Ironman Emilia-Romagna Italy 19 Sep 26

20 September 2026 - By Anita Grainger

Heydon Mizon travelled to Italy to take on his first ironman triathlon ( 2.4mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2mile marathon run) and had an eventful race.

Heydon….. you are an Ironman! well done! 

Write up from Heydon below

Race conditions were warm but good. Wet suit permitted swim (just!) for the sea swim.  Having had to learn to swim properly, was over the moon with how it went.

Bike was great until I hit a pot hole and blew both tyres and came off. 60 miles in and heavy rain filled the potholes, managed to find one and ended up like road kill on the deck at 25mph. Back tyre (tubeless) had 4 punctures that wouldn’t seal, tried plugging and then used a spare tube- took a while as couldn’t see the holes in the rain with tubless fluid everywhere. Felt chuffed to have sorted it, then collected everything from the road, straightened the bike up to realise the front was the same- had three plugs left and four holes! Took shoes off, ran in my socks looking for some help. Mile or so later found aid station but no tubes or plugs- until a team mate happened to arrive with a plug- fixed tyre to a slow leak and cycled like a demon to find a mechanic station and got the last tube with a long enough valve 30 seconds before someone else asked for it! Race saved! After loosing and hour over did the remainder of the cycle to recover time and then paid the invoice on the run.

The run was unexpectedly difficult but it got done and never gave up!

The best bit was seeing wild flamingos on the bike course

 

Splits below

Swim 1:22:42

T1          6:57

Bike  6:11:37

T2         4:52

Run 3:34:56

Total Time 11hrs 21mins 2sec