It seems the secret to their performance is the meditative
mental state they’re able to get into, where they simply allow their body to
run without interference from their mind. It seems that driving ourselves hard
is not as productive as allowing our body to perform without interference.

I see that interference every day when coaching swimmers.
Analysis paralysis is alive and well in the triathlon community. People
actually try too hard to get good at what they’re trying to master. They’re
actually interfering in the natural movement of their bodies by trying too hard
to control what’s happening.

I often use the analogy of a dog chasing the ball.  The dog only sees the ball, its sole objective
is to get the ball. The dog doesn’t think about foot placement, aerodynamics
etc. All he sees is the ball and is focussed on getting it. Even if you throw
the ball across the highway, the dog will not see the oncoming cars, he’ll only
see the ball.

Now if we as endurance athletes  were able to tune out of controlling, and hold
a focus on our end goal like the dog, we could move more freely. We could avoid
some of the injuries which people suffer, caused by unnatural control of
movements.

What we need to spend a little time each workout on, is
letting it happen. Be able to switch from making it happen to letting it happen.
The Ironman race is seventy per cent mental. Yet we spend most of our training
hours swimming, cycling and running, with almost no time devoted to the mental
side of the sport.

Most of us don’t have lots of spare time to spend
meditating, many of us have difficulty in shutting down the thoughts racing
through our minds.

I suggest spending a little part of each workout just living
in the moment. Counting strokes when swimming or counting revs when cycling up
a hill, or counting steps when we run, can have the effect of bringing our mind
back into the present moment. Rather than thinking ahead of ourselves or going
over the past. Meditation does not have to mean sitting cross legged in front
of a candle.

Meditation for the Ironman can be done at race pace. It’s
simply living in the moment, monitoring simple feedback like how the ground
feels underfoot. Or feeling the breeze on your face, being aware of the
environment around you, being part of that environment. Better results will
come when we stop thinking about outcomes and start living the moment.

The skill to shut out the pain or discomfort of racing will
not come easy. It has to be practiced. We have many hours of training ahead of
us where we could practice these skills. We get to know how good technique
feels, we need to gradually take ownership of this feeling, so when we clear
our mind of thoughts, the body can keep producing perfect technique.

Last weekend we spent the weekend at Port MacQuarie for the
Australian Ironman. I had around 25 athletes racing Port and we were keen to
see them before the race and support them during it. Between Sandy and myself
we have 49 Ironman finishes, yet we still feel , and enjoy the excitement of
the event. I’d say we’re members of the “Ironman family”.

This year WTC has introduced the “legacy lottery” where
athletes who’ve done more than 12 Ironman races and have never qualified for
Hawaii are given a chance to race in Kona if they’re lucky enough to have their
number pulled out of the hat. I personally know four athletes who’ve been lucky
this year. Three of them were racing at Port. It was nice to share their
excitement, each of them raced Port with a renewed passion. They’ll have to be
careful, not to start training for Hawaii too soon. A lot of first time Hawaii
qualifiers start out too soon and become mentally tired weeks before the event.
This is often referred to as “the Kona Curse”.

Any one of us can start building up for a goal race too
early and become mentally exhausted before we even reach the race. I’ve found
that the ideal build up for a major race is 12 to 16 weeks. A lot of self-
trained athletes, value training volume over mental freshness. When you have to
race all day, you must be mentally fresh.

My approach to Ironman training is to give the athlete a
series of confidence building experiences, which challenge them at the time,
but once completed, the confidence level is raised to a higher level. So over
the period of 12-16 weeks the athlete has had a lot of fun, and built his/her
confidence and self- belief to the highest possible level.

Every workout we do is not going to produce personal bests.
In fact the further developed we become, the fewer the personal bests come
along. Often we have to put in many weeks of training to feel another surge
forward. To get through these plateaus without losing interest, we need to be
able to count small gains along the way. Keeping a daily diary or journal can
be a good way of recording little changes, satisfying workouts.

Often the greatest gain from a workout is the satisfaction
of completing it. Sometimes the satisfaction of ticking every workout off the
training program is enough to keep the flame burning.

Last Sunday we watched our mates race the Ironman course. I
can remember taking squads to the Australian Ironman in the past, where the
confidence level in the whole squad was as high as it can possibly be. This
year we managed to achieve that level of confidence again. Apart from a couple
of athletes who had suffered minor setbacks with injuries, most arrived at the
start line without injury or illness. This is what I set out to achieve.

