The alarm went off at 3.58am. After running through the list of reasons why past me might have set such an unreasonably early wake up call, it dawned on me: “Oh sh*t. I’m racing an Ironman today.” After over a year of setbacks and curveballs, the start line that I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to drag myself to, was now only a few hours away. 

Would all the built up fear and panic about the swim rear its ugly head? Would the stress fracture I’d spent all summer rehabbing make the marathon impossible? There was only one way to find out… 

I guess I’d better back track a bit, since I haven’t posted on my little corner of the internet for well over 2 years… buckle up my friends, this might be a long one. I’ll pop some headings in, so if you’re just here to find out what Challenge Almere is like – do feel free to skip ahead. If not, time to grab a coffee and settle in…

What happened at Outlaw 2021?

So the last time I wrote anything here I was preparing for my third Ironman distance race: Outlaw Nottingham. I hit race day in July 2021 feeling like I was in the shape of my life, and like I might be able to pull off a pretty huge personal best. But I also felt strangled with pressure. The usual cocktail of nerves and excitement had very much been overpowered by pure fear, and a sense that I had something to prove. 

And perhaps that’s why my race went disastrously wrong. The ‘perfect’ build up filled with sacrifice and discipline was actually very much a sign of me losing my perspective and my balance. It’s not something I’m necessarily ready to talk about properly on the internet right now (maybe someday) but the mistakes I made that year have had consequences I’m still dealing with even now. Anyway, back to July 2021. I was about 3km into the swim, feeling pretty good and actually on for my best Iron distance swim time yet. Then my entire left leg snapped into excruciating cramp. Screaming and panicking, a man (who I would later learn is called Richard thanks to the power of social media) swam by me and saw me looking wildly around. “Carry on”, he shouted – in a way that somehow through just those two words made me believe that I could keep moving. I flipped back onto my front and managed to kick enough that the cramp subsided. I started swimming again. I remember pleading with my body: “just 800m to go, please, please just stick with me and let’s finish this.” My body, perhaps finally protesting against the rabbit hole I’d dug it way down into for the year prior, said no. Now it was time for my entire right leg to cramp. My hip flexor, quad, hamstring, tib anterior and the calf all seizing up into the most painful spasms I’ve ever experienced. I could barely keep my head above the water. Even now as I type I can still picture the water coming up over my goggles as I fought against my own body and the lake which would have been more than happy to swallow me up. Eventually the canoe came over and tried to flag down the safety boat as I clung to the side, yelling in pain and sobbing all at once because I knew my race was done. 45 minutes in the medical tent later, with the medic trying to stretch my leg to get rid of the cramp that still lingered in my calf even once back on dry land, I trudged my way through the long transition to retrieve my bike. Game over. I’ve beaten myself up a lot over whether I should have just somehow found a way to keep swimming that day. But given that the next day my entire calf was bruised from the ferocity of the cramp, and having since seen even Kristian Blummenfelt stopped in his tracks by cramp… I’ve had to accept that it just wasn’t meant to be that day.

I was determined to get right back on the horse and forced myself to face the vast amount of fear I now had built up in my mind, taking on the Cowman 70.3 distance race in Buckinghamshire the next weekend to prove to myself that I could. I also took a no stone unturned approach to figuring out why the cramp had happened, and booked in at the Edge Human Performance Lab for some blood tests and Precision Hydration sweat testing. 

Fear faced, anti-cramp protocol in place. Surely that would be the end of that chapter and I could move forward? No such luck. That Iron distance swim has become a huge mental barrier for me, and pretty much every open water swim since has been spent trying to keep the panic gremlins at bay. 

2022: The year of the 70.3… or should that be 68.4?

After ticking off Cowman in August 2021, the last few months of the season were spent doing things just for fun. My running in particular had really stepped up a notch that year and after entering a duathlon on a whim I finally achieved that elusive 20-something minute 5km during the race. A few weeks later I set a huge PB for 10km at Silverstone, and even ran my way onto the podium at a local trail race. 

