IRONMAN LEEDS | Course Review

An insight into the Ironman Leeds course!

Obviously, this event has never happened before, and I wish I could have spent way more time on this. The bike leg itself probably deserves its own video!

If you have recce’s and have any tips please share them in the comments and if you have any questions, please ask!

See you in two weeks!

Hello. Hello. Welcome to my channel. My name is Kelly and I’m an age group triathlete. If you’ve been here before, welcome back. If you’re new, welcome. Should I do that again? And today we’re round Hey Park Leads. We are here today because in just two short weeks I will be here along with thousands of other people taking part in Iron Man’s first edition of Iron Man Leads. Now, if you are very new to triathlon, then let me explain what an iron man actually is. Also known as a longdistance triathlon. It consists of a 3.8 km swim or 2.4 miles, 112 mile bike or 180 km, and then topping it all off with a marathon. There are literally hundreds of Iron Man races out there, not just the brand, but also the distance. And there are lots of different styles of races you can do. They range from being like lake swims or sea swims, flat bike courses, hilly rolling. Same on the run as well. You can get some really flat runs or some really hilly runs. And I should tell you that leads is definitely going to be on the harder end of the Iron Man races. What am I doing with my hands? The main setting for Iron Man Leads is of course going to be right here in Round Hay Park. You start in Round Hay Park and you finish in Round Hay Park. It is a lake swim, so you are swimming in the Waterloo Lake, which we’re going to show you a little bit later on. You’ve got a hilly bike course, which is going just north of Leeds. And then, of course, a very hilly run, which starts in the park, goes a little bit around the residential areas, and then finishes right here on this stretch behind me. I don’t know if you can tell, but it means that you’re finishing on this nice long downhill stretch, which is going to feel absolutely amazing to get to the very last bit of the run and just absolutely send it. Now, on the left side of the finish line is actually going to be where registration, the expo, the medical tent if you need it, it’s all going to be condensed into that little area kind of in amongst the trees there, which is really great. And then on the other side of the finish line, this big green space here is exactly where transition is going to be. So if you don’t know what a transition is, uh it’s essentially where you go when you move from one aspect of the race to the other. So coming out of the swim, you will enter your transition area and get ready for the bike. After the bike, you’ll go back into transition area and get ready for the run. So it keeps it all nice and contained and organized. So, when you register the day before, if you are doing leads or if you’re doing another Iron Man race this year, you’ll receive a few things at registration. You’re going to receive your backpack, which is what we’re all waiting for, really, isn’t it? It’s probably the one one of the most exciting aspects of the race. You’ll get your swim cap. You’ll get your numbers, which includes a number for your helmet, a number for your bike, and three your a number for your belt, and then three numbers for your bags. And when I say bags, I mean your blue bike bag, your red run bag, and then your white street clothes after race bag. So, in this transition area in just two weeks time, what you’re going to see is a big tent to this side here, which when you exit the swim, which is going to be from this side, you’ll go into the tent, which is where you will find hooks where your bags will be racked the day before. So, you’ll go into the tent, you’ll grab your bag off the hook, you’ll take off your wets suit and all your swim gear, put it into the bag, and take out your stuff for your bike. Once you’re ready for the bike, you’ll rehook your bag and then run to wherever your bike is. It’s always really well signposted. All you have to do is remember what number you are and that’s going to be the easiest way to find your bike because at the end of each racking aisle, they’ll have a list of numbers. So, you’re going to find easily where you’ve racked your bike. Once you’ve got your bike, you’re then going to head out of transition onto the bike course. But before we go onto the bike course, let’s first go and check out the lake for the swim. So, it looks like down these steps or potentially the ramp is going to be where you’ll swim in and swim out are. Normally, Iron Man set up some kind of ramp to make the swim exit a little bit safer. So, you don’t need to worry about hopping over a ledge or anything like that. There’ll be a ramp and there’ll also be people stood on the ramp kind of grabbing hands and pulling you out of the swim if you need. From my experience and others, you do tend to get quite dizzy after the swim. So, just keep that in mind when you’re exiting the water. Give yourself a second to kind of find your feet and then start thinking about what you’re doing. So, then this is Waterl Lake. These are really friendly swans. Hello. Okay, I think that’s enough swan. The swim for Iron Man leads is in this lake here and consists of two laps of the lake where you are essentially swimming in an anticlockwise direction right around the perimeter of the lake. What you can’t see is as it bends around there, it becomes a bit of a chute. So, you’re sort of swimming down this really not really tight down this long shoot of water. Uh, and yeah, you’re sticking to the right hand side, which for all my people that breathe and sight to the