Approximately 90% of our squad produced significant  PBs on the day, a couple doing their first
Ironman races had great days, setting respectable bench marks for future races.
One of the guys did a 1hr 49min PB on the same course. One athlete won his
category by 2hrs 28min, this year’s second place getter has beaten him in the
past.

The factors which I’ve found to most likely influence the
outcome in an Ironman race are first the consistency. The routine, day in, day
out, week in, week out ticking off each workout. Every workout in the plan has
a purpose, it may be a very small part of the overall structure, but ticking it
off assures you that, you’re one step closer to the goal. If you have faith in
the plan and do it all, you have no doubts on race day.

This brings us to the
next most important factor in influencing an outcome. Confidence. I believe my
most important task in preparing an athlete is to build his/her self- belief
and confidence.  Every major workout in
the plan has a mental component, it’s not always obvious at first, but looking
back over the workout sometimes reveals the “test”.

I’ve found that the athletes who do everything I ask of
them, throw their heart and soul into every task set I for them, without
complaining or cutting corners are the ones who move forward fastest.   The
ones who are constantly researching the web for new ideas, comparing themselves
or their workouts with other athletes, are sadly the ones who don’t advance at
the same rate.

Confidence shows in “body language”, it’s very satisfying to
see our squad members running with great technique, and holding themselves in a
way which says to the world, “I’m here to do a job, I’m here on business”. Your
competitors see that as well, we don’t have to be trained at reading body
language, we do it instinctively.

By successful, I mean achieving your potential. Whether that
potential is winning your category, qualifying for Hawaii or achieving a
certain time. We all have our own goals and potential is a personal thing.

I’ve identified some personality traits in the most
successful athletes I have coached, amazingly they all seem to have similar
traits.

Be dependable

The athletes who can be counted on to always do their best
in any conditions are the guys/girls you would want with you on a secret
mission behind enemy lines. These are the athletes who do everything on their
training program. If they can’t they check with the coach to see what is the
best way to achieve the result by modifying the plan.

Be adaptable

Face it, when you race for a whole day close to the coast,
the weather conditions can change several times through the day. Things go
wrong, be ready to assess the situation, be ready to go to plan B if necessary.
The ability to adapt as conditions change is a huge asset for an endurance
athlete. If something does go wrong, stay cool, there’s nothing to be gained by
throwing your bike on the ground. Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t
do.

Staying cool under
pressure

One of the greatest assets an endurance athlete can take
into an event is the ability to think when thinking is necessary. My perfect
Ironman athlete is a strategic thinker. There’s going to be times when what you’re
doing is not working, and a change of strategy is necessary to be successful.
Racing an Ironman is not like a fly trying to get out of a closed window. There’s
more to it than more trying. Too much trying and too little thinking can leave
you lying on the roadside like the fly on the sill.

Be persistent

It’s rare for an Ironman athlete to be good in his first
race. It’s often something that has to be learned, being told what to do is a
small part of the puzzle. We’re all individuals and often we have to learn what
works best for us. The best place to gain the experience is in the battle
field. The guys who progress through the field are often the guys who are out
there training day in – day out all year. In the rain, on windy days, frosty
mornings, they’re the ones who are always there. Persistence prevails when all
else fails.

Be the toughest SOB
in your category

We’re not born tough, we learn to be tough. If only
beautiful things happen to you, you don’t develop much toughness. The
experiences life has thrown at you has shaped the person you are today. Seek
out events, conditions which will force you to either take the soft option or
the hard way. The only advantage in taking the soft option, is that it’s easy.
If we develop the attitude of welcoming harsh conditions, we are not fazed by
tough racing conditions. When the race conditions are harsh, you only have to
race 10% of the field, because the rest have taken their foot off the
accelerator.

Be the man I would
choose

If I were going on a mission behind enemy lines, a mission
where danger and difficulty were inevitable. There are certain people I would
choose in my team. There are some I would leave out. If you wonder if you would
be chosen, you probably wouldn’t be. If you know that you have the qualities
listed above, you’re a likely candidate to be chosen. The person who has all
the qualities listed above is going to be successful in this sport.

The hardest thing about a weight loss/weight management plan is dropping those stuborn last few kgs. Many of our squad members are at that stage where we’re not fat. We’re just not as lean as a pro athlete. The guys who place in the top ten in Hawaii are lean and hard.

