Our very own 'pocket rocket' and resident vet, Jo Sutton, is a huge triathlon talent. Despite a stressful and tiring journey that took two days, Jo raced her heart out at the recent IM 70.3 World Championships in South Africa - Nelson Mandela Bay. Her continued commitment, focus and sheer hard work paid off and she placed a fantastic 22nd in her age group coming in 123rd overall in a field that contained the best of the best. Simply awesome!

After qualifying 12 months ago for this race, battling through winter training and powering through goodness knows how many sessions, it was finally race week for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. I’d never raced a World Championship event before and having read the race briefing I knew it was a BIG event. BIG both in terms of number of athletes and spectators with over 1600 women racing on the Saturday and similar numbers of men on the Sunday. There was also an expected 80,000 spectators to line the streets of Nelson Mandela Bay. The pro-athlete list was stacked with some seriously good competition and it was a fantastic feeling knowing you were going to be racing the same course as all of them.

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Great as that all sounds the journey there was not so glorified. On Wednesday afternoon my parents and I caught a flight to Heathrow to begin our mega journey. A 2 hour delay in Heathrow meant we landed somewhat late in Johannesburg for our connecting flight to Port Elizabeth. Having travelled through the night on an 11 hour flight we were all a bit jaded landing in Joburg. At Manchester, our bags had only been checked through to Joburg with instructions to pick them up there and recheck them in for our final flight to Port Elizabeth. However, on landing we were “fast tracked” through security (which still took a good 40mins) and ushered towards the plane repeatedly being told “you’re going to miss your connecting flight.” Luckily my dad dug his heels in, repeating that we needed to get our bags….I for one wasn’t about to board a plane without my bike!! Good news: we found our bags and the bike…bad news: we missed our flight and the next flight wasn’t for 7 HOURS!!! I missed the race briefing and half a day to register for the race. Not going to lie….I was gutted; it suddenly felt like all the training and effort I had put in was going to waste as I’d be totally knackered before I even made it to the race. Drama story over, we finally made it to Port Elizabeth and praise the lord so did all my kit and bike.

We checked into our B+B for the night (after getting lost!) and finally made it to bed a 10.30pm, 2 days after setting off!

Friday (pre race day) was a busy but fun day. I registered and checked my bike in to transition just marvelling at the number of people, bags and bikes all around. I couldn’t believe I’d made it here. I also realised my bike tyre was torn so I sought about changing that (in the process popping an inner tube – I’m no bike mechanic!). The queue for the bike mechanic shop was ridiculous; out the door and onto the street but thankfully all I needed was the bike pump (oh and now a new inner tube!). I walked transition, looked at the swim course and most importantly took lots of photos and tried to just process the whole thing. Having done nothing for the past 2 days I seriously needed to shake off my jet legs so I took the bike for a spin. Port Elizabeth isn’t called “the windy city” for nothing, it was seriously blowy, I had a few near misses trying and failing to get on the tri bars without getting blown to pieces (I’m a bit of wuss when it comes to breezy weather on the bike – ok ok….I bloomin HATE it). After a little brick run it was finally time to head back to our accommodation for a chilled evening. The Italian restaurant we decided to eat in that night was packed – naturally with triathletes all wanting a carb loading fix. It was the longest wait for pasta I’ve ever had but it did the job and we headed to bed, a tad later than planned.

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We had leisurely start in the morning, with my race not kicking off until 8.42am. I downed my morning breakfast and a cuppa and we headed down to transition. The weather was awesome for the event (can’t say much for the men’s race – sorry lads!) but our day was blue sky and sunshine all day. It was fantastic seeing all the pros head off and come out of the water, with Lucy Charles miles in front out of the swim, there was such a buzz. 177 women raced in my age group and soon we were on the start line – 6 going in at a time every 10 seconds. Those 10 seconds were the longest I’d ever waited but soon I was running down the sand heading straight for the Indian Ocean. I think the first thing that went through my mind was “flip the waves look big” and “this is totally nuts”. I’ve done one sea swim before but it was as flat as a pancake; no choppiness and certainly no waves, this was something else. I hit the water and ducked the first two waves, trying to remember what my friend Kerri, a keen surfer said about diving under the waves. Unfortunately on that note the 3^rdone blasted me right in the face knocking me backwards and almost over. I somehow managed to keep moving forward and swim/flail to the first buoy. Once I was out in the ocean, I found my rhythm and felt surprisingly good. I spotted a rather large jelly fish en route and tried to forget what my coach had said about sharks in the water. The swim was one loop and soon I was heading back to the beach contemplating how soon to stand up out of the water and start running up the beach.

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Transition was fun….the area was lined with marshals to help you get your wetsuit off, they motioned and shouted at you to “no stress, quick sit down” as they pulled the wetsuit off your ankles. I quickly managed to find my bag amongst the hundreds of others, and there was no missing my bike conveniently located right at the front of the row in transition. Out on the bike course, the wind had died down from the day before making the conditions far easier. The first half of the course was pretty hilly, with long uphill sections which seriously tired out my legs. My heart rate monitor had decided not to work and with no power either I just had to go off feel (it felt like jolly hard work). It’s so easy to get so focussed in these races, head down and just slog away, but I also wanted to remember this race, take in the view (good job I’ve no aero helmet) and smile all the way round at the experience. The coastal section of the race was epic, the ocean was turquoise, slamming in off the rocks and the area was so green. The roads were smooth and with few potholes, although chatting to a girl after the race she couldn’t believe how rough they were….I smiled thinking….come to Cheshire love. I looked at my watch about halfway and thought “I’m heading for a slow time here!” thankfully the second half of the course was far quicker and I made up a lot of time coming in pretty much to schedule (I had just sort of made up this schedule on the day but hey it was pretty accurate). Heading in off the bike I spotted my parents and boyfriend cheering for me; I was a close call between emotional wreck and game face….I chose game face.

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I racked my bike, found my trainers and headed off on the run. The run was 2 loops with small (they felt like mountains at the time) hills at about 5k and 10k on each loop. I ran the first few miles a tad too fast. With the hype of the race and all the spectators it’s definitely very easy to just blast the first section of the run when you feel great until you suffer the rest. I just smiled to myself knowing my coach would be watching at home thinking “for god sake Jo! What did I say?” I cooled it off for the next few miles until a searing pain in my foot nearly made me stop completely.

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I had a foot operation while I was at school, and whether it’s inflamed scar tissue or a reoccurring nerve problem I don’t know but it bloomin wrecks when it comes on. It feels like someone is stabbing me in the ball of my foot on each landing. I could have cried, I could have stopped but I wasn’t about to come all that way, spend all that money and let down the people who were supporting me so I just manned up and carried on. Annoyingly it affected a few of my minute miles but not by a huge amount, and just meant I didn’t enjoy the run as much as I could have. Through gritted teeth I somehow made it to the red carpet and down the home straight.

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It was an exhilarating feeling, I almost forgot everyone watching and all the noise and just saw the finish line. I was so absorbed I nearly forgot to raise my arms in celebration. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, all that work and commitment, all those hours spent training, and the reward, a huge medal, free burger and chips and a day to remember forever (violins please) ;) I hugged mum and she just burst into tears, nearly setting me off.

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It’s those moments which I will savour as you realise how much others invest in you and the pride they have. Going into the race I had zero idea where I would place or who my competitors were. Ultimately I knew I had done all the training possible around my job and I was pleased with 22^ndin my age group and 123^rdoverall. More to come.