Lucy Charles made her mark on long-distance triathlon with a fast progression from agegrouper to the professional ranks. After shifting from elite-level swimming to triathlon in 2014, she quickly established herself as the top swimmer and a serious overall contender. This post examines her development through early races and injury setbacks, culminating in her breakthrough second-place finish at the 2017 Ironman World Championship in Kona – an achievement that signaled the arrival of a new force in women’s long-distance racing.
Swimming and Racing as an Agegrouper
Lucy Charles was a water baby from a young age. My earliest memory of swimming was on a family holiday. I remember wearing armbands, jumping into the deep end and swimming all the way down to the shallow end of the pool. Everyone else was panicking, but my parents were laid back and knew I was OK. I started at about eight for my local Hoddesdon Swimming Club, by the age of nine I was county champion. I outworked every single person in that pool, and I was probably the only nine-year-old that wanted the 200 butterfly to be my event because that’s the hardest event. I remember my parents saying that you can do whatever you want in this life, but you’ve got to make sure that you want it and you work for it. I was fairly ambitious, even from a young age. The Olympics was always the goal, that’s what I wanted to achieve in the sport.
Eventually, I found distance swimming. That’s even harder, a bigger challenge. And I always wanted to be the hardest worker in the pool. Some of my highlights were probably winning the relay with my Swimming Club and several national titles and then getting selected for the GB team. I raced in Canada, and then when I did open water, I was racing in Brazil and Argentina. It was a lot of traveling and quite a lot of elite-level racing. My most impressive time is probably my 1500, which short course was a 16:15. I think that’s still like the fifth-fastest ever in the UK.
In 2012, I made the Olympic final trials. 800 freestyle was where I specialized in the pool, I was eighth there, so I was pretty close. I also did the Open Water Test Event in 2011, the 10k in Hyde Park. There was an insane crowd atmosphere because they were looking forward to embracing the London Olympics. That was a great race, it was my mini-Olympics because I didn’t get to the actual Olympics.
It was really, really tough to miss the Olympics in my backyard. Olympics is a four-year cycle, if you miss out, then to do another four years and stay motivated is the really difficult part. I fell out of love with swimming a little bit. It is such a tough sport, like morning and night swimming, following that black lane line. I used to do about a hundred K a week with limited social interaction because you can’t speak when you’re underwater. Basically you had to be fully committed to your swim program, those hours didn’t really allow you to get a job. I had no real work experience, only been studying and swimming. It was quite scary, which I think is why I gave it a little bit more time before I decided, actually, I know I can’t do this, doing another four years of swimming was going to be too difficult. I also got a shoulder injury, and I wanted to find something else that I could do.
I actually started working at a zoo, doing all of the marketing, which was a brilliant job. I did really enjoy it, but it didn’t allow me to do the training that I needed to do. Actually being in a job where you have to arrive at nine o’clock, and I think sometimes we had to work till six or later, depending on the summer hours. So I quickly realized I definitely don’t want to work for someone else.
(Photo Credit: Lucy Charles)
I basically stopped swimming in May 2013. Around August, Reece and I decided to enter an open water swim, the Great Scottish Swim. I’d done a lot of the Great Swim series before. I decided I’ll still do that, let’s see where I’m at. It was just to keep me training, I guess, and to have a bit of a goal. Reece and I both did that swim and swam absolutely abysmal. It was embarrassing. We went back to the hotel after and I think it was Reece’s idea: We pulled up Ironman UK’s website and both signed up there and then. Because we knew we needed something to train for, otherwise we weren’t even going to keep fit. Then we went down to the post-race athlete awards evening and basically said we’re doing Ironman now. We signed up. We’re not swimming anymore, that’s what we’re doing now.
Whilst I was working at the zoo, I was training to be a personal trainer. Reece was studying sports science. So as part of that, he would get his personal trainer qualification. And then I hadn’t been working there that long, and Reece and I decided to set up a personal training business. And then we branched out into coaching, and that allowed us to do more training alongside working, which worked really well. We thought it’s quite a good selling point as a personal trainer to say you’ve done an Ironman distance. You must know what you’re doing if you can complete one of those. It could be a good way of getting new clients and people to train.
The first triathlon I entered was actually an Ironman, but I started at the sprint distance and worked my way up. My dad said I was crazy, and he’s done a marathon before. I had never done a marathon, so he said you should probably do a marathon first to make sure you can do that part. And I still always stand by the marathon on its own that I did. It’s harder than doing the whole Ironman.
Originally we said we have a mountain bike, so we can do it on that. We soon learned there’s no way we’re going to even finish if we do it on a mountain bike. It was a steep learning curve. When we finally got road bikes, that was a whole different experience. And I remember just falling off every minute and getting laughed at. I got a TT bike one month before the race and used that – something I would never recommend to any of the athletes I work with now. But the biggest thing was I was too scared to change from the big ring to the little ring on climbs. I thought I was going to drop my chain, and I didn’t know how to put a chain back on. So it would be the end of my race if a chain dropped. I find it so funny now how I feel so comfortable around basic bike mechanics. But back then, a small thing like that, I just would have no clue what to do.