I’m proposing a ten day assault on our fat reserves. If we drop two kilos in ten days, it’ll very likely change our expectations for our next race. The results will show right away in our training, and this will encourage us to aim higher on race day.

The ten day plan involves including protein in every meal. Balanced meals with protein, carbs and fats. Smaller than what it takes to fill us, but big enough to satisfy us. I want to eliminate grains from our diets (except for one cup of cooked brown rice per day). Our carbohydrate intake will come from vegetables, sweet potatoes, pumpkin etc.

This diet is basically a vegetable and lean protein diet (fish, chicken and beef). You will never have to go hungry, simply fill up on vegetables.

The list to be eliminated is simply fried foods, dairy foods, grains and sugar. Remember this is for ten days. Be strict and you’ll get best results.

Aim to get most of your food/energy intake in before 3pm each day. After 3pm eat to satisfy hunger and limit carbohydrate intake. Experiment in longer workouts to see how little fuel you can actually get by with. You’ll be surprised by how little food you actually have to use in training. In fact you’ll be surprised how little fuel you need to consume in your next race, many more races have been ruined by overfeeding than by underfeeding.

Now remember this is only ten days, some of the eating habits will stick. We’re simply aiming at dropping a little excess weight to make our training and racing easier. In your longer workouts carry more fuel than you may need but use your willpower to bring it home with you. Don’t risk collapsing out on the track from low blood sugar levels.

We’ll weigh in next Monday morning on our own scales, or somewhere we can repeat the same setup in ten days.

It starts with what you set out to achieve. If you start the swim with the idea that the swim is only 10% of the race, and the real race starts after the swim is out of the way. You’ll swim minutes slower than if you start the swim with the intention of nailing the swim and setting up a lead you defend on the bike. I have won my own category in an Ironman race when the guy who came second had a faster combined bike and run time. They say you can’t win the Ironman in the swim, but you can lose it. In my own case, I didn’t win the race in the water, the other guy lost it. Get a good start, make every stroke count.

The first transition is an opportunity to gain 50-100 places if you come out of the water at a time when 70% of the field are coming out in a 5-8min window of time. Look through the results, often between 60min and 65min there can be 300 athletes come out, the same amount will come out between 65-70min. If you have all of your clothing under your wetsuit, and all of your supplies on your bike, all you have to do is take off the wetsuit and put on your helmet and you’re in front of those doing a full change of clothes and rubbing sunblock all over themselves. It is a race. One of the guys in our squad won a Hawaii spot a couple of years ago on the strength of his transitions. The next two athletes behind him had faster combined, swim, bike and run times, but slower transitions.

Making every stroke count, and having fast transitions, are totally mental. You just have to start the day expecting these things to happen.

Just about everybody has a good first half of the bike. It’s in the second half that the seat becomes uncomfortable. The back of the neck starts to ache. The sun comes out and starts to cook you (in some races). This is the stage of the day when you need to really be concentrating on the process of putting power through those cranks. This is when looking around at the scenery, or identifying other competitors is “taking your eye off the ball”. Great athletes have great powers of concentration. We all have distractions, but the best athletes allow those distractions to come and go. They don’t get stuck on them. Be ready to let your distractions slip by . An important part of mental strength is letting things go.

The second transition can be a place of misery and self indulgence. Watch the Pros go through the transition then stand at that same spot for the next two hours and watch some of the sooks and mummy’s boys carry on. I have to ask, does a Pro athlete who has just ridden a 4.30-4.40 bike split feel more like running than an age grouper who’s ridden a 6hr bike spit at a slower pace? Lets face it, everybody gets off the bike in an Ironman feeling smashed. The people who take the places on the podium, get moving as soon as they can. If you’re going to come good, you will come good. Sometimes it takes 2-3km, sometimes it takes 5-8km. but expect to come good. Start with shorter steps and set your run cadence right away.

Once you do come good, the key to holding a fast pace is to hold a fast leg turnover rate. Your total committment is needed now you hold that leg turnover rate. Of course it’s going to hurt at times. It’s called the Ironman, what did you expect.

Identify what the reward will be when you finish this event. From what I have seen, it’s satisfaction. It’s a great feeling of overwhelming satisfaction. Focus on that reward. Everytime your mind drifts to your misery, change your focus to your reward. Go for the reward.

