Ironman 70.3 Bolton || RACE DAY!

Back to back weekends of Half Ironman – race weekend number 2. Racing back in the UK was special, I absolutely loved this race. Make sure to subscribe for more videos and follow along on Instagram – www.instagram.com/laurabardsley

[Music] [Applause] good morning and welcome back to the Vlog it is Friday I’m racing Bolton 7.3 on Sunday so welcome to the Bolton 7.3 Vlog I’m just about to go swimming final little session ahead of Sunday Friday is a swim club that I go to so I always enjoy that so I’m going to just take it easier do the full session I’ll maybe call it a day at maybe 1,800 to 2K and just yeah just move a little bit just get my body moving but nothing too crazy so I’ll have to go do that and then I am registering today and just getting all sorted for something which is exciting just parked up in Sunny [Music] Balon welcome to Bolton have to go and and register get my race pack get my number um it’s a miserable day in Molton hope it brightens up before Sunday like grateful for it being so close to home bolon is just such a random place to race isn’t it just at the finish line here on SEC here’s the Finish Line they do the night run tonight so I think that’s all set up and sorted [Music] so there’s your big number just remember to fill in your good morning it is the day before race day I’ve just been to have my hair braided um so that’s all sorted I’m just about to put my elastic laces in my shoes because if you’ve seen my last Vlog you’ll see how painfully slow my T2 was and these are little things that can just speed speed up transition you know you don’t spend all these hours training to knock like 10 seconds off some time to then go and mess it all up in transition putting taking two minutes to put your shoes on so I’m going to do that and I’ve just been to go and look at my bag basically I was going to look at it and see where I can tape gels and things and then press the back wheel and it’s completely flat so I bumped it up the other day like not just like lost a bit of air which is completely normal like it is not got a single bit of air in it so I pumped up the other day after I built it and the front wheel is still front tires still very much um inflated the back one however is not so I can’t see any punches I can’t hear any air coming out of it um bloody bikes like bikes they’re so annoying like you’d think at this point in in life how much we spend on bikes that there’s a better solution for not having to put air in tires and I know that if they were just a block bit of rubber be too heavy blah blah blah but anyway mom’s just back from the from the water with the dogs Hello darling um but anyway that’s my tire R you don’t need to hear about that so I’m going to go sort these laces out then we’re going to take the bitee down to the bicycle Lounge I need to go there anyway to pick up some of the bits of nutrition from them theyve got some Morton gels for me but anyway they’ll solve everything or at least reassure me a little bit the last thing I want is to go into transition on hello D um going to transition tomorrow morning and the wheel to be completely flat so go and get dry so anyway we’ll see want to be in Orange tomorrow anything to my eyes how do I look um to what the Vlog yes it’s been very very stressful morning it’s been really stressful and I’m going out the nowhere entry but it’s been so stressful we’ve just we’ve just been trying to do our best haven’t we right basically my back tire was completely flat when I just went to go and look at my bike so Rush down to the bicycle Lounge my favorite place where um I’m in there all the time I Lally walked in he’s like what’s happened now I had to go in there anyway cuz he’s got me some Morton gels to try which is very kind of him but yes I’ve taking that in there and they’re just looking at it now some of us already been biking today Gaz has already been out on his bike he went out at like 5:00 this morning 4 a.m. alarm so um anyway yeah drop my bike off they’re going to look at the back tire and see what’s wrong with it but they were like well we don’t have any I’ve got small wheels on my bike like 650s what that mean so they don’t have any in so hopefully it’s not like an actual Tire issue and maybe just like the valves come loose or something so leaving that with them till about 12 so I’m going to pack all my stuff up now so that’s all sorted and then just go pick that up on the way to go and racking the bikes transition’s open till about 5 so got time to rck the bikes but it’s just a stress oh my goodness it’s just a stress you don’t need the day before you race so anyway we’ll see what happens and this is the current weather up north it’s supposed to dry up tomorrow we can hope I biked in this weather today you he was supposed to do how far were you supposed to do well no I wasn’t supposed to do anything I said I’d go for a ride with Dan and Andy and we said 40K and I was going to potentially if I found the time there was time there was time you’re riding at 5 a.m. this time the day really catch us up with me sometimes I was going to do some extra I didn’t just didn’t manag to have the time it was going to do like another an extra 40K Loop and then he was like oh no we’re coming back inside it’s rain so b instead down no [Applause] what are we doing right we’re going to go to transition to drop everything off and but first we need to go pick up my bike and hope that it’s fine so yeah we’ll go to The Bike Shop pick that up and then head to transition to go rack and drop the bags should I drive you there oh please with it no what they say all right then yeah as yeah he’s put put a load of air in it and said nothing how did you get that in before I’ll do it you get in here we at T2 dropping off our run transition bag it’s actually in a tent I’m assuming cuz they think it’s going to rain [Music] yeah right so just checking out transition bike in