Things were going well, and a training camp in Cyprus in early November (postponed multiple times during Covid lockdowns) was the perfect end to the season. I returned home feeling excited for 2022. I had Mallorca 70.3 and Vichy 70.3 in the calendar, and I was chomping at the bit to spend 2022 racing these shorter distances to inject a bit of speed into my body before returning to the full distance in 2023. Life though, had other plans. The end of 2021 and the first few months of 2022 were spent dealing with a not-so-fun mix of Covid and a jaw infection which ultimately led to months of antibiotics and multiple root canal procedures. I’m not sure what hurt more – my face, or my bank account. That meant Mallorca 70.3 in May was firmly off the cards after a whole load of disruption to training and a four figure dental bill.  

My attention turned to Vichy 70.3 in August. Training was solid, if a little frustrating thanks to how much I’d been setback by all the illnesses. Then injury struck. In a week which had some pretty stressful and unforeseen events going on behind the scenes, I was determined to stick to my training plan and raced a 10km on a Tuesday evening and a half marathon five days later. Facing life stress and training stress all at once, my famously creaky hips had decided they’d had enough and treated me to a bout of ITB syndrome which meant running became extremely painful, and the days after a run were spent not being able to bend my knee or put any weight through it. Not ideal. This was mid-July, so I spent 5 weeks or so trying to manage it, keeping run training to a minimum and hoping that by the time Vichy rolled around in August I’d be able to make it through. 

Vichy is a famously hot race – a race I’d deliberately chosen for it’s scorching reputation after getting truly fed up with cold, wet races in the UK the year before. Naturally then, we were greeted with torrential rain and thunderstorms upon arriving in the town. Race day rolled around and the swim was cancelled due to well… a lot of poop in the water – there’s no delicate way to put it! A time trial start to the bike was implemented. I absolutely loved that bike course. Working your way up the climb and being treated with the fast, sweeping descent was just so much fun. It’s definitely on the list of races I’d like to return to (though I reckon it’ll be the full 140.6 version next time). I set off on the half marathon, cautiously optimistic that the injury might have healed enough to let me run the whole thing. I felt great for the first 5km… and then it all unravelled. By 10km I couldn’t really bend my right leg or put my full weight through it. Stubborn as a mule, I pressed on using a (probably quite comedic) combination of walk-hop-jogging, studiously trying to ignore the cries of “Allez Jennifer!” from the crowds. If I could allez, I would allez, alright!? Needless to say it was a pretty terrible half marathon time, and I returned home to the UK determined that 2023 wasn’t going to be spent on the injury bench… 

2023: The road to Roth 

The new year was rung in, as has become customary in our household, with being awoken from whatever film we’d fallen asleep in front of by our sausage dogs barking at the midnight fireworks. Graham and I both had Challenge Roth booked for 2023 and we were incredibly excited to go and experience the biggest triathlon party on the circuit. This year was going to be epic. 

Turns out I needed to replace the word ‘epic’ with ‘stressful’. I won’t go into it too much but there’s been stuff behind the scenes that have meant I’ve found myself close to the edge of burn out way more than is ever healthy. Exercise is definitely an escape for me and I use it as a way to deal with any stress or anxiety I’m going through. But it turns out when you’re constantly in a state of fight or flight, barely sleeping because you’re grinding your teeth into oblivion and being physically ill with stress on the reg… training harder to deal with it all is a sure fire way to get Very Injured. 

And that’s exactly what happened. By April this year, I found myself hobbling about with my right foot in a boot and knocking everything over with the crutches I was now reliant on thanks to a stress fracture in my distal tibia (where the shin bone meets the ankle), along with a stress reaction in another part of the ankle joint. My whole ‘don’t get injured this year’ plan had clearly gone spectacularly well. I have to give credit to Graham here, who managed to do a pretty good job of not saying “I told you so.” Sorry G, I’ll try and listen to your warnings next time… 

Initially, I was still carrying a bit of hope that making it to Roth would be possible. We got a Lever Movement bodyweight support system for the treadmill so that, when I was off the crutches and cleared to run, I could get the volume in with reduced impact. I became a star pupil with the physio and did everything she told me. Going all in on recovery with aquajogging, faffing around in the shallow end of the swimming pool to rehab the injury and doing as much cycling and swimming as possible to keep my fitness moving in the right direction. I always try to find a silver lining and if there’s one good thing about my run injury it’s that I’ve fallen in love with cycling more than ever. I even set off on a 200km adventure one day, just because I could. 