right, that should be nice and easy for us because you don’t really have to look forward for the boy. You just need to look right and make sure that you’re not swimming into the side of the bank. Now, I didn’t know this and I’ve not actually tried this yet, but I was told that you can actually swim in this lake as long as you are out before 7:30. So, if you are local, if you’re planning on coming doing a wrecky in the next 2 weeks, if you get here early enough, you can have a swim in the water. But from what I understand, because it’s on the perimeter, it should be quite shallow. I don’t know what that’s going to mean for the water temperature or for the quality of the water. So, we saw just before how many swans there are in this lake. There’s also a lot of geese. Uh hopefully on the day there won’t be quite so many in the actual lake, but something to consider is that water quality. And if you’ve never swam in a lake before that has been heavily infested with birds, uh then I highly recommend you doing so cuz sometimes consuming the water that has been used by the birds can be a little bit uh icky and can leave you feeling a little bit sick. So uh luckily for me, I do tend to swim in a lot of lakes that do have that. So it’s disgusting, but it meant I’ve sort of trained my stomach for it. I’m really excited for this swim. Um, when you go into the second lap, you’re going to swim through a timing gate, which is going to sort of be in an archway with two uh like balanced on two sort of boys. From what I understand, you do have to swim through this gate because it is a timing gate. So, it will give an indication of what your first lap is on the app. And if you don’t swim through it, then Iron Man might be questioning your uh swim afterwards. I’m hoping that I’ll get maybe about somewhere between 1:10 and 1:15 is the goal. On the morning of you will have to seed yourself in a swim start time. So somewhere possibly along this bank or along the path there’ll be signs which have like a number on. So it will say like 50 minutes, 55 minutes, 1 hour and you basically just need to selfseed yourself in the time that you think you’re going to swim in. This doesn’t mean that you have to swim in that time. So, don’t panic about getting it absolutely spot on cuz not often people do. But it’s a rolling start. They let three people off every 10 seconds. So, I’ve never really experienced an IM race that’s been too bad in the swim. I’m just going to try and not fall in. Feel the water. That’s quite cold. Drink it. No, I’m okay. I would say that’s about 18°. I reckon that’s reassuring because that means we’re probably not at risk of a non-wet suit race. Coming out the swim, you’re going back up to transition, which is where we just were. And then you’re on to the dreaded bike course. I’ve actually never walked this transition before. Uh, and what I’m noticing is that it is a little bit downhill, which means that when you’re going to come out the swim, this is a little bit of a climb, you know. It’s It’s definitely not as far as Wales. Distance-wise, it looks like it might be about a quarter of a kilometer. So, that’s not too bad. But, yeah, this is this is a hill. Okay. So, here I am stood on the very first kind of little bit of the bike out. Once you leave transition, you’re going to come onto this path here. And then you’ve got a straight route out onto the main road. The bike for Iron Man leads obviously it’s 112 miles 180 km. It is hilly to say the least. It according to the website has about 2,500 m of elevation which actually matches the 10B bike course. It’s three loops mostly on country roads going through a few residential areas. You’ve got three out and back sections, some technical descents, some punchy climbs, but also a few nice flat and fast sections as well. So, I’ve picked out a few little things that I think are worth knowing about the bike course. First one being what I’m stood on right now, which is the bike path that we have to cycle on on the first stretch of the course coming out of Round Hay Park. So once you’ve uh sort of gone up that steady climb out of round hay rather than crossing over the roundabout uh you climb up onto this bridge over here and then you come onto this bike course which used to be all gravel. Luckily they have paved it with this nice new road but you still can’t ignore this very significant corner right here. I’m sure there’ll be lots of people coming out the swim trying to gain as much time as they can on the bike. So, air on the side of caution on this section of the bike because this is a really sharp turn into a bit of a downhill and then another not as sharp but still quite significant turn before you then get onto the road. Then, of course, at the end of your three loops, you’ve got to come back up this. So you’ve then got to climb back up this bike path, take this sharp corner again, over the bridge, all the way down, back to round. So that’s first point of the course that I wanted to point out to you. Cha cha bikes. Bike bike. If you’re feeling a bit of cyclross, you could always just run up the stairs and cheat. So, as well on the bike course, there are three out and back sections and you’re doing the loop three times. Three times three is nine. So, you’ve got nine out and back sections in total. One of them being on this roundabout here, which is actually where you can pick up your personal needs bags. So, on an Iron Man full distance event, you get two extra bags when you register, which are your personal needs bags for the bike and for the run. So, in these bags, you can put wherever you think you’re going to need. Well, not at any point in the bike, but you can stop in this roundabout and pick it up from