there and then my bike is on this first row here which is ideal so come in here 142 and then we run over to that tent where just on this side here and then we run out over there the pre-race day ritual chicken select always get your drink just D penon PCH where T1 is and where the swim is Miles Away miles away we’ve figured out that Bolton is f Bolton is a massive F because it’s it’s a lot of driving 10 miles away as a minimum it’s like 16 miles yeah 16 miles 16 mil from Bolton to get to the swim to drop off you have to go to T2 to drop off your run bag whereas in um said you want chest gears down here yeah but in Copenhagen they did it all for you yeah yeah will you take my bag out it just years whoa whoa Speedy wow go on the left hand side of the road you know in Portugal she does not know her left and rights by the way Dr the good news are the bad news I know what bird just on me there that’s good news I think I it’s good luck watch out I it’s good luck I thought you going to say like See’s coming out right here that’s getting you back for the one that you just ran over on the way that was sad that was sad that was actually really sad that was horrible it just flew into the road actually a pigeon flew into the road when I was traveling on the motorway and just sat on the motorway did it I couldn’t even slam on it was such I couldn’t slam on cuz I still would have hit him anywhere it was awful I thought to be fair that’s the only thing that like upsets you in life animals isn’t it actually was proper good you were good it was it’s not as big as Mi is it no it’s little it I mean to be fair they’ got more rows of bikes oh yeah there’s Lo shorter and FL there and we’re all wacked and ready to go bik’s left there nutrition on my bike water’s on my bike we’re all sorted so just need to check my ties in the morning to make sure that they’ve not gone down and we’re ready to race just checked out the swim as well that’s all looking good yeah time to go to bed it’s like half three 20 to 4 this is such an early race start I don’t remember a race start this early ever may my Iron Man but I don’t even think it was this early anyway welcome R day I feel like this early morning is harder than the actual race is going to be actually you know you just you that feeling when you’re up so early and you feel sick like when you go into the airport and you feel sick that’s how I feel now and I need to eat some food first what problems like it’s really not a big deal but feel ill I’ll be fine once we’re up and in the car and on the way but yeah I’ve just got my normal cereal I’ve got what are they cheros this morning we’re on our way so you’re walking to this triath long start is it swim first is it swim then bike then run is it oh we need to watch out run over before the we’re doing this thing called the tri so you swim First Swim first you come out the swim you change into your Cy gear you do a bit of a bike ride I think that’s dafflon you’re talking about that yeah I think you’re talking about a dafflon or a Heep tlon and then when you finish your little bike ride yeah just run you run a little bit okay yeah when I went into transition yesterday I must have been smiling that much that the one was like is it your first time like it’s not but I’m just really excited to be here I’m just happy we’re walk into transition um I’m feeling really nose today I’m not going to lie but on my hand I have written confident and I am awesome one of my clients told me to say that to myself like I Ean it on the way around and that and instantly just give me that like pushed to realize I am awesome like this is pretty awesome what I’m doing so that’s on my hand for now um and it’s cloudy it’s supposed to rain later Shop Racing in the UK and should be dry most of the day next yeah hopefully next time you see me hopefully we’ll be on Carl’s camera who’s our videographer for the day hopefully getting some pool shot to me just looking great doing Tri I’ve got a vision in my head whether that comes to life we’ll see or I’ll just look like an absolute swimming hat and in my helmet um I think is option oh my God don’t agree I’m imagining myself like running out the W like Lucy Charles like looking cool reality is going to be like snot out my nose stumbling out the water but anyway we do so anyway see you soon oh he’s L already she going to smash it is she I was like yeah do well thanks it’s good I need to put my wet suit on massive CID to go stand in the to now I’ll stand in it and if I’m not getting close I’ll just oh no it’s up there sorry massive way you can never go around yeah I just go I’m going to go get in the water I’ll put my wet suit on and get in the water yeah cool what time is it you don’t get any water it’s do it now okay should we walk down that way anyway yeah let’s go walk [Music] [Music] add [Music] time 30 minutes [Music] and this is for the wom in the house a little celebration of the extrait of Glamour and smile that we bring to the stop line [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we’re back again Bolton 70.3 a lovely medal I really like this one it’s a little bit different it’s yeah it’s blue it’s just a bit different I really like this one it’s cool and also the T-shirt also like this one the color is nice I think often you go to races and they put like just superly bright colors and you know sometimes you just want a t-shirt that you can actually wear and this is one I feel like I’ll actually wear bolon 7.3 did it smashed it so happy it was a really really great day I think can to see here as bomb darling should we turn you around should we try to turn you around because people might want to see you bom come this side let’s cover him up cover this book oh there we go let’s get to it so if you haven’t watched my last Vlog last weekend I did the European championships out in Portugal obviously I went into that race ill so I had to hold back a little bit on that