Despite my studious approach to recovery, it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to heal in time to race Roth. Trying to force my body through that Ironman marathon was a huge risk, and when the physio says ‘if you want to be able to keep doing this sport, you need to sit this one out or you risk a huge long-term consequence’ you know it’s time to stick your listening ears on and make the tough but sensible choice. We decided that we’d still head out to Roth anyway to support our friends from Beccles Tri Club, Nick and Suzy, who were racing as a relay team. (Plot twist: amid all the other chaos, we also upped sticks and moved to Suffolk last September!) Abi and Ben from the club were also heading out on support crew duties, and it was an epic weekend of beers, accidental-currywurst and laughs. We got the chance to ride a loop of the bike course too, and I cannot wait to get out there next year and race it for real. It’s a truly special race. 

So Roth was off. Now what? Well, you can probably guess from the title of this blog. I needed something to work towards, to keep me motivated and to keep me putting one foot in front of the other. Ben had entered Challenge Almere as his first full distance triathlon, Nick was due to do the long distance aquabike and Abi was doing the middle distance aquabike, along with Alex from the club. With the race being in September, I had time to heal and get ready – and it meant I’d still get the fun experience of racing with our club mates, something I was so disappointed to miss out on in Roth. I quickly talked Graham into entering (he’d also deferred Roth so we could both race in 2024) and our Plan B was firmly in place. 

The journey to the start line of Challenge Almere felt like a huge battle. Fighting against all the fear and anxiety I’ve developed about the swim. Being patient while I waited for my stress fracture to heal, and then learning to leave my ego at home when it came to the return to running. There were so many unknowns and getting on the ferry to the Netherlands a few days before race day I knew one thing for sure: with an enforced, minimalist approach to run training – that marathon off the bike was really going to hurt. 

Challenge Almere Race Report 

And so, finally (sorry for the long read), we return to Challenge Almere race morning. The 4am breakfast was forced down, race number temporary tattoos were applied and it was time to jump in the car and make our way to T-1, my eclectic pre-race playlist blasting us with everything from Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name to Britney Spears’ Work Bitch. 

Final bike checks were completed. Hydration and nutrition were locked and loaded. With the sun just starting to make an appearance through the thick mist and fog as the race announcer predicted record high temperatures for the race over the tannoy, there was nothing left to do but make the 700m or so walk to the swim start. With the fear of what happened at Outlaw rushing through my veins, and the huge unknown of whether my body would be able to tolerate the marathon off the bike later in the day after a summer of injury and diminished run training… it’s safe to say this is the most nervous I’ve ever felt before a race. It took every bit of resilience I had to just keep my head together. But with ‘strength’ and ‘courage’ written on the back of my hands (a reminder from me to me that I had what it takes) and my favourite quote from Alexi Pappas front of mind: “Many things behind, many things ahead. Why choose to be afraid, when you can be brave instead?” I knew it was time to choose brave. To let all of the let downs, the knock downs, the frustration and if I’m honest, the anger, that had built up over the past year fuel me. To leave my fear right where I was standing on the beach and give myself a chance to prove my doubts wrong. 

The sun rising higher in the sky. The mist burning away. It was time. 

Swim

To add to all my fears over whether I would make it through the swim, Challenge Almere also featured a mass start. 700+ athletes, amped up and wetsuit clad all getting into the same bit of water and aiming for the same buoy, all at once. Pretty much every race I’ve ever done has been a rolling or wave start, and even then I’d still managed to get the crap kicked out of me, so the thought of being in “the washing machine” certainly freaked me out. I’d made a decision that I was going to let go of any pressure around the swim – I didn’t care if it took me the full 2 and a bit hours allowed in the cut off times. All I wanted was to finish the damn thing, without getting cramp or having a panic attack. 

I have to say, the Almere organisers managed the mass start far more safely than I’d anticipated, giving everyone time to actually get into the water off the pontoon and find their space before the gun went. I positioned myself towards the back and off to the side. Deep breaths Jenny, you can do this. The gun went. Limbs started flailing. Suck it up princess, this is it. You’ve just got to get on with it. 

The first few hundred metres were as chaotic and congested as you’d expect, but by positioning myself further back it wasn’t too long before I was able to find some space. In the future, I’d like to be in a better headspace so I can actually start ‘competing’ during the swim, but for now complete was the aim. The water was a delightful 23 degrees – my kind of temperature! And this meant I could keep my swim relaxed, my heart rate nice and low, without getting cold. 

