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Ironman 70.3 Muscat 2026: Post race debrief

February 24, 2026

Back at the Abu Dhabi airport about a week after my last post. I am now a half Ironman. It still feels surreal, 14th February 2026, the day I finished my first Ironman 70.3 in 06:50:59. A number now etched in my brain

Leading up to race day (11-13th Feb 2026)

I arrived in Muscat, Oman 3 days before the event on 11th Feb 2026. The first day was spent checking into the hotel, setting up my bike and getting some rest. Day T-2 started with a short swim (a.k.a the coffee boat swim) in the morning with Coach Sridhar and Ishaan, the only two people I knew at the event. After the swim, I headed to the Ironman village for registration, pick up my race pack and do some quick shopping. Ironman merch is ridiculously expensive, I talked myself into buying one hoodie (for ~$100!!), telling myself that I’d buy more merch IF I actually finished on Saturday (a mistake in hindsight). Later in the evening, we had our race briefing, event sponsored carb-loading, and trying not to think too hard about Saturday.

Day T-1, I woke up having not slept too well, rushed to the beach to do a wetsuit-less swim for the sake of completeness and rushed to Hotel Sheraton to do a bike course recce. The inclines we saw on the recce spooked me a little. Back at the hotel, I packed up my transition bags for the bike and bag drop off in the evening. It’s astonishing the kind of gear triathletes use. Road bikes were few and far between, every other bike was a TT alien. This is where it got real, I was now lighter of most of my gear, loading up on carbs and electrolytes back at the hotel. I packed my streetwear bag, went to bed early, at around 9pm, and surprisingly slept quite well.

Race day (14th Feb 2026) Pre-race

Race day. 3AM. Quick shower, cold bread and peanut butter sandwiches, trisuit on, and I was at the race start by 5AM. Loading my nutrition into the transition bags and prepping my bike took far longer than expected. I completed my check-in at around 6AM, just as they were closing transition. I pulled on my wetsuit and lined up with Coach and Ishaan. The vibes were immaculate. We seeded ourselves in the 45min swim group, among the last 100 or so participants at the start. Thunderstruck was blaring in the background as the start gun was fired. I was hyped and ready for the challenge, and that’s where things started to go wrong.

Swim (Official time: 00:53:18)

The two practice swims I’d done were at 8:30AM, at which point there were calm waters and low tide, requiring us to wade through about 100m of shallow water before actually swimming. On race day, I was in the water at ~6:50AM, waist deep in water within 20m and it was fairly choppy from the first stroke. I was swallowing seawater almost immediately. Feeling extremely nauseous, I was simply unable to breathe out under water and panicked into a doggy paddle. I struggled to the 300m mark and held onto a support raft. Reality hit: I was not ready for the swim and I could not finish the 1.9K as planned. I took a minute or two trying to convince myself to tell the raft guy to take me back to shore. I threw up, felt lighter but still couldn’t swim. I asked the raft guy if he thought I could make it, hoping for some encouragement, but funnily he looked at me blankly and said “No English, only Arabic”.

I was completely on my own in this race. No Coach, no friends, no raft guy. Just me. There was a jet-ski ~50m away and I decided to reach it in the hopes that they understood English. I couldn’t even doggy paddle for 5 seconds without stopping, so I flipped on my back, swimming backstroke, something I learned as a 10 year old in school. To my surprise, I reached the jet-ski in about a minute. That was the inflection point. I was going to swim backstroke for as long as I possibly could and would not stop until they pulled me out of the water.

Sighting while swimming backstroke was a goddamn nightmare. I spent half my time zig-zagging, flipping around to spot a buoy, lifting my head to find anything I could navigate by. I made it to the first turn at around 900m with everything I had, and I glanced at my watch expecting 40 mins to have passed, and it read ~28. Encouraged, I started slamming backstroke. I found two slower swimmers, positioned myself squarely between them, using them as sighting anchor points. Every now and then I’d find myself perpendicular to them, but I’d quickly flip over, spot a buoy, course-correct and carry on. I screamed at every buoy I passed.

About 52 mins in, a woman swimming beside me stood up - I’d made it back to shore!! My watch read ~52:00 and I simply couldn’t believe it. Surely my watch must’ve under-balled my time and I’d missed the cutoff? However, no one stopped me, so I ran. I made it to T1 in a daze, not fully believing that I’d survived the swim. I was now default alive, and would finish this race at any cost. This was miracle 1.

Transition 1 (Official time: 00:09:39)

It took me a minute to settle down and remember what needed to be done. I took off my wetsuit, put on my helmet, cycling glasses, socks, cleats and gloves. Stuffed my gels into my trisuit pockets, packed all my swim gear back in the T1 bag and ran. Finding my bike wasn’t too hard, given there were about 10 bikes left on the racks. I ran to the mount/dis-mount line and clipped in. T1 official time: 9:39.

