The 2017 Celtman Triathlon took place on Saturday 17th June up in Torridon on Scotland’s magnificent Atlantic Coast. It’s a unique event, oversubscribed several times over each year, attracting triathletes from all over, with quite a strong contingent of racers from Sandinavia (as the race is part of some ‘Extreme’ dude series of three: The Norseman, Swissman and Celtman.
As Mark said in his report (here), it all went well, I came 5th and whilst I would have loved top 3 I do appreciate that if you want top Iron Man distance results then one’s training needs to be focussed on very long steady efforts and working to a low power (sorry but running and biking up and down hill is more fun, isn’t it?). Basically, the swim was rough and cold, and Mark literally did T1 for me. He was so quick in stripping off the 7mm of rubber off my chest that I’d already caught up about 20 lost places before getting on the bike. The bike was fast, cross and tail winds for the first 100 miles, and hence pretty exciting. 21-22mph average, mainly down again to Mark and Jim’s incredible support throwing fuel and encouragement at me from the van and side of the road. The head wind for the last 30 miles stopped everyone, rather frustrating, but T2 again performed by Mark put me straight into about 15th for the run. The big upset was that Torridon mountain rescue didn’t let racers up onto Beinn Eighe for the MTN run which is what it’s all about, so we had to do a lower level but still pretty rocky run. We ran much of this as a three and that was the most enjoyable, although hardest, part of the day, to take us into the finish in 5th overall.
Having two such great pals supporting is what made this a special race. Jim Hardy and Mark Hartree I won’t ever forget the support you gave me that day. Also the race atmosphere is pretty unique. If anyone fancies this event then please get in touch so I can pass on maps, info and my own support!
Nick Williamson