On 2nd June 2024, Rik completed his first full distance Triathlon at the Ironman European Championships in Hamburg: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and 26.2 mile marathon, all within a 15 hour cut-off.
2800 entrants from 66 countries competed, with Rik finishing in 1,589th place in a time of 12 hours and 3 minutes.. We were all inspired by his journey and his awesome result. It’s great evidence that if you are determined, motivated and follow the process, you can achieve great things.
His Ironman journey started 9 months earlier in September 2023, with a commitment.. (it’s not cheap at £670 just for the race entry and in excess of £10,000 spent on kit, training and travel, so registering in itself is a commitment!) and a mantra…No Regrets!
Rik explained ''By No Regrets, I meant no excuses and no ifs and buts…If I didn’t succeed, I never wanted to fail because I should have done something I didn’t, or for a reason I could have resolved but chose not to. So, No Regrets meant it was every step of the way, from completing every training session to buying the best kit I could afford.”
Why Hamburg?
Rik’s Triathlon Club (Knutsford Tri Club) choose a mass event each year to aim for and for 2024, they chose Hamburg. Another reason Hamburg was chosen was that the event itself suited his abilities in terms of his personal strengths and weakness, being a lake swim (rather than sea), a fast bike course and a flat run route.
Your Condition 9 months out?
''I had previous Triathlon experience at shorter distances but running wasn’t something I found natural, with only one Half Marathon to my name. The bike was much more enjoyable and felt confident I could really develop my cycling skills. Swimming was the real unknown territory for me, but I knew it would come down to technique, practice and getting confident in open water.''
Going back to the beginning, how did your Triathlon journey begin?
Lockdown was the big change in my life, as it was for many of us. I’d never considered myself “a runner”. I’d done a bit and I got a cheap road bike to get out and do something. I’d no intention of becoming a cyclist, it was just for leisure. I was conscious that I was at an age when you need to exercise, but get bored easily and struggled with just running or cycling without a real purpose. Over time, I’d met many people coming into Running Bear talking enthusiastically about Triathlon and it resonated. A very unexpected and surprising Christmas gift was entry to the Nantwich Sprint Triathlon, 9 months later in September 2021: 400m outdoor pool swim, 20k bike ride and a 5k run. I was a rooky and made lots of schoolboy errors but it’s just a fun day out. I remember the run was such hard work as it was a hot, dry day and I was wearing the wrong shoes. Regardless, I felt great afterwards, I was buzzing and knew that I’d found something I would definitely want to do again.
Triathlon gave me activity based exercise that’s fun, different and varied. I’d never really been interested in a straight out cycling race or running event.
It was immediately obvious that there was a knack to getting smoother and quicker and many different skills to develop. When I looked back at my times, I was probably in each transition zone at Nantwich for 5 mins vs the top guys who were in and out in 45 seconds. They finished in 1.10, I was 1.40 so knew I could be competitive with more experience.
What came after Nantwich?
Shortly after Nantwich, I decided to join a tri club - Knutsford Tri Club. I wanted to do it again and to be better, especially the transitions!
There are many benefits to joining a club: you can pick and choose sessions that suit you and your life commitments and you can spend time with people who’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt (literally!). I wanted to learn the skills from them, especially technique and importantly, the right kit.
Unfortunately, illness knocked me out of training until the Spring of 2022. My next goal was therefore an Olympic Triathlon a whole year after Nantwich. This would be twice the distance: 800m swim, 40k bike ride and a 10k run. It was at Manley Mere, hosted by Stockport tri club in August 22. I had to take this one more seriously.
Preparation went very well – uninterrupted and focused training, professional swimming lessons, a better bike, BUT a disastrous event for me.
I hyperventilated when the swim started. I had done training in a lake but never competed in open water. As soon as the gun went off, my heart rate went through roof, I couldn’t put my face in the water. I did three quarters of the distance doing breast stroke. It was awful, a vicious circle, as anxiety increased and heart rate increased and I couldn’t calm down.
Fortunately, the bike ride was great and so was the run and made up lost ground. Again, I experienced the buzz at the end and the determination to carry on and be better. I knew I just had to keep working at it, keep enjoying the training and it was keeping me active and fit.
I invested in lessons with a top swimming coach, Dave Quartermain who films your technique and gives you advice to improve, then you go back in 6 months to see progress. It’s a choreographed motion and so hard to coordinate the arms and legs, like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. What you think makes you move forward isn’t what makes you go forward. Instead of my action pulling my body through the water, you’re actually trying to push the water backwards behind it. It took months to crack the technique, and still learning, but in the end, it made me significantly faster and more efficient, using less energy.
In September 2022, I took part in another Olympic distance in Bala, another open water swim, known for rough water and being cold. It was horrific, the weather was bad and lots of athletes were soon in difficulty. For the first 15 mins, I was helping other people, including holding someone up until a padel board marshal arrived. After that, I was still very uncomfortable in the water, but this actually helped me because distracted by everything else, it became flight or fight. Thankfully it was fight, and eventually got into my rhythm and completed the swim in a confident mood.
It was a good bike and run and the transitions were getting much slicker. All the apprehension however was still in the water but the euphoria and adrenaline post swim was very enjoyable. I finished with another raft of learning about how to improve.
May 2023 was the next event. This time in Southport and another Olympic distance. At this stage a full distance Triathlon was still beyond comprehension to me and never once in my thoughts. It would have felt easier to fly to the moon. I was still in the “I hope I can still finish a quarter distance Triathlon”. I’d had a lot more training and coaching since the previous September in Bala and was making steady progression overall and importantly, confidence in the swim. That winter was when I broke through to becoming a triathlete vs having a go. Mentally and motivationally, this was a big turning point. Like I said earlier, I never considered myself a runner; but I now considered myself a Triathlete.
It was time to step it up. In June 2023, a month later, I completed my first half distance Triathlon at Alderford:1.2mile swim, 56m bike, 13.1m run. This was quickly followed up with my second at this distance, the Vitruvian Triathlon in Rutland in September 2023.
The big step up I felt was the run. I wasn’t following a particularly structured or focused training programme and was still randomly training on each discipline independently. You can self-regulate so far to achieve the extra distance on bike and swim, but a half marathon run, for me, was a much greater challenge.
I felt a big difference between the two events in terms of confidence, especially in the run. I ran for over 2 hours in Alderford, but knowing I could now do this distance (albeit not particularly quickly but relatively comfortably) I ran under 1:50 at the Vitruvian. It was the first time I actually felt competitive in a race and a desire to beat other triathletes around me. I was starting to care about time, performance, splits, and placings.
A month later, in September 2023, I signed up to compete in a full distance Triathlon, double the distance of anything I had done before. I wanted to be an Ironman.
Feelings at the Start of the Process?
There was a big emotional connection with my goal from the start: from fear of the unknown to a compelling desire to be a part of the myth and aura of this iconic challenge. I had always looked up with great respect to the people in Knutsford Tri Club who stood tall on their Ironman plinth. A plinth I must add that I placed there, not them. You can say you’re an Ironman forever. For me, it was compelling beyond the reality. You achieve a status and something in life that can’t be taken away. At 51, it was a goal that fitted with my age, my time in life and the cycle of my recent health.
Although the Ironmen in the club talked it down and assured me that I could do it, I had a well-placed healthy respect for the challenge and commitment ahead of me if I were to become one myself.
It’s a cliché, but this really was a now or never moment, and I felt that success was much more likely as part of a group of people with a similar, shared goal. I simply would never have done it on own.
Now to the Training Schedule. How did you approach it?
I, without hesitation, knew I needed the best support group I could get. Running Bear was already in place and my foundation for everything that was to come. So much knowledge, experience and encouragement on tap throughout the team and a constant source of inspirational customers, always happy for me to extract any nuggets I could from them. On top of this foundation was Laura Fairhurst, a world-class Triathlete and professional Ironman coach.
From the start, I had complete faith in Laura’s process and followed it to the letter. I believed that if I did that, I had the greatest chance of being successful. In spite of many challenges along the way, I completed almost every training session, often two a day, 6 days a week for 9 months. I embraced the regularity and flexibility of training and adapted my life to accommodate the volume, intensity and relentlessness of it. Building on my fitness foundations from base through build to peak phases, 9 months lead time felt right, even though I was already fit to compete at half the distance.
You informed very early on that you’re not a cyclist, you’re not a swimmer and you’re not a runner. Triathlon is a sport in itself and has a different approach to training. This was a strange concept for me as I wanted excel in all 3 disciplines but made sense as time went on.