the volunteers. You shout out your number, and then they’ll go and find your bag for you. So, in this bag, you can put things like extra nutrition, sunscreen if it’s a hot day, bottles of water, uh you can put painkillers in there if you think you’re going to need that. You can even put like extra spare inner tubes or anything you think you might need in case of a bike mechanical. The only thing to consider with these personal needs bags is that whatever you put inside them, you don’t get back. So, if you put an inner tube in there and then you don’t use it, you won’t get them back. So, that’s just something to consider. As far as the run course goes, I’ll just talk about this now. Uh, I haven’t seen on the run map where the personal needs bags are going to be or if you’re going to have them, but every other full distance event I’ve done, you have had personal needs bags, so you can count on it for the run as well. But again, same goes with the run. Whatever you put in the bag, you’re not going to get back at the end of the race. Let’s go to Black Hill Road. Spooky. The roundabout is just outside of Grammar School, so I think that could be fun. Maybe we’ll have some kids and staff come out and do the volunteering and on the run course. So part of the run is in front and you actually run into a school uh which looks quite cool. So hopefully we’ll have some nice kids and then you think you’re done. You’re like sick. No, you never do. Just got to get around this corner and then it should flatten out and Oh. Oh. Oh, wait. No. No. It doesn’t quite flatten out. Okay. Never mind. I’ll keep climbing. Um, and then maybe when I get around this corner, that’s when it’s going to flatten out and I’ll get a bit of a break. And uh Oh. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no. It doesn’t flatten out. So, if you’ve done the Lead’s bike course before or if you’ve done any research into the course at all, then you probably know exactly where I’m stood right now. I’m on Black Hill Road. I’m sort of in the middle of it. Uh, well, actually, no, I’m I’m kind of near the top of it. Uh, Black Hill Road is the climb that everyone’s talking about when it comes to this course, and with good reason. It is a 1.4 4 km climb. The average gradient is 7.9% and it does get up to a maximum of about 15%. I’ve done this climb now every time I’ve done the course, so about eight times I think. Uh it hasn’t gotten any easier, but I have managed to find a way to pace myself on it. So the climb, it starts off nice and gradual and then you round a corner and that’s when you will see just how hard it’s going to get. The steepest bit of the climb is right at the very beginning and it is really, really tough. And the first time I did it, I gave it my all on that very first steep bit. But then something you should know is that after that steep bit, when you round the corner, it does level off slightly. The first bit of the climb is the steepest. And what I would recommend you do is not give it all your energy on that first bit. Don’t try and get it over with as quick as you can. And that’s exactly what I used to do because as soon as you round that corner, it does level off slightly, but you are still looking at an incline of about 10 to 14%. And it doesn’t let up. You round another corner and then you get another steep bit and then eventually if we come out very very quickly, you’ll get to the top up there where you will see the peak and then you know it’s all over. Don’t try and get this climb over with as quick as you can because it does last for 1.4 km and that’s a very long time when you’re climbing at that kind of gradient. What I would recommend you do is get into your smallest gear quicker than what you think and just find a rhythm with it. If you’ve got time and you’ve got the support, I would consider swapping out your gears. If you have got the ability to have any easier gears on your bike, don’t shame yourself. Just get the grinder gears. I’ve got 1134 on my TT bike, so I’ve got quite a comfortable amount of gears to be able to spin my legs. We do this hill three times, and when I did it for the second and third time the other week, I didn’t find that it got any harder by the third loop. It’s a really, really tough climb. It doesn’t get any easier, but it also I didn’t find it harder the third time round as I did the first, if you get me. So yeah, use that stretch before the climb to rehydrate, refuel, get yourself mentally prepared for it. And at the end of the day, it’s going to last you anywhere between 5 and 12 minutes ability dependent. So it’s really not that long of a time. You’ve just got to grind out and do your best. A quick side note, if you are coming to Wrecky before the day, it’s quite a busy road. Just be aware of that. Come early if you can because quite a lot of cars use this road. It’s quite bizarre cuz it’s quite a quiet road with a lot of traffic on which is quite uncomfortable when you’re going at like 5 miles an hour up it. Maybe not even that. Yeah, probably would probably would be quicker just unclipping bike on the shoulder cyclross style runup. So that is a little roundup of the bike course. As I said, I have done it a few times now. So, I’d like to think that I’m familiar enough to do it well on the day. Initially, I was thinking somewhere around 6:15 to 6 1/2 hours. After my wrecky, my threep wrecky the other week, I’m thinking now more about 6:45 is realistic. I did Wales in 7 hours and I’d like to think that I’m going to get this one a little bit quicker. So, I think 645 is doable depending on conditions on the day of course. On the bike, there are two aid stations. So, three loops means you’re getting six aid stations, which is