After months of training I took part in the UK Ironman 2013 race on Sunday! The day started at 3am for the meagre amount of my breakfast that the nerves allowed me to eat. Then it was off to the start line.
After checking my bike tyre pressure and making sure all my nutrition and spares were secured, it was time to get my wetsuit on and start to switch on for the long day ahead…… by 5:55am I was in the murky waters of Pennington Flash along with 1,700 other people who were either a sucker for punishment, having a mid-life crisis or clinically insane.
When the hooter went to start, I thought I was in a boxing match as everyone was fighting to use the same bit of water! Despite this I managed to stay out of trouble and finished the 2.4 mile section in just shy of 1 hour 18 minutes – my target was 1 hour 20 minutes.
The transition to the bike went smoothly, despite a short queue for the portaloos. The first part of the bike was a point-to-point section to where the 3-looped course began. I made good time here and despite the horrendous hill at start of the loops, I was comfortably ahead of my target bike time.
Unfortunately this wasn’t to last… on the bike there is a ‘no drafting’ rule, meaning there has to be a 10 metre gap between bikes unless your overtaking. This means you have very little contact with anyone for the time you’re on the bike and this felt quite isolating. With nothing to take my mind off of what I was doing, I got into my head a bit and psychologically and emotionally I started to struggle.
The second lap of the 180km route was by far the worst I have felt in any kind of event I’ve done and I questioned for a long time my ability to complete the race! Thankfully, when I was feeling at probably my lowest, I heard the shouts of encouragement from Faye, my girlfriend, my Mum and my friend Craig as I passed by them towards the end of the second lap.
This gave me a massive second (or maybe 7th or 8th) wind and I managed to actually claw back a lot of the time I lost on the second lap to finish the bike in 7 hours 53 minutes – 7 minutes under my target!
I cannot explain how glad I was to get off the bike when I got to T2 to change from the bike to the run. Yet this was short lived – as I sat down to change my shoes and socks, my lower back seized up completely and I couldn’t either get back up to stretch it, or lean forward to get my trainers on…
Eventually, after 35 minutes (half an hour longer than I’d have liked) in transition, and a massage on my back from one of the support staff (who did a fantastic job for the whole weekend), I hobbled out onto the run (although for 10 minutes it was a ‘walk’ while I ate a burrito and cake bar and tried to loosen my back).
Somehow, when I started moving, everything (for the first time since 6am – it was now just after 4pm) started to click into place!
I was making a good pace and feeling pretty fresh! I managed to pick people off in front of me who had come into transition at the same time as me, so the extra time I took seemed to work in my favour…
This boosted my confidence that I was feeling in better condition than the other people on the course and I somehow managed to maintain this pace – and again, seeing Faye, Craig and my Mum at regular intervals on the 3 loop course kept me going despite the torrential rain, and the hours of pain I’d already gone through!
The course surprised me, and I surprised myself in so many ways throughout the day!
The hill up Sheephouse Lane was so much tougher and longer than I expected and sapped the legs while crawling along at a snail’s pace to claw to the top. It was also a surprise the amount of the bike course that was uphill – it felt like one of those optical illusion pictures… how can a loop keep go up without coming down…?
The biggest surprise for me though was, by far, how I felt on the day. I woke up so nervous I could barely eat and by the time I was halfway through the bike I think I had already welled up about 5 or 6 times – and if I’m honest I was struggling to maintain my focus.
I was told by Faye afterwards how worried they were after they saw me at this point – and until I saw them, so was I!
I had no idea how emotional I would be throughout the day. I guess the months of training and time I’d spent to get to the position to be there on the start line, as well personal reasons and motivations for doing this event and the realisation I still had so much further to go, was a bit overwhelming at this point.
There were even more moments like this to come though. For example, after about 5 miles of the run, in a residential area on the way to the main part of Bolton, I saw a lady sat on her own on a deck chair with an umbrella in the pouring rain. She must have been at least 75 and was soaked through, but cheered and encouraged every person who went past her!! This just summed up the amazing support that was out on the course, keeping the competitors going. It was very humbling for me.
However, all that being said, I would do it all again and again for the feeling I had as I heard the words “Adam, you are an IRONMAN!” over the tannoy as I crossed the finish line in front of the town hall. With the crowd cheering it was like nothing I have experienced before and is something I will remember forever!
It was about 5 minutes later, sitting in a quiet spot just outside the finishers’ tent, that the effects of the day came out – with my head in my hands, feeling a mixture of relief, exhaustion and pride!
Although I struggled on the second lap of the bike, and spent 35 minutes in Transition 2 – feeling like an old man, unable to put my own shoes and socks on – I actually managed to finish each of the 3 sections in the times I planned for!
This meant I finished in a total time of 14 hours 11 minutes and 26 seconds!! Not bad (even if I say so myself) for my first ever triathlon, let alone at this distance!!
I would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who sponsored me – it means so much to me, and I’m sure it does to CRY as well. It is a charity close to my heart who do amazing work and the money I raised – currently around £1,300 and hopefully this will still continue to rise) will be used wisely and will do a great deal of good.
Thanks again
Adam Watts
IRONMAN FINISHER 2013!!
