Ironman Leeds 2025 | Full Course Review + Tips

Signed up for Ironman Triathlon Leeds UK 2025? Get a competitive advantage by following Andy as he goes through the entire course and shares his best tips after 20 years of triathlon racing and 15+ years of coaching.
Swim, bike, run, transitions, aid stations, hills… We got everything…

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so here we are in the sunshine the leads Iron Man course preview but the proper one three months ago I was here in winter now we’re at the beginning of April and I want to just give you this backdrop chosen the right day if you want to go through the swim course the actual swim course which I pretty much got bang on right swim exits transition and most importantly the 50 odd k loop on the bike some technical tips some advice around actually what to do what not to do and the run course which I promise you finishes over here it’s going to test all of us so here we are on the pontoon it’s very shallow over here I believe from speaking to the guys so you’ll be able to get in the water more than likely and stand there it’s pretty swampy looking at the course maps and the turnaround boys and the swim exits it looks like the swim entry is going to be pretty much down on this side of the pontoon where you’re going to go straight out east into the sun this is quite a critical point because at 6:30 in the morning in late summer you’re going to have the sun straight into your eyes so goggles are going to be crucial point there my preferred choice is a nice triit uh rapid X goggle with some um anti-glare into the water here we’re going to be swimming in that direction east upwards but before that they’re going to have a struggle to get two two and a half thousand athletes congregating in this area so I assume this is going to be probably the starting pin here are behind me because this is too narrow and the swim exit’s going to be uh on that direction so swim boy is going to be more or less where these lovely swans are a little bit further out for your second loop morning guys it’s pretty deep in the middle so the water temperature will be more than likely much colder that way so we’re in the top corner now of the first part of the swim about 250 m in the first turn around is going to be a little bit of a bunfight cuz it’s still quite close to the start all right we’re in the thick of it now you’ve come the 250 mark on the on the first part of your swim you’ve got another turnar around right here this is going to be the tricky part uh the first 5 minutes of your swim and then we’re straight into this if there’s a wind like today straight into the headwind and this is the long stretch the great news is look at this area for spectating it’s going to be a noise fest with people walking lining the side of the swim you can see down there that’s exactly where we started from the clubhouse so by here things will be stringing out but now you’ve got a really long stretch to really get your head down and sightings can be tricky you would have had the sun in your eyes for the first 5 6 minutes and now you’ve got not a straight linear line of the um lovely water lake which is very deep in the middle which means it could be potentially very cold as well so we’re going to go to the top end now and show you what it looks like from the other side i want you to stop on this corner halfway up the long leg you’ve done your second turn at about 250 now it’s not a straight line this lake is funny contours and you’re going to have to swim alongside the sidewall but it’s really shallow here you can see here this about half meter depth 5 m in is where you’re going to want to be you can see the current from the wind if it’s blowing but it’s actually really tricky to navigate your sighting i’d really practice your open water sighting luckily the sun’s not going to be in your eyes here but just bear in mind you can see on the picture on the on the swim diagram that the whole lake is not straight so if you’ve made it this far which hopefully you have guys and girls we’re about a kilometer into the swim we’re at the top end of the lake and as I said a few minutes ago everything is quite curvy so the straight line is going to be really difficult to site but your turn around’s going to be somewhere around here with Mr spawn here bolts across short little 50 m stent and then you got to hit to your 1m mark which is 1.6ks a little bit further down there then when you come here that’s going to be pretty narrow and the swim exit is going to be an interesting point because we’ve got to get up these lovely stairs let me show you so onto your second loop you’re going to come back in here not going to go around that boy and it looks like this area is going to be your swim exit with a fake um pontoon they’re going to build you up so you can be hauled out and go straight up these lovely stairs for your 3 400 m run that we will show you now straight up the stairs out of the swim and you’ve got your nice 350 m run that I’m going to show you uphill well Iron Man have certainly chosen a lovely long transition which we we love in this part of the world because from the water down there you can see in the far corner it’s a good 2-minute jog maybe a bit quicker for some of the faster triathletes but you got to really watch your your feet you’re coming out more than likely barefoot in some tarmac if it’s wet you potentially could slip and slide around here the whole reason why they brought you up here as you can see on my left is the lovely cricket pitch so we’ve got a long run all the way up here to the top it’s more than likely going to be on this side of the clubhouse according to the map dropping down into a lovely flat area and that’s that’s what they’re after enough space to put 2 and a half thousand bikes and the exit is going to be on