Accidental Ironman (17 page)

The race took place just after our arrival at La Santa, meaning that the spectators were treated to some seemingly experienced triathletes hastily assembling their bikes in a flurry of spanners and bubble wrap before flailing around in transition unpacking kit and trying to remember how to lay it out. At the swim start, being an eighties football supporter, I went to the front of the bunch because it’s the only place left where you can get a good, old-fashioned punch-up. I wasn’t disappointed, getting a good mullering through the entire 22-minute swim – and just in case you missed that enormous hint, I’d like to just repeat that I did the swim in 22 minutes. The bike leg leaves La Santa, taking you to a town called Teguise and back with flat sections of the course that total about 8 yards, the rest comprising handlebar-chewing climbs, howling side-wind descents and a sand-blown sprint across Pothole Alley at Famara. I’d opted for a road bike with no tri-bars for the simple reason that I couldn’t arsed to pack them, which is my excuse for why it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to cover the 40k course. Once back at La Santa you head out on the running track before hitting the local roads down to the harbour and back. The 10k run was a much better 39 minutes despite it being hotter than Rich’s now sunburnt neck.

In the battle of Apartment 149b, it was a resounding victory for me in a time of 2 hours 29 minutes finishing in sixty-ninth place overall and first in the 76–80 age group, which is a pity as I’m only 45. Next was Neill, who staggered over the finish line looking like an ageing Thundercat, followed by Andy who took time out from checking his iPad to dawdle over the line waving to his many female admirers and looking as sexy as a scabby knee. When you finish any race in Lanzarote, something special awaits you at the finish line, namely legendary race organiser Kenneth Gasque, the world’s coolest man, who stays there to shake the hand of every finisher. I’d last shaken Kenneth’s hand at the end of Ironman Lanzarote and on seeing me he said, ‘Nice to see you back again,’ with the same knowing grin as the clerk at my local magistrates court. Before I could say anything stupid about never coming back, the lads ushered me away and it’s good to know that, no matter what I say, my friends always stand by me – although it’s a bit unnerving when they do it in an otherwise deserted urinal.

After we got the race out of the way, the real reason why we were there revealed itself, which is that we were there to do miles on the bike. Lots and lots of miles on the bike. In the wind. Up hills. For hours and hours. Lanzarote is full of climbs that strike fear into the heart of any triathlete, and anyone who has ever done the Ironman there will know that they are pretty much ALL on the bike course. There’s:

•   Timanfaya (aka Fire Mountain), a long strip of steadily rising tarmac that stretches for miles in front of you as you grind up it, inevitably into a head wind.

•   Haria, the longest climb on the island, which takes a bloody hour to get over, inevitably into a head wind.

•   Mirador de Rio, shorter than the others with a spectacular view, but steeper and crueller because it takes you to the very edge of the island, not letting you turn one millimetre short, inevitably into a head wind.

•   A climb whose name I don’t know but which comes between Haria and Rio and is thus dubbed ‘Pre Rio Rio’. Steeper than all the others, it is the only one on the Ironman course that I have seen people walking up – inevitably into a head wind.

If this weren’t enough, there are several other leg-sapping stretches of road, all of which we tackled in a bid to shed a stone of flab and a long-term hangover. Over the seven days of our stay we did progressively longer rides, culminating in a 100-miler doing the whole Ironman course with the exception of the bit through the cellulite manufacturing capital of Puerto Del Carmen, full as it was of indolent British holidaymakers. This particular ride helped enormously to shake off my lost mojo, even though I bonked massively near the end and was found by the lads sat on a pavement outside a supermercado trying to give myself a Mars Bar enema.

