You have all the right to be pleased if you did that all by yourself on day #1. Super impressive!

Was this done in coal?

Yes, it was a proper old fashioned blacksmith - though he did have an electric blower - we weren’t pumping the bellows :)

It was exhausting - towards the end I could barely lift the hammer.

I did it here - https://www.hotmetalworks.co.uk/

The museum it’s in is worth a visit as well - especially when they are running all the steam engines.

Well, if you're just tired and you didn't end up with a couple of burns to remember your first day of blacksmithing by then you did very well.

Came very close - dropped it at one point and picked it up by the now non-glowing end. We were wearing some good gloves...