Lucy Charles-Barclay on the training that won her the Ironman world title

She finally did it. After four consecutive runners-up finishes, the girl with the battle braids and a big dream from north London finally conquered the Big Island to become the third British triathlete to win the Ironman World Championship.

In following in the footsteps of four-time champ Chrissie Wellington (2007-09 and 2011) and Leanda Cave (2012), it wasn’t just the result that won respect, but the manner of the victory – cannon-to-tape, a new course record, and defeating arguably the best women’s field ever assembled.

What’s more, it was all delivered by training indoors in solitude for weeks in the build-up – “a bit like being in a lab” – according to husband and co-coach Reece, for one of the most committed and motivated race preps the sport is ever likely to witness.

Thirtieth-birthday celebrations were swapped for uncorking the frustration of two injury-challenged years. Up at 5am, bed at 8pm, there were blips of course – including one major scare that threatened to ruin it all – but as an emotional Lucy Charles-Barclay said to 220 immediately post-race:

“I really have dedicated my whole career to trying to win this race. It’s taken five attempts and I’ve finally done it. I really can’t believe it.”

The tributes to Lucy Charles-Barclay flowed like lava; the mashed metaphors of no more the Hawaiian bridesmaid but now Kona queen echoing on repeat, but there was one message that mattered the most.

In his round-up of people to thank for the success of Team Charles-Barclay, Reece’s long list culminated with a note to his wife:

“I remember one of the very first times I saw you compete, just 18 years old at the time, in the national team finals against the best swimmers in the country. Our team desperately needed someone to ‘just’ compete in the 400 IM, otherwise we’d lose points. I vividly remember our swim coach saying to me as you walked up to the blocks: ‘She might not be better than all of those swimmers, but she has the heart of all of them combined.’

No-one knows Lucy better than Reece; her strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities that go far beyond his role as co-coach and training partner to the new Ironman world champion.

But the attribute he pinpointed is the one that for all the stylish photoshoots with brands, the frontrunning flair and shimmering Mermaid-themed bike on race-day, and having twice as many Instagram followers as any other women in the sport, is the one that makes Lucy the athlete she is today: a sheer bloodyminded tenacity to compete that has never wavered.

From Allez! To Ali’i! To a lei!

Perhaps it’s the old school ritual of ingrained pre-dawn rises from her early swim days that laid such discipline, and perhaps it’s because she returned to that – up at 5am every morning, drive to the London Aquatics Centre for 6km in the pool – that ultimately moved the needle from being a four-time runner-up in Hawaii, to finally, triumphantly standing on top of the podium, 140.6 miles done.

From Allez! To Ali’i! To a lei! … and eventually home through LA, it’s hard not to get carried away with this one.

“I’m supported by the GLL Sport Foundation [a social enterprise helping talented athletes across the UK], so they got me a lane most mornings to train in,” Lucy explains getting down to brass tacks and recalling the day when an elite squad whose coach she knew were training in an adjacent lane.

“If I was still an elite swimmer, I’d be thinking: ‘Why is this triathlete getting her own lane?!’ But it made us laugh. I know they’ve been following me, so I guess it’s okay now that I won.”

It was the first time the swim volume had rivalled what Lucy would complete during her swimming career more than a decade ago when, as a teenager attempting to qualify for Britain’s London 2012 open-water team, triathlon wasn’t even an afterthought.

But in contrast to that former career, once the swim cap was removed, this time it was home to the built-in gym where the rest of the day was spent mostly on the turbo trainer or treadmill completing the programme structured by leading endurance coach Dan Lorang, and overseen by Reece.

“It was one of the hardest blocks of training I’ve ever done,” she adds. “Not necessarily physically but mentally it was so tough. I did pretty much the entire block on my own with no other athlete to train with.”

Reece, who Lucy says “sacrificed his own pro career” for her, played the supporting role to which he has become accustomed, ensuring the temperature mirrored conditions in Hawaii, taking blood lactate readings to gauge training intensities, and providing hydration and nutrition in the right quantities of carbohydrates and electrolytes each hour.

“I was like: ‘Oh, my god, Have I torn it?’ It just felt locked and cramped. And I was like: ‘How am I gonna get through this? Is it gonna hold out?'”

