From spectator to finisher: My Ironman 70.3 Valencia journey

With just less than 10km to go, that was it, my body was shutting down, and my mind went blank. This was far beyond pain; this was me against my head. The exact reason why I came here – to see what I was truly capable of – and no hiding from the truth.

Race day for me began in the old town area of Valencia. A cool air filled the tight streets and nothing but a few delivery trucks heading into the central market disturbed the early morning darkness. Walking the cobbled roads all I could feel was my body beneath me, each joint, muscle and tendon spoke to me with every step. It was from there the tone of the day was set. I knew how hard I had trained, and I knew what my body was capable of, but could I stay calm in my first race?

Being in a field of 2,500 participants and most likely one of the youngest men on the start line felt nerve-racking to say the least. Walking through transition was a moment of realisation. With the sun beginning to peek over the horizon I checked my bike, feeling the tyres for what felt like the hundredth time and filling my bike packs with enough nutrition to feed a family for a week. Despite not knowing any other competitors, there was an authentic and friendly atmosphere right the way through transition. Competitors helping each other with bike set-ups and pumping up tyres, it felt like one big community.

My earliest memories of sport have always been through triathlon; whether it be in the pool, out on two wheels, or out on two legs. I started my sporting career in the pool as part of a small swim club just outside of Gatwick, then was whisked into triathlon with my brother to give us more extra-curricular stuff to entertain us!

After a few years working my way up through the age groups, constantly in pursuit of my brother (a slightly older and fitter version of myself), at the age of 12 I gave up. I decided my specialty was in the Arts – from musical theatre to photography, I wanted to do it all. And it was this which initially dragged me to Valencia. I took photos for 220 Triathlon of my mum racing last year, but along the way, I made a promise to myself that I would be back 12 months later to finish it for myself.

Go time

With about 30 minutes to go, I had made my final touches to my bike and was kitted up in my triathlon wetsuit with the cold sand between my toes. Saying goodbye to my team of spectators and entering the 35 minute swim race start pen. As the speakers bellowed out to us all on the beach and the sun began to glow through the race start arch, it was go time.

A drip feed system into the water would set us off five at a time from our filtered channels. A loud tone sounds every 5 seconds, with four quieter tones between each, it felt like my heart was beating through my chest and out my wetsuit. If I’m honest I felt numb, I was expecting to feel as if I needed to adjust everything, but not one bit, it was dwarfed by the realisation that I was 113.1km away from the finish line.

A loud beep and we’re off. I dart down the damp beach, into what is a very calm sea. I stay upright for as long as possible, as my preparation swim the day prior had taught me there was a sandbar just 20 meters out. Once I pass it, we’re out and well on our way with Ironman 70.3 Valencia – It was a surreal feeling.

The swim being my strongest discipline, it’s time for me to relax and conserve energy. Being on the larger side of the field of athletes, both vertically and horizontally, I’m lucky enough to only have one bit of contact at the start of the swim. As I begin to turn at the first buoy, taking a confident close line pass, I swim over some feet – they were not kicking at the time, but my arrival initiates a sudden, firm heel kick to the groin! As you would expect, this causes an expulsion of air from my lungs and a gasp, which prompts some underwater expletives… If I’m not awake yet, I most definitely am now!

The rest of the swim is gratefully uneventful, my race plan of minimising energy usage is successful and I exit the water in what my watch says is 34 minutes. What I’m less pleased with is the run up the beach – 100m of ankle-deep sand, which, being on the faster end of swimmers, is bone dry as not enough water has been dumped out by wetsuits prior to my arrival. This then means that instead of the firm sand I was expecting to run on, it feels like quicksand, which turned out to be, of course, energy-sapping.

As I finally reach transition, I started to contemplate whether the small towel that is in my transition bag could get the barrage of sand off my feet (newsflash: no chance). It’s at this moment that three paddling pools catch my eye, I channel my inner 5-year-old and splash right through them all!

I must give credit to Ironman for their organisation in the transition areas. There are plenty of benches by the transition bags to get changed, which I take full advantage of. Then there’s a swift changeover onto the saddle and out onto the bike course.

Into the mountains

We have a swift exit from Valencia as we’re guided onto the motorway, which could be described as one thing: drafters’ paradise. Drafting, of course, being illegal in these events, it’s still quite the theme for the first 20km. It’s very busy on the course and there are no real moments where you are on your own. It proves fairly difficult to separate from other competitors, which leads to a large group of us essentially riding as a pack. As mopeds with race officials fly past, only one stops to hand out a warning to the general group of competitors I’m in, of which I thought: “Hasn’t he got better things to do than hand out warnings to a fairly mediocre group of age groupers?”, but rules are rules!

As kilometer 20 buzzes my watch, the first aid station comes into sight. It’s been rolling so far, up and down, and I think it’s going to be the theme of the cycling discipline. It’s at this point that it starts to occur to me that this race is actually achievable. Tears of happiness begin to run down my cheeks – I remember waking up every morning and seeing the race ticket stuck to my wall for the last eight months of my life. It starts to dawn on me that this is something special and not everyone is going to get this opportunity.