The course is a fairly straight forward two lap triangle shape (or ‘dorito shape’ as our friend Ben described it) which meant sighting was really easy. The first loop was over before I knew it and as I headed out for lap 2 I had a moment of realisation: I was actually quite enjoying myself! Every Ironman swim I’ve done so far has felt like an absolute ordeal so it was nice not to feel like I was about to drown every 2 seconds. 

Still, there was another 1900m to go and my cramp incident at Outlaw had happened around the 3km mark, so I wasn’t quite ready to let myself trust that everything was going to be okay. Stay focused, stay calm, keep moving. Finally, I found myself turning off the course via ‘the green sausages’ towards the swim exit. It was actually quite an emotional moment. 2 years of fear and doubt: defeated. It was my slowest ever Ironman swim time. And, especially after I’d made some pretty huge gains in the pool thanks to a 13 week intensive programme with Front Pack Swim, you’d think I’d be disappointed with such a slow time. But facing my fears, proving my brain gremlins wrong and actually quite enjoying the swim that had literally haunted me for 2 years (I’ve been having nightmares about drowning fairly regularly ever since Outlaw) felt like the biggest of big wins. 

But the swim is the smallest portion of what often shapes up to be a very long day. There was no time for reflection or celebration: I had a 180km ride to crack on with! A quick wave to Suzy and Cheryl, part of our Beccles Tri Club number one support crew, as I made my way out of the water and it was time to hit the saddle. 

Bike

 

 

 

The bike course at Challenge Almere is incredibly flat. But it shouldn’t be underestimated. Because ‘flat’ means no let up from the TT position and no climbs or little rollers to break up the monotony. My last Ironman race (Ironman Zurich 2019) had featured way more elevation, with climbs such as ‘heartbreak hill’ and ‘the beast’ to tackle – twice. I thought in comparison Almere would fly by, easily. But this was a different kind of ‘hard’. 

The course starts with a wiggly, winding traversing of small cycle paths. Plenty of tight corners, often with sand and gravel at the sides, mean it would be easy to become a cropper here before your day has even started. I guess one good thing about having an – objectively – crap swim is that the course wasn’t massively congested by the time I was on my merry way. An extremely bumpy bridge, complete with cobbles deliberately designed to deter cyclists under normal circumstances, had clearly claimed plenty of water bottles as victims. With my bones well and truly shaken (that was going to be “fun” on lap 2) the course finally started to open up onto the wider, faster roads. 

Nick and Suzy from the tri club, who have raced at Almere in previous years as part of the European championships, had warned us about the long stretch along the dike. It’s around 22km of a more or less straight road, and you can see for miles. It’s just a long line of triathlete-shaped dots stretching out into the distance. We were extremely lucky that the weather was playing ball on race day. Almere is notoriously windy and if it had been a wet and blustery day, I can imagine this part of the course would have been absolutely soul destroying. By some miracle, we actually had a little bit of a tail wind on lap 1 – that never happens! I focused on putting out my power and eating up the miles, my average pace nicely ticking upwards after the wiggly start to the course.

The thing that makes the bike course at Almere ‘hard’ in a different way is the lack of support out there. You don’t really go through any towns or villages. There are no climbs or hot spots for spectators to gather at. It’s pretty much just you, the road and however many energy gels you can force down. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lonely during an Iron-distance bike leg. Usually racing this distance, I’ve hit the final few kilometres and found myself thinking: “wait, the bike is over already!? That’s flown by!” But at Almere, those kilometres dragged. Heading out onto the dike for the second time, I was ready to for this ride to be over and done with. Between the lack of atmosphere on the course, and the fact that I’d been needing a wee since about halfway through the swim (and try as I might I just couldn’t get my body to let me pee while riding – it’s not exactly a skill you can practice in training!) I was pretty happy when it was finally time to turn off towards the bike finish. 

I’d hit a personal best for the iron distance bike leg, taking about half an hour off my times from Copenhagen and Zurich. 5 hours and 50 or so minutes after I’d first set arse on the saddle, I was finally off the bike and headed straight to the porta-potties (an assault on the senses now that they’d been sat festering in 30 degree heat for a few hours) for a well-earned wee. 

Now there was just 42.2km of running between me and the finish line. 