Go into the race knowing that you’ll be challenged in a way that you just can’t be challenged in training. Have a clear vision of what will be your reward at the end. Athletes racing for a reward, have less muscular tension than athletes battling pain and discomfort. It is actually easier to be chasing the reward. Let it be easy.

Sometimes I wonder what’s kept me in this demanding sport
for over 25years. Lots of people have come and gone over that time. I’ve seen
hundreds come through our club in the last 18yrs. People come into the sport,
tick the boxes that are important to them, and they move onto something else.

I would say what has kept me interested, and kept the
passion strong is probably several things. One has to be the sunrises, I love
seeing all the sunrises that so many people sleep through. Training is almost
always an early morning activity.

Another motivator for me is achieving my goals, I feel I
have still got things to achieve in this sport. I do enjoy competition, it’s in
the blood. I see it in my daughter, she’s inherited this competitive gene. It’s
amazing how much work you can get done when two of you are racing each other.

One of the most valued parts of this sport for me is the
quality people who I have been so lucky to work with. This morning was another
example of the passion and commitment shown by these special people.

We had a planned workout scheduled to start at 6am, at the
little town of Walloon about 45min west of Brisbane. The workout was a 100km
bike time trial with 6 x 1km run repeats off the bike. There was an optional
extra 50km that could be added to the bike time trial, by those who felt it
would help them in their mental preparation for Ironman NZ in five weeks.

We are right in the middle of the wettest weeks of the past
few years. It rained all night last night, and at 6am it was raining steadily
as I arrived at Walloon. Cycos members often travel quite long distances to
some of our workouts. The bike time trials are one of those tests where people
will  travel. We’ve had athletes drive
down from Gladstone (about 6hrs) drive up from Tamworth (about 6-7hrs). This
morning one guy drove up from Kingscliffe in northern NSW, another couple drove
down from the Sunshine Coast and one of our girls drove up from Coffs Harbour
(about 4-5hrs), to ride a 150km TT in pouring rain.

When I arrived, there were 28 cars in the car park. Some of
those cars bought two people out. We started  in rain, we rode the 100km or 150km, in
pouring rain, then we got off and ran in the rain. This would have looked crazy
to some of the locals, but last year in New Zealand it rained heavily all day.
I’m sure everyone who was out there feels a great deal of satisfaction, after
that workout.

The rainwater was flooding onto the roadsides from the
paddocks, hiding some of the potholes from view. I hit two of them so hard my
teeth clacked together. One of them gave me a puncture, as soon as my tyre
started to go flat, I thought. “That’s it for me,  I’ve done 65km, I’ll just fix it and ride back
easy”.

Then I thought, “It is only a flat tyre. I’ve driven all the
way out here to ride 100km, what am I thinking?” So I just changed it, got back
on and finished the 100km. As I rode off down the road, I thought about all the
great people in the squad who were out there, doing what they had to do. What
thoughts are going through their heads?

We do our time trials out between Walloon and the next town
of Rosewood. It takes six repeats of the loop to make 100km, nine laps for
150km. We do these workouts to encourage the development of concentration
skills. Up and down the same loop, over and over again, can challenge the
athlete’s ability to concentrate.

We all have those little voices in our head, giving us all
the reasons to ease up, or to even cut the workout short. The best place to
develop the ability to over rule these thoughts, is on a boring, multi lap,
time trial course.

The Ironman race is 70% mental. Completing many of the
necessary workouts to do well in an Ironman, is 70% mental. I’d say one of the
strongest motivators for me in staying with this sport, has to be witnessing the
mental toughness of many of my training mates. It makes me feel very proud of
them all.

In our sport a similar battle plan can be applied to an
Ironman race. If you swim well, transition fast, then ride well, you set your
competitors the task of taking your position away from you. While it’s very
necessary to have a strong run, if your competitors are so far down the road,
it may become an unrealistic task to actually catch them.

The mental game is an important one. If you’ve run well,
ridden well and in many of our races there are turn around points, where our
competitors have a chance to see how far ahead we are. This is a great
opportunity to display your best body language. If when your competitor comes
toward you, you look like you’re doing it easy. Like you’re feeling no pain.
This is going to make catching you look all that much harder.

I’m asking you to change the thoughts from, running scared,
to holding onto what is rightfully yours, and refusing to give it up. Fighting
to the last drop of blood to hold onto what’s yours. That simple change of the
angle you look at the situation with, can either strengthen you or weaken
you.

