Pre-amble
Our journey took a little over 2 hours and we arrived at our hotel for the weekend in the early afternoon. Our digs of choice for the weekend was the Novotel @ South Manchester. The Receptionist made some reservation changes to keep our room away from the wedding function room which was very much appreciated. Hotel was OK as far as hotels with woodchip effect plaster walls go, but it was clean and best of all quiet !
Later in the afternoon, we made our way over to the Reebok Stadium to register and collect my race pack , transition bags, and importantly yet another Ironman goody bag - this time a mid size rucksack - to add to my collection that the missus refers to as 'hoarding' - tut !(Clearly you can never have enough IM bags !)
We stayed for the race briefing which was enjoyable - and then stayed longer for the Pasta party which was better than expected. In fact the whole weekend was beginning to feel more polished than I had thought, as I had some pre-conceptions of Bolton being a bit on the grim side ! Got back to the hotel feeling more positive and managed a decent nights sleep.
Saturday was spent packing the various transition bags with kit that I would need at differing stages of the race. Amongst things I forgot to pack were socks for both the run and the bike ! We would spend the rest of the day dropping bags and bike off at T1 (Pennington Flash) & at T2 (a school near Rivington). We also popped into Bolton to see the finish arch being erected and to convince Heidi that there was more to Bolton than a Greggs and a Cash Converters ! (In fact there were two Greggs so there !!!).
Planned on getting no sleep at all, but fell asleep during Casino Royale, so got a bonus 5 hours sleep !
Raceday
Got up at silly o clock and had a couple of porridge pots and a coffee to wake me up. Spent a good few minutes applying more layers of Riemanns P20 sun lotion. I then managed to completely cock up putting on the race number tattoo, when I forgot to remove the backing paper because I'm a tit !! After a bit more messing around checking stuff that clearly didn't need to be checked, we got in the car and made the shortish journey over to Pennington Flash where we turned up very early at c.4.40 am ! Pump the tyres, spend 20 minutes chasing around T1 to find a marshall with a marker pen to number me up. Finally with half an hour to go to the start I headed back to the car to get the wetsuit on to make my way down to the start.
Swim
Must have faffed around a little too long as I managed to get quite far back in the field waiting to get into the water, and I could see that there was no way the race was going to start on time, In fact, I think it was ten minutes late going off as people were still piling in and then having to swim over to the floating start area. I positioned myself towards the middle and eventually we were set on our way.Lots of biff first off as people found their way to their natural positions in the swim, and lots of athletes aimlessly swimming across each other heading for who knows what. The swim was a triangular two lap affair, with big bright orange buoys marking each turn - so how these numpties were managing to zig zag so badly god only knows ! For my own efforts I felt really good and paced the first straight well. I began to drift out to the left of the field on the return leg back to the start and promised myself that I wouldn't go so wide on the next lap. Halfway done in c.41minutes as we exited the water for a short run section (more of a mudslide in truth as the ground was bogged by the time I got there !). Second lap, not gonna go wide, oops gone wide, not just wide but very wide. Took the opportunity to have a pee with no one else clearly around me and then doubly concentrated on keeping my line on the straight and narrow on the last couple of legs. Had some more biff with some more directionally challenged numpties, but all ok in the end. Exited the water in 1.28.43 for a new IM swim PB of a whole 31 seconds ! Seriously though, happy with swim, felt it was an honest distance, not sure it was as long as some have said (Garmins showing 2.90/99 miles). Felt good running up the long stretch to T1 and all going to plan.
T1
Seemed to take an age here with some of it taken up using the loo, some of it trying to dodge bodies and find a place to change, but mostly because I dally a bit. At 8.54 though, an improvement again over Austria, so getting better ?