the other side of the cricket pitch now we get a lot of rain in in the north of England in summer and this potentially could be a bit of a flood bath hopefully they’ve thought about that going forward they often put cops down i feel sorry for the the cricket pitch itself x is going to be there on that little bike path so you’re not going to have an issue through here what I’d prepare for is getting your wets suit halfway down immediately up from swim exit it’s a something you need to practice goggles on the on the hat don’t try and hold the goggles and then pull your wet suit off at the same time so goggles on the head wet suit halfway down to your waist when you’re running up there’s going to be change facilities here they call it new changing uh facilities so don’t whip your kid off in in uh inside transition it’s a It’s a frowned upon thing uh in this country and certainly in America once you’ve got that you can do your change everything through there all in one more than likely your bike shoes will be on your bike or in your blue bag some races are different where they allow you to leave the helmet some places some races in different countries want you all in in the bike on the bike blue bag so that’s fairly minor details you know about that the day before it’s going to be a long transition four to 5 minutes so your times are going to be slow this course i wouldn’t really worry about how long your total time is going to be most important thing is not getting your heart rate in the red when you come out of the water because from lying down to standing up and then trying to run you go quite anorobic so give the time the blood time to get from the upper body into the legs and do the long run up as you can see straight out of your swim exit you’ve got the first minute straight up an incline now guys and girls that’s going to send your heart rate through the roof so this is a key point in your knowledge of the course if you live locally you’ll probably come and sus it out but people coming from far you want to know how long that is it’s probably going to take you a minute minute 15 to start running up the hill which then gets you to the cricket pitch where T1 is so we’re on to the bike course now and you’re wondering why I’m standing on some sort of bridge cycle path crossing a ring road we’re a few kilometers out of Leads Round Hay i thought it’d be worth stopping here the GPX file will confuse you because it confuses us but it looks like for some reason we have to come off the main road the ring road to come up on this beautiful bike off here which swoops around the back of me up and over now that’s all fair and well cuz this is concrete but on the other side there’s some gravel so follow me okay we’ve come over the bridge on the bike you’re not going to be allowed to be bigger on the tri bars here for example and then we’re doing a swooping little chicane sbend which then on the far side here links onto that gravel which is down there and then does another sharp light which is going to be treacherous let alone punches let alone sliding we have no idea why this is in and I’m going to find out why so this big right hand turn here onto Winmore Lane is going to be pretty sketchy as well 90° turn hopefully no cars like this coming on a closed road but best advice is to try and come wide here not like how I took it because you’re going to be turning sharp onto a road that’s hopefully closed but you got residence and yeah back onto the tarmac off Perry Rebe we’re on car lane doubleR towards our destination Thornuna it’s quite early in the in the loop and I wanted to stop here off my bike because where I’m standing here is the white line you would normally attack coming from this side attack the corner through the apex but if you do that you’ll come off your bike you can see why it’ll absolutely catapult these potholes they’re not going to fill them before July we’re in Yorkshire so your middle of the road here in Little Lane is going to be where you want to be so we’ve had a great little stint since um Shadwell since we’ve left Round A Park we’re about the 10 mile mark now 16 km into the bike ride we haven’t yet hit the first aid station but most of the road has been pretty much rolling nothing steep there was one sketchy corner on car lane which I showed you and now there’s just a lot of speed here this is the time you want to get the fuel in make sure you’re staying hydrated and yeah enjoy this before you have to really work hard with the hills coming up towards Hwood and Black Hill we’ve got a nice long downhill here your speed is going to go up which is fantastic really get into some aerot tuck around here to try and maximize your free gains this is a great time for your heart rate to drop and actually just get some recovery going before the main part of the course which is really going to challenge most people the biggest concern really is the road surface so along here it’s fine typical northern roads where there’s some sketchy sort of potholes and so forth and now we’re just about to go up a little climb after that downhill so you can see how you get lulled into a false sense of security where you think you’re flying and this is when you misjudge pacing and also misjudge fueling you’ve really got to stay on top of it every 20 minutes here you’ve got a nice little climb it’s easy to go over 350 watts and you just got to tap back and really slow down and respect the course because this adds up even you can hear the cars having to struggle it’s not super steep but it’s just enough to put a sting in the tail so remember we’re only 16ks in to our journey okay so that was a short little minute where we had to climb a little bit road surface is quite fast so you could probably stay in the big chain ring there for most people and then we have a sharp 90° lift look behind