The concept of being sat on a Canarian roadside feeling smashed is not a new one for me thanks to the two Ironmans I have done there. The first was back in 2008 when I entered in order to ‘get it out of the way’, having become fed up with people who saw me parading round in my Canada and Lake Placid T-shirts asking whether I’d done Lanzarote yet. And, like every triathlete, I constantly have something to prove (mostly that modern psychiatry doesn’t work). I knew it was going to be hard because Iceman Howes had done it and told me that the bike course, inevitably into a head wind, will put at least one hour on your normal finishing time. Annoyingly, he was absolutely right; I crossed the line in 12 hours 45 minutes, vowing that this would be my one and only time at this race. Looking back at the photos from the race and seeing myself smiling, I wonder whether it was as hard as I remember, or whether I am just a grinning camera tart. I don’t remember there being any particular episode of success or failure during the race – it was just a grind from start to finish with a bike leg that took me seven hours to complete and a run that I completed marginally faster than Nicky expected, hence her having to come legging it out of a bar she was drinking in to cheer me. Despite the unkind things I may have said about some of the holidaymakers in Puerto Del Carmen they were incredibly supportive of the athletes as we plodded down the ‘beer mile’ and the party atmosphere they create almost offsets the all-pervading smell of burgers that threatens to make you retch at every step. I remember one particular guy wearing a Coventry City shirt spotting the word ‘Coventry’ on my top as I ran past and drunkenly hurling his arms around me kissing me on the cheek, which would have been lovely if he hadn’t used his tongue. All in all, it was ‘job done’ when I crossed the finish line and shook Kenneth’s hand – so I thought …

The architect of my return was Neill, aka Wetwipe, who was doing the race himself in 2011 and who began a long, wearying campaign to get others to do it with him by bringing the subject up every five fucking minutes. Joe was the first to cave in, his resistance worn down by being of an age where he can sit on the train with his flies open and people assume it’s absent-mindedness rather than a bold sexual gambit. Then I caved in, then Andy Golden and finally Tony Nutt, a once excellent athlete who has gone to seed and thus goes by the nickname of ‘Prolapse’. Tony now spends so much time on golf courses that he could launch his own range of golf balls – and I think I can speak for many of my friends when I say that, at some point, we’ve all wanted to club Tony’s balls. We were, of course, accompanied on this trip by the hubbly-bubbly coven of witchy gossips that comprise our wives, girlfriends and Joe’s daughters, all attempting to get their five portions of fruit a day via the medium of pomegranate margaritas.

Having raced somewhat haphazardly in Lanzarote before, I chose my kit for this race with great care, designed to give me the best possible result and, more crucially, beat all my mates.

•   My Kuota Kaliber time trial bike with deep-section Spinnergy wheels designed to eke out those few extra seconds when I’m not toiling into a head wind.

•   A Giro aero helmet which was nicely aerodynamic but which is so tight on your head it leaves your ears feeling like a couple of braised lamb chops.

•   A bento box fitted to my bike, which is ideal for storing energy gels where you can easily reach them and then squirt the contents all over your hands in comfort.

•   An Ironman Lake Placid finisher’s cap so that, no matter how bad you are looking, people will know you’ve done this sort of thing before.

•   My Aquasphere goggles, which give you excellent visibility under water, although to be honest this is not always a good thing.

•   Some large wrap-around sunglasses, perfect for seeing in very bright conditions and hiding large parts of your face when you are in pain.

Being a highly organised group, we contrived all to end up staying in completely different hotels, and I thought ours was fine until Nicky let me know different by writing the word ‘knob’ on my head in SPF50 sun cream while I slept on a pool lounger. We all managed to get together for meal times, though, all except Neill whose obsession with his hygiene meant that pre-race he would only eat in his own hotel, earning him the nickname of ‘Bin Laden’ for his refusal to leave his compound. On the drive to the race registration, which took place in a broom cupboard at Club La Santa, we noticed that most of the people out cycling appeared to be leaning at 45 degree angles thanks to the raking crosswinds. That made me wonder whether my selection of wheel was indeed worthy of the word tanned into my forehead.

Race day dawned with my watch alarm going off at 4.00 a.m. Pointless, really, because I’d been waking up every half an hour since midnight anyway. Setting the tone for the day ahead, I stepped out of bed and straight on to the inner-tube dust cap I’d lost the previous night, causing me to hop around the room in agony. Then came the attempt to force down a bit of breakfast, which always seems to be something of a trial before a race. Normally, I have no problem wolfing down food at any hour of the day, but immediately before a race I struggle to swallow even a slice of toast unless I’ve chewed it about 50 times and then put it through a blender. As I was staying very close to the start line, it was just a short walk to the gallows, er, transition, where I stared fruitlessly at my bike for a while, bending over it pretending to make minor, but obviously crucial, technical adjustments, all in a bid to look much more professional than I actually was. Then it was wetsuit on, hat on, goggles on and a waddle into the water to stare into the distance in a manly fashion.

Remarkably, considering the beach was populated with 1,500 people all dressed in identical black rubber wetsuits with orange hats, I found Joe, Tony, Neill and Andy and wished them all just enough luck to ensure they finished behind me. There’s an odd atmosphere at the start of any Ironman when 1,500 people are standing there with identical expressions that say, ‘Oh, Christ, it’s finally here,’ but I didn’t have time to ponder this for long because somewhere, a gun went off and 1,500 people all jumped on me. It’s hard to describe a triathlon swim in any detail while still maintaining the rip-roaring pace of this book, so I’ll just say the words ‘sighting’ (which is looking up to spot the course markers), ‘scrappy’, ‘turn buoys’ and ‘gob full of salt water’ and you’ll get the picture. However, I emerged Kraken-like from the depths in 59 minutes feeling well pleased with myself … for the final time that day.

Being a natural blond with baby soft skin, I am prone to getting sunburn if I stand for too long under a neon strip light. As such, the prospect of spending several hours with my lily-white shoulders exposed to the north African sun means I have to apply sun cream liberally or, better still, get someone else to apply it for me. In the transition tent at Lanzarote there were several people walking around with industrial sized bottles of sun block slapping it all over anyone who wanted it. I made it known to one of them that I needed basting, and she duly obliged. Unfortunately, what I hadn’t realised was that my wetsuit had rubbed the skin under my arms during the swim, and as soon as the suncream touched the unseen red raw spots by my armpits I took off like a windmilling firework, scrabbling at my shoulders trying desperately to scrape the cream off.

Things did not improve on the bike and I realised I may have made a miscalculation in my choice of wheels when I was whizzing down the road to El Golfo and the crosswinds nearly blew me into the lava fields. The sheer effort and concentration required to stop myself going face first into a load of razor sharp rocks was beginning to get dispiriting and my progress got slower and slower as I tackled first Timanfaya and then Famara – although my spirits were raised briefly when I positively flew up the hill to Teguise leading me to shout, ‘I am a CYCLIST!’ before turning round at the roundabout into a howling gale. This proved how wind-assisted I had been, leading me to mumble, ‘I am a FAILURE.’ Then something happened that has never happened before or since – having reached the top of the mountain at Haria, I stopped my bike, climbed off and sat down beside the road. In all the Ironmans I’ve ever done, I have never stopped once, not even for a wee, preferring to carry out the foul deed while conducting the freewheel of shame and peeing down my leg. However, this was different because, even by comparison with being the victim of a hit-and-run a week before Ironman Florida, something happened in the run-up to this race that shattered my world so completely that I wasn’t bothered if I never did another second’s worth of triathlon in my life, and now was the time it chose to hit me.

Throughout this book I have talked at length (and hopefully with just the right amount of pride) about the various members of my family, but there’s one member I haven’t mentioned so far. She was born in 1963 with the then little-understood condition of Down’s Syndrome, a chromosome defect that leaves people with mental and physical disabilities. This was a time when many disabled children went into homes or were not given opportunities to integrate into society, but she was taken home and brought up in a loving environment by parents who doted on her. Although they were warned by doctors that she would probably not live past the age of four, she defied the odds by learning to walk, then talk, then read, then write and a thousand other things. Though nothing at all was expected of her, she went to school, learned to paint and draw, play music, do her sums and charm absolutely everyone she met with a dazzling smile and cheeky laugh. Her name was Nichola (known as Nicky, though not to be confused with the other, more vocal Nicky Brunt to whom I am married) and she was my sister.

When I was born five years later, she adored me from the word go and we grew up as close as it’s possible for a brother and sister to be. As I grew older, despite being her ‘little’ brother, I effectively became her big brother and protector, getting into more fights than I can remember with any kids who ever mocked her or stared at her for just a little too long. For her part, she started a job in a workshop and, while continuing to live at home with my parents, built a fulfilling and independent life for herself. Even when I left home, started a job, bought my own home, got married and so on, I went home to see her all the time to plague her when she was trying to watch telly, tease her about boys at work who had asked her out, and generally annoy her the way horrible little brothers are meant to do. When I took up triathlons she became my biggest fan and I would give her my finisher’s medals to hang on her bedroom wall after taking them to work to show her friends what her brother had done. I can honestly say she never did a second’s harm to anyone in her entire life – except when, in early 2011 at the age of 47, she died, and broke her little brother’s heart.