Everything in my training schedule was based on time vs distance e.g. run for an hour, cycle for 2 hours, training was quality vs quantity. There was purposes and structure to every session. I didn’t become obsessed with stats. Laura was checking at a high level for trends of fatigue and stress and I’d look only in interest at my performance. I used a Garmin Fenix 6 pro to record my stats and training automatically uploaded into Training Peaks, an app shared with my Coach. The plan was orientated to race day….June 2nd 2024 and everything worked back from then.
I learned a lot about the factory inside us, the glycogen that fuels muscles with oxygen. Running slowly teaches the factory how to do that vs running fast, which isn’t the most effective way to build the heart and lungs to remain stable whilst I step up. You have an hour and a half fuel in your body when you start. (provided that you eat well). You need to train your body to fuel for up to 15 hours for an Ironman. So going back to steady, shorter and slower sessions and building up from there was a new approach for me.
For nutrition, I subscribed to Huel powders for high carb and protein. For breakfast I had a Huel shake before training, then a carb / protein Huel meal for lunch and a normal healthy evening meal. It took the pressure off for nutrition, I knew I was getting at least the minimum for what I needed and importantly, enough calories. I certainly felt it in training if I didn’t get enough fuel in. I also took a selection of vitamins and supplements to keep my immune system healthy and to speed up recovery.
In spite of the volume of training, and burning up to 4000 calories a day, my weight remained stable at 72-73 kg, however I experienced a big change in body composition from fat to muscle.
How did you adapt to the structure required for training?
My training plan fell between September and June, so it was mainly winter training, which looking back was for me was a good thing. It meant less social distractions than there would have been in summer. It also meant that much of the cycling was indoors, so real high quality strength and power training rather than variable outdoor cycling. I’m definitely not a treadmill fan, so ensured all of the running was outdoors.
Initially, the training was great, I felt excitement for the training plan to arrive for the week ahead. However, it quickly went from being easier than I was used to, to the reality of every day routine, exhausting and laboured and forceful on my life. What have I signed up to and can I do another 8 months? It wasn’t the effort so much, but the relentless of it. Reality dawned that it was the start of a very long journey and doubt crept in. Am I really up for this? I doubted that I could take on the training, to do what I really wanted to do. I thought I was closer than I was. If this is what it takes 8 months out, do I really want to do this?
Following a steady base level period of training, The next phase of building came and it was a point of no return. I’ve invested my time and effort and trained for 6 weeks and I’m not going to throw that away. The curve went up again. I’m in and committed. Then I got to the point - the place mentally where I once dreaded it but then, if couldn’t train, I was gutted. If you get a niggle, you don’t want to lose what you’ve invested. You want to protect your investment.
I had a big turning point in the December, when I hit a bollard on an unlit path whilst running and injured my knee and wrist in the fall and couldn’t cycle or run for a month. I was dejected! I almost needed this set-back to realise how much it meant to me when it was taken away. Fortunately, it was far enough out not to have too much impact. I was fortunate enough not to have any other injuries or ill health of any consequence.
What about strength and conditioning - was it specified in your weekly plan and do you think it helped you stay injury free?
Absolutely. Strength and conditioning was like the 4th discipline in my training and held an equal status in my plan. These were specifically designed exercises to develop the muscles, increase flexibility and movement where it was needed. It helped me to grow in a consistent and balanced way but also helped speed the recovery to tackle the next session.
When did you really start to see the benefits of your training?
The Build phase was when I started to see and feel tangible performance improvements. I used to hate hills on the bike and then it was how fast could I get up the hills I’d previously dreaded. Swimming technique was getting better and was seeing faster times in the pool. Running became less laboured and I began to enjoy it. I no longer had a sinking feeling when the sessions came through and couldn’t wait to see the stats when I got home. There was more pleasure in training, in spite of it still being hard work, I was now feeling 100% committed.
There were so many highs and lows, which is normal. You’re scraping ice off your car at 5.30am to go for your swim or wearing ski gloves and a balaclava to cycle in. Coming home from work and heading straight out again, trying to ignore how cold, dark and wet it is. Tough times, then get your best time. Throughout, you need to praise yourself physically and out loud after a horrible session. “Well done Rik, you did it.” I talked to myself out loud. I remember very specifically that I would take a memory snapshot of a tough time, to remember this moment on race day. I also had very clear snapshots of doing something good and held it to inspire me.
As well as No Regrets, I had other mantras to keep me going…
“Don’t not do tomorrow because you did this today.”
Be loyal to the training plan and trust in it to achieve my goal.”