me pedal goes up apex of the corner watch the gravel over there and you buming down we’ve just done that 90° left turner onto Thorn Lane it’s actually beautiful and quiet down here quite a contrast to leaving the city center and busy around air park which to be honest is not my favorite place to ride like I mentioned in my first video I added quite a bit in around accommodation you can refer back to that i’ll add some snippets in but just a few kilometers out of the city you’ve got beautiful roads and quite lanes and this is what they’re really trying to capture in Yorkshire you can see the roads here on the left you want to stay out of that gutter there’s some ditches there always just I think aim for the middle of the lane you’re pretty safe the problem is you’re going to get the fast guys passing you on the right hand side which is fine they’re not allowed to go over the white line so generally stick left as well to give people you know space to pass you respectively remember fueling key you’ll have your fuel strategy dialed in dialed in 60 to 90 g of carbs is a great place to start and drink to thirst the hydration on the course is fantastic with precision hydration and you’ve got your morton fueling but I always suggest a variation to help you get your fuel needs and remember the weather dictates how much to drink and no one can really tell you exactly how much to drink but you would have tried it in training and done some hydration testing where you know how much fluid you lose so let’s get at it all right beautiful downhill coming up let’s get some speed i’m on my road bike today most of you will do it on a road bike a lot of first timers you’ve probably chosen the right type of bike for this undulating hilly course 2,000 mters of climbing probably a little bit more depending which map you look at still to be confirmed because the course map says 1900 m the website says 2,700 have no idea but it’s definitely going to be 2,00 mark okay on a dry day you’re looking good on this road surface on a wet day which is highly possible in England on the end of July you’re going to be challenged with brakes slipping and sliding but looking around and seeing the the scenery it really helps um it’s just a quiet country roads and if you’re used to racing on Europe on fast smooth roads you’re in for a bit of a a shock boys and girls this is true northern roads being a South African living up here for the last 13 years I’ve got quite conditioned to it and I use my wide tires quite often because the roads are pretty savage often gravel on the side of the road but all in all as long as you keep your eyes peeled and the brownies can train here pretty religiously all year round they’re quite used to it but be prepared with your spares and punctures and be prepared for all eventualities guys because you think there’s support and aid on the course you’ll lose nutrition we haven’t even hit the first aid session and this section might take up to an hour for a lot of people to get to especially if you drop a bottle wanted to stop at this point of the course cuz we’re on our way to North Rickton 20 25ks into the river we’re going down this descent here if this road is wet it’s going to be an ice ring there’s some blind corners it’s a one in five descent guys so watch it because when you come around this corner here these lights will obviously be open at the time but you’ve got a bit of a launch pad here where those cars are now will literally catch air so make sure you’ve got disc brakes okay so here we are at the 20% climb black hill it’s been talked about to death and today we’re going to ride it that first corner I just took that’s the first thing you need to watch a nice big pothole there’s gravel on the road this 90° turn straight into a gradual build up and then 20% at the peak let’s go okay Black Hill lap one of three it starts off with a nice false economy lurs you in and then you are saying “Oh this is not that bad.” So you pick up the power you start to go above your threshold power cuz your heart rate’s still low first mistake okay so I’m going to ride this at Iron Man pace moderate to hard not going to give you power numbers cuz everyone’s power is different road surface is quite nice now you saw the corner now you get into rhythm and you are not that worried about it gentle climb to start with remember it peaks at 20% pretty brutal by the time you get up on the third lap seems to be busy today with cars on the day it should be fine i’m approaching the first corner now this is when the fun starts cuz the road surface suddenly changes into exactly what it is a dodgy farm road that they’ve thrown in to give you some brown leaf fun okay so you can switch down to your small chain ring now if you’re on a road bike you’re going to be thanking yourself it’s still pretty mellow here and now you look up from where I can see and there’s the road holes okay so your heart rate would have caught up now you’re 90 seconds in 2 minutes V2 kinetics so there’s no point pushing a high power you want to get into quite a nice light gear and you probably want to have a cons be able to have a conversation like I am and then you know you’re holding back the crowds are going to be going pretty fanatical over here it’s now starting to get steep the cars are going to get backed up behind me and I’m in my easy gear i’m holding back my power will probably be around threshold now and a little bit over my heart rate is still under threshold okay you do not want to be going if you can help it over threshold heart rate here we are now on the 20% part of the climb and you can hear my breathing starts to get shallower i’m holding back you have to go fairly hard in terms of your torque on the pedals but I’m not trying to burn my legs that’s critical i’m now standing in my easy gear and you can see the gradient