{"id":8205,"date":"2021-05-07T16:05:54","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T16:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=8205"},"modified":"2021-05-07T16:05:54","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T16:05:54","slug":"martyn-brunt-takes-on-the-isoman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=8205","title":{"rendered":"Martyn Brunt takes on the Isoman"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to my Collins Little Gem dictionary, the word \u2018Iso\u2019 means \u2018equal\u2019, and is typically used as a prefix to words like \u2018Isochron\u2019 and \u2018Isotope\u2019, which sound faintly sinister and suggest people in laboratories meddling with atoms. <\/strong><\/p>\n

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This definition was news to me because the only time I\u2019d ever heard the word before was when England footballer John Barnes used to drone on about Isotonic drinks in Lucozade Sport adverts in the 1990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That was until I heard about a new and exciting triathlon event, the Isoman \u2013 exciting because some race organisers had been in a lab of their own, meddling with the format of Ironmans to come up with the concept of \u2018triathlon equalised\u2019. Chief lab-based race directors, Gary Jarvis and Phil Walker, worked out that most triathlon distances seem somewhat biased towards cycling and running, with only 10% of the total race time spent swimming, 50% cycling and 40% running.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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As a swimmer(ish) I\u2019ve long had a chip on my shoulder that you don\u2019t get equally rewarded for being good at swimming as you do for being good at cycling and running. For starters, you don\u2019t get much of a lead for being a faster swimmer, people who don\u2019t swim so well aren\u2019t nearly as knackered as they should be when they get out, and bike legs become a depressing procession of the thwack-thwack-thwack sound of carbon wheels passing you. The aim of Isoman was to address this cruel treatment of poor swimmers and create a tri for which all disciplines demand an equal level of excellence\/incompetence (delete as applicable).<\/p>\n

The Isoman distances were set based on an equal third of total race time, which equated to a mere 61 miles on the bike but a whopping seven-mile swim. Oh, and still a bloody marathon. The venue for this jaunt was Arrow Valley Country Park in the heart of Worcestershire\u2019s rolling hills, a mere hour from my house but a world away from the dull Midlands flatlands I inhabit, where the only way to inject some excitement into your cycling is to take unnecessary risks at level crossings.<\/p>\n

With 12 Iromans under my belt I\u2019m more than familiar with the usual format of race briefings which are carried out with the grim ceremony of a prison hanging, and transition areas which may as well be patrolled by an armed lion. I
was therefore pleasantly surprised by the informal, laid-back atmosphere of the Iso briefing, and even happier when I found out there were just 49 hardy souls taking on the full Isoman \u2013 there\u2019s nothing like a guaranteed top-50 finish to put some steam in your stride.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the additional quirks of Isoman was equalised transitions \u2013 a minimum transition time of seven minutes for T1 and five mins for T2, which happily took out the daddy-long-legs post-swim run and flinging
on of kit, which I\u2019m crap at.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


<\/strong>The seven mile swim\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The factors that usually enter my mind at the start of a race are whether the lake is the temperature of glacial meltwater and will I thus exit the water looking like a day-old corpse. This time though, the words SEVEN MILES are all I could think about, not just because the course is SEVEN MILES but because I know from a 10k training swim that my biggest enemies in a three-hour swim are dehydration and earworms \u2013 those unbidden tunes you get stuck in your head while you\u2019re out on long training sessions. I prepare to combat the prospect of getting Gangnam Style or Tubthumping echoing round my brain by listening to my favourite iPod tunes right up to the start, but am distracted when I bump into my friends Kate Hutchings and Andy Waters-Peach (Peachy), who are both remarkably chipper for people about to meet their watery doom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, the assembled crowd of swimmers are all very cheery considering what\u2019s coming and when the race gets underway it\u2019s far more polite than any open-water race I\u2019ve ever done. The course is T-shaped, with plenty of turn buoys to break up the monotony and which are all negotiated with impeccable manners, probably because everyone knows that a bit of jostling is a fruitless waste of energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Things turn livelier when the half-Iso-Manners get in, but overall I progress at the ponderous pace of a dreadnought, stopping every two laps for a drink of something that tastes suspiciously like Benylin. Apart from a slight tightness across the shoulders and a creeping concern about faecal coliform the swim passes without incident, and I\u2019m enormously surprised to emerge from the depths in a time of 3:04:07 and fourth place.<\/p>\n