Run

I guess one good thing about the horrendously stinky nature of the loos in a triathlon transition is that there’s no temptation to linger. I can’t say I was particularly excited to go and run a marathon in steamy, humid 30 degree temperatures, with minimal run training and 180kms of riding in my legs. But it was probably going to be better than the horror of the porta-potties. Come on then legs, let’s see what we can manage. 

Run shoes on, salty sweat stinging my eyes, it was time to head out into the unknown and see just how far my body was going to be able to take me before I found myself in the proverbial ‘K-hole’. 

The answer? 17 kilometres of fairly respectable running before things really started to go off the rails. That was about 14 kilometres more than I’d expected. My main concern coming into the race was that my ankle/distal tibia bone injury would let me know it hadn’t actually finished healing and I’d find myself right back on those stupid crutches, regretting my life choices. Thankfully, the bones were fine. It was just the lack of being able to prepare properly that got me in the end. After almost 3 months off any form of proper run training, my build up had involved trying to get some mileage and intensity in using the Lever Movement bodyweight support system on the treadmill, complemented by some outdoor runs completed almost exclusively on the beach or on soft trails to minimise the impact. My longest run was just over 2 hours, and my only proper run off the bike was during a small sprint triathlon a few weeks before Almere. A far cry from my usual Ironman run prep which has typically involved multiple 20 mile runs, a lot of long bike-run sessions and some spicy brick sessions to really get the run legs ready to race. 

By lap 3 of 4, my heart rate was getting a bit silly. It’d been up in the high 170s for the first 17km with no sign of calming down and with it now tipping up into the 180s I knew it was time to drop the pace down lest I blew up spectacularly and ended up in the medical tent. I’d been dealing with a bit of nausea in the final miles of the bike, which meant taking on nutrition during the run was feeling like a bit of struggle. As my watch had ticked over the 15km marker I’d realised I’d only taken one gel, and figured it was probably time to try and force another one down. Almost immediately the horrible sick feeling was back, now accompanied by a stabbing pain in my stomach and ribs. I stuck it out for another 2kms but it was at the 17km mark, with my heart rate out of control and feeling like someone was taking an invisible knife to my right side that I had to switch to a walk-run strategy. 

It would have been easy to quit at this point. I had the perfect, ready-baked, excuse with ye olde stress fracture. The heat was oppressive. People were walking – well shuffling – all around me. But for me, quitting is never an option. If I can physically make it to a finish line, I’m going to find a way. It was this combination of stubborn determination (I reckon I was either a donkey or a dachshund in a past life) and the incredible support of my Beccles Tri team mates, that kept me moving. Due to the unprecedented heat, the race organisers had made the call that – unusually – your spectators could hand you drinks out on the course. This outside support is something you’d usually be disqualified for. Suzy had positioned herself in a spot towards the end of the run lap, where you’d not seen an aid station for what felt like an age. The sight of her holding out a bottle of water for me to chuck over my head was so incredibly welcome. Super-Suzy to the rescue! Further along the course we had Cheryl shouting words of encouragement and Nick and Abi in the coach’s spot, ready and waiting with pre-opened cans of cola and sprite. Unable to bear the thought of forcing down any more gels, taking a few sips of these cans would become my sole source of nutrition for the remaining 25km. 

It was as I came past Nick and Abi on lap 3 that I was well and truly spiralling into that K-hole I mentioned earlier. That space where it feels like the suffering will never end, you regret every decision that led you to this point and you don’t know whether to laugh, cry or have an existential crisis. I can’t remember exactly what Nick and Abi said to me as I half-ran half-shuffled by, clutching my side, but it was enough to help me get my shit together and get moving again. Yes it was going to hurt. No, it wasn’t going to be pretty. But I could do this. And I knew these guys weren’t going to let me fail. 

I’d banked enough time on the swim and the bike that I could have walked the rest of the way without having to worry about missing the cut off times. But I’d made a promise to myself before the race that I was going to go all in. Get the most I could out of myself, whatever it takes. And so I had a new strategy in mind: run as much as I could, walk when it got unbearable and as soon as the sickness/pain had subsided even a little during the walk breaks, get running again. Graham was a lap ahead of me but we ended up spending a bit of time together during my third lap. He’d also switched onto a walk-run strategy, but in ‘classic us’ fashion when he was walking – I was running and vice versa. This meant a lot of cat and mousing and a lot of funny little waves at each other. I have to admit I was quite jealous as we finished the lap and he got to peel off to the finish line. “He better not scoff all the fries at the post-race food buffet” I thought. 

