Accidental Ironman (13 page)

I had to repeatedly point out to them that despite being a triathlete for ten years I am basically triathlon’s equivalent of Alan Shearer, in that we both spend much of our time commenting on a sport we clearly have no recollection of having participated in. I felt this was terribly important to stress to people trying to harness the terrifying power of my black hole of anti-knowledge. Fortunately the Ely Monstermunchers soon realised that I was not some sort of glowing, hovering brain with massive JCVD-style biceps when I started giving advice about how to unpeel your gel-covered hands from your handlebars as my top tip.

In truth, I’ve always recognised myself as a resolutely middle-of-the-pack athlete, a sort of triathlon equivalent of the house wine at a suburban Indian restaurant, and this image did not change in the first warm-up of my pre-Roth build up, the aforementioned ‘Kernowman’, which involved a jaunt around southern Cornwall with a sea-swim in the shadow of St Michael’s Mount, a bike-leg down to Land’s End and along the north Cornish coast, and a run on the slopes of Mount Everest, renamed on this occasion as Tregurtha Downs. I chose this particular race because Nicky is Cornish and she fancied a trip back to her homeland to stock up on proper pasties, saffron buns, clotted cream and a wicker man to burn her enemies in.

Despite a long journey down to the land of the Ewoks in my campervan, having one was well worth it when I arrived at the race venue because I was able to drive right up to the transition area in Marazion field, pull on the handbrake, unfurl my bed, stick the kettle on and scratch myself lavishly before going sleepy-bye-byes – and it’s always pleasurable sitting on a chair as the sun sets watching some other poor schmuck having a duel to the death with a tent in the dark. The only downside to my van is that it has no loo and, thanks to my sneaky wee out of the door on the morning of the race, there is now a part of Marazion field that looks like it’s been subjected to a scorched-earth attack where nothing will ever grow again, not even on a cellular level. The transition was a fairly as-you-please affair with a couple of bike racks set up in the field with some netting to make sure the accursed public were kept at bay, and the morning began with all the racers strolling together down to the beach to start the race. I can honestly say I love the more laid-back atmosphere of these kind of locally organised races compared with the high-intensity, nerve-shredding fandango you get before most Ironmans, which feel like you’re in
The Shawshank Redemption
(only with more tunnelling through shit and no redemption.)

The race itself started inauspiciously for me because the sea was at the chillier end of hypothermic, which I found out when I plunged under the waves only to hurtle straight back up again cursing and spluttering like a sweary surface-to-air missile. Before the race we’d been told the water temperature was 11 degrees, and I think there might have been a decimal point missing from that number. Not being able to feel my limbs made for a slower-than-usual swim, although this did at least delay the effects of having not adjusted my wetsuit properly before diving in, and trapping a certain part of my private anatomy. Within minutes I was scanning the horizon for a railway line to lie across in a desperate attempt to remove the lower half of my body and relieve myself of the phenomenal pain being inflicted upon me. Although as a man I lack the required experience, I’m going to estimate that this was at least eleven times more painful than childbirth, and on exiting the water some lucky spectators were treated to the sight of me charging wildly into transition bellowing like a mountain gorilla with its toe caught in a mousetrap, and then cannonballing arse first on to the grass while tearing at the crotch of my wetsuit. The net effect of this experience turned my private parts into a maroon coloured bag of agony. I could now pass urine in three positions: standing, sitting and curled in a ball weeping.

The 56-mile bike leg was much less eventful apart from one motorist, who I’d describe as an enthusiastic self-partner, sitting two inches behind my rear wheel through the town of Hayle. I always say there’s no better way for a driver to signal that he wants to go faster than by increasing the chance of my death by 40 per cent. Happily 99 per cent of the course was on scenic lanes along the Cornish coast with no traffic, which was excellent because race-day motorists are usually about as endearing as a gang of Nazi wasps. A quick stop for a wee up the side of a barn was witnessed by a passing local who suggested that I’d missed a bit of my shoulders when applying sun cream and that I was looking ‘as burnt as a crow.’ I worked very hard on the bike to make up for my swim, so by the time I set off on the half-marathon I was starting to look like the lone equine survivor of a fire at a donkey sanctuary.