race knowing that I wanted to push harder on this race obviously this race was back home I haven’t raced in the UK for such a long time so it was race back home both my Mom and Dad could come see Gaz was there a few of our friends were there so it was just like I knew a lot of people out supporting on the course which was nice and obviously people like racing as well a lot of obviously majority of the athletes racing yesterday were were British so you do kind of see a lot of similar faces like at races but also like on social media you start to talk to people so I sort of recognized quite a few people which was really nice I bumped into a few people I so it was just a a nice race to be part of because it was just super friendly great atmosphere great community and every that’s something I really enjoyed about the race race morning oh my God I really struggled with breakfast race day morning so it was a 6:15 start it was a 3:30 get up it was leaving here at 4:30 of forc down those Cheerios at 3: no I tried to push it back as far as possible I think it was about 4:00 I had them and I just felt queasy eating them and from eating them well for most of the day I just felt crazy um I don’t know what it was to the swim start was feeling yeah was feeling super nervous actually going into this race as I said like I knew loads of people spectating I knew loads of people racing not that there’s any pressure on me like I’m the only person that puts pressure on myself but you know I wanted to do a good job and I wanted to race hard as well I’d spoken to my coach and we sort of discussed you know I am capable of pushing myself at that little bit more and I sometimes you know leave a little bit in the tank because I’m worried like what if I push too hard and I I like blow up what if I push too hard and just completely then Bonk and that’s never happened so I still haven’t not that you want to reach that limit but I’ve never reached that point so you know there’s still room to push um I think that just comes with confidence and I literally wrote on my hand confident just reminded myself to race with confidence so I got in the water and swam hard because I’ve been known to just ease into which you want to do if you’re new to the sport you want to ease into the swim you don’t want to go organs blazing and just absolutely like fly out there and hope for the best because you will find that you struggle to catch your breath and struggle to to breathe so but I just went in hard and I did my first 500 m in I think 7:45 I then started feeling really queasy I don’t know what it was but you know that feeling when you just need like I was like maybe I just need to burp you know you just feel a bit gassy I just was like like I’m going to have to stop and I’m going to have to be sick I felt really really sick um I don’t know what that was and whether I’d swallowed some water whether it was just the nerves and the food and the early morning and I’m not too sure what it was got to the end of the swim got out and was running out of the swim and again just felt like I needed to be sick and I kind of said to myself you like you can’t stop you don’t have time to stop you need a quick transition you need to get out on the bike if you’re going to be sick be sick on the bike so carried on ran back to transition um had a really quick seamless transition I think because I was focusing on transition and getting through transition I’d kind of forgot that I felt queas got onto my bike and again just I don’t I just don’t know what it was but this just this overwhelming feeling of queasiness and that lasted for the for most of the bike and I had to force myself to have my gels I had my first 40 G carb gel as soon as I got on the bike always do that so I try to just rather than focusing on how I felt in that moment I tried to focus on this is what I do this is the plan like get on with it so yeah stuck with the stuck with the game plan had my gel and oh it made just makes me feel sick thinking about it but I had that gel and just tried to get my head down had some water to just try and ease the queasiness um yeah and kind of settled into it but that queasy feeling didn’t go away and I had my solids as well so I have the SAS solid bars and I also had a Morten solid I was like nursing this one piece you know when you’re like chewing something and you’ve got like your mouth dry and I was like I was just like like chewing on it and I just I couldn’t get it down had to put it away because yeah I just I just couldn’t so that was that was funny I’ve never experienced that in a race usually I’m like right when can I eat when can I eat but I really struggled to get my nutrition down so an hour passed and again I was like you’re going to need to have another gel I had a 20 G carb gel um and again just like just Tred to have that as quick as possible there was a couple of times about 40K into the bike I just like you know just heave a little bit I just had a couple of like um couple of heaves don’t know what it was I don’t know if I was like mentally like trying to make myself sick to sort of like Get rid of that Sicky feeling I don’t know um but anyway the my fueling on the bike was just a bit miserable I would say Max on the bike 110 to 120 GS of carbs which is nowhere near enough it’s one of those things like you can’t you can’t know what you’re going to feel like on race day obviously Bolton roads well the first Loop was fine first two Loops were fine nice and flat fast perfect but the roads were wet and I saw a girl in front of me fly off her bike when she was going around the corner she’d just overtaken me and then went around this corner and flew off I was like oh God like that could have been me as well um it was it was dangerous out there um on the roads cuz it had rained all night look and it had rained a bit in the morning at first climb I mean the course suited me I think I’m definitely a stronger