I’ve heard many triathletes discount the importance of the
swim in a race. The argument put forward is that the swim is only 10% of the
total race time and it’s better to spend the training time on the other two
legs of the race. I have won an age group (and a Hawaii Ironman spot) in the
swim. When we looked back over the results, the guy who came second to me, had
a faster combined bike and run time. He had given too much away in the swim.

Improving the swim is a project which needs to be approached
systematically. The swim is very dependent on good technique. Good technique
has to be the base of all swim training. Every session should have some
technique work. If during a workout the athlete becomes tired and loses control
of his/her technique, the workout should be terminated right there. There’s no
point practicing bad technique, you’re already good at that.

An athlete can improve their swim on three sessions a week,
but it’s a long slow process. Adding two other sessions of as little as 1,000m
each can dramatically improve the rate of progress. Swimming improvement is a
frequency thing. Owning a new part of swim technique takes many episodes of
practicing it to “own it”.

These days you can’t take the Hawaii spots in any age group
if you have a weakness in any of the three sports. Weaknesses have to be
eliminated.

It’s a simple formular. Get the swim competitive. Learn to
ride at race pace for long periods of time in the aero position. Every month I
include a 100km time trial, if you’re an Ironman athlete there’s not much point
in doing a shorter time trial, once you get your time trial bike out. Over
100km you have to have aerobic efficiency to keep improving the time.

Once the swim and bike are in order, it’s a case of
defending the position you have gained. There are so many athletes in Ironman
racing who are not good at this.

Whether you believe in this stuff or not if you start observing how things either fall into place, or never seem to be easy. You’ll soon see a pattern developing.

The other day I saw the news report of the girl who was
bungy jumping in Africa, and her bungy cord snapped. She fell head first
another 30-50m before hitting the water so hard that she broke her collarbone.
Then she got swept downstream through the rapids with her legs tied together.
After all that she survived. She was not meant to go. I’m sure this experience
will change her life in more ways than the obvious desire to avoid bungy
jumping.

Stuart Diver was asleep in his bed beside his wife, a
landslide crushed the building they were in, they were buried alive. Water
seeped into the cavity drowning his wife where she lay beside him. He was dug
out from under the concrete slabs days later. The only survivor, he was not
meant to go. I have lost track of him, but have an interest in the path his
life has taken since that day.

Yet there are many cases of people being killed by freak
accidents where all those around them are uninjured. It was their time. I believe
when it’s your time, you are not going to dodge that bullet. I knew a guy who
was a guest at a wedding and he choked to death on a piece of wedding cake. Now
how dangerous is eating wedding cake?

Fearing what might go wrong is no way to live a life. I have
seen an awful lot of athletes who start to jump at shadows when they’re two or
three weeks out from a major race. I believe that this fixation on what might
go wrong, can actually “attract” some of the incidents they fear. Nothing
happens that wasn’t meant to happen. Prepare for that next race as well as you
can, but don’t waste precious energy worrying about what may go wrong. Don’t
bungy jump during race week, that might be tempting things too much.

If once a course of action has been chosen, like entering a
certain race. If things keep cropping up to take you off course, like injuries,
illnesses, accidents, the course you have chosen may not be the right one for
you at that time. It’s OK to accept that maybe that’s not the way to go at this
stage. To keep fighting when it’s absolutely uphill all the way, can ruin a
good year. Accept the way it is.

When the time is right, things work out. How often have we
committed to a certain path, a journey which at first seems out of our reach,
then the funds become available. Things start working out, falling into place.
We meet just the right person to help us along that path. The right person in
the right place at the right time.

There’s an old saying, when the student is ready, the
teacher will appear. Very often we accidently run into a complete stranger who
starts talking to us. We walk away with something the stranger said resonating
in our mind. Sometimes it may take a week for us to realise that that stranger
was the messenger. What was rolling around in our mind was the next clue in
life’s puzzle.

I have met people in the most unlikely places who have gone
on to be major players in my journey. I go out every day accepting what comes
my way. If I get a compliment I accept it gratefully, if someone gets angry
with me, it doesn’t affect me at all, I’m sure it affects them far more than it’ll
ever affect me. I have found that everything is falling into place in my role
as a coach.

I was obviously destined to be a coach. If I had not had the
right experiences, met the right people at the right time, my journey would not
have lead me to where I am today. I encourage my athletes to be open to accept
the results they get, and learn from those results. Sometimes a disappointing
result can be just the necessary test for the athlete to look a little deeper,
and know if what they want is, what they need at this time in their life.

Be scared, it makes you do things more carefully. An Ironman
triathlon is a ridiculous thing to do. Was a human designed to do events as
long as this? In conditions like we often experience.

Being a little scared is not a bad thing. The most
courageous people in the world have faced their fear, but have still done
whatever they had to do. Being scared is OK, it’s normal. A soldier faced with
the very likely prospect of death or serious injury, lives with a heightened
awareness. He moves very carefully, quickly when needed, but he takes no
unnecessary risks. Some risks have to be taken, but he’ll be very careful which
ones he does take.

Fear is a part of his working life. Fear makes him very careful.
All humans feel fear. Some let it control their actions, or lack of action,
others face it and work with it.

For an athlete standing on the start line, or even before
that, packing his/her gear the day before the event. It’s OK to be a little
fearful about what we’re about to try. Fear is what you have while you’re
building confidence. After the confidence is built, the fear is beaten and
simply disappears.

When we’re about to do something for the first time, or when
we’ve trained really well for months and all the indicators suggest we’re going
to do something really special, it’s very normal to be fearful of making the
wrong decisions, or letting ourselves and our supporters down. Accept that
fear, make it “normal”, it’s what you feel before you do something significant.

Now we’ve accepted that fear is normal, we need a strategy
to make it more tolerable, to keep it in its place. We don’t want that fear to
have too much say.

Sit quietly, breathing a deep, relaxing pattern, in for a
count of three, out for a count of three. Or go for a walk alone, also being
aware of your breathing, go through the things which might be your main fears.
The breathing is an important part of the process. The worst thing you can do
when faced with a fear is to hold your breath or breathe short shallow breaths.
Relaxation can often start by mastering your breathing.

The most common fears athletes face are, letting themselves
and their supporters down, making the wrong decisions under pressure, or
breakdowns, both physical and mechanical. All of these issues can be addressed
before we get to the last days.  With
breakdowns, if everything mechanical is in the best possible shape, and checked
by someone outside the inner circle, a breakdown is uncommon. If it happens,
handle it then, no use worrying about something which rarely happens.

Worrying about the body letting you down is common. If the
body is rested, recovered from the training, this is how it should be in the
final days, then it’s very unlikely to let you down. Have the necessary
massages, stretches, good sleeps and good food over the last week and you just
about eliminate this fear.

Ask yourself why your supporters believe in you. Ask why
they expect you to do really well. It’s usually based on what you’ve done in the
past. If you’ve always fought hard, always been tough and dependable, always
made the right decisions at the right times. Then that’s why your friends,
family and supporters believe in you. Use their confidence in you, based on
your history, to wash away the fear you may be feeling.

Going through this simple check list can wash away a lot of
fear and discomfort. It’s amazing how when the facts are laid out in front of
you, how simple the answer is. Remember they’re not firing live ammo at you out
there. It’s just you doing what you love doing. You are doing this for fun and
satisfaction.

When you reach race morning, and you’re standing on the
beach waiting for the start, this is a time to be aware of your breathing. Just
make sure you breathe it all out. The breathing in will just happen, just make
sure it’s all breathed out. When the race starts, focus totally on the process
until things settle around you. Often counting two hundred strokes will get you
to a point where you can settle into a rhythm. After that, you simply do what
you do as well as you can do it.

I don’t often have the opportunity to watch his show, I find
it a bit far fetched. Here’s Bear out there surviving with a full film crew
behind the scenes. But it was the night before the West Australian Ironman and
I had time to kill. If I wasn’t racing an ironman next morning, I’d probably
find something better  to do.

Lots of people choose the West Australian Ironman because
“on paper”, it looks like an easy Ironman. There are no easy Ironman races. The
fact that it has no hills on the bike or run make it attractive to a lot of
first time Ironman competitors. The swim is usually a very pleasant experience
in fairly calm conditions.

The days before had been a bit windy and the bay a bit
choppy, but things can change overnight, and the three times I’d raced here it
had been calm on race day.

On race morning we had everything in order. We’d been carbo
loading for two days on mainly rice based dishes. We walked into the transition
area fully hydrated and loaded with carbs and minerals. Loading with carbs and
drinking lots of fluids in the days before a race can cause an athlete to “wash
out too much of his mineral reserves”, with his many trips to the toilet. We’d
been careful not to let this happen.

