Me and Stormo exchanged a brief
few words as we headed up to the climb
by the University and as we descended
down the hill I took the lead. I made up
my mind to run off the front until the
40km mark and last turnaround point.
I was running like I had just started
the day and we were 35km into the
marathon, so I was feeling great. As I
continued to push forward, not looking
back but hearing his every footstep in
my mind, someone shouted at me at the
38km mark that he was gone. I was too
scared to look back or slow down and
continued to run as if he was there until
the far turnaround point where I could
see the gap. He was about one minute
down, and very kindly stuck his hand
out to say he was done. I still didn’t want
to believe that he wasn’t going to come
back, so I ran the last 2km like a man
possessed. My average HR was 148 until
40km – it went to 178 in the last 2km as
angst, excitement, fear and every other
emotion overwhelmed me.
I refused to celebrate and believe what
was happening until I literally turned onto
the red carpet, which was my best 100m
of running of my entire life. I had no pain,
I wasn’t tired and I was overwhelmed by
excitement. To me this was like winning
everything – it’s difficult to describe.
You were also impressive at the
IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship
last year – second in your age group
with a blistering 04:10. Give us your
impressions of the event. It was a
once-in-a-lifetime experience to race on
home soil. I was lucky enough to race the
70.3 World Champs in Australia in 2016
and that was a great experience, and I was
eager to see how we stacked up. The PE
course plays into my strengths – a tough
bike with a flat run – and I was quietly
confident, despite having battled an
Achilles injury for most of the year, which
kept my run training to a minimum in the
lead up. My race went according to plan
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