And so it was that I headed off to Majorca in early May with a few friends from the club not knowing what was in store. My swimming was in good shape and my running much improved by consistency and track sessions but I had been out on the bike on the road only 4 times since last Summer, had recently had a prolonged 'celebration' of my 40th birthday and so I knew it would be tough.
The journey out there was interesting. A heady mix of focused triathletes and stag, hen and cougar tours off for a very different kind of weekend in Magaluf. Alcudia was away from that kind of fray though and a very nice little town that had been turned into 'Ironman Village' for the weekend.
I got there on the Thursday, two days before the race and met up with my club mates to register, test the water and buy ridiculous amounts of 'M-Dot' merchandise. In between worrying about how choppy the water was and the conversations about the hour-long climb on the bike, I managed to relax and race day soon came round.
I managed to sleep the night before and woke up at 5 feeling pretty calm. I put on my Eminem tunes in the hotel room and then made the mistake of going to breakfast! Everyone looked so fit and focused and that's when the doubts started to creep in. I wasn't staying with the rest of the guys so I had to endure these doubts alone and it was made worse by not being able to find my friend, Ali, who was the only one that understood how my new wetsuit worked.
I wandered around the 800m long transition for a while and then the beach and found another friend, James, who did me up. By this time, I just felt totally sick and then all of a sudden it was time to line-up.
It was a stunning morning in Alcudia and as the sun came up, I and the rest of the 600 women entered the water for a beach start. As soon as the klaxon went off, it was about 300m of chaos and waterpolo swimming to find clear water. I kept my arms high to avoid being battered and just tried to find a steady rhythm. By the time I got to the turnaround buoy, it had thinned out a lot and I enjoyed the current taking me in. As I exited the water, my lovely new suit came off like a dream and I heard my friends screaming "great swim time, Soph". I had decided not to wear my Garmin in the swim as I always get it stuck on my wetsuit and it is a distraction checking how I'm doing. As such, I had no idea how good my swim was (turned out to be 31.54 for 1900m which is a massive PB and 19th in my age group). 
Transition was pretty slick and, although 800m long to accommodate the 3500 entrants, I got through it pretty quickly. Then it was out on the bike. It was lovely to get onto closed roads but I was massively apprehensive about this bit of the race. As usual, people came flying past me in droves but they were all friendly and I just decided to focus on my race and not worry about my swim advantage slipping away from me. At 22k, we started to climb and, boy, that's when it became heavy weather. I slowed right down and just ground up in the heat being passed constantly and wishing I could rip my calf guards off. Lots of people were shouting words of encouragement as they flew past and it helped. Finally, after a few false dawns and 8 miles, I got to the top and then decided to go for it on the descents to claw back some time. By now, it seemed like an eternity since the feed station and I was running out of drink. That was my one criticism of the race actually as on a climb like that in that weather, the feed stations were too spread out and my hydration strategy, which I had taken really seriously, was starting to look in trouble. I got there in the end though and managed to restock.
The rest of the ride was relatively fast and flat although it claimed a few casualties as people, presumably pumped from the fast descent, forgot to slow down for bends!
By mile 50 on the bike, I'd pretty much had enough of cycling and just wanted to get back to transition to give my bum and shoulders a break. After a bit of a slog in headwinds, we finally turned into the town and the roar from the supporters was incredible and so nice to see my friends.
Another quick transition and it was out onto the 3-lap run course. By now temperatures must have been up to about 28 degrees and it was a battle to stay hydrated. I felt ok to begin with and the legs didn't feel too bad but from about 5k, I started to wonder how I was going to find the energy to complete the run.
I managed to raise a smile when I saw my lovely friends, Alex, Ali and Lisa as I headed out on lap 2 but my head was telling me a different story. By the time I saw them again at the start of lap 3, I was flagging big time but their screams lifted my spirits and I knew it was just another 7k till this thing was over. I knew from my Garmin that I would be under 7 hours but, even with a good swim, I had calculated that 6.5 was probably slipping out of reach. I found some reserves though as I knew I would hate myself afterwards if I hadn't given it everything. Imagine my surprise then when I turned into the finishing chute and saw a time of 6.23! I really had had a good swim!
During the race, I kept saying to myself that this really was the last one but the feeling was pretty shortlived. A 6.23 half ironman on only 4 rides on the road shows you the art of the possible...
