My whole year had been building up to this race, with everything counting down to Sunday 17th July. The objectives were clear – swim 3.8km in an hour, cycle 112 miles in under 5hrs 30mins and run 26.2 miles in under 3hrs 30mins. Give or take five minutes for transitions, those splits should be enough to finish in under 10 hours – a time which in past years had meant a top three finish in the 25-29 age group and with it qualification for the Ironman World Championships.
Although this would be my first Ironman (and also first marathon), training performances made me fairly confident I could make those times. I decided I ought to reccy the bike route in advance and my Dad honourably agreed to drive me up to Bolton and wait in the car whilst I completed one lap of the course. I knew I would be slowed down by hills and patchy road surfaces – both of which I was well used to in training. What took me by surprise was the number of twists and turns, making it hard to build consistent momentum and resulting in a slower pace than I’d expected. My bike goal was starting to look a lot less certain.
Arriving at the Macron stadium for registration and race briefing I was immediately struck by how different this was to my two triathlon experiences to date. This was on another scale – with over 2,000 competitors and the slick Ironman branding everywhere. The MC hosting the event was a charismatic pro and it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement of the occasion. Whilst I’d baulked at the £400 entry fee, I was quickly won over with a “free” event backpack filled with samples from different sponsors. Having split transitions (the swim, bike and run finish in different places) was initially confusing Ironman seem to run a pretty slick operation and everything was clearly explained.
I was staying at the Premier Inn next to the stadium, where I’d been able to find a three person room to also accommodate my parents (although technically the pull out sofa bed was meant for a child). Not being accustomed to rule breaking, it was an added thrill over the weekend trying to keep up the deception that we weren’t staying together whenever we entered or exited the building – not that I think anyone would have cared… The hotel was an ideal location – a five minute walk from registration, briefings and T2, whilst a shuttle bus would be provided to the swim start about 10 miles away on race morning.
I spent Saturday getting all of my kit marked with stickers and sorted into the different coloured transition bags, ready for various drop offs. First, a drive to Pennington Flash – the lake we would be swimming in at 6am the next day – to drop off my bike and cycling kit. Then, back to the stadium to leave run kit at T2. Whilst I’d felt stressed about how much needed to be done, we actually found ourselves with a lot of free time on our hands. I needed a distraction to avoid dwelling on the day ahead and getting too worked up. In the end we settled for the cinema and wandering around a nearby shopping centre – a plan shared with dozens of other athletes judging by the number of compression socks on show.
I was already nervously half-awake when my alarm went at 3am, and I ate my Tupperware bowl of cornflakes with UHT milk in the hotel room. Although Premier Inn were offering an early buffet, I didn’t want to take any risks with nutrition so stuck to low fibre, simple carbs that I’d have time to digest before swimming. I couldn’t believe how long the shuttle bus queue was before 4am – snaking right through two car parks – and it was a long, cold and nervous wait in the dark before the double deckers started to arrive a bit more frequently and I knew we wouldn’t be late. I had just enough time to check my bike over and add nutrition before joining another queue for the swim start.
The lake swim featured a rolling start, but this didn’t seem to make it any less aggressive. The whole experience felt like a fight and I swallowed quite a lot of water – most likely including a bit of goose poo – not only at the beginning but at each turning buoy. Things didn’t get a lot easier on the second lap, as we started to catch up some of the slower swimmers who had also started later, leading to even more congestion. I found it hard to sight where we needed to go and stay on course. The whole experience was pretty chaotic and unenjoyable – as I slid through the muddy transition field and out onto the bike course I could tell I was at least five minutes behind my target so far.
Still, it would be a long day and most of it was still ahead. I quickly got up to pace on the bike – enjoying racing on closed roads for the first time and cruising through traffic lights which had been such a nuisance a few weeks earlier on my test ride. The first lap was good fun as I moved my way up through the field and found myself without many other athletes around. Without heart rate or power to go by I had to hope the adrenaline of racing wouldn’t compromise my perceived effort, and although I couldn’t resist a bit of extra effort on the hills think I paced myself fairly well.
