A summery day in England (21.06.2010)

Faris Al-Sultan got 4th at Ironman 70.3 UK in the southwest of England.

This year Ironman 70.3 UK did not start that early as the years before. So the athletes could sleep an hour longer. The race was scheduled at 7, which was still pretty early and still pretty cold. 5 degrees Cesius showed the thermometer. So the athletes were happy to enter the lake, which offered around 17 degrees. Anyway the cloudless sky promised a beautiful summer day in that area.

The entire pack of 1500 athletes started swimming at the same time. But soon the pros increased the gap between them and the amateurs. It did not take that long as the first group came out of the water. With them there were the strong Brits Fraser Cartmell and Phil Graves. But also Faris could stay with them. He lost some time running to the transition area but after a few kilometres on the bike he found his rhythm and overtook athletes and reached the 3^rd place. That was the position he changed onto the run behind Phil Graves, who could not be beaten that day on the bike, and Fraser Cartmell. On the run Faris felt his running deficit of the last week. The first of 3 loops went quite well but then he slowed down and was overtaken by the Swedish Jonas Djurback. But Faris could keep his 4th place and finished behind Cartmell, Graves and Djurback. A British athlete, Bella Bayliss, won also the women’s race.

Faris did not expect that Ironman 70.3 UK would bet that tough. For him the way from the swim exit to the transition area was one of the hardest parts of the race. But all in all the race was an important part of Faris Ironman preparation.

For Ina the 70.3 UK should also have been an important race. After she had to drop out of the German Championship 2 weeks ago she wanted to prove her good shape in England. But she had similar problems as in Kulmbach. Already as she warmed up she had could not breathe properly because of her asthma. So she put her race equipment together and did not race.