The 61-mile bike<\/strong><\/p>\n

After dossing about in transition for my allotted seven minutes, and eating an energy bar which looks like a forearm boiled in yoghurt, I speed away on my trusty old road bike with tyres so inflated that potholes aren\u2019t so much absorbed as battered into submission. After an initial short section on a dual carriageway, we\u2019re off in to the leafy lanes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mind admitting I\u2019m absolutely flying! I breeze the first 35 miles to the amusingly-named Upton Snodsbury before flying down to Throckmorton. Then a quick right hand turn towards Fladbury, another at Charlton, then another onto the extremely busy B4084 and\u2026. hang on this doesn\u2019t feel right. I\u2019ve been dutifully following yellow arrow signs\u2026 right into the middle of Pershore High Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no experience more soul-stabbing than going the wrong way in a race. After a mighty swear, I ask Pershore\u2019s shoppers to point me in the vague direction of Redditch and set off like Chris Froome if he really had an electric bike. I\u2019m furious at having made a 10-tonne tit of myself but baffled at how I\u2019ve gone wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a satnav on my bike \u2013 as a middle-aged man I consider it my duty to regard technical developments with alarm and bewilderment \u2013 so after a couple of wrong turns around Pinvin I\u2019m extremely lucky to stumble back on to the course courtesy of Andr\u00e9 Blincowe from Oxford Tri, who\u2019s also lost having missed the turn for the Iso Quarter and ended up on the long course. Exchanging horror stories, Andr\u00e9 and I arrive back in bloody Throckmorton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This time I notice there\u2019s no right hand turn to Fladbury \u2013 ah ha! It transpires that some stupid bum-funnel has put almost identical yellow signs for an entirely unrelated sportive out on the course, which sadly results in several Iso riders going wrong, many of whom decide not to continue with the race. In my case I\u2019m too peeved to stop, and stamp furiously on despite running out of drink and ending up with a mouth that tastes like I\u2019ve been chewing depleted uranium. When I finally roll into T2 the crows overhead start flying upside down because I\u2019m not worth crapping on, and I\u00a0manage a grand total of 79.4 miles instead of 61.3. I later find out that my time of 4:35:39 is the slowest bike split of anyone in the whole race. (But let me state for the record that I don\u2019t hold the Iso organisers remotely responsible for this, the fault was entirely mine because it\u2019s my responsibility to know the course.)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brunty on the marathon, complete with cap to hide his \u2018helmet hair\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n


The 26.2-mile run<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite having five minutes to play with I take my helmet off and don my cap because after cycling my hair invariably looks like I\u2019ve brushed it with a balloon, and even with my 18-mile detour I\u2019m feeling sprightly when I heave off onto the run course. Once upon a time I had powers in triathlon running, but they\u2019ve waned in recent years to the extent that I have to operate a reward system to keep myself going \u2013 for every mile run I give myself a Jelly Baby. (Note of caution \u2013 Bertie Bassett isn\u2019t as generous as he used to be because there used to be enough in a bag to get you round a marathon, but here I ran out with three miles to go.)<\/p>\n

A few miles in I fall into step with Sam Walsh, a young triathlete from Bolton who\u2019s a lap ahead of me. We end up running together for nine miles despite me harping endlessly on about doing an extra 18 miles and coming out with quips that suggest I have the wit of a cardboard dog. Sam does a great job suppressing his smugness that he didn\u2019t go wrong because he\u2019d recce\u2019d the bike course, and I miss his cheeriness when we part. It\u2019s now a long, lonely run through Redditch\u2019s grassy outskirts. But despite my steadily slowing pace and the solitude, I manage to keep running and chatting to any other competitors I see, such as Oxford Tri\u2019s Nic Defillion who\u2019s battling with blisters the size of my head.<\/p>\n

My fourth and final lap is my slowest but when the finish line finally hoves into view I summon enough reserves not to look too decrepit for the photos and cross the line in 4:25:51 for a grand total of 12:07:51.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So there I am, an Isoman, albeit a not especially equal one. Having the fourth fastest swim and marathon leads me to conclude I may have sneaked fourth spot, but that would do a disservice to my fellow unfortunates who came a cropper at the road sign of doom and who may well have caned me further up the road. As it was, 10th place overall isn\u2019t too bad after my wanderings and being one of only 30 finishers has given me a sense that I belong to a very exclusive club which, after pondering the number of bike miles I added on and the number of finishers, I shall call Club 18-30.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So a massive well done to all 30 finishers of the first-ever Isoman. It was tough, but a brilliant concept and I really hope it catches on. I\u2019ll definitely be back next year \u2013 for one thing, I\u2019m guaranteed a massive PB.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re brave enough to take on the Isoman yourself, you can enter the 2016 edition here<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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What do you think of the Isoman concept? Let us know in the comments!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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According to my Collins Little Gem dictionary, the word \u2018Iso\u2019 means \u2018equal\u2019, and is typically used as a prefix to words like \u2018Isochron\u2019 and \u2018Isotope\u2019, which sound faintly sinister and suggest people in laboratories meddling with atoms. Advertisement This definition was news to me because the only time I\u2019d ever heard the word before was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}