I thought I was only ever going to do one and tick the box, say, yeah, I’ve done it. And then I was hooked after that. When I found triathlon, this was like the best thing ever because there’s three sports, there’s variety. You can swim in the pool and open water. You’ve got indoor and outdoor bike. When I first started, we’d go out on the bike as a group and it didn’t even feel like training. We’ve just done four hours, but it just felt social, like good fun. You can actually communicate and talk to people whilst you’re cycling and running. So it’s just a lot more enjoyable doing the mix of three sports.
Reece and I have been together since 2007, we went through a lot of hard times as swimmers. It was super high-pressure environment and there were a lot of ups and downs. And then we found triathlon together and ventured into this crazy world of Ironman. Reece has a sports science degree, so he has all the knowledge. He would do all the research. Whenever I’m struggling or need advice, he’s the first one I can get to and he’s right there.
We did some hard work, too. There are so many different ways to improve and things to improve on. So you feel you can always progress because there’s something that you can work on that maybe is a weakness. So that was the biggest draw for triathlon for me. I think everyone seems a lot more friendly in triathlon as well. There’s that mutual respect, especially in Ironman, that you’re all having to put in so much work to finish an Ironman. So you’ve all got that respect, whether you’re kind of an age group or just trying to get the cut-off or whether you’re a top pro.
Lucy finished her first Ironman in July 2014, crossing the line after 12:16 at Ironman UK in Bolton. Reece was half an hour faster, he finished in 11:45.
I couldn’t have imagined how much of a challenge that first race was. I originally just wanted to finish it, to tick that box and then move on. But after crossing the finish line, I was hooked. I’d never had such a buzz from any event, and knew I wanted to progress in the sport.
Instantly my competitive edge came in, and I wanted to win races. As I started to get more comfortable on the bike and my run developed, maybe I could be quite good at this. After that first Ironman, I learned what Kona was and wanted to pursue that. So I signed up for Ironman UK again the next year. I just missed out on getting the slot in 2014. So I did Ironman UK again in 2015 because I wanted to try to get to Kona. And I dedicated a lot more time to training, so I quit the job at the zoo and have more of that Pro lifestyle.
She enjoyed triathlon and quickly improved. In 2015 she finished Ironman UK in 10:58, winning her agegroup and qualifying for the Ironman World Championships. Once again, Reece was about half an hour quicker, he improved to a 10:20, also winning his agegroup and qualifying for Kona. Before traveling to Kona, Lucy had another big result: In August she won her agegroup at 70.3 Worlds in Zell am See, Austria.
Kona 2015
I did a really good eight-week block of training at Club La Santa in Lanzarote. But I had an injury in my hip and when I did my first run off the plane in Lanzarote, my hip didn’t feel great. I remember every day saying, maybe it’ll go tomorrow. And I drove Reece mad for the entire eight weeks because I was like, it’s still not gone. How am I going to do Kona? I can’t run. But I did loads of swimming and so much cycling. I was in the gym pretty much every single day. I tried not to worry as I always seem to perform come race day, I tend to have about five more levels I can delve into when racing. I’m definitely starting to trust in my body’s ability to do as ask it!
I remember landing on the Big Island and it was like magic – my hip feels fine! It probably were a couple of days rest for traveling and just chilling out a bit. I remember every day feeling a bit better on the run. And I was like, OK, I know I will finish now. Whatever happens, I will finish this.
I was lucky enough to share a house with a fantastic bunch of people on the South side of Ali’i Drive. It was great to spend time with other athletes especially those who had raced in Kona before. One week into our stay, everyone was still complaining about the heat and humidity. I had a few people asking me why I hadn’t moaned about it. The truth was, Reece and I were coping really well. Probably it was down to the heat chamber training sessions we’d done with the superb team at the University of Bedfordshire before we left.
Exactly one week until race day, Reece and I took part in the official Ironman practice swim. This was set up as a race with timing chips, a mass start and a field of Professionals and Age Groupers. We swam this in our swim skins to see how they felt, aiming to swim at the same effort as we would on race day. Reece and I quickly found ourselves in the lead pack of 6 swimmers, which included a few male pros. There was a lot of ‘argy bargy’ within the male-dominated pack, myself being the only female. However we both completed the swim in 51 minutes, I was ten minutes clear of the first professional female, Rachel Joyce. A great confidence boost for the following Saturday.