this is steep you want to just stay on top of the gear i’ve got a nice small chain ring currently on this bike so I’m really thanking it if you’re on a one bar to front the top age group is you’re going to regret it even if you near the front look at these holes in the road you want to be able to conserve muscle glycogen you can’t drink and eat it’s hands on the bars and it’s just keeping your heart rate under control we’re 4 minutes in we’re over halfway i’m not going super hard but I’m definitely putting some effort in so I would call it a moderate to hard effort i’m just around threshold power as an average so don’t worry because we train above threshold at least once a week and that condition you’ll have from loads of heel repeats in the last 12 weeks of your course training now we come to the main part 5 minutes in and I’m looking up trying to keep my upper body still your core really needs to stay strong so do some core training try think about your pedal stroke at the bottom of the pedal stroke really wipe the mud off the the soles of your feet that sensation of full hamstring activation pushing pulling stand if you want if you do click down one gear and you see I’m just using my body weight to swing the bike between my legs my breathing rate’s high i know I’ve got 2 minutes left so remember this is the first lap it’s going to feel okay and you’re going to say this is not that bad didn’t I say that in the beginning the support here will be mental there’s a layby here on my right a farm just over here and that’ll be full of people okay let’s go let’s go let’s go woo no let’s not go because you can hear my breathing now okay the legs are burning because anyone’s got 5 minutes in their legs to be able to maintain this is the steepest part of the course still can have a broken conversation and we’re cresting and we’re at 6 minutes 45 i probably average 250 to 270 W so not super hard for my body weight and we’re over the top the key is to keep pushing over the crest here get straight down into arrow don’t waste time get your speed back up everyone slows down at the top and goes “Oh that’s great.” No head down dropping the bars elbows tucked big gear and push okay Black Hill it was fine seven minutes taking it moderate hard eight and a half taking it very easy times three train yourself up to do three lots of 10-minute heel climbs in one go you’ll be great all right end of lap three the great news is you’re on the way back to T2 i cannot believe they’re taking us back on the same gravel instead of doing the 90°ree ride we’ve obviously got to do the 90° left back up this gravel course so get your cross tires on we’re going right we’ve just spent 180 ks riding in the Yorkshire Dales and surrounding areas of Leeds and now we’ve leaving T2 ready to tackle lap one of the 10 11k loop so stick around i’m going to walk you through the key points the uphills the downhills a little bit about body position some key points and hopefully I can get round one lap all in one piece to share with you some interesting coaching points cool so the park run on a Saturday morning uses this hill three times so if you don’t live too far away come do the Saturday morning park run this is in the first part of straight out of T2 in the first 3 400 m you straight up about an 8 to 10% climb this is quite savage pacing is going to be crucial and keeping a lid on your heart rate all right so we’re inside the first kilometer and immediately on a day like this you just can’t help smiling and enjoying it we’re going around the upper lake hey guys and we’re back onto the flat now thankfully after that 3 400 meters of climbing straight out of T2 you still want to keep a lid on it the golden rule in the first 10ks of running an Iron Man marathon is if you’re going too quick it always bites at about 30ks keep a little on your heart rate and really listen to your body pacing is going to be key all right that was the calm and now we straight up this bad boy so you can see I’m having to slow down my stride and the best thing is to get onto the tiptoes guys because if you’re trying to stride it out up here you’ve got to swing these arms if you don’t pump your arms you’re never going to get that torso moving so hold back hold back the effort because if you if you go into the red here your reps are going to pay for it it’s quite a long section take you about 90 seconds and it’s pretty steep i’m telling you now past this lovely mansion house t- room which you’re so close to the finish line you can actually bail out and you might want to all right so after you’ve gone around that Grange house mansion house T- room and you wanted to bail out because you’ve seen the finish line for the fifth time again you’re back onto this park run course which guys wearing carbon shoes like I am right now you’ve got a camber right now i would not run on this side of the camber i’d be on the top level here because it might not feel like anything but after a couple hours a camber like that will absolutely smash your legs so we’ve just come out of the park for the first literally kilometer and immediately you’re into a bit of a high heart rate question yourself about can you actually finish this now we’re going to head out onto the not so scenic part of Leeds’s run course it’s new to me you’re going through some suburbs but then we know we’re going to loop back into this beautiful green where the spectators are going to be thick and your family’s going to be there so stick around and we’ll show you some key points all right so we’ve come out of the park as you can see we’re in the nice main road side road suburbs and you get a little rest bite we’re on the flat waving at some locals going I’m glad that’s not me so this is time you use now to settle in because you’ve done about a KKK and a half and your legs are burning so you