Imagine what Slowtwitch would have been like when Armstrong landed on the moon... "its really not that special, I know a guy who flew to Mars on a hang glider, and held his breath the whole way"...

The amount of 1-uppers on this site is crazy. Everyone’s a ceo banging 10s

I don't think it is that, I think this a fantastic effort, but genuinely just not that impressive.

In my view, people on this forum greatly over emphasise the important of weight for non-competitive age groupers, probably because they are naturally smaller or at the sharp end of their age group.

I became interested in the idea of doing a Ironman, I was muscular and 210 pounds at 6ft 3.5, had never done a triathlon, had just bought a road bike, had never swum OW, had never run more than a half marathon. I downloaded a plan off the internet, read some books, spoke to people I knew were quick, committed to training and prepared diligently. I did some halfs for practice (4:51 and 4:45) and ended up doing a 10.35 in Italy on a road bike with clip ons.

Now I have some experience, I'm slightly lighter, I've got a TT bike, I'll be aiming to get to the sharper end of my age group. But I still see strength and height as an asset as opposed to a hindrance and it is probably one of the factors allowing me to be strong on the bike and quickly get up to a 357 FTP which is still rising. I know on the run it is a different story.

Once you take away the weight element of Nick's story, you have a guy who is new to Triathlon doing a 11:28, a great effort, but not spectacular.

I recognise this post might come across as massively self indulgent but hopefully that background illustrates my point.

No, its a course he set up, largely down hill, we don't know for sure if it was the distance