Day 3 - The Triathlon

Woke up at 7 as planned to another glorious sunny day. I had packed up everything and had eaten my pre-race breakfast of squashed hot cross buns and bowl of strawberry crunch cereal by 9.30. Peter, Melkorka and Ivar pulled over to my tent just after 9.30 in their Volkswagen Sharan (the support vehicle) and loaded up my stuff. I needn't have bothered taking the tent down as I would be coming back to the campsite again later. I quickly put the tent up again (knowing I wouldn't want to be doing it after the mammoth triathlon) and threw everything inside before jumping in the car and making our way to the lagoon for the start, with the Italians following in their motor home. It was probably about a 30 minute drive, and gave me a chance to have a good chat with the others. We pulled up by the side of the road opposite the lake (technically a 'lagoon' right by the sea that had a very small opening to the Atlantic, but was 90% fresh water). It was a very relaxed feeling amongst us as we slipped on the wetsuits. We stepped over a low fence into a field that bordered the lake, and made our way to the waters' edge. The sun was still shining and the water was unusually warm (17 degrees). It was a waste of time bringing the thermal swim cap and gloves as they weren't needed. Peter said how the weather was normally never this good and how lucky we were - this reminded me of the first few days in Nordkapp of the Arctic to Africa cycle a couple of years ago when me and the group were extremely lucky with the weather in a normally hostile environment. The swim consisted of crossing the width of the lake six times, and Melkorka would drive around to the other side each time for support. I'm not the best at sighting where to go/swimming in a straight line in open water at the best of times and the first couple of widths were a good example of this. The water was crystal clear, flat as a pancake and not very deep - the water was good enough to drink, and I even saw a flatfish at one point. This was nicest lake swim I had ever done. Mauro and Marco were miles ahead and had finished their six widths before I had finished my fourth. Luisa was tired after four widths so stopped, which left me and Peter still to finish. Probably about 30 minutes after Mauro and Marco had finished we were all done and made our way back to the cars to change into our bike gear. It was still very relaxed - nothing like a normal triathlon and it was a good 10 minutes of drying, changing, eating and taking photos before we started pedalling. The initial pace seemed pretty quick (maybe this was due to my lack of recent riding on the Canondale/fatigue from The Pig Duathlon 14 days earlier) and I struggled to keep up. Luisa was a bit slower on the climbs so I was able to catch up here - a theme that continued for the duration of the bike course. It was a truly stunning bike course - a great mix of flat, hills, incredible views, coastal roads, mountain roads in and around Snaefellsness. This led to several photos and videos being captured. Melkorka stopped every now again to take photos and a couple of times so we had the chance to refuel. There was one long flat fast section where I dropped back from the others and was struggling - I put the bike speaker on and got the tunes going. I recall 'Satisfy' by Nero, and 'THIS' by Oliver Heldens helping immensely. Somewhere between 130 and 150km in I was about 30 seconds behind the others filming whilst pedalling and lost my concentration, veered onto the gravel onto the roadside and fell off. I wasn't going fast and thankfully no damage was done to me or the bike. This put me even further behind and it took the last of my Titan bars, a good 15km of hard work and another hill for me to catch up. We had done a big loop and had passed the lake where we had swum earlier - it was now just a short distance to the town of Olafsvik where we would begin the run. We reached the car/motor home in a car park In Olafsvik together and stepped off the bike and started preparing for the run. It was another lengthy transition with more eating and photos. Peter was having problems with his knee so was creaming this up - he said he may not be able to do the whole run if the knee caused too much discomfort. Then again he mentioned his back being pretty bad on the bike but managed to power through this. Luisa was too tired after the bike to do the run so wished us well and went in the motor home for a shower and a lie down. I opted for rolled-up running tights, a long sleeve t-shirt and camelbak for the run. Peter had a similar outfit except shorts and compression socks rather than rolled-up tights. Neither Mauro or Marco had a camelback - instead had 500ml bottles of water tucked inside the back pockets of the cycling jerseys they were wearing. An interesting choice but knowing they both had a lot of experience in long distance triathlons I was confident this would work for them. The run started going along the coastal road out of the town - really nice start and I was feeling strong. We then turned inland and started running up a gravel track. Peter had earlier told me that the run wouldn't be too difficult- definitely not the case. We continued going higher and higher and the gravel roads started turning into snow covered areas, and we could see the infamous glacier ahead in the distance. The snow covered areas increased as we climbed and the going got very tough. I had gone from a decent jog at the bottom to a slow trudge through the snow towards the top, and was now flagging behind. I had some Jelly Babies - these helped for a short period. It became clear that we would be crossing over the glacier. I hadn't bothered to take my iPhone out of my tri belt after T2, and it still had some battery so I got the tunes going. This time 'Red Lights' by Tiesto kept me going through the fatigue and increasing cold wind. We got to the top eventually which was a massive relief and started the descent on the other side at a much quicker rate. Within the space of 15 minutes I had gone from being barely warm enough to hot. Melkorka had gone up as high as she could in the car and it was great to see her again on the other side. We agreed to stop at the summerhouse in Arnarstapi (where they had been staying) to refuel and discuss the route for the remaining 20km of the run. So we got down and stopped to look at the options on the map. None of us were up for going back over the glacier (one of the original ideas) so we opted for running along a path along the coast to the church where Peter and Melkorka had got married a year ago. So we set off along he road towards the coastal path, and were immediately at the mercy of a large number of Arctic Turns who were really kicking off. Loads of them started flying overhead within very close proximity and started shitting. Mauro got hit on his jacket. Thankfully the attack was less than a minute long and we were soon at the end of the road. It wasn't obvious where the path was so Peter asked some locals. They advised against the coastal path and said we should take the road instead. Peter was adamant on the path so they told us where to go. The coastal path started off OK with a clear path to follow and decent enough ground. However this didn't last long as we were faced with trudging through a swamp, having to jump over a stream and carefully cross a log/bridge over a wider stream. It was impossibly hard so we headed up to the road and continued on in the direction of the church. It started off as a very slow jog as trudging through the swampy terrain had sapped virtually all the energy from our legs, and we still had 15km to go!!! I was about 20 metres behind the others as found it easier psychologically to use them to as pacemakers. The music came back on. We managed to maintain a decent jog for about 5km and I remember a bunch of sheep running in the road ahead of us - definitely one of the highlights of the run. We then reached a cattle grid at the bottom of a hill and the momentum was lost. We walked for a kilometre or so before reluctantly starting jogging again. Peter called Melkorka saying we wouldn't be finishing at the church and to meet us once we had covered 42km wherever that may be on the road we were on.. Thankfully there was a downhill and there were awesome views of the mountains with pink clouds above these where the sun was shining on them from the north. I was getting excited for the last few km's to the finish which looked flat. There was however one last cruel twist - Melkorka had stopped in the car at a junction and I could see her pointing Mauro and Marco (who were now 100 metres ahead) up a hill to the left. I got to the bottom of the climb and could only manage a walk and Peter pulled ahead of me. With the car marking the finish about 100 metres ahead and the hill getting slightly less steep I put the music on, took a good few sips from the camelbak and forced myself to run. With the help of 'Turn back Time' by Sub Focus' in my ears and the finish so close I was just able to keep jogging to the end. After over 16 hours it was finally over- the hardest thin I have ever done. I gave everyone a hug and slumped down in the car immediately eating some chocolate Melkorka gave me as was pretty close to passing out. We drove to the motor home in Olafsvik to drop Mauro and Marco off before heading back to Arnarstapi. I hobbled out of the car into the tent, had some leftover rice and bread from last night and finally went to bed at what must have been 4.30am.