Team Parcours Member Jonathan Gleeson-Solomon Talks Outlaw Triathlon
Team Parcours Athlete Jonathan Gleeson-Solomon started his racing season at Outlaw Half (Nottingham) this year. Jonathan has a genetic blood condition called haemochromatosis, causing him to absorb excess iron into his blood. He now races to raise awareness for this condition with the slogan #ironmandoeshalfironman
We caught up with Jonathan to find out a little about his experience at Outlaw and his goals for the 2026.
Who is Jonathan?
I am an Irish (grew up in Belfast) athlete who lives in London. As for my day job, I am a lawyer working primarily in intellectual property and commercial law, mostly in life sciences.
In terms of sport, I come from an ice hockey background and played at university. I got into triathlon in 2019 when I bought my first road for exercise during the covid-19 pandemic. I started with a triathlon near Sheffield called the Hathersage Hilly triathlon - a sprint triathlon with 320m of elevation on the bike and 150m of elevation on the run. A truly wonderful event with a fabulous community and far more hills than you ever expected you’d enjoy. I would highly recommend it if you ever get the chance to take part.
I started long distance triathlon in 2025 to raise awareness for a genetic blood condition which I have, haemochromatosis. It is a fairly common celtic blood disease which causes me to absorb excess iron into my blood. I get blood taken (a treatment called vennesection) every 12-16 weeks which keeps my iron levels under control as my body uses excess iron to rebuild the lost red blood cells. Untreated it can have some nasty side effects but with early diagnosis it has very limited impact on my day to day life. Lack of awareness is the biggest problem. I signed up for my first 70.3 after a couple of pints and coming up with the slogan #ironmandoeshalfironman to raise awareness for the condition and I haven’t looked back.
2026…so far
I have been really happy with my training this year so far. I put a lot of hard work in over the winter, focusing a lot on my running. I am coached by Anthony at the Tri Guys and he has been invaluable in helping me pick the things to focus on, let the frustrations go and to help me manage the load.
What is Outlaw?
Outlaw Half Nottingham, is a 70.3 mile distance triathlon which took place on 17 May 2026 at the National Watersports Centre in Holme Pierrepoint Country Park in Nottingham.
The race starts with a 1.9 km swim at the National Watersports Centre lake, continues with a 90km bike ride around the Nottinghamshire countryside and finishes with a 21.1km round the lake back at the National Watersports Centre.
The race build up this time round was a little different. Outlaw is not my A-race this year and it felt a little strange turning to such a massive endurance race knowing that in a few months I’ll be turning up to double the distance. The week of the traditional nerves set in and I got on with my usual routine of tapering, carb loading and panicking that something would go wrong.
In terms of my own personal goals, I went in with two primary goals:
- I wanted to get comfortable on my new TT bike - a 2023 Cervelo P-Series in Sunset Purple (a sometimes green, sometimes gold, sometime purple glitter bomb of a bike) with a Parcours Chrono set up; and
- I wanted to improve my run off the bike.
The energy at Outlaw is great. It has the feel of a much bigger event while retaining some of the local charm which makes UK events so much fun to participate in.
The weekend itself had a slightly unusual feel because the weather was forecast to be terrible and the lake was apparently sub-14 degrees which led to the swim being shortened by 400m (a disappointment to me because swimming is a strong leg for me).
Race Day
Overall the race went reasonably well. I completed both my goals but probably not in the fashion I’d intended.
After an initial cold shock immersion to start the swim, I settled into it and the swim went really well and then got through T1 fairly quickly and out onto the bike course. For about 15-20km things went “swimmingly”, except for the constant dodging of potholes. That is when things went a bit wrong and I started to hear the dreaded thudding noise from my back wheel - my first puncture in a race. I pulled over, got the tire off and then took an embarrassing long amount of time to change my inner tube. I then proceeded to use my CO2 canister and only managed to get it to express about 2/3rds of its content (inevitably user error but I’m planning to blame the unbranded cartridge). Luckily, the team at Parcours have been banging on about how by running wider tires you can run on lower pressures. In my 28mm tires, I just rolled with it and it worked well.
Huge shout out to Lizzie and Chris Stewart who passed me while I was fixing my tire. Chris has cerebral palsy and Lizzie pushed and pulled him around the entire course. You can follow their story at @teamstewartracing on instagram. Seeing that was a big motivator to get me out of my “ditch at the side of the road” funk and finish the remaining 70+km of the bike race.
Then off the bike and into the run, and an 11 minute improvement on my last 70.3 run leg and, if I remove puncture time and adjust for the swim, it could easily have been an over PB despite it being the most elevation I’ve completed in a race so far.
Overall, a great day out. Goals achieved. First proper race testing out my Parcours Chrono set up and I loved it. The wheels went surprisingly well on a very pothole-y course. It also served as an opportunity to draw on a bit of mental strength which I’ll inevitably need come Copenhagen.
What’s next…
I completed two 70.3 Ironman events in 2025 (Venice-Jesolo and Emilia-Romagna) and having completed each of these events and promising myself that I did not want to do the full distance event, I have signed up for Copenhagen Full Ironman in August. That is the big goal for 2026.
You can also follow Jonathan at @OverloadedIronman on instagram.