Rider on a slightly Hillier course it’s not to say I love like a really hilly course few Hills bit of undulation because I’m quite strong my leg is quite powerful on the climbs so yeah was able to um climb really well then we got to the main climb of the of the route which you do twice and it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting actually um maybe that’s cuz I’m more confident on the climbs like Than I Used to Be maybe yeah I’m a bit more of a stronger Climer The Climb wasn’t too awful so I was happy with that once i’ done it once I was like oh was that it that’s fine that’s cool I can do that again it’s no issue I was expecting a worse climb from like things I’ve heard about Bolton in previous years but obviously the course has changed so much since it was a full so um did that and was like cool I can do that again and then yeah you come down that climb super fast descent to then a sharp left turn to which no Marshall was at the bottom there was a girl a lovely girl that I literally did the whole route with we were just like she overtook me I overtook her she over took me we just we were just like together the whole route um both be like I know I was and I know she was both being really respectful of like the drafting making sure neither of us are Drafting and um it was but it was just nice to have company she come pass we’d like say hi and we chat we were going up the climb and we were climbing literally exactly the same speed so we like chatting a little bit and which was really nice just to have that bit of company and that again that Community it’s just really nice yeah you come down that descent and she’ said to me just be careful when he gets the bot this descent it’s a sharp left turn like you really need to slow down had she not obviously I would have slowed down anyway but it is a really fast descent and you would expect someone to be at the bottom like if it was in Spain they love a whistle in Spain they’ll be blowing those whistles because to warm people coming around that corner I’m sure people will have fallen coming down that coming down that descent 100% you go into Bolton you come back out and you go and do that climb again the second Loop the course was just so congested and the bike route it runs alongside the Run route and it was so narrow you could sort of fit like two bikes next to each other Max um on on some parts of it so it was just it was just like a pellet on of people all just moving together there were just so many people on the course on the second Loop Round um and at points it was just impossible not like to not draft cuz you just got stuck behind someone that you couldn’t overtake yeah I did have to Freewheel quite a bit there as well cuz you just couldn’t pedal past people at points so that was I guess a bit frustrating but you know it is what it is it can’t be helped everyone’s in the same position and um you know I wasn’t on a a super busy course the whole way around so did the climb again or fine came back then down and you’re heading back into town into transition for the run I didn’t actually say where is my phone I didn’t actually say what my swim time was the swim time was 30 minutes 14 seconds so about a minute faster than I did in Portugal last week which is great really happy with that I swam I definitely swam stronger I felt myself swimming stronger um I pushed harder and I’m happy with that average 136 for 100 uh third in my age group 10th female and 56th over overall and then my bike time which I was really really happy with I was super happy with my bik time especially cuz it was a hilly route it was about I think about 800 or so meters of elevation so not too dissimilar from mior and I got 24650 for my bike so again sixth in my age group 10th female again 215th overall um average 32.2 km/ hour so I was made up with that because with with the hills and the road surface bloody held the road surface some some parts I mean just typical English roads just bumpy everywhere people’s water bottles flying off everywhere canisters coming off bikes like things were just flying off of people’s bikes the whole way around it came into transition feeling good transition came up like came on me quicker like I don’t know I was trying not to check my watch too much I get into a really really bad habit of checking every 5K when it beeps seeing what time I did trying to work out well if I carry on at this speed then I’ll get this time and it just can especially while when I’m moving on to doing my eye and my next that’s my next race you can’t be looking at your watch every 5K for 180k so just trying to get out that habit of looking at it sort of every 8 to 10 minutes when it when it clicks over to 5K it just felt like it went a lot quicker and I enjoyed the bike a lot quicker so try not to look at your watches is definitely a a good thing to do there got on the room and was feeling strong coming off the bike the support was amazing again I’ve said it before like I feel like as women get a slightly more I mean the men get support as well but I feel like the women get quite a lot of support because you know I think there was like how I think there was like less than 10% was there less than 10% women doing this race let me have a look uh maybe about 15% 241 females out of 14 135 athletes there not that many females that do it so I feel like we do get really nice support which is amazing and especially sort of off the bike and I think I was fifth female onto the Run course um yeah it just felt like we got a really nice reception so the thing with Bolton Run course though is it’s like twisty and turning you going up and down and you backing yourself and Here There and Everywhere and then it’s also got a couple of absolute killer Hills in it so the first one being like super steep you come like up and around and it’s so steep you’re in a park at that point I I don’t know I think it was maybe when my gels were my