Lucy Charles-Barclay

Secret simplicity

It was a far cry from previous Kona builds, where Club La Santa in Lanzarote has been the sun-kissed launchpad that brought Lucy to the brink of landing the one title she treasured more than any other (see ‘Near-misses’ box, below).

Fate had played its hand because the switch was partly due to not risking a breach of EU regulation that post-Brexit means British citizens can’t spend more than 90 days in 180 in the Schengen area of 27 European countries.

The location might have lacked glamour but perhaps the secret lay in the simplicity.

“I was just consistent across swim, bike and run every single week,” Lucy says. “And I think because I was starting so early in the day, I was able to spread out those sessions but still get a lot of volume in.

“It was very tough for Reece. I’d be in bed by 8pm every night and if he wasn’t, I’d be like: ‘You’ve got to go to bed now because I’m getting up at five!’ It was so regimented, but that’s what it took.”

Lucy’s biggest training week topped out at just under 40 hours, including several chunky bike-run indoor brick sessions where, for a change, it was the cycling that felt most taxing.

“I remember thinking it was really, really hard, but Reece would tell me my heart-rate and lactate were both low. I had to trust that the body wasn’t lying and just tolerate the pain.”

Even Lucy’s sister, Holly, who films and edits the footage for the popular Team Charles-Barclay YouTube channel, had to tread carefully.

“I was so grumpy so much of the time that I didn’t want to be filmed, so I think she managed to film one bike and one run session the whole time in the UK and did a good job of making a video from limited content.”

The bike leg in Hawaii isn’t technical. The majority is a straight out-and-back on the wide roads of the Queen Ka’ahumanu highway, and it presents few of the bike-handling challenges the women will face when the event moves to the Maritime Alps in Nice next year.

“I knew I could just train indoors and really get the quality in,” Lucy adds. “I wanted to be there knowing I’d done everything and that I was there to win. We pushed the running a lot more than I ever had as well.

“I did all of my running pretty much on the treadmill, which meant less chance of getting injured, but my run mileage was probably the highest it’s ever been consistently, which got me feeling really confident, and I could see the results.”

The end result was a 2:57:38 marathon, 5mins faster than she has ever run in Hawaii, and despite the punishing conditions, her fastest iron-distance marathon to date.

It was enough to hold off a charging Anne Haug, who set a run course record 2:48:23 and still finished 3mins short, but Lucy believes it could have been better still.

“What we’ve seen in training indicates that I probably could have run at least 5mins faster, so that’s the only place where there’s some disappointment. If I hadn’t had the injury, and the pain I was in, I probably could have gotten more out of myself.”

The injury was an Achilles pull on an easy jog in the final fortnight of the build-up, necessitating daily physio treatment and a race against time to be fit for the big day. In that context, the performance takes on even greater stature.

How the race was won

Despite being prepared for company on the swim, with the field containing the likes of US open-water ace Rachel Zilinskas, it was again set-up by the trademark solo sub-50min first leg off the front – the fifth time in five pro starts Lucy has led out of the water in Hawaii (she also had the fastest overall women’s swim as an age-grouper in 2015).

“I did think I could be in a position where for the first time ever I could conserve energy, but it just didn’t play out like that,” she says. “The gun went and I got a gap, and thought: ‘Let’s just go’. It meant I had a little bit of leeway in transition and it wasn’t so frantic.”

Once on the Queen K the ride just flowed. “We’d set out the watts I wanted to ride and I was slightly above them, but my heart rate was lower than the cap Reece gave me, so it was pretty much ridden to perfection.”

Timing splits at the turnaround at Hawi confirmed that Ironman tyro Taylor Knibb wasn’t cutting into the lead and the mood soared.

“I think it’s definitely the best I’ve felt on the bike, probably ever. We’ve adapted my position to move my bars forward and while it was no more or less aerodynamic, it was just so much more comfortable and I felt like I was able to deliver more power. Before I’ve moved around on the saddle a lot when I’m trying to put the effort down but I just felt solid.”

It was then the real test came. How would the dodgy Achilles hold up?

“I knew it was a slight issue even when I exited the swim and ran around transition in bare feet. Then the same when I dismounted the bike, but when it really went was about mile one into the marathon, yet it wasn’t my Achilles any more, it was in the calf.

