KMD Copenhagen – Part 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, this update has quite a bit in it, so read on your commute, on the toilet or whilst on trainer or even just with a cuppa ☕ or 🍷 🤣🤣

I had heard so many great things about this race, so of course I had to do it! I mean why not. The timing of the race was perfect for me season.

Exactly one year before I had raced Ironman Sweden, Kalmar and set a new personal best time of 13:13:14.

For this report I’m going to break it into sections. This instalment will cover logistics, little nuggests of information and basically Day 1 and Day 2 of my time in Copenhagen.

Those who have never traveled to Copenhagen before or done this race, it’s the little things that are golden nuggets!

Let’s start with logistics
➡️ I caught my flight from Gatwick direct to Copenhagen. Taxis’s at Copenhagen Airport are available directly out front, follow the sign for Taxi. The cabs take debit/credit card and they take cash, but more likely to take card. Catching a taxi is expensive.
➡️ If you are catching the metro, please make sure you buy a ticket for your bike, otherwise they will fine you 100 DKK
➡️ Once at your hotel/Airbnb you will find electric scooters all around town. I used the Lime branded scooters. Simply download the app, set it up and you’re good to go. The maximum speed is 19km per hour. They are only to be ridden in the bike lanes.
➡️ Bike lanes are incredible in Copenhagen. Much cheaper to get around on a bike if you can.

Another thing to note is Copenhagen is not cheap. If you are on a budget, or you don’t have excess funds or if you’re simply looking for a cheap place to race, this is NOT the location.

➡️ Hotels/Airbnb
Because Ironman Copenhagen is a split transition, you will need to decide if you want to be near the finishline or the start.

I stayed at the Tivoli Hotel, however along the same road are several other locations. Tivoli Hotel was about 1km from T2 where you will pick up your bike/bags post the finish. It was also about 10 mins from the T1 by taxi.

➡️ Airbnbs – you can absolutely get an Airbnb but please note they may cancel on you close to the race. This occurred for several people I knew. Just be aware.

Okay race registration!
Again all my own experience. Approximately 1km walk from where I was staying was the Registration and IM expo.

Location is Blox Building. It’s a modern building, one of the places for art and design.

I found the lack of signage to get around the general Ironman area and find registration appalling. They had every athlete go through the merchandise store first before you could get to the actual registration area. It was hideous.

Anything you purchased from the merchandise tent was non returnable. Which I found odd.

At this particular race I didn’t see a M dot with all the names of the athletes, where you could point your finger at your name and take a picture. Maybe I missed it but i didn’t see one at all.

The expo was fine. One way system. Not very well thought out at. For a one way system they didn’t create the exit, so people had to walk back on themselves to leave the expo. Pretty stupid actually!

Another thing that was silly but very annoying. At the Blox building, there was only an automatic revolving door that had to be used to get in and out. Well, if you touched the door with your hand, it paused. But when I say paused, it brought every one to a stand still. Making it frustrating to get it or out.

Registration itself was simple. Show your ID, confirm your race number, sign waiver and you’re good to go. As you choose your own swim start, you go to another person to collect your chosen coloured hat.

Each race pack came with bike and bag stickers, race number, tattoos (optional to wear) and safety pins.

Race briefing was located in the same building, as registration and ironman merchandise shop however again the signage was appalling and and what’s worse, is that if you ask a volunteer for its location, no one really knew. This could have been avoided, if there was clear signage, eg this way to registration; this way to Race briefing.

The actual briefing was a recorded presentation. It was detailed but again if you had a questions, you had to find a volunteer and hope that they would know the answer.

It was fab to see a few friends. Many who were racing their first Ironman. Loved being able to give them a hug and wish them well in person.

I arrived into Copenhagen on the Friday morning, couldn’t check into my room till 3pm. So I picked up my race packet, came back to the hotel, built my bike in hotel foyer and as soon as room was ready I migrated to my room. Then coordinated with friends who were doing this as their first Ironman race to attend the 4pm race briefing. (They played the race briefing every hour on the hour)

After all that was done, caught up with my friend Chantel where she got her braided at the Women for Tri hair braiding station and then we headed out for dinner. Really nice relaxed evening.

Saturday was very much spent on my own, by choice. I got all my stuff ready in my bags etc. Rode the bike with both my bike bag and run bag to T1.

Again signage or should I say LACK of signage if you were arriving from the opposite direction was appalling. A lot of us were following one another. Silly really.

Got to entrance, bike was checked and photographed. Fairly simple. Drop off bike, dropped off blue bike bag. (Note – as it was wet, I packed all my stuff inside a plastic bag and then placed into the blue bike bag). The bags were exposed to the elements.

Stupid idiot me, forgot the race belt. Completely forgot that it was split transition and that I would not have access to the run bag on race morning. So this meant adding my race belt on race morning to the blue bag. Not drama. But hey ho.

Once bike was racked, bags were dropped, I found myself a Lime electric scooter. Headed to the nearest Aldi/Lidl got myself a heap food and scootered all the way back to the hotel, stopping at KFC along the way! Boom. I was happy to see the KFC.

The rest of the day was spent in my hotel room, eating processed crap, drinking half a bottle of red wine and then falling asleep.

Part 2 – the next installment will be about the actual race!