The start of my Ironman Journey

Yes, it’s true – I have entered a full Iron-distance event: Ironman Copenhagen 2022.

If you are new to the site, my name is Anthony and I’m based in Maidstone, UK.

I intend to document my journey along the way, to share my thoughts and experiences as my training progresses.

But first, a little bit of back story to set the scene.

My fitness journey started around January 2015 when I joined Beginners2Runners in Coxheath, near Maidstone. Up to this point, I hadn’t really been doing any exercise and felt that I should be doing something to keep active and healthy.

The distances and the fitness developed, week by week, and in April 2016 I ran the London Marathon (Blog posts here: Marathon). It was a fantastic experience, but not my finest run – in fact, there was a good amount of walking due to some IT band niggles along the way. But the spark was ignited…

I then joined Maidstone Harriers (https://www.maidstoneharriers.co.uk/) in May 2016 and soon discovered I was amongst a group of people who embarked on challenges that at the time seemed “extra-ordinary” to me but were “normal” in the context. Midweek run chats would be interspersed with tales from a weekend marathon and the like.

And among the group of inspiring tales, were those who took running and added swimming and biking into the mix. This is next-level craziness I thought!

Building the puzzle

Fast-forward a little to January 2018, and I bought a road bike intending to use it for commuting, but also as some cross-training towards Brighton Marathon later that year. Needless to say, I really enjoyed life on two wheels and that has flourished in the following years. 2 out of 3 disciplines are being developed. At this point, I could not swim!

June 2019 I started to have swim coaching sessions with Maidstone Harriers and the coaching team somehow managed to take a beginner like me, who couldn’t manage a single length without coughing and spluttering, and turn me into someone who can swim!

I have clear memories of “dot-watching” a couple of Harrier friends completing Ironman Italy in September 2019 that really planted the seed that one day I would love to take on the challenge of completing an Ironman event.

And so, here we are. Yesterday, I booked my place at Ironman Copenhagen on 21st August 2022. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly scared at the size of the challenge but as the quote says:

If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough

Well, this is certainly a BIG challenge – for those who don’t know an Ironman event comprises of a 2.4mile swim, a 112mile bike leg, followed by a marathon (26.2miles). Even typing this out is a baffling sentence!

I have lots to learn and will be asking lots of questions along the way, and I hope that this blog will serve as a little piece of memory-making for me, but also that it might inspire, motivate others along the way.

I’d love to hear any questions, requests for topics to cover, that kind of thing – feel free to drop them below.