shake the arms out you hold back you can feel your quads i always say a good rule for my athletes find your legs in the first 5ks do not force that because it takes about 8Ks to find your legs what I mean by that is they’ll feel thick and heavy so use a section that’s 400 m long to just relax it’s still early days oh so now you’ve got an actual breather you’re on some nice good tarmac for the first time all day after that horrendous bike ride you’re questioning yourself but now you you’re absorbing the course you’re like “Okay I’m in now.” It’s you got a slight downhill here which gives your legs a little breather and with these carbon shoes and tired legs they really help triathletes because we’re very quad dominant on a bike so try relaxing into that and unfortunately that only lasted for four or five minutes cuz immediately we’re crossing here and it’s back up a false flat 1 or 2% so you know you’re going to have some local residence again you’ve got camber look at this camber now so it’s going to shove you to the right hand side of the road but we’re going left so the shortest line is here guys I know you’re not trying to win the thing but why do you want to run extra meters over 42 km okay we had 2 3 minutes there which is pretty rubbish if I’m honest on the main road but you have to connect these roads we’re now on a beautiful 1 km stretch with a little bit of shade watch these side roads they’ll be closed but it’s slightly downhill hey 1 2% you can just let your run legs flow we’re not even halfway through the first lap can you believe it you can hear my breathing it’s constantly changing up down lots going on once you get through that mental section through to the main road with Jack’s Barber and a couple of coffee shops which you probably want to dive in for a double espresso you get this to breathe no coughs wave to the kids hallelujah and basically okay we’re now getting some more downhill action to counteract what we just did so first lap advice watch your first lap advice especially with these carbons on you’re going to want to run this quick cuz you were running 530ks there this is going to be 415s through the trees but uh-uh you’re gonna pay for it on lap two four lap run hold back if you feel good hold back so we’re on the drive which is a long road which is slightly flat and downhill the reason why I bring this up it’s your second aid station just over 4 km i work in K’s the map will say miles you’re going to have Morton as fuel and most importantly you’re going to have finally in the second year now precision hydration in PH1000 electrolyte drink we’re 4 5ks in now straight down the suburbs but you can see a nice downhill and it’s a nicer spite from all the beginning uphills now we got a shop left leg walk and there’ll be some good spectators here cuz you’re very close to the park again bit of an S bend onto four lane you can see I’m using the main road to try and find the shortest line amongst the cars but we’re still very much on some good smooth tarmac key is to keep your cadence up keep holding back on lap one you’re approaching another aid station fairly soon after the four mile mark i’ve stopped here at Brown School 6 and a halfks in little breather there’s going to be a station three okay i’m not going inside it’s a small little loop around they’re going to have volunteers there it’s a weekday school kids around pretty much you’re going to have Morton electrolytes and probably some bananas and of course water and cola key point to get the calories in pretty much every 20 minutes and I’m telling you now and I’ll reiterate this later this course is heart rate based throw pace out the window you have to keep a lid on it we’ve just come out of eight station three 6 and 1 halfks in and you straight into this long false flat it’s relentless approaching 3/4 of the way through lap one and you’ve got to run up this as well it doesn’t feel like a hill but that is a long drag and your legs will start to feel it now okay this is a great opportunity to talk about leg speed if you’re a good runner you will position your body so your center of mass is slightly over your footall if you’re leaning back like this and running with the heels forward you are not going to be efficient your economy goes down use the downhill to let the legs go and you can almost see my arms just going with it downhill runners do this really well proper fell runners there’s a cost to this though the quads take a beating so train your downhills 7ks in now a 7 and a half you’ve just come down that downhill I spoke about and it’s back up five 10% climb and you thought that was over it goes around the corner for two 300 m guys you’ve got to have to slow down shorten the stride good form swing the elbows onto the toes moments away from the finish line the first lap we’ve gone past the bowling club you can hear the finish line you’re tired we’ve come down Princess Avenue which is downhill so you get a nice little few minutes to gather your thoughts turn your bib around put your sunglasses on your hat and get ready to soak up iron Man leads the finish line in the glorious sunshine watch the camber while your legs are tired run on the top part of the road okay so if you’re on to lap two which I’m not doing today you’ll be going left here at the T- rooms you can smell the finish line you’ve got to go around wave to people and you start your lap too but I’m heading down to the inaugural leads Iron Man finish line and if I’m correct in my map reading we’ve got the finish line downhill with a lovely mansion house behind us and this is when you smoke up this is when it’s all worth it your legs are shot but you don’t care you start crying here we go we know the finish line is just by the cricket moments away and here we go slight downhill finish look at that backdrop and you have crossed the line