THERE is less than a month to go until this year’s Bolton Ironman event — with more local athletes set to take part than ever before.

There are 166 Boltonians currently preparing to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and run a marathon in the showpiece event on Sunday July 19 and The Bolton News wants to celebrate this in style.

We want to hear from as many local Ironmen and Ironwomen as possible and are asking them all to take a ‘selfie’ of yourself in training mode.

The aim is to gather as many images as possible and to create a huge collage of all the inspirational Bolton athletes ahead of the big day.

Entrants can upload their selfies to Twitter, using the hashtag #IamBoltonIronman and are asked to include their full name, age and whereabouts in the borough they are from.

Photographs can also be sent in to pictures@theboltonnews.co.uk and we will aim to feature as many selfies as possible.

Kicking things off is Gary Drury, a 34-year-old graphic designer from Dunscar who works for Bolton Council and is preparing to take part in his first ever ironman challenge.

He said: “I signed up in December because, for a long time, I had watched the event happen and wondered if it was something I could do.

“I have been training since February. I have always trained for other sports but never with a goal in mind like this — I am pretty nervous.

“I think the open-water swim will be the hardest part and I have been doing specialist stroke-mechanics lessons at Bolton One to prepare.”

Gary, who is raising money for Scope, has uploaded his selfie and is looking forward to seeing his fellow Bolton participants featured in the coming weeks.

He said: “I think its a great idea — I am hoping to see as many selfies in the paper as possible.”

The idea has also been welcomed by the managing director of Ironman UK, Kevin Stewart, who said: “We are very excited about this year’s Ironman UK event in Bolton and are delighted to hear that more local people are taking part than ever before.

“We know that people from Bolton are very proud of their home town and what better way to celebrate that than to take part in the ultimate endurance challenge around the borough and finish in the town centre.

“It is great to hear that The Bolton News is looking to feature as many local entrants as possible and we look forward to seeing all the training selfies in the run up to the big day.”