Event 30 - Hever Castle: The Gauntlet

Brutal ....absolutely brutal! This was Half Iron day, I’d entered it (crazy!), actually turned up despite the terrible weather forecast of torrential rain and high winds (delusional haha) and it was happening (eeek!!). On arrival at Hever Castle it was announced that all the waves had been delayed by an hour due to safety and checking the roads. The officials decision was made that we wouldn’t do the bike course. Instead we would use the Olympic distance 20km cycle circuit and do that three times. So today I did a 1.9km swim, 60km bike ride and a half marathon. So I feel a little cheated that I didn’t actually get to compete a half iron, I was 30km short on the bike.... sob.

It was lovely to meet Mike from my Britri group in transition before we started - definitely think he got a faster time than me.....I knew I would be slow following last weekends shenanigans in hospital on a drip due to having food poisoning for an entire week which meant I missed the Ragnar White Cliffs event that I'd been planning for two years....lets not go there on disappointment! It was hit or miss whether I'd actually make this event today. It was a bit of a miracle I actually completed today and I wasn't even last over the finish line! 

The swim and the cycle went really well and I could go as far as saying I really enjoyed both!! I had a mishap between the swim and the cycle and sat on my banana - it squelched all over the inside of my transition bag so that was part of my food between cycle and run gone and then when I did the transition cycle to run I forgot to eat my biscuits  - doh....my nutrition was totally awful for this event and the run route station ran out of electrolyte/sugar drinks so I was bit stuffed. They had gels but they make me sick. This all didn't help with the run section.

I'm a slow cyclist so I went into the run course quite late and it was packed with 10km, half marathon, Gauntlet and Olympic distance runners which was hard as the route is mostly narrow.

And this was the brutal part. As you know I’m a runner at heart so I thought this part of the day would go ok, oh how wrong I was. I had to do 2 circuits of the run route. It was a mud bath and I didn’t like it. I have done many trail and mud runs (think Slindon Sog but worse) but I guess I just didn't expect these extreme mud conditions today....Mike described it as a "mud quagmire"....love it! For about 3km solid on the circuit it’s pure mud, no going round it, or over it.....you have to go through it and despite having hickies on my trainers (they are a kind of shoe lace). Even though they make my trainers far too tight for me, I kept getting stuck in the mud and loosing my shoes. It was totally impossible to run through these parts and I was scared of hurting myself as I was slipping all over the place. And to do this when you are knackered and have been physically pushing yourself for 4 hrs swimming and cycling ....it wasn’t good. Sadly on the second lap I fell (slipped on the mud, got a really muddy arse, brambles in my hands and really hurt my left thigh muscle, tear or something?). See said photo of "mud bottom"! I had 7km to go so I walked most it, ran when I could. I was already "mud" despondent during the first circuit so to fall on the second just made things worse, my nutrition and therefore energy was severely lacking and I couldn’t get the fact I was going through 6.5hrs of pure effort to come out at the end NOT having done a half iron and not enjoying the run at all. Despite all this, the positives are that I would like to do another half iron - but somewhere else (when the weather is nicer!) and I’ve completed event 30 of my challenge so I'm moving forward despite the day not going 100% my way. Will have to see how bad my fall injury is in the next few days. Hopefully it’ll heal quick. Boy I worked hard for this medal - I will treasure it!!!

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