By the second lap, I started to catch some athletes on their first lap and the course became a bit more congested. Whilst overtaking gave me some fresh motivation, it became hard to tell where I was relative to other competitors and impossible to know within my age group. All was going smoothly until the 80 mile point, where my saddle – which had started to feel like it was shifting position – came completely loose. It was still held on, but only seemed secure enough to sit on when angled horrifically upwards at about 60 degrees. I wasted a bit of time off the bike desperately trying to think what I could do, but with no mechanics around and not carrying the spanner I would need to tighten it decided I would just have to plough on regardless – accepting a combination of standing up and hovering gingerly on the point of the saddle for the remaining 30 miles. I’d later be screaming in pain in the shower at the damage this had done to my undercarriage, but I made it round in 5hrs 25 mins. Combined with the slightly slower swim, I was now back on target – but with no margin for error in the run.
The marathon was the most uncertain part of my plan. Running is the sport I have by far the least experience in and my body seems to like doing least. Having never run more than 19 miles before, I couldn’t be sure how things would go beyond this point and just had to hope I wouldn’t “hit the wall” that people often talk about. I was greeted by a ridiculously steep hill straight out of T2, before a pleasant, quiet section along a canal which guides you into Bolton town centre. I tried to spot which age group was written on the bib numbers of athletes I managed to overtake – although this wasn’t particularly easy, I spotted another one in the 25-29 bracket and made a note to try and stop him catching me.
I still had no idea of my position but Kona qualification, whilst important, was totally out of my control and dependent on who else was there on the day. If I could finish inside 10 hours, I’d have achieved something to be proud of and done everything I could. Given the rolling start I didn’t have a perfect idea of my overall time, but estimated a 3 hr 20 min marathon would be enough. I was on track for this pace, but was now entering the main run section featuring repeated hilly laps into and out of Bolton. Whilst tougher to maintain the pace, both the sun and supporters had come out to provide a morale boost and I’d never experienced anything like it – high fives, waves and running through the spray from garden hoses distracted me from the fatigue building in my legs.
I could tell from my watch I was holding a good pace and barring a breakdown on the final lap thought I would make it. The final couple of miles are all downhill, and as I realised I had the stamina went all in for “sprint finish” of sorts. The finish line announcer had said for any first-timers to point to their number to make sure they got their name called out at the finish. I caught his eye as I turned onto the finisher’s red carpet and heard the famous words “You are an Ironman”. I shouted “come on” to the crowd as I realised I was coming through in under 10 hours and ridiculously jumped through the finish line whilst punching the air, massively pumped up by the whole situation.
Another perk of the higher entry fee is a top class post-race recovery area. I indulged in a ludicrous amount of complimentary Domino’s pizza before a massage and finally meeting my parents to buy some stash at the Ironman shop (I’d refused to buy any before the race in case it all went wrong and I didn’t want a souvenir!). I found out my time was 9hrs 55mins and that I’d finished third in age group – achieving two goals but still without a guarantee of qualifying for Kona as the number of slots depends on how many competitors are in each age group. It was likely I’d qualified based on previous years, but I had a nervous wait until the next morning when printed results with confirmed qualification places would be posted outside the Macron stadium.
It would have been so disappointing at that stage to have the Kona dream taken away, so I was relieved to find third place had snagged me the last qualification slot in my age group. I was then happy to sit through the (quite long and drawn out) awards ceremony – enjoying a podium moment and collecting an impressively big trophy for 3rd place. I then had to wait as they read out every qualified athlete’s name until it was my turn to shout “yes please!” to claim my slot. I headed back onto the stage to accept my Hawaiian lei and a bottle of Kona brewery beer, whilst in turn Ironman gratefully accepted my $800 entry fee for the World Championships which had to be paid on the spot. There was time for one more nervous moment as my bank tried to refuse the suspicious transaction, but eventually the payment was made and it was time to start planning – in 10 weeks’ time I was going to Hawaii!