back was really sore um I think I put too many gels in the back of my truit and I think my posture was a bit off and my back was really sore I I was running so came to this hill my back was sore I was like hell and I just stopped and walked up this hill I was like pull yourself together Laura you’re literally 5K into this run like get moving and at that point I caught up to the girl and she was like come on let’s go we got this um so then you sort of weave your way through this park and then you get up onto the road that we were cycling on before and it was it’s like a gradual climb 2K out and then you turn and it’s kind a gradual descent 2K back in and then you get back into this park and obvious you go down all those big Hills which is nice Pace absolutely plummeted when I got to the hill obviously and then I I what I was proud of I was able to pick up my Pace again um and that was a a real I was really proud of myself sort of overcoming that mentally when I got to the flats I was able to pick up my pace and bring it back down to sort of like 428 so apart from when I was going up my Pace was around sort of that 4 25 to 428 which I was really happy with in my head I was sort of aiming for 425 felt really strong on my run it was just when I got to those Hills I think my head I think it literally my head just dropped and I was like I can’t do it like I literally told myself I can’t do it and started walking and then I was like what are you doing like get moving so yeah overall had a strong run leg really well supported which was so nice it really makes a difference when there’s support out there so that helped massively yeah I was I was happy with my run My overall run time well I was happy with my run considering the elevation there was about 200 MERS of elevation on the Run course which it says on the on the website it says 100 I was like well that is a complete lie it’s double maybe that’s 100 per lap so but anyway it’s one of those things overall time for the Run was 13544 which I was super super happy with as as I said especially considering that course I’m happy with that time to sort of just about match what I did in meor meor is like pancake flat I’m really happy with with that run overall time was drum roll please overall time was 45593523964 you can’t help who’s going to show up on race day the podium isn’t the win the win for me is that performance that I did yesterday it was better than anything I could have expected not just the time but just how I felt my confidence when I was on the course how I biked how I swam I ran how I got myself back from when I was walking up that hill thinking oh my God like is on when I literally got to 5K and I hit that first Hill I was like is this like the end of my run like I’ve been doing so well this whole time and now I’ve just had to walk a bit of that hill and I’ve never walked in a 70.3 so coming back from that was the win um enjoying it was the win like there was so many wins and whilst it would have been nice to obviously be on that Podium go to the awards ceremony get an age group prize like it’s it’s one of those things yeah I’m just over the moov with that performance it’s definitely a race I would recommend that I think the English crowds do just get behind everyone the the Finish Line I think how it’s set up as well it’s outside the town hall there’s loads of steps in front of the Town Hall so everyone was obviously positioning themselves on there as if it was like a grand stand and then obviously people next to the red carpet and we got [Applause] you run past the red carpet a couple of times you kind of soak up the atmosphere like three times in total so that was just really special and then when because you come and run out and sort of back to get to the Finish Line um as I was coming in to come down to the Finish Line um I saw my parents up by the town hall so I ran in and was like wave my arms and I was like waving to them afterwards I was watching cuz I had a few athletes racing and it’s just nice to cheer other people on that’s what I love doing when I finish my race I always go and cheer other people on because I think like that’s the right thing to do and it just makes me so happy seeing other people and um like helping helping them pushing them on I I definitely do that one again I think just with it being so close to home obviously don’t have to pack up my bike and fly it to another country whilst it was a bit of faf the day before racking everything you know that’s one of those things that’s just the day before race day isn’t it it happens at every race yeah overall great experience super happy with the result really proud of my performance I was just I was just editing my European Champs Vlog and hearing what I said in that Vlog about how I was really lacking in confidence and was just not feeling in a in a great place with it all I feel as though the last two weekends racing and just proving to myself what I’m capable of putting pces out there that I’m really proud of that I can show off my hard work that’s just made me feel yeah a bit more confident just just really in a good place with all and just made me remember how much I love racing how much I love Triathlon and just how great of a community it is so that was just what was needed I think off the back of just being a bit low in confidence having a rest day today I feel I feel good I didn’t sleep well last night I never sleep well after races um legs are a little bit sore my upper body’s a bit sore but that’s to be expected so I’m going to have a rest day today on that note I’m going to love you and leave you so thank you so much for watching the Vlog as always thank you for the support on here and on Instagram it really does me in the world I love like connecting with so many incredible people and yeah leave a comment subscribe and I I don’t know what the next video is going to be but whatever it is I’ll see you in the next one