The village of Calella of the Barcelona-Maresme region, on Spain’s eastern coastline on the Mediterranean Sea, hosts the most popular end of season race in Europe. A sea swim in the bay, a fast bike course and a flat run, this race has clocked sub-8 hour times making it a sure-fire personal best course. Wrapped up in Spanish sunshine with a finish line on the beach and a spirited after party, IRONMAN Barcelona is a European series winner.

Outlaw has been a club favourite since 2012. This year [2021] 9 club members competed, all neatly spread across most of the age groups; 25-29 Ben Stones, 30-34 Lee Steadman, Jake Turner, Tom Kennedy, 35-39 Phil Johnson, 40-44 Timo Giesbrecht, 50-54 Chris Ball, Jason Ennis, 60-64 Peter Heron.

An end to end report is offered that covers registration day through to race day to provide an holistic account. There were issues on registration day; no car parking resulting in long walks to the split transition bike and kit bag drop-offs which added time; far from ideal. 

Long Distance Duathlon World Championships, Zofingen, Switzerland. At least this time there is no swimming to worry about! Instead I am anxious about travelling with my bike. I have never raced abroad before and I am a hopeless mechanic. Nor do I particularly trust EasyJet with my bike.

When I arrive at Holme Pierrepont at 4:50am, the sunrise is reflecting off the mirror-calm lake. It looks beautiful (and also like Outlaw have managed to get their orange branding onto the water, a very neat trick). This is my second long distance triathlon and I am thankful that the weather is warm and still - I am apprehensive about the swim for a few reasons.

Saturday's Junior Aquathlon attracted some of the North West's best young multisport athletes to Crosby Lakeside. The course of varying distances, consisted of a lake swim followed by a run up to the promenade overlooking the famous ironmen statues.

Well if you didn’t know by now it’s official “Peter Cowan YOU ARE AN IRONMAN” - When starting this madness nearly 4 years ago I wouldn’t have even imagined that was possible, it wasn’t even in my thoughts. Back then I was well over weight, drinking to much booze and completely unfit...

20 years on from my first race in a GB kit [Stockholm 1995] I achieved my twin aims for 2015 by qualifying for the GB age-group team for both the European and World Championships. The Euros were held in Geneva during a heatwave in July.

So all the months and hard work and sacrifices have come to an end. I set my alarm for 3am so I could be up nice and early to have some solid food as I knew I wasn’t going to get much through the day. I woke at 2:59, a minute before my alarm. Wow, so that was a good start and I switched off my alarm before it went off. Good old body clock!

Outlaw 2015 was my return to Ironman distance racing after quite a few years off long distance racing. My training had gone to plan I’d knuckled down for 6 months, I’d opted for the Outlaw as a number of friends had raced it and the reviews rated it highly and it was not too far for friends and family.

When I stop my alarm at 3:15am I can hear rain outside the window. Over nine months  - in which I could almost count missed sessions on one hand - I have trained through all kinds of weather and the one thing I was hoping for, which I felt I deserved by now, was a nice sunny day. But British weather doesn't work like that, does it?

While weather conditions appeared fairly calm and cool, the incoming tide hitting the sandbanks created a real challenge as the crashing waves met the swimmers charging into the sea. The 750 metres swim proved to be a mixture of swimming, walking and diving as the swimmers struggled around the first buoy and made their way through the surf.

Looking for somewhere to celebrate my 60th birthday, I headed for Miami and the South Beach Triathlon. The ocean swim with flat bike and run would hopefully suit my chances of a good performance in my new age group. The transition was a spectacular sight at 6a.m. with the sun yet to break through the palm trees.

I first decided to have a crack at Lanza on the back of my best race I’ve ever competed in Challenge Roth 2012. I was looking for another challenge and I knew Lanza was a tough nut to crack and Club mate Andrew Thomas had done it and told of how hard the race was.

This event involves travelling 105 miles from Nairn, near Inverness on Scotland’s north-east coast, to the Isles of Glencoe on the west coast by running, cycling and kayaking. So a good event if, like me, you are not the best swimmer or easily get bored doing endless laps of a circuit.

I did the Outlaw last year, it was my first, and to be my only, Iron Distance Triathlon.  With lots of good training advice from Alvin, Bryan, Daniel and Dani (Merseytri), it was the end of 18 Months of preparation.