Feb and March came around and the race was suddenly in sight. Then, at 6 weeks away, there was a complete change in mentality to training for something in the near future. Suddenly it’s real!
How did you develop your race strategy for the big day?
It was all based on my training which was measured throughout using specific metrics: finding and knowing the pace that you swim at that’s comfortable and maintainable. CSS (critical swim speed) tests are measured over 400m at maximum effort. On the bike it is FTP (functional threshold power) and how much you can sustain for 1 hour. For running I had my 5k, 10k and HM pace continually evaluated. Training would then be based on these thresholds and set at a percentage to suit the type of session. For the event, I targeted a pace of around 75% for each leg of the race.
Talk us through the Big Day
We travelled as a group to Hamburg ahead of the event. Bikes were safely transported in a van to avoid potential damage in flight transit and the hassle of dismantling and reassembling. You’ve got to resist sightseeing or doing too much walking around the city. The day before the event I got everything prepped and I had a warm up ride on the course, had a recce of the swim and a look at the run route. We were allowed to rack our bikes and took a mental note of where it was in a 1km long transition area. Throughout the day, I drank lots, had my Huel and ate lots of pasta!
The best thing was having company. The day disappeared quickly and I went to bed around 9pm the night before. Not that I slept much!
On the day I was up at 3am and breakfast was at 4am. It was simple porridge, bagel and Huel. By 5am I was at the course to get tags and do last minute prep, like setting up my Garmin loading fuel to the bike and placing my two transition bags on my allocated peg.
I was trying to keep very focussed and calm. My two biggest fears were repercussions of that anxiety in the swim and bike failure. Each could mean a major setback or more likely failure.
How did you plan to fuel for the race?
Laura once told me that success on the day would be down to 80% nutrition and 20% effort. That sounded ludicrous at the time but my training had validated that so knew I had to get that right. I discovered Precision fuel, who offer a free video call to discuss your requirements, personal circumstances and objectives for the race. They then prescribe a fuelling strategy for race day which basically required approx. 80g of carbs and 500ml of electrolyte drink every hour of racing. Given that you have about 90mins of fuel in you and that's the swim duration, you are pretty much empty before the bike even starts.
Pre swim: 500ml electrolyte drink at breakfast and 2 x 40g carb gels as close to race start as possible. For the bike: I had 300g of carb gels decanted into a bottle and a 500ml electrolyte drink which I was able to replenish at fuel stations. I also had 6 x 30g carb chews ready loaded in my bike pouch.
I trialled it for training sessions ahead of the race and was happy it would work for me and fortunately it did. Ironman provided everything you could want at the stations but wanted to rely on my tried and trusted strategy.
I’d planned not to rush the transitions and to be methodical, even if it took a few extra minutes. So I took a solid bar and banana in T1 after the swim, knowing that the next 6 to 7 hours were liquid fuel. At T2 In between the cycle and the run, I took on a solid bar and a couple of bananas.
How did the race go?
Swim
The swim start was 2 people every 5 seconds which reduced the dreaded hysteria of a mass start. Looking back, I underestimated my ability and chose a start pen of 90mins to 100mins. This meant I was waiting longer for my start, increasing nerves and anxiety and then had to navigate past slower swimmers, interrupting my rhythm.
My relief on overcoming my fears and hyperventilating was enormous and after 100 yards or so, I got into my stroke and I was away! I completed the swim strongly and confidently in 1 hour 22mins.
Bike
The bike went exceptionally well. A very fast and flat course and got my head down quickly once out of the City and pushed hard. Not long into the route, I was greeted by another cyclist who knew my name and we chatted for a while. Only realizing later I had my name printed on my back!. I was then warned by a bike marshal not to talk to other cyclists. So many things to forget you can’t do!
There was a strong headwind coming back into the City for aporox. 20 miles but I wanted to maintain my good pace, so expended more energy on the bike than I had planned. However, I was feeling good and it was a conscious relief when I was in sight of transition and had no technical problems. My two main concerns of swim anxiety and bike failure were now gone. 6 hours and 12 minutes.
After the cycle I experienced my biggest mental issue. I racked my bike and then started the 500m jog through the transition area to collect my T2 bag. During which I took my helmet off and I was stopped by an official and told you can’t take your helmet off until you get to the end of the transition area. Even though my bike was now way behind me. So I started the run thinking I may have been disqualified. It’s a horrible feeling to carry into the start of a marathon as you're not informed until after the race is completed.
