2020 Race Plans:
My main race this year is Celtman Xtri (www.cxtri.com) in the north west of Scotland in June. It’s a 3.4km swim in cold (12c) and jelly fish infested loch, followed by a 202km bike route with 2000m of climbing, incredible scenery and strong winds and then a 42km run over two munros. I’m a little scared, and excited!, at the thought of this race having watched previous years races on YouTube. The shorter swim and longer bike will suit me, and the run will be just see what’s left!
Over the next 4 months I will be building up to Celtman. With 7 years of Ironman training in my legs it shouldn’t be too much of a shock to my system. I’m trying to do a lot more strength training these days which is definitely making me stronger all over, is teaching me to activate muscles and helps me keep injuries to a minimum.
I’m doing Two Oceans Ultra (my first Ultra) in April as part of my Celtman race prep. My marathon time (3hrs36) at Ironman World Champs in October counts as my qualifier which is great. I’ve always wanted to run Two Oceans but is too close to Ironman SA for me to race them both competitively. I have decided to give IMSA a miss this year but will no doubt be back there again in 2021.
I will then be tackling The 36ONE mtb race two weeks later, which I did a few years ago so know what a tough race that will be. I’m slightly crazy to want to do it again! It’s not technical, just faaaaar with lots of climbing. And it can get super hot and extremely cold.
I might do a few local road running races between now and June, depending what fits into my training program. (Dave Sullivan from Wingman is my coach.)
I haven’t decided my race plans for the rest of the year but it will include Coronation Double Century (Pure Savage team) and perhaps a couple of half Ironman distance races such as Cape Ultra and Race2Stanford, and maybe some mountain biking such as Transbaviaans and/or Wines2Whales. Or if anyone has any race suggestions please let me know 🙂