The swim was choppy. Constant buffering with waves about two
foot high, that’s nearly four kilometres of waves two foot high. I do have to
admit, I did think of how the older and weaker swimmers were going to handle
these conditions. I’ve had lots of experience in rough water swims and I still
felt it a battle. My swim time was about five minutes slower than my previous
swims here, but you race the conditions you find on race day. We’re all in the
same boat. Well actually if you end up in the boat, things have not gone to plan.

I expected the bike to be windy, the course is close to the
coast and at no time is it further than a couple of miles inland. But the wind
is going to be behind us at some points and in our face other times, it all
balances out. It does get tiring, fighting headwinds and cross winds. Lots of
competitors fail to take advantage of the tailwind, they use it as a rest period.
You can’t give a gift like that away.

My own bike time was not affected all that much, I had drank
all my planned drinks and taken all my planned food on board. I had no idea
where I was in my category, all I knew was there was at least one competitor in
front of me. I had passed one early on the bike, but two bikes were missing
from the rack when I picked mine up.

I got off the bike in good shape, well as good as you can be
after a 3.8km swim and a 180km bike time trial.  I
had a fast transition, around three minutes to run the length of a football
field, rack my bike, get my shoes and socks on and run out. I was still racing.

It always takes two or three km before my legs come good
(loosen up and move freely). After about three km things started to work
better, the cloud cover which had blown in shifted off, letting the hot summer
sun through in full force. I handle the heat fairly well, after a lifetime of
working outdoors, landscaping, and pool building, it’s simply a case of doing
what you have to do in any conditions. I did give a thought to the first
timers, especially the ones who spent most of their lives in air conditioning.
They were going to suffer out here, my guess of the temperature was about
thirty degrees. It had reached thirty-one the day before.

It was a four loop run, all dead flat, not more than a meter
of rise or fall across the whole distance. I think looped runs are a little
easier mentally than a long out and back run. But it doesn’t matter which way
they lay it out you still have to run 42km, in thirty degree heat. This was
going to hurt a few.

I reached the half way point of the run, lots of people say
half way in an Ironman is thirty km into the marathon. In my third loop I
started to have a few threatened cramps, I was fully hydrated but had run out
of salt capsules. I slowed my pace to “just below cramping pace”, had a few
walks here and there to relax the muscles. Starting up again was not easy, but
the fastest walk is still slower than the slowest run, and I was still racing.
A casual observer may not have thought this was racing, but it is an Ironman.

My racing changed into surviving, I was cramping in my feet,
my calves, my quads and even in my biceps. I had 12km to go and started to
calculate how long it would take to walk 12km? I’d been though plan A, plan B, plan C by this stage.

Then I struck it lucky, right there on the road was three
“Salt Stick” capsules wrapped in electrical tape. The course is often littered with bits and pieces that people have dropped from their pockets whille pulling something else out. Often people wish me good
luck before a race, I often joke and say, “The other guys will need the luck,
I’ve done the work”. I usually add, “I’ll take any luck that comes my way”. I
pounced on those Salt Stick capsules like it was a one hundred dollar note.

It was less than 200m after taking the first capsule that I
started to jog freely with no cramps. The salt is absorbed in the mouth if the
capsule is crushed, causing the body to react immediately. Those three capsules
turned my race around. I felt like Bear Grylls eating a maggot to survive as I
grabbed my new treasure off the ground and popped it into my mouth.

I ran the whole last lap, feeling as good as is possible in
the last 10km of an Ironman Marathon. In the finish shute I ran up behind a guy
with grey hair who was high fiving his family over the fence, I was taking no
chances of him being in my age group, it’s too hard to pick ages in a race like
this. I powered past him and ran down the last 100m like I was bowling for
Australia. I didn’t need to finish that hard because after the race I
discovered I had won my category by 55min.

That was the hardest conditions I had experienced in
Busselton, I had raced there three times before and this year I was 66min
slower than my last race here. If it wasn’t for my lucky break finding the salt
capsules, I’m sure my time would have blown out by another hour.

The last time I
walked that much in an Ironman race, was in 1986 in my first Ironman. Any
competitor who is disappointed with his time from IMWA 2011, believe me this
was not a soft race. A lumpy swim, a windy bike and a hot run, these were a lot
like Kona conditions.