Outlaw Triathlon 2018 - Ivan's Report

Read our club member Ivan's experience of the Outlaw Triathlon in Nottingham.

The Outlaw, Nottingham 2018 - Ivan Greaves

"My first visit to The Outlaw was back in 2013 supporting a friend, and the weather played its part that day too, freakishly hot all day, much the same as most of our summer this year. I was impressed by the OSB organisation then and resolved to do it the following year, but life got in the way and it didn't happen.

Five years on and I was taking it on regardless of anything. The online chatter that happens around these events is normally quite inspirational, but the weather forecast had these weird black wind symbols saying 45mph on it which caused anything from disbelief to full on hysteria.

The event is centered around the National watersports centre at Holme Pierrepont. The swim is normally a single lap of the rowing lake, but due to safety concerns, it got transformed into a three lap with Australian exit affair, which, as a wee bonus, gave us easy access to a feed station on each lap. A couple of mouthfuls of coke went down a treat. Once the first lap fisticuffs were over it was a pleasant swim, done and dusted in 1hr 10 mins with a leisurely transition, making sure I had everything I'd need to do battle on the bike.

A battle it would turn out to be! I flew round the first 90km, felt great, one south loop and transitioned to the north loop. Then the weather turned ballistic! Fighting a rising headwind between the north loop and second south loop seemed bad, but the south loop is infamous for the effect of normal wind speeds let alone gusting winds of 45 mph. It was one of the hardest bike legs of any event I've done. I wasn't alone in audibly shouting at this sapping weather ??????. I can't find adequate words to describe what it was like. It was brutal,and probably accounted for the highest DNF rate in Outlaw history. Despite that, I put in a respectable bike time of 6hrs and 4 mins, but the effort to do it would bite me on the run.

The run is always my weakest leg. Knowing I'd burnt more than a few matches on the bike, my fuddled brain couldn't calculate what I needed to do to finish on target for the run and overall. I'd set myself a modest target of 5hrs 20 mins knowing it may not be achievable even before I started the race. I went through a massive range of emotions on that run. The support from the marshals, volunteers and somewhat diminished crowd, in the awful weather conditions, was humbling. Their unwavering enthusiasm and understanding of what we all were experiencing really got me through it though. I missed my run target by 4 minutes. Finishing in a total time of 12 hrs 58 mins and 15 seconds, just under my 13 hour overall target ????

I'd recommend this event to anyone, but hopefully the weather will be kinder.''

Fantastic racing Ivan, the weather certainly sounded like it was out to challenge everyone...yet you managed to keep going. Time for you to chill out and head to the pub an become one of the 'Merry Men!'??????????