http://www.justgiving.com/JohnnieL
So it’s done and a massive “thank you” to you all. Over £5,400 raised so far, an amount that will make a massive difference to the work that CRY do.
So the race: a very quick (for me at least) synopsis….. 12 hours 12 minutes – not entirely according to plan but if you’d offered me that time at 7:05am in the middle of the wild west bar fight that is the swim start, I would have taken it without hesitation. Forgive the ensuing ‘product placement’ but I’ve had a huge amount of help from an army of medical professionals – often on discounted or bartered terms – that it would be churlish not to mention them.
Preparation quite simply could not have been better. I’ve been ‘virtually’ training for the year with my great friend from university, Greg, and he and his family (Liz, Becky and Maddy) were already in Whistler when I got there, 5 days before the start of the race. We were soon joined by our friend Bobby who had driven up from Vancouver, who slipped into the role of surrogate husband allowing me and Greg to get into our pre-race bubble.
A beautiful 6:30am swim in Alta Lake, a cheeky little scouting ride of the biggest bike climbs and the most incredible massage from insanely hilarious Roller-Girl Lori (http://www.loriohare.com – “does that hurt?”. Lori, you know it does, a lot, otherwise you wouldn’t have pressed it!) saw us well prepared going into race-day. By the way, if you thought Ironman was insane, check out Roller Derby – Lori O’Hare, we are not worthy, see you in February.
The pre-race brief on Friday seemed to focus too much for my liking on (a) how ‘challenging’ (i.e. long and steep) the bike ride would be; and (b) the very real threat from bears on the impending 42km stroll through the woods at dusk.
So, race day. 4am alarm call for yet another banana and date shake and breathing exercises to help with the swim start: I HATE swimming, particularly the starts when the ‘fight or flight’ response to being put in a tumble dryer with 3,000 other neoprene-clad nutters leads me to hyper-ventilate horribly. In addition to the Bowen Therapy that I’d received from the wonderful Caroline Kremer I’d also been given breathing exercises to help me cope and stay in my bubble.
Having seen a video of a swim start (http://youtu.be/xHfHu9ji_R8, jump to about 60s in if you’re impatient) Caroline’s advice was retracted and replaced with “Forget everything I’ve told you about breathing, you’re *!&£&*£! Mad!”.
So it was not with the greatest of confidence that we walked past our good luck messages chalked on the pavement from Maddy and Becky and headed down to the lake.
To the start. Just shy of 3,000 carbon fibre ponies in the bike rack – guessing about $15-20 million worth of pride-and-joys – into the wet suit and off to the swim start. With “Today you WILL be an IRONMAN” ringing in our ears from the announcer and the glorious back-drop of the sun rising over the mountains and the mist rising from the surface, 7am comes and Alta Lake erupts into a tsunami. The darkest moment was 10 minutes in when I seriously thought I would not even complete the first lap of the swim. However, I gradually got into my rhythm and having targeted a 1 hour 15 minute swim was elated to go through the exit timing arch and see 1 hour 15 minutes exactly.
A few minutes into the bike, I’m feeling great after a good swim. I then realise I have 6,500 feet of climbing and 180km ahead of me. A Tour de France stage. Before I start the bear-filled run in the woods. For 26 miles. At bear teatime. Head down. Whistler, home to the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a ski station and so at medium altitude. The course took us up to the top of the hill, then back down to Whistler and then dropped to the valley floor and the town of Pemberton. Having previously ‘only’ ever got up to 64kph on my bike – I’m a total coward – I hit Pemberton bang on my schedule (I was targeting 6 hours for the whole ride) having clocked 74kph / 46mph on the descent.
A 50km loop on the valley floor gets me back to Pemberton bang on schedule with 4.5 hours elapsed, leaving 90 minutes for the climb back up to Whistler. It’s now 1pm so the heat of the day, but at the foot of the first climb (quaintly named ‘Suicide Hill’ – nice touch Whistler…) I see Lori who is manning an aid station, in full Roller-Girl battle dress. That left me laughing a lot for a long time. Back to superb support in Whistler in 6 hours 01 minute.
Being bang on schedule gave me huge confidence going into the run. 7.5 hours elapsed at this stage and feeling great. I’m a 3 hours 30 minutes marathon runner and targeting a 3 hours 50 minutes to 4 hours run, which would now get me to an incredible time of sub-12 hours. All going well, then at 20km, bang. Torn “Tensor Fasciae Lata” (aka TFL, Transport For London), hip muscle. This means run / walk for the remainder of the race – at least it gave me a chance to do some bear watching (3 spotted on the course, one by me).
4 hours 36 minutes for the run saw me home in 12 hours 12 minutes, 8 minutes behind Greg. Two very happy Ironmen. Liz and the girls volunteered for the event and we both had the joy of being greeted by them with our medals as we crossed the line; and huge thanks to Bobby and Lori who were there at the finish to help us collect our bags and bikes and marshal us back to the hot tub and beer. To quote Homer Simpson, “Beer, the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems”.
I spent most of the first half of this year – and back half of last year – carrying all sorts of injuries, so a massive thank you for keeping me going to Laura Dent (http://www.lauradentsportstherapy.com/ – great massage and my first intro to acupuncture), Charlotte Mead (another incredibly skilful “does that hurt?” merchant) and Tim Hanwell (http://www.berkhamstedosteopaths.co.uk – for showing me places that I really never thought I could get my knee and teaching me to dread the words “and now breathe out”; all while laughing a lot) and to Aviva for paying (most of) the bills.
Thank you all for indulging my endless obsessive natter; and another big thank you to Dr K L Ng – the most amusing and informative ultrasound consultant you’ll ever find (and also being the only person to call me an ‘athlete’ during this whole voyage, we like KL). I am proud to now be one of his teaching examples after a severely torn and scarred Biceps Femoris tendon was successfully rehabilitated (not least without Charlotte’s help!). Finally, thank you to the one and only Ben Eyles – a wonderfully humble, knowledgeable and intelligent trainer who a delivered a simply amazing program of conditioning to compliment all the endurance work I was doing.
Thank you all and to those closest to me for your support and encouragement. I was standing on your shoulders all the time: I spoke with Stefan [Faulkner] minutes before the start of the race and I think you’ve all helped bring a little light.
John Lupton