“I was like: ‘Oh, my god, Have I torn it?’ It just felt locked and cramped. And I was like: ‘How am I gonna get through this? Is it gonna hold out?’

“I took the first aid station on Ali’i drive quite slowly. ‘Maybe it’s just a lack of salt. Maybe I’m cramping.’ It would kind of get worse, then ease off a bit and then get worse and then ease off.

“It’s bad, it’s really bad!”

“I saw Reece around 4 miles and said: ‘It’s bad, it’s really bad!’ which didn’t give him much context. He replied that I was still running as fast as anyone and I looked at my watch and I was like: ‘Oh, actually yes, this is exactly the pace I want it to be running. Why am I getting stressed? Yes, it’s pain, but it’s relative. I’m not slowing down. So keep going and pray that it’s going to hold and not completely rupture.’”

All Lucy could focus on was the calf and she was glad to put the shouts of the crowd on Ali’i Drive behind her as she left Kailua-Kona on Palani Road for the second half of the marathon knowing she had a 12min lead over chief rival Haug, but also knowing that it could evaporate fast.

“There were fewer people on the Queen K, which was better because I didn’t want to hear any external noise, I just wanted to listen to my body.”

Miraculously it held out, and having suffered a stress fracture of the upper femur in 2022 and a broken metatarsal earlier this summer, it was all the sweeter.

“I probably could have run at least 5mins faster, so that’s the only place where there’s some disappointment”

Lucy Charles-Barclay

To confirm just how serious the calf issue was, a post-race picture showing the bruise looked so severe that Lucy was advised to visit a doctor to check that it wasn’t a deep vein thrombosis before the long-haul flight home.

The win will only serve to add to the legion of fans and while curiously Lucy says she is more recognised in the US than in the UK, if there is a long-distance triathlete who can transcend the sport in this country, then surely Lucy has that chance.

She may or may not go on to win a record number of Konas, and hints that with the new Tour series from the Professional Triathletes Organisation in the offing and the extra demands of the course in Nice, she might not even defend her Ironman title next year.

But as we saw in 2021 when she raced the 1,500m Olympic trials in the pool (and finished second), threw herself into World Triathlon Championship Series racing, tackled Super League and won the Ironman 70.3 world title with an all-conquering performance where she set the fastest splits in all three disciplines, she refuses to shirk a challenge.

Everything changed

The response since the win in Hawaii has been overwhelming, with interest from wider media like never before. “It blows my mind that it is only one position different, but it changes everything,” she explains.

“We did say before the race that actually if I come second, it won’t change anything, if I come last, it won’t change anything. But if I win, it will change everything. And I think we’re seeing that that is true.”

Whatever the future holds for Lucy, and despite Knibb commentating in the post-race press conference that she could dominate short course if she tried, she won’t be targeting the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028.

It was something that looked an intriguing possibility after a brief but highly successful cameo in 2021, with the highlight being a fifth place on debut in the WTCS race in Leeds – a result based on almost zero short-course experience.

“I think if the PTO and Ironman hadn’t introduced their new series it probably would have been the next thing for me,” she explains.

“I’ve won Kona now, and it’s always been my dream to make the Olympics, but I think with the amount of racing opportunities there are, and the amount of money on the line in these races, I think I’d be silly to do it because the risk of injury is so much higher too. I think I’ll be focusing on the middle and long distance for the rest of my career.”

The specific plans for 2024 will have to wait, though.

“Even on the flight home from Los Angeles, Reece was like, let’s set out a plan. I was like: ‘Woah, woah, I don’t want to think about it. I want to enjoy this for a bit, rest and recover first.’

“But obviously, we want to know where to do our training camps for the races next year and we’re still waiting to hear the full PTO calendar, so that makes it difficult as well.

“They need to really hurry up because otherwise they’re going to start losing athletes who will all just commit to the Ironman series where it’s clear what you need to do if you want to be a contender to get that big prize pot at the end.

“But I think it’s an amazing time to be a triathlete and at all levels there is potential to make good money in this sport.”

Finally, those who follow the fortunes of Team Charles-Barclay will know that at the start of the year they extended the team with the addition of Pickle the miniature pinscher, a second pooch in the family following Lola the miniature jack russell.

This now makes it three triathlon world titles, and two dogs. There’s a sense that neither of those numbers will stay the same for long.

Top image credit: Korupt Vision