The morning of the race I was strangely calm. Deep down, I wanted to do well, but I just didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t really mind what happens because it’s my first time here, ultimately I wanted to enjoy the experience. The starter’s cannon erupted for the pro men’s start, this certainly got the heartbeat racing a little. Only to be followed five minutes later by another blast for the pro women. Then 15 minutes later the age group men were off, this looked quite a bit more chaotic than the pro starts. Finally it was my turn to enter the water and paddle up to the swim start buoys.
(Photo Credit: Lucy Charles)
A final blast of the cannon and I was off, head down and go, go, go! Ten stokes in and I had clear water, it remained this way until I reached 400m from the turnaround boat (half-way point) and I caught the main pack of agegroup men. Working my way through the mass of blue caps I completed the swim in 52 minutes. A roar echoed around Kona Bay as I exited the swim, the first female agegrouper. Goosebumps! I was very fast through transition. I wanted to get out unseen, I wasn’t sure how close the next female was behind.
Lucy swam a 52:20, the first Pro woman, Annabel Luxford, was four minutes slower than her, and only three Pro men were quicker. She finished her first Ironman World Championships in 10h20, winning her F18-24 agegroup. Reece swam a minute slower than Lucy, but in the end he was once again 30 minutes quicker, finishing in 9h50 and placing fifth in his agegroup.
(Photo Credit: Lucy Charles)
Crossing that infamous finish line was unreal and signified the end of what has been a spectacular season. Racing in Kona was such a special day. Because it was my first time on the island, I really didn’t know what to expect. I was overwhelmed by the whole experience, and when I won my age group, I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited going to the awards ceremony, just feeling on top of the world. It was brilliant.
Turning Pro in 2016
After winning her agegroup at 70.3 Worlds 2015 and also in Kona (by a whopping 28 minutes!),Lucy applied for a Pro license. But initially, her application was rejected by the British Triathlon Federation. The formal requirement was to be within 8% of the winner’s time, and in Kona she was 15.4% slower than winner Daniela Ryf.
Reece hints at the frustration about the application process: “Unfortunately the ‘within 8% of a winner at a given event’ is a little more varied. 8% does seem a little random, and hard to achieve given the variations between Pro vs. Amateur. Fortunately BTF reviewed Lucy’s application, taking her progress into account, and granted her a license in time for her to register for Ironman Lanzarote.”
I was on a training camp in March of that year, that’s when I started to feel this niggle in my shin. I had just run the fastest half marathon of my life and training had been going well consistently. The pain came out of nowhere and I was unsure what exactly it was. I thought I was very sensible and straight away reduced my run volume, substituting run sessions by using the cross trainer.
I went to several physios, all of which initially diagnosed my pain as shin splints. If you have a couple of weeks off of the running and just do low-impact stuff, it should be fine. I was extremely frustrated, I had just been approved my pro license and my first pro race at Ironman Lanzarote in May was looming. I wanted to run the London Marathon that year, but I decided to pull out of that because I really wanted to do my first Ironman as a Pro. I decided to try things like aqua jogging, cross training and working harder on the swim and bike, this allowed me to stay positive and have a focus.
Two weeks before doing that Ironman, I did the Olympic distance British Championships. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that, it probably was the nail in the coffin. I ran really quick in that race, but it was painful. And then I couldn’t walk after that, it was so bad. I got on the plane the day after doing that Olympic distance and my leg was buckling as I was walking. It was terrible. On the start line of Ironman Lanzarote I knew that my leg was still bad. I had done no running since March and was unsure if I would even make it through the marathon. A lot of the time I was thinking, you’re probably not even going to do the run, so just enjoy the swim and the bike.
Lanzarote 2016
In the days leading into the race I wanted to replicate the build-up I had in Kona as that worked well enough. Staying at Club La Santa made this all the more easy as you’ve got access to every training facility you could possibly need. It was a surreal experience being there for a race as I’ve only ever been there previously for training camps. It was almost difficult to tell myself to rest and taper as I’m always so eager to get stuck in with everything that’s going on.
A week out from the Ironman race I took part in the Sailfish Lanzarote open water swim in Puerto del Carmen, a 3.8km race on the same course as the Ironman. This copied exactly what I had done in Kona a week out from race day, however this time I knew the field was full of professional swimmers rather than triathletes. I had a great swim finishing second lady behind elite Spanish open-water swimmer Esther Nunez. We used to race each other back when I competed internationally in swimming. (Apparently her daily swim mileage is around 19 km, I’m pretty content with doing that in a week!) I completed the swim in 48 minutes, in which my Garmin calculated as 4.2km in fairly choppy sea conditions, this was a great confidence boost for the Ironman.
I had attracted a lot of media attention, particularly after my swim performance in the Sailfish open water race. I said I planned on beating current Ironman World Champion Jan Frodeno out of the water. For me this was all good fun but strangely enough quite a few people believed that may be possible!