The run course was extremely hilly with long off-road sections. Fortunately, inspiration was on hand because Nicky’s parents, who have a summer caravan in nearby Porthtowan, had come down to cheer me on enthusiastically, although I noted this enthusiasm didn’t extend to her dad putting his teeth in. All his toothless encouragement to ‘Pickssshhh your knesssshh up’ had the desired effect, though, and I was soon shuffling along. After just 90 minutes I was skipping over the line for my highest ever finishing position, with a pint of Skinners in one hand and a pasty in the other. In terms of being a good warm-up for Roth it couldn’t have gone any better. If nothing else, it proved I’ve got the drive, the desire and the tenacity to be whatever I want to be, and the only thing holding me back is myself – and the two-year suspended prison sentence for what I did during that last lager blackout.

My next move after becoming a Kernowman was to attend a coaching talk given by Malcolm Brown MBE, former running coach for UK Athletics and current coach to the Brownlees, Non Stanford and various other professional triathletes who seem to have been getting the hang of the sport. I was hoping to absorb some wisdom from the man who has coached athletes to World and Olympic level because I’m fed up of looking for athletic advice on the internet, which appears to be plastered with adverts for baldness clinics, poor quality university courses, and gadgets that will solve all my training needs in exchange for a giant number made of coins and money. I’m sure marketing types think all triathletes sleep in a giant rustling money nest with a life-mantra of ‘If you can’t beat them, buy something.’ Malcolm’s talk was fascinating and what I actually learned was that the Brownlees are in fact robots, that what appears to be sweat on their brows is in fact a metallic sheen, and that when they get tired they are merely plugged into a USB port by which they are recharged. By now you’ve probably got the suspicion that this might be utter cock, and you’d be right, but the truthful point was that the Brownlees have led active lifestyles since they were toddlers (frankly they’re still bloody toddlers when you’re pushing 45), so when it came to taking up triathlons they had a fantastic base fitness on which to build. This was enormously useful news to me because as we have discussed already, as a kid in the seventies the only exercise we got was avoiding the groping hands of Radio 1 DJs. Thus the complete absence of an active lifestyle for the first 35 years of my life gave me a handy excuse for why I haven’t won Kona – or indeed anything – yet, and helped keep any pressure of expectation off my shoulders during my preparations for Roth.

An equally educational experience came when, a fortnight later, it was time for me to do the Swashbuckler Middle Distance Tri which I had been talked into by my friend Joe (he of the five daughters and no hair) who was also training for Roth and who was bored since the police came and took his bong away. The race took place in the New Forest at an idyllic spot called Bucklers Hard with a swim in the harbour, a cycle around the scenic lanes between Beaulieu and Brockenhurst (giving way to ponies at all times), and a run around some lanes which may be equally scenic but which I didn’t notice because I banged my nut on the bike rack in transition so spent most of the run clutching my head like I’d been clobbered by the riot police.

Again it was campervan time. I also drove Joe down with me with both our bikes perched precariously on the back. Normally, sleeping arrangements in the van involve me in the downstairs compartment on a pull-out, upholstered, comfy bed surrounded by noise-deadening metal walls and amenities such as sink, stove, spotlights, radio and pornography. My guests are usually condemned to the upstairs compartment aka the pop-top roof which involves a wafer-thin mattress, canvas walls and several midges who seem to live up there. However, Joe had no plans to be my live-in lodger and had brought his own tent to sleep in, on account of having a bladder the size of a squash ball that forces him to get up three times a night. At our pre-race campsite I slept the sleep of the righteous, cocooned in my tin box on wheels, listening to the muffled bickering of Joe giving the length of his tongue (6 and three-quarter inches) to some dickhead who was using a noisy generator to power the reading light in his tent.

With the race starting at 6.00 a.m. the next day, bike racking was conducted in a largely semi-conscious state and again I enjoyed the relaxed ‘as-you-please’ nature of the arrangements. The transition was on a first-come-first-served basis with people setting up their bikes in the most tactically advantageous spot for themselves – in my case this was next to the bike exit, and in Joe’s case next to the Portaloos. The grass on the barefoot walk to the swim start was freezing so I prepared for the race by stamping on the ground like I was blasting away at the earth’s crust in search of shale gas, while a weary Joe contented himself with doing massive yawns, which, without his teeth in, was like peering over the rim of a damp bucket. The swim was in the natural harbour and timed to take advantage of the highest tide and fewest number of gin-palaces heave-hoeing out of the anchorage. Having selected my starting position as usual to keep the maximum number of swimmers on my right and the maximum number of teeth in my head I awaited the klaxon in a relaxed frame of mind, practising for the Roth start by winding Joe up about how punchy the swim was going to be. The swim came and went in its usual maelstrom of thrashing about. I was swimming alongside someone whose pace and stroke count matched mine exactly, the only difference between us being that he kept trying to swim me into the sodding boats and I kept trying to send him out to sea. I emerged from the water in a little over 30 minutes, unleashed a massive salty burp on the spectators gathered on the slipway and set about getting out on the bike.