Heading onto the 4th and final lap, the stomach pain was thankfully starting to subside. Probably because I’d now not really taken on any fuel for a solid 1.5hrs. I was running on fumes. But at least I was still, vaguely, running. I decided to try and pick the pace back up a bit on this final lap, doing as best as I could to run 800m of every kilometre. Coming into the race, I’d not been able to picture myself making it this far. Finding myself on the final lap of an Ironman marathon after a year of injury, setbacks and curveballs felt like a huge achievement. I grit my teeth and kept moving. “You’ve fought so hard for this”, I told myself. “You’ve earned this. So go get it.” I could taste the finish line. Just a few kilometres of pain to go. 

Now if there’s one thing we all know, it’s that the final 2 kilometres of an Ironman triathlon marathon are never pretty. My run form is questionable at the best of times. By this stage I was shuffling along like a geriatric T-rex with nappy rash. So of course, it was at this precise moment as I thought to myself “at least there aren’t many people around to witness this” that the media motorbike pulled up alongside me, the camera far too close for comfort and beaming my ungainly run form to god knows where. I decided to just pretend it wasn’t happening. Maybe if I didn’t look directly at them they’d go away. Right before they’d decided to start getting my struggle-fest on film, I’d just promised myself a little walk break before I started the final 1800 metres or so to the finish line. But with a camera in my face, I didn’t want to be caught strolling. So I guess I should thank you, random camera dude, for being the reason I ran those last 2 kilometres non-stop! 

As I got closer to the esplanade I could start to hear the finish line party and I started to finally let myself fully believe that I was going to make it. Those last few minutes of running felt like a lifetime. Had someone moved the finish line, or what!? Finally, I got to take that glorious left turn off the run course and made my way through the finish arch. A few tears in my eyes, my fist raised above my head. So many battles just to get to the start line. So much fear and self-doubt to defeat. And finally, I’d made it. 

In so many ways, it was a performance to be disappointed with. My slowest ever Iron distance swim. A marathon time that was almost an hour slower than what I’d been able to achieve at Ironman Zurich 2019. But after two consecutive years of stress and setbacks, I think I can allow myself to let a little bit of pride in my tenacity and capacity to endure sit alongside the frustration and the disappointment. I know I’m capable of more. I know that my PB performance at Ironman Zurich 2019 was just the start. But I also know that if I want to start scratching the surface of that potential, I’ve got to get better at protecting my energy, setting boundaries and giving myself the chance to see what I’ve got. I’m still working out how I can make that happen. But all I know is: I can’t, and I’m not willing, to spend 2024 locked in another battle against body and mind. Resilience is a finite resource, and there’s no way but down if you let yours get all tapped out. 

Done

So there we had it. My third Iron distance triathlon was done. And, unknowingly, I’d actually managed to come third in my age group! We’d headed down to the awards ceremony to see Abi pick up her 2nd place trophy for the aqua bike. I need to give a special shout out to Abi here because she smashed her own race, spent all afternoon out in the blazing sun supporting us long distance fools and then spent all evening looking after us and making sure we were adequately fed and watered. What a hero!  

So there we are, at the awards ceremony getting ever so slightly baked by the sun when suddenly my name was called. They’d put the European Champs category results and the Open Category results all together online, so I thought I was 6th. Which was cool, and would have meant I’d just about scraped a qualification for The Championship. But it turns out I was actually third, which meant for the first time ever at a big race I got to head up to the podium! A little shocked and bewildered, I was handed a shiny trophy and a coin to say I was off to Challenge The Championship in Slovakia in May 2024. 

Usually after racing this distance, you can at least kid yourself for a day or two that you’re never, ever doing it again. But with Roth in the diary for July next year, I crossed the finish line already thinking about the next one. I’ve got big hopes and ambitions, so it’s time to make it happen. 

But first, a bit of rest. And of course, a huge thank you to all of the Beccles Tri Club crew who’s support really did make a world of difference. I’m not sure what I ached more from when we arrived home from Almere: the race or all the belly laughs you lot instigated! Sporting ambitions aside, triathlon really is all about community and one of the best things that’s come out of this last year or so is joining BTC and finding a bunch of people who are just as mad as we are.