#TeamTCUK athlete, Jonathan Chambers, gives his report of a half ironman distance race with a difference. The Midnight Man starts at 6pm so let's hope you're not afraid of the dark!

Pre-race

How were your preparations leading up to the race?

In all honesty preparation for the Midnight Man race was not as good as it should have been. Coming just three weeks after London (Olympic distance) meant I only had one week of solid training beforehand when you take into account the recovery week and the taper week. On top of that I moved house two days prior to the race, and with no delivery company to help spent 14 hours carrying heavy items with a total of around 26,000 steps!

That said, the work that has been put into this season left me feeling confident that I could achieve my minimum aim (5h30m), and I still entered looking forward to it.

Did you feel that your training had prepared you sufficiently?

Absolutely, despite the challenging week beforehand I was confident that the base work would help me to achieve the minimum aim of 5h30m. The brick sessions (which I neglected in my first year racing) have been really useful in helping build my experience at completing this type of work, meaning there have been no nasty surprises in the final legs of races in 2017.

Swim

Time: 41:21

How did it go?

I always thought this would be the most difficult part of the race as my arms and shoulders were still tired from the move. In previous races I have been able to stay in the middle of the pack which has helped to pick my pace up above training levels. However the field for this race was very strong (too many GB age-groupers for my liking), so I was left behind pretty quickly. This not only meant I didn’t benefit from drafting, but I had to heavily rely on my own sighting. This obviously needs some work as I ended up swimming over 2,050m despite the race distance being only 1,900m. Beyond these problems though, I was probably coasting too much.

What were the positives/negatives?

The small field could be construed as a positive or a negative. If you are a strong solo swimmer then it would be great. If, however, you rely on others a bit too much this could be a problem.

Other than the large turn buoys there are no other markers. For a poor sighter like myself this makes things a bit difficult.

T1

Time: 1:35

How did it go?

No problems here, one of the shortest transition areas you are ever likely to see! I have put some effort into improving this area of my race at home and it has really paid off.

What were the positives/negatives?

Really short transition zone makes for really quick times. It is however quite cramped with the lanes only wide enough for 1 person at a time which caused a little bit of chaos.

Bike

Time: 2:58:33

How did it go?

Really interesting. Going into the race I thought this would be a really fast course due to it being incredibly flat (and in all fairness it should have been). What I didn’t factor in however was the fact that with no downhill sections there is no opportunity to cruise, so the constant pedalling did start to take its toll.

The middle section proved to be the toughest, with my pace picking up in the final 25-30km.

What were the positives/negatives?

The multi-lap format means you learn where to make up time pretty quickly, however it did become very repetitive by the end of my stint, so I’m not sure I would recommend the full distance!

As the race started at 6pm it also meant that the ride went into the dark. With no street lights this made reading bike data much harder, so it was quite easy to switch off mentally before coming back round and finding yourself slacking!

T2

Time: 1:22

How did it go?

No problems here. As before a really short transition area so no excuses for not getting out in under 2 minutes (I even managed a very quick toilet stop!)

Run

Time: 1:41:04

How did it go?

The run started incredibly well. My cadence was high and I felt really strong. Within 3km I was running alongside another athlete (who turned out to be the previous year’s female winner). As we were running the same pace we decided to team up and push each other along which worked really well. This is relatively new to me as I always train solo, but it definitely helped. When my new partner finished one lap ahead of me my times immediately dropped by up to 1 minute per km. This was both mental, but also physical as the number of gels I had taken started to catch up with me. Stomach cramps were not fun, so I really need to take more care of this moving forward (although it should be noted that being a 6pm start nutrition was always going to be a problem).

What were the positives/negatives?

If you are not running alongside someone, given that it is dark and there is little support, it can be a very lonely race. It does however mean it is cool so little chance of overheating – you just need to make sure you stay warm enough (this started to creep in for me but only in the final 2km).

Race review

Ultimately I would compete in this race again – it is organised by a dedicated team and attended by serious athletes. All this for one of the lowest cost races in the UK.

However half-Ironman distance would probably be the limit. The location and multi-lap format would make for an incredibly difficult full distance race mentally.