plenty. That’s where you’re going to be able to top up on your water, isotonics, gels from Morton. And I think they’ve got little energy bars and bananas as well if you do need any solid food. And there will of course be some portaloos dotted about at those aid stations as well. And obviously the litter drop zones, which is where you’re supposed to drop your litter rather than just throwing it anywhere on the course. Now, let’s go and check out the run course. Wow, how did we get here so fast? So, once you have nailed that 112 mile bike course, re-enter transition, leave your bike, get your traies on, and then you are on to the 26.2 mile run, which is of course a marathon. Now, the leads run is not going to be an easy one. It is hilly. It’s got about 500 m of elevation, and you’re doing four loops of the same course. And to make it that little bit harder, as soon as you come out of transition, this is what you’re greeted with. So, you’ve got this hill and then you’ve also got another pretty punchy hill just around the corner once you do a little loop around the lake. But the good news is you do only have to do these two hills once. I wrecked the run course the other day in these two hills were really, really tough. But afterwards, it was sort of okay. The course mostly consists of just some really steady uphills and then some nice long steady descents as well. So after these two climbs, there’s really nothing else that’s too punchy and too unmanageable. Because you’re doing four loops, that means a couple of things. It means the support should be fantastic because the spectators won’t have to move too far to try and catch you on different sections of the course. You get bands as well. So with a four loop course, Iron Man tend to give out colored wristbands. So, at some section of the course, they’ll have four people or a few people stood holding out these wristbands, and you’ve just got to run through them, stick your hand through the wristband, and then it means you remember what lap you’re on because by the fourth, you might be feeling a little bit delirious. Other than that, there’s not really too much to say about the run course. And there’s not really much advice I can give because I’m not going to lie, you are probably going to be feeling a bit rubbish by the time you get to the run. In my experience, I think the most important thing that you need to make sure that you do is fuel well on the bike and don’t push it too hard on the bike. Save a little bit for the run. I found in my iron man races that the first sort of five kilometers are a bit painful and then I started to settle into it a little bit. I found my pace. I found my rhythm. started to take in some of the crowds and enjoy it a little bit and then normally the last sort of 15 kilometers you go back to that dark place again where you are questioning every life choice you’ve ever made. Um but then you get to the finish line and it all becomes worth it. There are four aid stations on the course and because you’re doing four loops that means you get those aid stations 12 times. So they’re roughly every 2 and 1 half km. I would break it down like that. Each loop is about 10 kilometers. You got four aid stations, run to one aid station, refuel, walk through it, and then start running again. It’s a really nice way to break up the run for you. Runwise, I I had it in my head that I was going to try and get my 4hour marathon off the bike in Wales last year. I think I did about a 425 somewhere around there. But my first half was really good and then where it got dark in Wales, I just sort of lost the mental game a little bit. Leads for me should still be light when I’m finishing, which I’m excited for because I think finishing in the daytime is always a bit nicer than finishing in the dark. So yeah, 4 hours is the goal, but if it’s not going to happen, then I’d be happy with a 4:15 or thereabouts. So there you have it. That is the Iron Man leads course preview to the best of my ability. Obviously, this is the first uh edition of this event. I’ve never done this event before. No one’s ever done this event before. So, apologies that I’m not able to give you a few more tips and tricks like I was the other events. But hopefully after the race, I’ll have a few more things to say about it. I think it’s going to be a fantastic day out. The fact that it’s all based in Round Park and there’s going to be ample parking means that hopefully the spectators, the support, the atmosphere I think is going to be absolutely fantastic. Leadeds is a triathlon hub of the UK. So, I’m really hoping that many of the sort of local residents and people who are just fans of triathlon anyway are going to turn up and show their support on the day. If you enjoyed this video, please remember to like and subscribe. If you are doing IM leads, then drop me a comment below. Let me know what you think of the course, if you’ve tried it already, if you haven’t tried it, if you’ve got any questions about the course, and I’ll do my best to answer them in the comments. My main goal for the day is to sort of enjoy it. I’m not going for a Kona qualification in this race, so pressure is off a little bit. But that being said, I do still want to take a good chunk off of my time from Wales. I think a realistic goal is 12 and a half hours, but it it really depends on things like weather, any mechanical issues, any stomach issues, which we all know I’m prone to have. If everything goes smoothly, I think 12 and a half hours is an achievable goal. But as I said, pressure is off for this race. I’m just going to try and enjoy it. Enjoy the very first edition of Iron Man Leads. And if you’re racing, too, then I’ll see you there. I’m so excited.