We’ll probably have a couple of articles on this one as the reports come in but for now here are the thoughts of Michelle Hartley who was one of four club members taking on this event in 2017 –
Ironman UK 2017
I’m not sure how this happened, but three years after I said I’d never do this race again, here I am on my way to Pennington Flash to rack my bike and T1 bag. T2 is already done. I can’t believe how nervous I feel for a second timer; I think it’s because I know it’s a hard course and the second time around definitely won’t be any easier than the first. I hope I don’t end up regretting the decision to take on Bolton again.
Race day arrives at 2.00 a.m. for me. I can’t get back to sleep, but that’s OK. I’m ready to go, I just want to get to the Flash and get started. I try to force some breakfast down but my body is determined to reject it. It’s like trying to eat a bowl of nuts and bolts. I have what I can and then it’s time to go.
It’s pitch black outside, it’s drizzling and the atmosphere in the bus queue is tense! Nobody is talking and the silence is unsettling. Once we get to Pennington Flash it’s at least started to transform into daylight, which helps to ease the atmosphere. I put my nutrition and drink on my bike, get into my wetsuit and join the swim line. Since I’m always early for everything, I’m the first one in the queue, at something like 5.10 a.m!!!
Anyway, time ticks on and Paul Gibson and I spot each other and have a chat at the swim start. I’m beginning to get nervous now and when I hear AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ (incidentally one of my favourite AC/DC songs), the nerves kick in big time. This is it!!!!
It’s a rolling start and as soon as we hit the water, it’s time to go. No warm up, just straight into it. The temperature actually feels good; not too warm, not too hot – real Goldilocks stuff. The first lap goes well, apart from taking far too wide a line at the buoys. I do my first lap in 37 minutes – pretty much what I expected. I get in for the second lap and it all goes wrong. Something just doesn’t feel right – nothing feels smooth or flowing and even though I have clear water all around me, things feel claustrophobic. I get this horrible feeling running through me and before I know it, my breakfast is trying to make a reappearance. I know I can’t let myself be sick in the water, so I have to just swallow it down and carry on (sorry for being so graphic). My entire body feels weak after this and it seems to take forever to finish this lap. I get out of the swim in 1.17 and I’m feeling down about it. Two minutes slower than last time, not what I was expecting but I don’t have time to dwell on it.
Into T1 and my wetsuit does not want to come off. It’s like I’ve glued it onto my body – at one point I thought I’d have to bike my way out of it!! Anyway, a much slower transition that I would’ve liked and I’m off for 112 hilly, horrible miles.
I feel awful for the first hour of the bike. My legs are weak and shaky and I can’t get any power into my pedal stroke. I expected that I’d be able to maintain a minimum 15mph average for this discipline, but at the first hour I’m fighting just to stay above 14. Not a great start. So after an hour I hit the start of the 2 laps, which is also the start of the infamous Sheep House Lane. Not a great place to be with weak, shaky legs. I get myself into a rhythm and keep pushing the pedals round. Some cocky bloke says to me ‘I thought this was supposed to be a hill, there are worse hills than this in the Cotswolds’. I say nothing as I go past him…. I reach the fantastic Sheep House Fancy Dress Party fellas, and because I know they’re doing a live stream on Facebook, I make it look as though I’m loving every minute!!!
Once you get to the top of Sheepy, it’s a very fast, very technical descent. It’s not steep, but the corners are tight and can take you by surprise. Add to that the wet roads and the fact that I’m not a confident descender and you have a very guarded descent from me. Unfortunately, I did see that somebody had come off and it didn’t look good, he wasn’t moving. He was already being looked after so I continued carefully on my way.
After Sheepy there’s a bit of a rolling ride and then a mega descent – not steep but very fast and almost a straight line so you can get a good bit of speed up. I really loved that bit and looked forward to doing it again.
Anyway, the next climb major climb was Hunter’s Hill, which I’d been dreading. It’s very steep and full of spectators so it’s busy, crowded and a really difficult climb. I don’t know how, but I managed to get up with no real problems. It was bloody hard but no harder than something like Whickham Bank.
After that it was another lap of the same and then back into Bolton. Unfortunately for me the wind picked up on the second lap which just decimated my already slow average pace. I had to stop at 90 miles to be sick (not my day at all) and then face Hunter’s Hill again straight after that. I was determined that I wasn’t going to walk a single step of the bike course and I’m so pleased to say that I didn’t. Hunter’s was much harder the second time around but I did it.
Once we got into T2 it was trainers on and out for the run. That’s essentially all I did so I have no idea how it took 10 minutes!!
This is the part I’ve dreaded for months. I haven’t been able to do anywhere near enough running due to various injuries and I knew I’d struggle. My plan was to walk every hill (and there are a lot of them on this course!). This means walking straight up the hill I’d just rode down to come into T2. It was a good plan though because as soon as I’d reached the top I felt quite good – the best I’d felt for the entire race. I started to run, not a great pace but decent enough and I managed to keep going for longer than I anticipated. I walked up the hill to get to Chorley New Road and then began the 3.5 loops.
I remember the loops being much longer and much harder last time around. Obviously that shows just how terrible I felt because this time everything seemed so much shorter. I felt great for about the first 13-15 miles and then things fell apart. I felt so dizzy and weak, but there was no way my stomach could handle anything other than water and the odd sip of coke. Any kind of food was out of the question. Going into Bolton Town Centre on that lap was so hard, watching other people head down the red carpet and me having to turn right and do another freaking lap. I felt broken at that point. Until then, I’d been on for a sub-14 race, but my body just couldn’t continue at that pace. I knew this was my final lap and I didn’t want to be disappointed again, so I had to force myself to run; I say run, but that’s a generous description. My friend sent me a video she’d taken of me. I can only describe what I was doing as a speed walk with horrific technique.
Anyway, longer than I’d hoped it would take, I finally got back into Bolton Town Centre and it was my turn to turn left and head down that magnificent red carpet. I was barely aware of the announcer declare ‘Michelle, you are an Ironman’. I crossed the line in exactly 14 hours 12 minutes – a PB of 1 hour 7 minutes. By no means is it a great time, even for a hard course like Bolton, but it’s absolutely everything I had that day.
Now that I’ve done a time I can be proud of, I can genuinely say I’ll never do Bolton again. As for going long – on a flat course, there’s a good chance I could go sub-14…..