Ironman Lanzarote is one of the few races with a mass start of all participants, men and women, Pros and agegroupers. Swimming in the front pack of Pro men for the duration of the swim was a whole different ball game to what I’ve been used to in triathlon. Those men don’t go easy on you, I might be a lady but everyone is treated the same out in the open water. Luckily my experience in open water swimming meant a few elbows in the ribs and kicks in the face won’t put me off but instead will fire me up, bring it on guys! I exited the swim in a time of 47:11, around 18 seconds behind Jan. He might have beat me out the water but I was out of T1 1st! My swim had given me a comfortable lead onto the bike of almost eight minutes on the next Pro woman.
Going out onto the bike with the lead time car and motorcycle film crews was absolutely brilliant, it took a while for the goosebumps to pass. By the time I had completed the El Golfo loop I thought to myself ‘if I get overtaken now that was bloody cool whilst it lasted.’ When I reached Club La Santa almost 70 km into the bike,I was still leading and feeling in control, this I had not expected. The same thoughts passed through my head at Teguise village and the top of Mirador del Rio, ‘Am I really still leading this?’
(Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche)
Arriving back in the lead to the most incredible reception at T2 in Puerto del Carmen was a huge buzz. I was instantly followed into T2 by the eventual race winner Tine Holst, but this didn’t dishearten me at all as I hadn’t expected to lead up to that point anyway.
I started the run at my race pace, the pace I had held for my past two Ironman marathons. Tine quickly passed me but I stuck to my race plan. At the 10 km turn around point I was overtaken by last year’s champion Diana Riesler, again I stayed calm and maintained my pace. At around 20 km into the run I started to feel good. At 21 km I had closed the gap on Diana and moved back into second place. A fast-approaching Alexandra Tondeur then passed and I moved back into third place. A fading Diana gave me confidence I could hold my position, at the last five km turn I knew I had a podium place in sight. Eventually crossing the line to take third place in my professional debut has to be the highlight of my sporting career so far. I never thought anything would top my first Kona experience but I think the 25th Ironman Lanzarote might have just pipped the top spot.
Ironman Lanzarote 2016
1. Tine Holst 10:02:35
2. Alexandra Tondeur +2:18
3. Lucy Charles +7:38
Stress Fracture
Adrenaline apparently gets you through a marathon, my adrenaline was so high. Initially it was okay because I’d made the podium, which I didn’t expect to do, so I was still on a huge high. But when Igot back to the hotel and settled down a little bit, the real nagging pain set in and I knew it was bad. The throbbing, gnawing pain in the shin.
After getting through Lanzarote Ironman I made the decision to race Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire. During this race I had leg pain throughout the bike and run. After a poor performance at Staffordshire I finally made the decision to pay for a private MRI scan. A proper diagnosis confirmed I did indeed have a stress fracture and I was advised to take six weeks OFF completely on the bike and run. I was only allowed to swim with a pull buoy.
After six weeks of just swimming I was allowed to introduce the indoor stationary biking and the cross trainer but I had to wear an Aircast ‘Moon Boot’ whilst walking around. I hated this, I didn’t like having to explain to everyone what I had done. I was already down enough from the whole situation and talking about it only made me feel worse. I was in denial, I couldn’t believe I had an injury, up until now I had thought my body was invincible. The injury became increasingly more frustrating as the triathlon season progressed and I was not able to be part of it.
Rebuilding my fitness was difficult, I had lots of terrible sessions, lots of meltdowns and just wanted to be able to run again pain free. In just six weeks my bike threshold power was almost 50 watts lower than it was previously. I decided to spend the next six weeks really working on my biking. It took a lot of work, biking everyday but my bike power was soon moving in the right direction. In this time I had gained five kg from not running and I knew it would be difficult to sustain that kind of bike power once I reintroduced running, but at least it gave me a focus and made me feel more positive.
It wasn’t until late September I was able to start running again. On week one back into running I only ran for five minutes at a time but the smile on my face was from ear to ear. It took seven months for me to fully recover from the stress fracture in my shin. The advice I would give to anyone suffering with a persisting injury is to get it checked out as soon as possible. If I had, the recovery time would have been reduced by at least half! But I would say that the stress fracture was almost like fire in my belly. I didn’t get to show the world what I was capable of and I really wanted to put something out there in 2017.
Kona Qualifying in 2017
Lanzarote 2017
At the start of the 2017 season I had some really good results before Lanzarote, the best so far in my career: I had a second place at Challenge Gran Canaria and won Challenge Lisboa two weeks before Lanzarote. And I wanted to keep it going.
As a distance swimmer, I have a really, really good engine. That translated well, specifically into the biking. And I’m someone who likes to suffer. So I think I put in a lot of hours on the bike, and it’s definitely starting to come through. And the running side? I always ran for school, so I think I’ve definitely got a fairly natural ability there. I was unlucky last year that I was struck with injury, and it meant I couldn’t really run much. I’ve had to sort of do little and often, I can’t do big mileage at the moment.I’m slowly adapting to do more.