Run
I tried to push it to the back of my mind and as I started the run, I was now, for the first time in my journey, believing I was going to finish this race. At that stage, The maximum I’d run in my training program or previous events was 13 miles but I had trust in the plan. Rationally I knew it would work due to the combined endurance gained from the three disciplines.
I was also massively bothered by the fact that my watch had got knocked in the swim and had lost all of my knowledge of time and pace so far. Through my rough calculations in my head, I thought I’d blown my chance of achieving my target of 13 hours overall but completing was my only real goal.
My flight path on the day hadn’t gone exactly to plan due to the extra effort cycling into the wind. Not surprisingly, that also had a knock-on effect on my run. I had trained tactically for 4 laps at specific paces, starting steady, steady in the middle and building up pace in the last lap, but the first 10k was slower than planned. My muscles began to feel heavy and slow and that movement encompassed me. After the first lap, I managed to snap out of it and get into pre-planned pace of sub 9 minute miles. However, I had lost my sense of urgency or metrics from my watch to guide me with my 4 hour marathon target feeling well out of reach. Consequently I stopped at every fuel station and focussed for looking strong at the Finish instead!
I completed the run in 4 hours and 7 minutes..much to my annoyance as this should have been better had I known! A total time of 12 hours and 3 minutes. Strange how those 3 minutes also annoyed me given I'd only had ambitions to finish!
How did the transitions go?
You learn what works for you and what’s most important to you e.g. some will get out of their wet suit and put purpose cycling gear on and then change fully into running gear because they feel the extra time is worth the benefits. For me, I wasn’t chasing a time but nor was I dawdling. I stayed in my tri suit which was under my wetsuit for the bike and run but took the time to properly dry feet and change socks, eat and refuel.
I could have been quicker but "no regrets" on my strategy.
How was the Big Finish?
Well I certainly enjoyed the big Finish. There’s a red carpet lined with spectator stands and as a first timer, you get to ring the famous bell. Then, they announce that you’re an Ironman as you cross the finish line.
You get a Medal and an Ironman transition bag, which I’m very proud of. You head to the event village and share experiences with everyone. There’s an air of euphoria and achievement.
That evening, we had a group outing to a restaurant. It was great to learn that all 11 members of the Knutsford Tri team had succeeded. When I got back to the hotel, there were many messages from friends, family and work colleagues to reply to. Lots of people had followed me throughout the day on the live app and were quite emotional about my achievement.
The next day, Ironman put on an event with live music and lots of celebrations and it sinks in that you really are an Ironman. Physically I felt fine, it was the next few days that that I really struggled with muscle ache and stiffness.
When I got back to Manchester airport, I was greeted by the team from Running Bear, with banners and a large inflatable bear. That was amazing and unexpected and a real sense of what I had achieved as well as a reminder of the support I had been blessed with throughout the whole journey. Not sure how they got that 7 foot bear into the airport!
After the Event
Well I enjoyed getting an Ironman tattoo on my inner forearm. That was a treat to myself and something I had pictured right from the start. I felt back on form after 7-10 days and started back on the bike. I’d got to a point in my training as seeing it as a torture equipment and looked forward to seeing it again as an enjoyable form of leisure! It was the hardest and most physically demanding part of my training . Most of it was on turbo, with winter training and I wanted to exercise the demon. Without a Garmin to record my effort!
I kept reflecting that it was the biggest and best thing I’ve ever done. I over-trained in the sense that my ambition was to finish and I smashed my goal.
However, I didn’t prepare for the “cliff edge”. I'd heard about it and how it affects many first time Ironmen and true to form, It hit about 2 weeks afterwards when everything went back to normal. There was a real emptiness in every aspect: purpose, challenge, your coach is no longer watching your results, there no essential structure and discipline to your every day. Ironman consumes you, mentally and physically and for 9 months became my whole existence. I'd pictured a nice relaxing holiday in the sun or to take time travelling to bridge the gap before normal life resumed and for whatever reason, I didn't. I should have as the cliff was steeper than I'd expected.
So, Rik. What is next for you with regards to Triathlons?
I think the full distance Triathlons are done for me, although those 3 minutes over the 12 hours are still annoying me.. so never say never! However, the commitment is enormous and I think that Half distance or Olympic distances are much more manageable in terms of still having to train seriously, but with a more balanced impact on life. I'm looking forward to training over the winter and taking on more races in 2025.