When I started out doing triathlons, aero helmets were a rare sight but nowadays they are so common that if you aren’t wearing one you might as well have a saucepan on your head, so I felt a little self-conscious that I wasn’t wearing mine on account of the weather forecast for the day being hot-hot-hot. Despite my lack of head-related aerodynamism I rode hard, taking advantage of a largely flat, extremely beautiful and slightly short course to clock up another fast-ish bike time – look out Roth, here I come! The run, however, was another matter and after a bright start involving passing lots of clearly inferior athletes, I progressively slowed throughout the 14-mile course and was passed by lots of clearly superior athletes who were better at pacing themselves. After a final lurch up the hill to the finish, I crossed the line with the words ‘Fetch me a bucket quick!’

Still, I was happy enough with my performance, especially as this was the first time I’d done the Swashbuckler and rarely had I enjoyed a race more. Not only did I again race well but I also showed that doing two Half Ironmans in the space of three weeks was no barrier to future Roth-dominance, PLUS I got a top quality pirate-shaped finisher’s medal at the end (and that’s a proper shiver-me-timbers pirate rather than the Somali version). It was at the finish where I had an educational experience that put my plans for race domination at Roth into some perspective. Having finished in 4:53.07 for fiftieth-ish place, I was sauntering back to my bike in transition when I got chatting to one of the athletes from the Thames Turbo club who had used the race as their club championship.

‘How did you get on?’ he asked.

‘4.53,’ I replied, with a note of pride. ‘How about yourself?’

‘Eighth,’ he answered, with genuine nonchalance before moving the conversation on to plans for the season ahead. Reality 1, Ego 0. Soon after this, I bumped into Ed Kirk-Wilson, the considerably more talented brother of my posh friend Will, a man who runs in the style of Tyrannosaurus Rex but with the pace of Diplodocus.

‘How did you get on?’ Ed asked.

‘4.53,’ I replied, warily. ‘How about yourself?’

‘Second,’ he answered matter-of-factly before handing me some biscuits to help me fill the emptiness I was now feeling inside. Reality 2, Ego 0. It had clearly been a day for star performances because the next person I spoke to was a gent called Rob Reynolds who’d just completed his first Half Ironman considerably faster than I managed my first (3–0) whereupon Joe appeared announcing that he’d won the 90–95-year-olds age-group so did I mind if we hung around for the awards ceremony (4–0).

All of this goes to show that, no matter how long I have been doing races, I am still poor enough to learn some valuable lessons, this one being that feeling your race has been a success does not depend on your athletic performance but instead on carefully selecting with whom you discuss your post-race results. My advice to all you triathletes and future multi-sporters out there is to lurk outside transition at bike collection time until you see some poor fly-caked sod limping in and then sidle up alongside them to jauntily ask, ‘How did you get on?’ as a way to force them, out of politeness, to ask how you did. This is a bit underhand, I know, but that’s a matter for me, my conscience and, apparently, the National Security Association.

So, two races down and two to go, plus a training camp overseas to look forward to, and things continue to shape up nicely. My swimming is imperious, my cycling strong if not especially fast, and my running acceptable if you are happy to accept a cack-pants style that makes it look as though I’ve had some kind of stroke. Dave’s training plan has made me fit, and my favourite pastime of nicking copper piping from building sites is an incredibly aerobic workout, which is paying handsome dividends. I have also blown away the winter cobwebs and reminded myself of some golden rules of transition – how to lay out your kit, how to make a quick exit on to the run as though you were legging it out of a curry house, and, crucially, how to make your results sound as good as you possibly can. This skill is not to be undervalued and forms an important part of the triathlete’s armoury. Let me give you an example.