I knew I would be going to have a nice amount of time out of the water. The bike has been my weakest discipline for a while and I worked hard to make it better. So the bigger gap I can create on that bike, the better it’s going to be for me into the run. If you’ve got a nice gap for that run, you can feel pretty relaxed and just get through that marathon.
(Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche)
In the race, it didn’t feel like I was going hard. I’d done the race the year before and I knew the point where my fiancee, Reece, had overtaken me the year before, roughly at 25k. It wasn’t until I’d got past that point and quite a lot further down the road that I started to actually worry if something might have happened to him in the swim because he hasn’t caught up yet. And then when he went past somewhere after 80k, he said ‘no, you are flying. You’re doing really, really well.’ And he probably assumed that would be the last he would see of me of the day. But I never really let him get too far ahead on the bike, which is normally what I do in training. So it almost turned into a big, big training session where I’m just trying to stay as close to him as I can. So that made it quite fun in that respect. Lucy’s description almost sounds as if she and Reece had a leisurely training ride, but in fact she set a new bike record for Ironman Lanzarote.
I was probably one or two kilometers into the run and my mom was shouting at me, ‘you’re going to win, you’re going to win’. And I’m thinking, ‘Shut up, mom. Please shut up, because I have got a full marathon to run here. And anything can happen.’ You can never relax because as good as you think you’re going, you just don’t know what the girls behind you are doing. And anything can happen, you could get cramp, stomach issues or whatever. And then it really could be game over.
It wasn’t until probably five kilometers to go that I knew that the pace the girls behind would have to be running to catch me would be too ridiculous. So I managed to soak up and enjoy probably the last five kilometers. Ironman Lanzarote 2017 was my first pro win on the full distance. Obviously, in a race that long, you’re having to stay mentally and physically focused for so long. So to actually manage to get across the line first, the emotions are overwhelming.
(Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche)
On the first day after Ironman Lanzarote, my running club were doing a local midweek league. I said I would go along but don’t expect much of me. I’ve obviously just done an Ironman, and they all knew that. But I actually got going and felt pretty good. So when I was looking at the pace, I was thinking, actually, this could be a PB here. So I might as well go for it, never miss the opportunity to set a PB. I need to learn that just because you’ve got a race number on, it doesn’t mean that you need to be doing silly things like that. Reece is my coach, so he did tell me off a little bit, saying, what were you doing? I think I only was about 20 seconds behind him, which he did not expect to see me coming over the line then. I frequently get told off for doing silly things like this. The one thing that drives Reece mad is that I always don’t think I’ve done enough, I could have done more. And he’s like, you couldn’t have done more, you did everything, you’ve worked nonstop. Slowly, I believe that I’ve done enough.
Ironman Lanzarote 2017
1. Lucy Charles 9:35:39
2. Corinne Abraham +8:50
3. Lucy Gosssage +14:43
Frankfurt 2017
Kona is definitely where I want to get to. Reece is racing in Kona, I spectated him last year which was fantastic but I was itching to be racing so I’d like to be joining him on the start line this time.
In 2017 the “Kona Pro Ranking” was still in effect. Athletes collected points from up to five events, and the Top 30 women at the end of July received a Kona slot.
The win in Lanzarote gave me a total of 2000 Kona points, looking at the rankings I’m going to need at least 4000 Kona points. I’m looking at the best way of trying to get to Kona without doing too much. It’s either going to be trying to do a full Ironman and do it really really well, or possibly a couple of 70.3s and do well in those to get the points. But I would pretty much have to win 70.3 Elsinore, and I would also have to win that other 70.3, and it still potentially wouldn’t be enough points. So I thought, you know what? I felt I recovered well from Lanzarote in May, let’s just do Ironman Frankfurt. I would need a Top 4 finish, which even with the deep field to be expected is slightly less pressure than having to win two races. So that was the decision. I wanted to go home and actually be able to put in a solid block of training, which I feel I have done.
Ironman Frankfurt was another step forward for Lucy: Of course she was first out of the water, and she started the bike leg with a lead of almost five minutes to Anja Beranek (fourth in Kona 2016) and almost eight minutes over Sarah Crowley (winner of Ironman Cairns 2017, the Asia Pacific Regional Championship). On the bike, Lucy was able to hold her lead for the first 90k. Then Anja started to fall back, but Sarah started to chip away at her lead. In T2, Lucy was still in the lead by about four minutes. After the first of four run laps, her lead had shrunk to two and a half minutes.
(Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche)
At the halfway mark, Sarah was only 35 seconds behind her. While the winner of the race was still to be decided, the first two places were practically decided: Third place, Belgian Alexandra Tondeur, was already 13 minutes behind Lucy. Even as Sarah took the lead at the start of lap three, only a total meltdown would keep Lucy from finishing second and securing her Kona slot. Across the finish line, Lucy was almost four minutes behind Sarah. Nonetheless, she had run a new marathon PR of 3:13, improving her marathon from Lanzarote by five minutes.
IM Frankfurt 2017
1. Sarah Crowley 8:47:58
2. Lucy Charles +3:52
3. Alexandra Tondeur +11:57
Kona 2017
Expectations
Normally in March, I do a four-week block out in Lanzarote. I always find that I really, really benefit from that. Leading into this race, I put in eight solid weeks of work in Lanzarote , double the amount of time. I think the eight weeks of hard work really did come through to show that my bike improved. The bike is definitely the area where I’ve worked on the most and obviously, it is the biggest section of an Ironman. So if you can really nail that part, then you’ve got such an advantage. It’s really good to see that the swimming engine that I’ve always had is starting to come out on the bike now. I’m really pleased that’s starting to happen.
I’ve done a lot of running into this race. If I can run near the time I ran in Frankfurt in these conditions, then I’d be really happy with that. In Frankfurt, Lucy ran a 3h13; as an agegrouper in Kona 2015 she ran a 3h44.
If you told me at the start of the year I was going to make Kona, I would have laughed. And if you said, you’re going to be doing three Ironmans, I would have said, that’s ridiculous. But touch wood, I’ve handled it quite well and I’m feeling good here. I know the course and I think having raced it as an age grouper will help. But obviously, it’s my first time as a Pro here, and I don’t really want to name a position. It’s going to come down to if I can put out the numbers I plan to do. Hopefully that will end up being in a good position.
Reece is also racing in the men’s 25-29 category. I get a head start on him, and if all’s going well, then I won’t see him for a little while. Kona 2017 had four start waves, Lucy’s female Pro wave started at 6:30am, Reece’s male agegroup wave at 6:55, so Lucy had a head-start of 25 minutes. Reece swam 3 seconds quicker than Lucy, finished in 9:41 and didn’t manage to catch Lucy.
Swim
In the buildup to the swim, it was quite funny because anyone from Europe and our side of the world was saying that I would be first out the swim. Anyone from America was saying, no way, Lauren Brandon will be first out the swim. So there was already kind of this hype building around me and Lauren and the competitiveness that would be in the swim. She was a very top-end swimmer before she became a triathlete as well. Before the race, I had looked at some of her swim times and they were almost identical to mine. So I knew it was going to be a great race in the water before we’d even got on the bike. That built quite a lot of excitement. I didn’t speak to Lauren before, but we knew we were going to be swimming together and we wanted to make that work in our advantage and get as big a gap as possible to the other girls. It’s my first time here and it was kind of ‘go for it from the start really, you haven’t got anything to lose, let’s see how much of a gap we can get on the swim.’
The swim was a really good start. I led out to about the halfway point where the boat is where you turn round and then on the way back, Lauren put in a little bit of a dig and went into the lead. This worked in my favor because it meant I could just sit on her feet almost the whole way back.
When you get to the pier, you probably have 200 meters left to go. It was definitely ‘on’ for the swim bragging rights. So I put in a little bit of a sprint there and I expected Lauren to go with me. It looked really scrappy, but the more scrappy part was when I was trying to get past the Pro men, the second male pro pack that had Lionel Sanders and Sebi Kienle in it. I did manage to get the first out of the water. I think there was probably about six seconds between us in the end.
I don’t think I would have gone any quicker if them pro men hadn’t been there, but I was only five seconds away from breaking the swim record. (In 2017, the swim record was 48:43 by Jodi Jackson from the 1999 race.) Definitely that’s making me hungry to go back next year and try to break that swim course record.
Kona 2017 – After the Swim
1. Lucy Charles 48:48
2. Lauren Brandon +0:05
3. Haley Chura +3:15
6. Sarah Crowley +4:19
7. Daniela Ryf +4:22
Bike
Lauren and I definitely worked together in the swim and that really helped. And then we biked away together, we were just clinging on and seeing what we could do. Somehow we were gapping the other girls, which I didn’t expect to happen. I was out in front, I never saw Lauren. When I spoke to Lauren after the race, she said ‘I was just clinging on, there’s no way I could have gone in front. I was just trying to stay in that legal distance and stay behind you.’ It’s not really like when you’re running and they’re breathing down your neck, you don’t really even know they’re there. So to be honest, it didn’t bother me in the slightest.
(Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche)
The main thing was to try and stick to the plan that I put in place, which was to not go crazy at the start, because obviously you’ve got a pretty long day out there, so you don’t want to go mad. So it was trying to stick to the numbers I’d done in training and what I planned to do in training. When I looked down at my Garmin the first time, that plan had gone out the window because I’d obviously got really excited that I was leading the World Championships. So I was trying to tell myself to just rein it in. But I felt good so I just decided, you know what, let’s go with it. And then once we get through the town and out onto the Queen K, then you can settle down a bit.
