In 2009, I entered my first Ironman triathlon, as a way to test myself ahead of entering 15-and-a-half months of Royal Marines officer training. I figured I wanted to know that I was capable of long distances and perseverance under strain, and so what better to build those qualities than a very long multidisciplinary race!

I’d heard of it when it was held near my hometown in Somerset and Dorset for a number of years as I was growing up, but always figured it was something that was way out of my league. My local bike shop, Tri UK, had organised it for several years when it had first come to the UK and only attracted a few hundred hardcore competitors.

But then it had popped up again after hearing about what it was like to finish from a friend that entered it in 2006, before we deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, so I decided that I should investigate it further and see if it really was the top of the pyramid of endurance races!

What is an Ironman triathlon?

If you’ve not heard of the Ironman triathlon, it’s a globally renowned race held all over the world and run annually in the United Kingdom. It is part of the Ironman series, which consists of long-distance triathlon events organised by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC).

Interestingly, the first Ironman race took place on February 1978, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The race combined the distances of the three existing endurance events, namely the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Around-Oahu Bike Race, and the Honolulu Marathon. Apparently 15 competitors took part from various backgrounds, such as swimmers, cyclists, and runners, and the winner completed it in 11 hours and 46 minutes!

All official Ironman races follow the traditional Ironman Race Distance format, which is a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike ride, and a marathon-length 26.2-mile (42.20 km) run. It adds up to a total of 140.6 miles (or 226.3 kilometres).

My experience at the Ironman UK

A good friend, Ty, has also decided to enter the Ironman and so we decide to travel there together using my van to take the vast amount of kit that’s needed. We’re both based in Surrey, it’s a c.230-mile drive that would take over 4 hours to get to the equipment check in, so we schedule a brief stop in the midlands to break the journey up and make sure we get there with good time, as if you can’t check your bike and kit in, the race is essentially forfeited.

We get to the kit check-in location and find it’s a muddy field next to the lake. We register, collect our race numbers, label up our bike and gear, and then depart to the hotel to rest up for the night. But the weather has other ideas for us competitors. It’s rained quite heavily, and now my van is stuck in the mud. We try in vain to push it out, and prepare to spend the night there. But thankfully, the race organisers have recruited the help of a local farmer and his tractor to pull us clear. Relieved, we make our way to the hotel to grab some dinner and prepare for our 4:30 am start to ensure we’re in the water for the 6am race start!

The swim takes place in Pennington Flash, a reservoir near Leigh, a scenic lake that serves as a great start to this iconic race. I’m not a fan of sea swims and glad that this is the first year of two laps of a closed lake. Despite having trained in open water, I’m still exceptionally slow. It takes me around 2 hours to complete this and I know I’m in danger of getting a DNF at the first hurdle as the cut-off time for the swim is 2 hours 20 minutes. Not a great start to my first Ironman!

We then move onto bike course, which is a challenging route through the countryside and hilly terrain of Lancashire. It’s 3 laps of a 37-mile route (c.57 kilometres) course with some big hills in the first few miles. and 6 or 7 hairpin turns make it quite a slow, challenging course!

Having trained in the relatively flat roads of Surrey meant that the route caught me by surprise, including a huge hill that near the start of the course between Rivington flash and Belmont, that was so steep it was out of my gear range, meaning I had to get off and walk a few hundred metres (whilst wearing road bike cleats) until I reached the peak! You tackle it 3 times and dread it after the very first summit!

Finally, the run course takes participants through the streets of Bolton, including Queen's Park, before finishing in Victoria Square, in Bolton city centre. Having very little knowledge of nutrition at the time meant that I made the mistake of drinking the flat soda that was being handed out at aid stations and found my blood sugar levels rollercoastered for most of the marathon.

But despite this and a long 14-hour day, I made it to the finish line and claimed my prize of being an ‘ironman’!

You might also like to read: