Well I did it....For those that don't know, the Iron Man is a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride and finishing with a 26 mile run, all within 17 hours. They take place all over the world in exotic places like Hawaii and Lanzarote, I did mine in Bolton on August 1st

I have run a few marathons and used to cycle to work and I got my stripes (for a width) when I was at school so how difficult could it be!

So, I started training in January and concentrated on my running as I was to complete the London Marathon in April, plus it was too cold to go out on my bike. The long runs in the mornings before work were interesting, especially in the snow. I don't like running with water/bottles so when struggling through the Brentwood hills some time in March I almost had to drink a muddy puddle to hydrate, thankfully my mate drove past and took me home. Marathon out the way I picked up a calf tear so decided to start concentrating on my cycling. Again, the early morning rides were going well until one morning at dawn I had a puncture in the middle of nowehere and my hands were that cold I had to sit on the side of the road actually crying in pain, holding my hands to the rising sun to get some warmth in them so that I could fix the puncture…and that was with gloves on. I thought I had better venture to the local pool and practice my swimming and get rid of my arm bands. Thinking that there would be no-one there at 7 in the morning, I hadn't realised on the OAP's making use of their free swimming and so had to mix it with the wrinklies who to be fair were much better than me, apart from one old boy who could only lift one arm and just went round in circles and another lady who I am sure just went there for a wash.

So training complete, the big day in Bolton was approaching and after the stress of getting all your kit in the right place the race began.

The 2.4 mile swim was first up at 06:00 and this should have been my worse event as I had only swum a mile before and I had developed the same kind of stroke as the bloke with one arm. As it turned out it went really well apart from my lack of direction which probably saw me swim closer to 3 miles. 90 minutes later and I was out of my wet suit, into my lycra and ont to my bike. I took it easy for the first 20 miles which got me to the start of a looped section which we had to complete 3 times starting with a 2 mile uphill section. Now I know what goes up comes down but this just went up and up and was pretty tough on my old bone shaker of a bike. They gave you Gatorade on the way round and I don't mind saying that after the 6th bottle of the stuff I was physically sick, but thankfully it matched by yellow bike so didn't notice. Anyway, 3 loops and 5 chain breaks later I had finished the bike ride with some German bloke who was moaning that according to his computer it was actually 114 miles and you can't argue with German precision! The bike to run transistion was a relaxing affair, another athlete was sitting eating his pre-packed Mcdonalds, another had a pizza and all I had was a banana which had gone a bit brown. Ten minutes later I was off on my run which started with a 3 mile section through the muddy woods before turning to an 8 mile section along the streets and canals of Bolton which we had to do 3 times. You get talking to some interesting people on the road both running and supporting, a bloke in a pub kindly offered me a slurp of lager which took away the dryness of a rich tea biscuit an old granny had given 5 minutes earlier. I got chatting to 2 Irish runners and a Scot who was living in South Africa and had fallen off his bike earlier and had blood all down his leg. Then there was this 64 year old woman from Canada who I soon realised was about 45 minutes ahead of me which was probably worse then getting beaten by Spongebob Squarepants at the London Marathon earlier in the year.

Still, 14 and a 1/2 hours after jumping in the lake earlier in the morning I was approaching the finishing line to the words of Glenn Bonnett, you are an IRONMAN and it was then that I realised that I had done it. All of that training and preperation had paid off and I had achieved my objective but this time with a bonus of raising money for my charities.

During the bike ride we went past some people fishing, fishermen I think they are called, and I thought that looks like a good sport to take up instead of all of this Iron Man stuff, however, having recovered, I think there might be a bit of life left in the legs yet so there may be a sequel so watch out for IRON MAN 2 some year soon….just don't tell the wife!