So that was kind of what I did in the end. I went harder than I should have done. If you’ve been out to Kona, there’s a hill called Palani which is the last climb before you get out onto the Queen K. And when I looked at my power and my heart rate on that, I was just laughing because I was like, what on earth are you doing? And then I did settle down once I got onto the Queen K.
It wasn’t until we were a fair distance onto the Queen K, you start to get time splits given to you. There’s a motorbike that comes along and it tells you the gap between the other girls. So we got the first time split that we were about five minutes ahead. I was like, is this a mistake? There’s something wrong here. To see that was a really nice confidence boost. And I think that pushed me on quite a lot more because I was like, oh my God, like you’re a lot further ahead than you thought. Let’s just see what happens.
That definitely was a good start to the bike, and then the gap didn’t really seem to change much. It was just staying the same. So I knew that we were riding well and we must’ve been riding strong to maintain that. Hawi was still a fair distance into the ride, but I’d anticipated that I’d probably be caught by that point. So it was a case of let’s stick with your game plan, stick with the numbers you’ve got, because at the end of the day, there’s going to be a pretty tough run to do after you’ve done the bike. So now we need to settle down and get the nutrition on board.
Kona 2017 – Turn at Hawi
1. Lucy Charles 3:29:42
2. Lauren Brandon +0:02
3. Daniela Ryf +5:24
4. Sarah Crowley +5:26
When we got to the turn in Hawi and then you’re coming back down the climb and you can see them coming up the climb, it really did seem like quite a big gap. That was absolutely brilliant. And I thought ‘just keep doing what you’re doing because it’s obviously working.’ And it was really, really good to see how big that gap was.
For the first two to three hours on the bike, I’ll be trying to have solid food. I normally use Snickers bars, which quite a lot of people laugh at, but I like the taste of them. They’ve kind of got everything you need in them. As long as you like what you’ve got on board, it has got what you need in it and it’s not going to upset your stomach, then that’s the key thing. I’ve tried and tested Snickers bars in training whilst out in Lanzarote and I haven’t got sick of them yet. When I first did my first Ironman, the nutrition I used on that, I can’t even taste it now because it would just make me feel sick.
The night before the race I’ll put them in the freezer. So they’re slightly frozen and harder. And then I’ll cut them into smaller pieces and have them in a little bento box on my bike. And then they do slowly start to melt, it ends up being a gooey mess, but you just take a bit and it’s easier to eat that way, it still tastes good. I’ve normally got about three bars in there that are broken into about three pieces, so there’s like nine pieces to get through. I’ll normally have one of those about every 30 minutes. That gets me through the first two to three hours.From then on, I go completely to gels. I’ll normally dilute them down a little bit and make a gel mix so it’s not too thick and you don’t have too much sugar in one hit.
I was watching my Garmin the whole time and my power wasn’t dropping off. I was holding that effort on the way back. There’s always dark patches in any Ironman. It’s such a long day and you have to keep yourself positive when you’ve got the negative thoughts coming in. And there’s always really dark patches on the bike when you start to see your power dropping off slightly. And then you try and bring it back up when you’re feeling so tired and you start to feel a bit sick and you’re thinking, is my nutrition working? And you know that you’re really going to find out on the run if it has worked or not.
From what Daniela said after the race, there was that point on the bike where she was like, it’s now or never. I’m going to put all in because if I don’t do it now, then, then she wasn’t going to do it. How she managed to pull that out that far into the bike, hats off!The whole time I’d been expecting her to come past. So when she passed just a few miles before T2, it didn’t really phase me at all. I had one hundred percent not expected to lead off the bike, if I’d done that, that would have been another massive lift to start the run. It was a shame because it was so late into the bike but even to come off the bike where I did was far better than I’d expected. It was all really, really exciting.
Kona 2017 – After the Bike
1. Daniela Ryf 5:48:34
2. Lucy Charles +0:39
3. Lauren Brandon +1:15
4. Sarah Crowley +4:34
Run
It was a gamble to ride as hard as I did. I thought I had over-biked and I really did expect to fall apart on the run. When I got on the run and felt pretty strong, I just wanted to stay relaxed. I felt like I was trying to rein it in, but the pace was still a lot better than I’d expected. So it was another case of ‘okay, we’ll just go with this and we’ll see what happens.’ It really was a case of having magic legs on the day. The ideal race day scenario that hardly anybody ever gets to experience.
The key thing was just to run my own race and stick with the pace that I know I’m capable of holding. Luckily that kept me fairly relaxed and I didn’t worry too much about the gap behind. The first half of the marathon is really quite nice because there’s tons of people, the atmosphere’s amazing and you’re just being lifted the whole time.
(Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche)
Then you have to run up Palani and you’re on the Queen K. And there are people on the Queen K, but it’s nothing like when you’re in town. The aid stations and the volunteers are absolutely amazing. Every mile you do get a lift from that, but there are some really, really dark spots out on that Queen K where there’s no one. You’re running, it’s just you and you’re inside your own head and you’re questioning every minute, am I going to be able to do this? I was in second and I wasn’t entirely sure what the gap was behind.
I didn’t dare look over my shoulder because I knew I had some really strong runners behind me. Obviously I knew Heather was there and Sarah, and they were having a battle between themselves. I was looking at my pace and I knew I was running well, but it was getting harder and harder. And then you get into the Energy Lab, which everyone goes on about being one of the hardest parts of the course. But it’s kind of weird because I quite liked that section because again, there’s a lot more people when you first go in there. So you get this lift again and it actually goes fairly quick in there. You’re running about five or six kilometers in there. So it’s quite a big chunk of the run when you’re out that far.
I knew they were going to be pushing and I did expect to end up off the podium, when I could see all the other girls at the turn and the gaps didn’t look that big. I had to really, really stay strong and keep pushing all the way to the end, looking over my shoulder to see if they were coming. When you come out of the Energy Lab, you know you’ve got 10 K left to go. And that is probably the hardest bit, coming back with that last 10 K. I was still holding second, which again, I didn’t know that I’d be in that position when I set off. I was questioning, are they going to catch me before I get back?
Someone was already announcing that I’d be second place finisher. I was thinking, I’ve still got a mile, anything can still happen, so let’s not say it yet. It was just so surreal. It wasn’t really until I was back on Ali’i Drive and I probably had about 200 meters to go that I had a little check over my shoulder to make sure that Sarah wasn’t there. I knew that Ihave second place and I could actually enjoy it. I rarely ever managed to relax enough in an Ironman to think you’ve got this, run it in and soak it all up. And I think that was one of the best things that I actually managed to do that in Kona. And that made it even more special. If anyone was at the finish line watching, they could see the emotion. It was just overwhelming.
And then to have Chrissie Wellington there as well. She’s an absolute hero of mine and to have her there at that moment was so special.
(Photo Credit: Ingo Kutsche)
I’ve never actually met Chrissie. When I was running out on Ali’i Drive, she said, ‘just relax your shoulders.’ So that was a big thing. When I was running back, she was like ‘that’s so much better’. And then she said something like, ‘try and get the ice and the cold water on your head,’ which I hadn’t actually been doing. And that massively helped cool me down as well. So these were two huge things that she really helped with. And just to have her at the finish line was almost a case of ‘pinch me, am I actually here? Am I dreaming this?’ It was so crazy. I’ve never had that much emotion at a finish line either.
The whole thing was just incredible. I’ll never forget it.
Kona 2017 – Final Standings
1. Daniela Ryf 8:50:47
2. Lucy Charles +8:51
3. Sarah Crowley +10:51
After 2017
After her second place in Kona 2017, Lucy seemed to have a subscription on #2 in Kona: In 2018 she was ten minutes behind Daniela Ryf, in 2019 six and a half behind Anne Haug. After not racing at all in 2020, Lucy and Reece welcomed coach Dan Lorang to their team. Reece would still oversee the day-to-day sessions, with Dan planning the overall program and the build-up towards the main races.
Lucy had a great 2021 season, highlighted by a dominating win at 70.3 Worlds when she was able to post the fastest splits in all three legs.
However, the following year presented new obstacles. A stress fracture in her left hip sidelined her for the first half of the 2022 season. She returned to racing in August and was able to get in shape for another second place in Kona, eight minutes behind Chelsea Sodaro.
including a broken metatarsal that necessitated a mid-season hiatus. Nonetheless, on October 14th, Lucy defied the odds by finally claiming victory in Kona.
2023 brought further challenges, a broken metatarsal forced a mid-season break. Nonetheless, on October 14th, Lucy defied the odds by finally claiming victory in Kona. She posted the fastest swim and bike legs and was leading into T2 by four minutes over Kona rookie Taylor Knibb, ten minutes ahead of Laura Philipp, and twelve minutes in front of Anne Haug. Even though Lucy had to deal with massive pain from the start of the marathon caused by a torn calf, she still managed to run the fourth-best marathon of 2:57 and was finally able to take the win in Kona. Across the line, she was still more than three minutes ahead of Anne Haug.
In 2024, Lucy won the summer race of IM France in Nice but then had to withdraw a few days before the September Ironman World Championships on the same course.
As she sets her sights on 2025, with the Ironman World Championships returning to Hawaii, all eyes will be on her performance at Ironman Lanzarote on May 17th. A strong showing there would unmistakably signal her readiness to be a Kona Player again this year.