Bike (Official time: 03:31:19)

I started the bike still in disbelief that I’d just survived the swim. Ten minutes into the race, I didn’t think I’d make it this far. I enjoyed almost every minute of the bike. Muscat is a beautiful city, with rolling hills, fancy architecture and well-maintained roads baking in the heat. I stuck largely to my nutrition plan, one gel every 45 minutes, starting 15 minutes in on the first straight. I alternated between Maurten 100s and GU gels, both of which sat well. The first 30Kms of the bike were quiet, a few passes here and there. My bottom-quartile swim had one upside, the bike course was sparsely populated. The old city near Mutrah Souq was speedy with winding roads, I felt like a goddamn baller zipping through them. The first two 8% inclines were short and manageable on the lowest gears. The descents which followed were ridiculously fun, I hit ~65Kmph on one of them.

The biggest climb of the course was everything people had been dreading, starting at 4-5% and ramping up to 11-13% towards the crest, nearly 2Kms of it. I started strong, quickly dropping my gears to keep up my cadence. Halfway in, I started to feel it. A lot of people around me were dismounting and walking the hill. Walking never was an option, I couldn’t see how I’d make the cutoff on foot. With barely anyone around me and the lowest gear holding, I started to snake the climb. This probably wasn’t the most time or energy efficient line, and it only worked because the hill was nearly empty, but it worked. I reached the top with my HR well under 170bpm, feeling good. I grabbed my first hydration bottle at the top and zipped down the descent at speeds I am not going to admit to my parents.

Once the inclines were done, we moved to the suburban stretches of Muscat where it was one gradual incline with a round-about every 5-6Kms. It was here that my butt started to hurt and I had to routinely stand up to get some blood flowing. I was growing suspicious of the distances on my watch, the course involved riding ~20Kms down a long road and coming back the same way. However, the roundabout where we were supposed to take a u-turn simply never came. When it finally did, I grabbed water bottle at the aid station, drank half of it and poured the rest over my trisuit to wash away the salt stains.

Heading back towards Qurum beach, the suspicion crept back in. My watch said 80Kms, but it felt like I had much further to go. I checked with a few riders around me and confirmed my watch wasn’t off. I made my way back to transition, crossed the dismount line just above 3:30, about 15 minutes faster than I’d expected. Clipping out and running in my cleats, I was convinced my knees were cooked, but they weren’t!

Transition 2 (Official time: 6:43)

T2 took twice as long as it should have, mostly for the lack of practice. I took off my bike gear, pulled on my running shoes, swapped out my gels and took a salt capsule just for vibes. I ran towards the run course, legs feeling surprisingly great!

Run (Official time: 02:10:01)

The run course was 3 loops followed by a long straight, up and down. Having not done a recce of the run course, I assumed each loop was roughly 7Kms with a short straight at the end, and I paced myself accordingly. I went out a touch strong in the first 2-3Kms before settling down in the first loop. Following coach’s advice, I walked through each aid station, every 2.5Kms, drinking sips of water and pouring the rest over myself liberally. In hindsight this was a mistake. Two aid stations in, my shoes were completely waterlogged and my feet were miserable.

Into the second loop I started to find my legs and starting belting pace, but I pushed a little too hard and started to feel it in the third. A moment of crisis came about 1-2Kms into the third loop, I glanced at my watch expecting 15-16Kms but it said ~13. Turns out each loop was only about 5.5-6Kms, with a 3-4Kms straight at the end. My three loop calculus was completely off, and things started to get hard. I had to take a piss break at the third loop, after which I felt much lighter and started to hold pace again (6:00-6:10/Km).

By the second half of the third loop, my legs were starting to really feel it. I pushed towards the straight and much to my dismay, I had about 4Kms to go on a road right by the ocean with zero shade. The 2Kms heading away from the finish line were excruciating. I had one rule, I simply refused to walk unless I was at an aid station. Tired legs, soaked feet, sore back, none of it mattered. I was going to keep running even if my pace fell off a cliff. That rule got me to the roundabout and into the home stretch.

The last 2Kms were something else. Six months of single-minded work had come down to this moment. A swim crisis survived, nutrition plan that worked, I had just enough gas in the tank to actually run the run. I felt great. I stopped looking at my watch, I just wanted to finish. Ironman arch in sight, I sprinted to the finish line holding back tears and at 13:40 on a hot, sunny afternoon in Muscat, I finished my first Ironman 70.3 in 06:50:59. Nine minutes inside my goal of sub-7 hours.

Finish line and learnings (Official time: 06:50:59)

Sitting in finish-line tent, calling my parents, brother and girlfriend, I could hear how proud they were of me, and that made it all worth it. The six-month journey which started in June/ July 2025 was over, but I was just getting started. Some thoughts from the finish line:

• It is a privilege to do hard things. I intend to explore the limits of that privilege
• I now know, with certainty, that I am capable of doing seemingly impossible things
• When shit gets hard, there is always another gear giving you that extra bit of leverage. The same one that came in clutch 300m into the swim. Trust the leverage.