Tracy & Amanda’s Ironman 70.3

Back in September Tracy decided to pursuance Amanda that they needed a new challenge. A triathlon, not a super sprint, sprint or Olympic oh no a 70.3 Ironman and if that wasn’t difficult enough let’s pick one of the toughest ironman to really test us ‘Bolton’! A 1.2 mile swim in open water, 56 mile cycle (2800ft elevation) and then a half marathon to the finish line. At that point neither of us could swim a length in front crawl and Tracy didn’t own a bike!

So here we are and on the 30th June we take on the Ironman 70.3 in aid of the MS Trust, Cancer Research and The Hospice of the Good Shepherd, all charities close to our hearts. Whilst we always wanted to raise money for these three charities we had the fear of could we actually do this!!

First we had to sort Swimming lessons, It wasnt easy and even in November we still couldn’t swim a full length. We persevered and gave ourselves until January to try and get some sort of technique mastered with early morning swims and Sunday sessions we started to make progress. In the meantime Tracy invested in a road bike and our first ride out was January in minus temperatures, skating across ice.

We have had some major lows, Amanda with open water swimming and Tracy with cycling but we have come so far and supported each other through this. The main thing is the highs have out weighed the lows by far, we have laughed until we ve cried, experienced so many adventures, drove each other crazy but most of all a fantastic friendship has formed.

We’ve trained incredibly hard, averaging around 130 miles a week with swimming lessons, cycling up difficult hills in freezing weather, getting off the bike and going straight into a run! Constantly challenging ourselves and pushing ourselves to get into a position where we can turn up on the start line knowing we have done everything possible. These charities mean a lot to us. Both of us feel privileged to even be in a position to give this a go.

However there is a small chance that we may not finish. There are a cut of times to be met, rules to be followed (and a lot of them!) also Amanda is prone to panic attacks in Open Water and Tracy seems to have trouble staying on the bike with the bruises to show for it. But we promise this, we will do our best, in which case we kindly ask that any money donated can still go to these great causes anyway. Every penny makes a difference.

All monies raised will be evenly split between the charities.