From this point onward the hill (or better described mountain!) came thick and fast. Starting on small hillside villages with gentle slopes up the high street eventually becoming hairpin roads taking us to the top of the climb. It was at this point, when I reached what I believed to be half way up the climb, where I started to think that maybe attempting to hold 30 kph on this discipline as a 100 kg+ triathlete maybe wasn’t the most sensible of ideas. Despite this, by the time I had reached the top, these mature thoughts of pacing myself had vanished and I was back to being an ignorant teenager for the descent.

A swooping start to the down the mountain, plenty of blind corners and sharp rocks in ditches next to the road made visualizing what would happen in the event of a brake failure or tyre blowout pretty easy. Upon seeing this, I decided not to play it safe and take up as much speed as humanly possible. I’m convinced if my mum saw how quick I took some of the corners, it would be nightmare fuel for another 18 years of her life!

The next 40km rolled on pretty flat, being the backdrop to my highest sustained speed for an hour. Cutting through the pine forest of the Valencia hills it is a fantastic time to lock into that aero position I had been developing on the turbo for the winter! Over the final 2 hours, the time flew by, only slowed by a very mentally challenging out and back segment with a slight positive gradient on the way out. Seeing competitors on the other side of the road fly back past me like fighter jets, I could feel every gram of my Christmas dinner from four months ago slowing me down. It was now where the leg fatigue began to set in, and if it was not for a life-saving sodium tablet, I’m sure I was destined for the side of the road with race ending quad cramps.

Time to run

As the bike came to a close, the entrance back into Valencia from the Spanish countryside felt like a battle. A headwind that had tunneled through the towering buildings made every pedal stroke feel like I was riding through sand. It was these ten minutes which felt like an hour before the staggering arts and sciences centre came into view. Cheers flooded the bridge, it felt like half of Valencia was there, cheers flying left, right and centre. Little did I know this would be the theme for a half marathon to come. Flooded with emotion, I look down at my watch and see a bike split just over three hours. I was a full hour ahead of schedule!

The bliss of a quick bike leg was short lived; this was the moment I was dreading. My weakest discipline is the only thing between me and the finish line. My feet feel like bricks and they were quickly becoming numb. My calves and quads were next up, with every step they felt tighter and tighter until it becomes hard to run.

Just as my morale is falling and I start to question whether this was just one step too far, I hear cheers from the bridge ahead. Cheers that sounded as loud as a stadium. They were screaming my name. “Edward, Edward, Edward,” in every language you could think of, “Come on, it’s go time now”, it truly felt like I had Valencia behind me and another reason to finish what I started.

I would love to tell you about the next two hours of my life, but if I’m honest I remember nothing. My mind and my body were collectively shutting down. Running five minutes at a time, watching my heart rate skyrocket. The 30°C heat was getting to me and I had nothing left to give. With all of this I can see how people wondered how I finished but that is very simple. The support.

Thousands of spectators from hundreds of countries saying “vamos”, “let’s go” and “almost there”, made the difference. Competitors throwing water over you and telling you “you can do this mate!”. It made a sport that is solely reliant on a single athlete feel like a team sport. There was a magical feeling that was in the heartbeat of every athlete that we could all feel. Dragging me out from the depths of pain and finishing what I started.

Just 6 hours and 40 minutes ago I was stood on a cool beach feeling like a lost boy, fearful of what I had signed up for and wondering if I’d gone too far. Now I find myself on the infamous red carpet guiding me to the finish. This was it. 5,161 minutes of training. Eight months of sacrifice. The boy who couldn’t complete a 5km in July had just finished an Ironman 70.3.

An aspirational leap got me over the finish line, only shadowed by the fear of cramping up and collapsing when I finally landed. It felt like slow motion as the tears ran down my face. Before I knew it I was embracing my best friends and my mum in a moment I will truly never forget. Nothing is truly impossible.

Travel tips

Accommodation

Being my second time in the city of Valencia I chose to stay in the old town, around the central market of Valencia. At face value it is a beautiful part of Valencia which you could go to for a holiday on its own, but I chose it because of its homely feel. I find that being so close to the event can feel overwhelming at times, especially if it’s your first event. I think a lot of my success on the day was down to being able to detach from the chaos and nervous energy around the transition areas and start/finish line.

Location

There are lots of fantastic restaurants and bars in the area which made the post triathlon celebrations very easy. If you are planning on staying in the old town for next year’s race I would recommend booking a taxi or uber the night before to give you peace of mind. It’s about a 15 minute drive to the start line so leave plenty of time. The old town also borders the park which hosts the run segment of the race. It is great for a shake-out run in the days prior or even just a walk to shake off the nerves.

Enter the race

The 2027 date is still to be confirmed with more news and entries opening soon at ironman.com/races/im703-valencia.

If you’d like, I can also clean up the formatting further into magazine style (proper paragraphs, subheads, punctuation fixes, and consistent capitalization) while keeping every word intact.