I signed up to IRONNMANN 70.3 Swansea last year after I went to support the Weymouth Warriors and absolutely fell in love with IRONNMAN 70.3 Weymouth event and the environment around it, however, I had a big hurdle. My swim was nowhere near where it should be to compete for an event like that! I know, I know that’s what most Triathlete says however, when I say that there is a good reason for that. I did not know how to swim prior to 2023 December period. I am probably the only member who joined this club and went to the swim session and could only muster up the courage to do half a length as I was afraid of the deep end of the pool measuring 2m (ish) deep. And Charlie still said yes you can train with us; I will help you! God bless her.
All of 2024 I swam every Wednesday apart from odd illness or being away for a short break and built up that courage, being able to breathe while swimming (that would help, wouldn’t it? 😊 ) and fighting the fear of drowning. Oh. If anyone is wondering, I am asthmatic, chronically asthmatic from a very early age, hence, I was taken off from swimming lessons as a child.
I also did a few Sprint (Club and Berkley) and Olympic (Last Tri) distance Triathlons in 2024 in order to prepare for 2025 Olympic distance Tris’ which had OW swims. OWS worries me, worries me a lot. Mainly because I can’t swim straight or sight very well.
I did a few OW swims during the summer of 2024 at our Lake 32 so that I could have some familiarity with OWS during a race.
March 2025, first OWS race at Aiya Napa, Cyprus went okay. The swim went better than expected probably due to the help and support I got from all my club mates who taught me how to tread water at Sea!
Along with a dedicated focus on my swimming I wanted to do a marathon at the start of the year which keeps me focused during winter months, so I did the ABP Newport Marathon 2025 on 13th Apr. (When your birthday run could be your Marathon PB it’s kinda obligatory! And I did get a PB 3:47:42).
May 2025, 51Fiver! Another OWS, was hard work and did manage do it in 45 minutes.
Hoping to do a recce swim at Swansea docks we singed up to do the Swansea Swim, unfortunately it was moved to the bay and as luck would have it, it was quite a rough day, with over 40mph gusts.
I cannot express how scared I was to enter the water that day and how I managed to do the smallest 750m loop and get the hell out. My fellow mates though, one did the full 1000m loop and the other aka Adam did 3 loops of that 1000m. It was HARD!
We were told not to be stupid and if you felt you cannot do another loop please head back and I did exactly that. A proper DNF with a smile (except Adam).
June 2025, Blenheim Palace Tri, another OWS, only 750m. Last out of water but finished with the best time from our club in sprint distance, yay! (Only by seconds)
June 2025, Cotswold Big Swim did not go so well. 1900m in 1 hour 15 mins and I was really feeling very worried as that means I would not make the swim cut-off at Swansea.
Anyway, I kept calm and carried on. One month passed and I did see that I got bit better at pool swims, only a tiny bit. And hoped for the best.
12th July 2025, the day before IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea. Did everything that I needed do, drive down to Swansea, register, deposit bike at transition, put transition kit in bags. All done. Now I only need to worry. So, I did that, stayed up all night thinking about the swim. And at one point I was questioning what am I doing? Why am I here? I only wanted to learn how to swim. And I can swim, at least for 45 mins. I did not want to learn how to race 1000 other people. It was the longest attempt to fall asleep.
13th July 2025, IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea
The day has arrived as promised. Met up with fellow club mates, everyone had a race day look on their face. Adey was trying to get his rear wheel innertube changed, which he was able to get done. Phew! I dumped the salty water bottles and some chews on the bike for the ride, pumped up my tires as we all let some air out the day before due to the blistering sun. Oh. Did I mention? We were doing a 70.3 during a heat wave. Great!
Along with club swims I have been doing a GL1 swim fit session as I am already a member at GL1, which also helped me a lot. Incidentally coach Georgina Dempster was also there at Swansea supporting her son Jake who was competing. So, it was a pleasant surprise when she tapped my shoulder and gave me a big hug and wished me good luck as I was walking down to the starting pen. I seeded myself at the 50 min pen very optimistically. All my fellow club mates were in the 40 mins and 35 mins pen ahead of me. And before I knew it, I was swimming. I was fortunate enough to not see any jelly fish or any other fish. There were some close contacts, nothing that I had not encountered before. And I was able to follow people’s feet. When you swim, you swim. It is unlike any other discipline. You can’t see the time, or the speed or do anything else. So that’s all I did with all my mind and hoped to finish with in cut-off. (1 hour 10 mins).
When I reached the swim exit, I got up and pressed the lap button and stood still for a full 30 secs as I couldn’t believe what I saw. I saw it said 00:46:21
I ran like hell after that and then met my lovely TTG support crew on my run back to the T1. I shouted out my time I was so bloody happy with that. It was my PB swim time for 1900m. The rest of course was thankfully uneventful, bike was okay 03:31:06 and the run was okay too 02:07:11. We all have our own battles in this journey and my battle was my swim and I was ecstatic with how it went.
Slight side note, and since this is a three discipline sport I also did few other notable rides this year as a sportive and they were all in June a week apart from each other. Some pictures from those rides.
Dragon Ride Gran Fondo 2025
The Stone Circle (Gravel Sportive)
