Looking back on the Ironman

Two years ago this week, five friends and I took on the challenge of the Ironman. This was the culmination of 5 years of training: starting with a cycle ride from Kings Lynn to Winchester where we averaged about 60 miles a day, and finishing with all 6 of us completing the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run of the Nice Ironman.

It terms of proudest achievements, this takes a top 3 spot. In terms of toughest things I’ve done, this definitely takes number 1 spot. I used to think that I’d ‘hit the wall’ in the marathon when my split times for the final few miles dropped by 30 seconds per mile – certainly not. Me ‘hitting the wall’ was the inability to run more than 500m at a time, take on any fuel and still have 6 miles of an Ironman marathon to run.

Despite the pain at the time, it was totally worth it and, looking back on the race, there is a small part of me that says there is still some unfinished business with the 10 hour barrier being so close.

If you want to read more about the build up to the event, we kept a log of it all here, and below is a video of the Ironman day itself.