I did my first one in 2026

Why any of this exists

I trained for a year and finished Ironman Copenhagen in nine hours and twenty-two minutes. I'm proud of that. It also isn't the point of these guides, and I want to be straight about why.

The training, I had covered. There are a thousand good plans and plenty of people far better qualified than me to write one. What nobody had prepared me for was the seven days before the gun went off.

The taper, where you feel slow and heavy and convinced you've lost everything. The expo, where every stranger looks fitter than you. Standing in front of five bags with no real idea what goes in which. Trying to eat properly on a Thursday for a thing that happens on Sunday. Waking at 3am doing arithmetic about cutoffs.

I got through it by improvising, asking people on forums, and getting a few things wrong. Afterwards, the thing I kept thinking was that all of it was knowable in advance. Somebody just needed to write it down.

What I am, and what I'm not

I'm not a coach. I have no qualification to sell you. I've done this once.

That's the whole proposition, really. I remember exactly what it feels like to not know, because it was this year. A coach who's done twenty of these has forgotten what the first one does to your head. I haven't.

So the guides don't tell you how to train. They tell you what the week is actually like, in what order, and what to do about each bit.

Written for the person I was

Somebody signed up for their first full distance, a bit out of their depth, not sure who to ask, not wanting to look daft in a Facebook group. If that's you, these were written for you. If you've done five of these, you already know all of it — don't buy them.

How this is run

By me, from Ebeltoft. There is no team, no company and no support department — when you email, it's me who answers, usually the same day. Every guide is a one-time payment, nothing renews, and there's a 14-day refund if it isn't what you hoped for.

The guides are independent. They're not produced by, endorsed by, or affiliated with The IRONMAN Group, and race details change every year, so I say throughout to check your own event's athlete guide.

Say hello

Genuinely — if you're racing your first one and something's worrying you, email hello@therookiesroute.com and ask. You don't have to buy anything. I remember what it was like to have nobody to ask.

Good luck out there.