Antwerp, the whole trip over was pretty smooth. One night in the car in Belgium and one night in Copenhagen saw us land in Kalmar on the Thursday at around 2pm.

Registration was ticked off on the way to the BnB, and rather disappointingly when rummaging around in our new bags, I found nothing but my number stickers and a cap.

This race was going to be quite special for me as although I hadn’t had the greatest preparation I had been coaching 2 people, Doug and Daisy, to race with me at Kalmar. Having them get around the course with a smile gave me a massive boost each time I saw them! Daisy even got me running again when my legs were completely spent!

Anyway let’s get onto the race!

Race morning was relaxed until the short drive to the start was greeted with road blocks for the race. With 5 mins to spare I made it to transition and got my bags and bike all ready, opting not to pump up my tires… they felt hard enough.

Off to the race start and squeezing into the wetsuit I went to the 1 hour pen and waited. Wished good luck to everyone, and all of a sudden the cannon went off causing my heart to race and half the crowds to jump on the floor wondering where the air raid was.

A few seconds later calm returned when we all realised it was the start of the race and we were off.

A dive into the clear harbour waters felt awesome. Although my goggles filled up straight away, they seemed to empty themselves of water as I was swimming… what a result! The swim out was spent trying to follow people’s feet until I realised they were heading out to sea and not to the next buoy. I changed my tactic and started swimming my own line. Although this meant I didn’t swim as far, I would loose abit of the drafting advantage. Coming back into the harbour I was greeted by a wall of spectators all cheering and shouting the atmosphere I imagined was awesome… I couldn’t really hear anything until there was a faint scream of ‘EDD!!’ And I seemed to be tuned into the shouts and cheers! I kept swimming, going under the bridges, and coming out in 1:05 which I was please with due to the choppy water and knowledge the tides greatly effect the swim, I figured it was a decent swim!

This is where it got really fun! Two new little experiments I was doing on the bike to help me get to the end as fast as possible. Aero calf guards and a bottle down my top. The bottle down the top closes the gap where the air gets disturbed and therefore makes you more aerodynamic (for those who care). Shoving the bottle down my top also seemed to keep me cool, which was another little perk!

The bike started off very quickly – I was flying along at about 39.5kph for the first hour or so absolutely loving life. Although there were some trains of people drafting and going past me like I was going backwards! I moaned at a few of them and hoped that a referee would appear at some point; he finally did and penalised a lot of people!

At 60km I hit a huge headwind, it dropped my speed to less than 30kph and I knew it was time to get as aero as possible. I shrugged my shoulders and sunk my head as low as I could so that I would act as a hot knife cutting through butter. I also found myself increasing my power, which looking back was not a smart move. I seemed to have made up 3 places in that headwind, but I am sure it effected my run later on.

The nutrition was going in pretty well as well, and I ended up over eating. I’m not sure if this came back to bite me later on though, as I didn’t feel any stomach issues and nor did I find it hard to eat on the run.

The cross winds over the bridge towards the small loop on the main land made for some tricky riding. I gripped the handlebars pretty tight as lorries and cars flew past on the other side of the road, praying I’d be saved from being blown into the sea! The rest of the loop I found myself calming down on the bike and hoping I could limit the damage I had already done to my legs in order to run a full marathon.

T2 was smooth and everything went as planned, apart from a shoe flying off my bike which I promptly collected. I had a small issue though, my back was still hurting from the bike. Normally this passes after 200m of running after the bike, but on this occasion it hurt for the first 4km of the run. This slowed me down from the pace I wanted to run, but it didn’t slow me by much.

I did get caught by 2 people in my age group, one who exclaimed how easy the pace was as he went past. I scowled and carried on hoping he had overestimated himself… he hadn’t.

After 7km I was caught by a female pro, Jenny, who had a similar pace plan to me. Perfect I thought, all I need to do is run with her home! We had some pretty random conversation on the way round which drew my mind off the pain of running a marathon.

This brings me to the distractions… namely the support around the whole course. It was electric. Hitting the main city and seeing bars / restaurants packed out and people 6-7 deep along the railings would really boost my mood, especially when it came to the final lap.

Getting dropped by Jenny, having Daisy come past me as she was heading out on her first lap, and Manon walking beside me as I told her my sob story of how ruined I was, I glanced at my watch and realised the potential for a 9:20 Ironman had slipped and it would be unlikely to scrape myself in for a personal best. Damn that head wind I cursed. I needed a new strategy.

Get to the next aid station, grab some food.

The food I grabbed was a handful of pickles, oh my how good are pickles. I smashed them and they got me going again, I was back running at pace and feeling the finish would come soon! I lasted 1km but then dropped off and ended up walking 100m into the next aid station.

PICKLES! Again I smashed back a handful of pickles and it got me going again, I plugged on and this time made it to the next aid station, 6km to go now. Pickles are the answer! I grabbed a handful and some water but as soon as the 3rd pickle entered my mouth I felt repulsed by them. It was a complete hatred towards the little green fingers and the rest went in the bin. This time there was no miracle running and it was back to a slow one foot in front of the other. I managed to get myself going again at 3km to go and tried with everything I had to get around the last bit of the course and down the finishing shoot, once again removing my shoe and smashing a beer!

This race has left me feeling super excited and super driven for the next one. I loved pretty much all of it. I say pretty much all of it as there was a solid hour on the run that I swore to myself i would never do an Ironman again. But here I am sat in front of the Ironman website planning next year’s races.

Ironman New Zealand and Ironman Thun.

Both races I have done before and both races I love!

Thanks, to everyone who came and supported!