Bike
This is more like it ! Straight down into the aero bars and passing lots of people on the stretch up to the loop. Tried not too push it too hard, and kept myself occupied by counting the people that I passed, also remembering to net off the people that took me. After a good solid 16 miles , got to the bottom of the Sheep House Lane climb to start the first of three 31 mile loops which would complete the bike section. Took the first climb nice and easy and before I knew it I was already tear arsing down the descent at over 40 mph !! I knew there was a tightish left at the bottom from watching last years race so took a good line to make sure I didn't end up leaving the road and landing in the low level reservoir. The support in Belton was amazing when I got there and the good weather bringing out the crowds. I did feel a bit sick on the bike during the first loop, but reasoned that it must have been some dodgy flash water still left in my system.First loop completed and back round for my second crack at Sheep House ! I noticed that the sun was properly out by now and it was getting very warm. I sweated my way up the climb the second time and wished that there was more cloud cover. Great support again out on the bike course, and although baking, felt a little better as the Flash water seemed to have finally gone from my system. I was also still riding well, although the results show a drop from the first lap and continued to pass people. The 3rd lap again started with another trip up SHL which was a complete horrible slow grind from bottom to top as my legs were screaming every time I got out of the saddle. I was so pleased to get to the top I really was ! It was far too hot and I was cooking at this point on the bike. I lost a minute when the chain fell off the ring but that was the height of any event on the whole bike course. The support didn't die down all day and 'colt alley' was a joy to ride towards the end of each lap. I rolled into T2 in 6.40.39 which I was delighted with. (Austria had been 6.37 on smoother roads and with 600m less climbing !). I even managed a trot through transition once a helper had taken my bike..
T2 - because of my cleats on my shoes, did a penquin waddle in the sports hall, grabbed my bag and did a quick change. What made up the rest of the time of 4.25 was waiting for a portaloo before deciding to give up waiting and get myself out onto the run.
Run
It was very hot, but I still ran a very fast first mile knowing that my PB and potential aim of sub 12.30 was definately on ! Mile 2 slowed me down a bit but I was still going well albeit aware that something was not quite right. Walked through the first aid station and grabbed a portaloo, in which it became really clear that my hydration was in a bad place. I took some more water and then got on with my marathon best I could. The run route into Bolton takes you along a river via a tow path and it was on this section with no shade that I really began to suffer. I started taking 20s walk breaks to see if that helped, but these became longer and longer and by the time I got to mile six I was done. I had no energy and was subjected to walking up a long climb to get onto the New Chorley Road. My nutrition going wrong is something I hadn't experienced before and I didn't know how to put it right. I made sure I took long walk breaks, and was selective about what I took from the aid stations, even trying ritz crackers. I could see that I was not alone, there were lots of people around me suffering in their own way with the heat and doing the best they could to get on with it. First time that I saw Heidi I fessed up that it was going to be a long day and that I was sorry. At this point I still had three loops of the run course left to do which is around 18 miles. I needed a plan and I needed one quickly cos the walking was getting stupidly long.
I decided on a walk run cone counting strategy in a genius attempt of trying to fool myself into getting going again.........and it worked ! Right, walk two cones (approx 20m), run 10 cones (approx 100m!).
This strategy got me through a further one and a half laps before I bumped into a great bloke called Paul from TriTalk who had a knackered Achilles but was still aiming to finish best he could. Between us we cone counted the rest of the Marathon, albeit going from a 2-10 strategy to a 4-7 shuffle but the most important thing was that we got there and I had really good company on those last two laps ! It didn't matter that we were counting the cones aloud as we passed them, or that we lost count in the confusion - we got the job done ! 5.14.03 for the run.13.36.44 for my second Ironman, and though it didn't go to plan, I was proud of the way I stuck at it and ground out a result. I finished in the top half of all finishers so at least I did meet one of my goals for the day in the end. Oh, and WOW, Bolton, what a surprise ! I expected it to be a bit low key and grim, but it was a brilliant venue with brilliant spectators - I have been buzzing for days afterward.
What's next ? I'm booked for Ironman Lanzarote in May of next year (that will be interesting with the Sun and all that heat again) and then Outlaw at Nottingham in June. Right now, I'm not planning any IM's past those dates.
For the rest of the year, apart from the odd Tri, I'll be mostly trying to improve my run speed and having a go at a few more time trials !
