MULTISPORT
The Build-up
The previous week , life had been peachy . Warm conditions prevailed as I went for my first 5km of garden and driveway running , testing various route permutations as well as the accuracy of the assortment of GPS devices in our household . I concluded my upper body strength work by lugging the exercise bike to the patio – it had been gathering dust in a backroom – and knocked out a 6km ride ( the first action the bike had seen in close on a decade ), and then finished up with a few lengths of the pool , dodging dive-bombing daughters and the tentacles of the Kreepy Krauly .
The pool had been celebrating St Patrick ’ s Day a few weeks beforehand , but I had managed to bring it back from luminescent green to a murky blue . It was still difficult to see the sides through the cloudy water , though , so I focussed much of my pre-race attention on getting the water a clear as possible .
Such was my naivety at this point that I had got several things wrong . The originally announced start time was 6am – I figured an early start gave me a decent chance of finishing before my kids were asleep . However , my wife pointed out that the sun only rises around 6:30am in April , and not wanting to add a dark start to the equation , I moved the start time to 7am , which is also the traditional Ironman starting time .
I ’ d also got the distances slightly wrong . Garrin Lambley , editor of Sport24 . co . za , gleefully told me I ’ d have to add a few lengths to my planned swim , as the swimming distance was actually 3.86 kilometres , and not 3.8 kilometres as I ’ d been led to believe . I ’ d also made a rounding error on the bike and would have to add a further 250 metres of pedalling . the pool … mainly to check just how cold the water temperature had become during the cold front . I regularly do an alternate day pull-up and push-up regime , but noticed that my shoulders became a little tired during my 20-length “ long swim ” and therefore dropped all strength and core body exercises five days before the event . I also tried to limit my intake of beer , but was less successful on that score .
Finally , and perhaps most importantly , I manged to chat to Tom Barlow and Charlotte Raubenheimer , who ’ d both completed a Home Ironman on the original Ironman South Africa date the previous Sunday . Both were amazingly supportive and gave me some great tips on how to approach my attempt .
Without fail , every ultra-marathon runner you speak to who ’ s done Comrades and Ironman tells you , “ Ironman is much harder to train for , but Comrades is much tougher on the day .” If you work in corporate , you can ’ t get away from talk of “ disruptors .” These are companies like Uber and Airbnb that change a stable landscape radically by challenging conventional wisdom , thereby reinventing an existing market . Well , if training for Ironman was truly the hardest aspect of the event and the Ironman was indeed much easier than Comrades , I figured that I would try to cause my own minor disruption by reinventing conventional stupidity and attempt a full Ironman without doing any training . The sum total of my Home Ironman training consisted of 30 lengths of my 11-metre pool , six kilometres of stationary biking , 241 marathons and two shirts ( because I figured you can ’ t do an Ironman without having done any actual ironing ).
get my hyperventilating breathing under control over the first 10 lengths . I was facing 351 lengths of my 11 metre pool to make up the 3.86 kilometre Ironman distance , and just focussed on getting the first 40 lengths done , as this would be just over 10 % complete . This was also more than the total amount of training I had done , so like a little clownfish called Nemo , I was now swimming beyond the reef and into the unknown …
I had tried without luck to get my watch to count lengths and distance , so instead relied on my support team ’ s mathematical prowess – and my eldest daughter prepared a white board with the swim broken up into 10-length chunks . After about 50 lengths I got into a good rhythm and would try knock off 20 lengths at a time , then check that my count was in line with that of the official scorekeepers , and push off again . I did try the odd tumble turn , but gave up that idea after a few attempts , mainly because I was overhydrating with heavily chlorinated pool water though my nose .
Mental Preparation
With just a week to prepare for my first triathlon , I ( naturally ) immediately entered a period of hard tapering . I hoped that the famous Fordyce mantra of “ Rather start Comrades overweight and undertrained ” would apply to endurance triathlons as well . I was worried how many kilometres the bike would handle , so other than oiling a squeaky peddle , I left it totally alone until the big day .
My daughter pestered me into joining her for a few short driveway jogs , and after one of them I finished off my swimming training with two more lengths of
Diving Right In
With the luxury of not having to battle traffic or worry about long toilet queues , I gave myself an hour to get ready and set the alarm for 6am , with the instruction to wake up the rest of the family ( and bring my wife , Kathy , a cup of tea ) at 6:30am . I followed my normal marathon morning “ Triple T ” routine . This consists of tea ( two cups ), toast ( peanut butter and honey ) and toilet ( as many trips as possible – especially on this occasion , as I was lacking the added buoyancy of a wetsuit and wanted to avoid swimming with rocks in my pocket ).
I got going just after 7am with a simple “ Ready , steady , go !” from my wife and the firing of a Nerf gun by my youngest daughter . After a short trot over the lawn , I faced the pool . “ 1 , 2 , 3 , bungee ” went through my mind and I took the plunge . As soon as my chest hit the frigid water I gasped for breath and tried to
I had planned to inject some fun into the traditional Ironman and therefore pre-placed an order for a poolside cup of tea after breaching 200 lengths . By this stage my face was so cold and numb that I could not control the sipping motion and had to spit out the first mouthful after taking too big a sip . The tea was fantastic though – it warmed me up and gave me renewed energy , providing credence to my clearwater revival .
Conditions deteriorated towards the end of the swim and I could feel the rain pelting down against my back over the last 100 lengths . I was also starting to shiver uncontrollably whenever I had a brief stop , so I counteracted this by not stopping . 351 lengths ( plus one for good luck to get back to the steps ) and 1 hour 10 minutes later I emerged a little pinker , shivering uncontrollably , and gratefully grabbed the towel . One down two to go .
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