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After the training race in Noosa I had 5 long and relaxing days before we took the flight to New Zealand. It was when we touched down in Auckland that the nerves started to kick in. We arrived super late on Friday 26th Feb so by the time we woke up on the Saturday morning I had 7 days till the race. The training was done and apart from some open water swimming in my wetsuit and checking out the race course, there wasn't much else ‘physical' to do; but there were a few things ticking over in my mind.... In fact there were a lot of things on my mind which I summed up in my earlier report on the Noosa triathlon, but in summary:

• Was 2 months long enough to prepare for an IM?
• Would I have time to get used to the bike I was borrowing?
• Infact would I be able to setup a position I could ride in at all?
• Would I be able to use the Horley sports drink and Powerbars they were handing out on the course (as I didn't have anything else with me).

Luckily my head was in a pretty good place and having a few ‘big' problems to focus on took my mind off the thousands of other little things that can go wrong in such a long race. We met up with my parents that afternoon, who had flown in from England for a rapid fire tour of New Zealand and Australia. It was great to see them if a bit weird meeting up on the other side of the world. The next morning they set off to do some cool tourist stuff and we jumped on a bus to Taupo. On the bus was just one other competitor, Jonathan Williams, who looked somewhat familiar. We had a good chat about all things triathlon but neither Jac nor me could work out where we new him from. It took another few days before we remembered that we had met in Mallorca airport a couple of years back whilst waiting for a flight! Small world. The rest of that week Jonathan and me couldn't help but bump into each other at cafes, open water swim practise, restaurants, the expo, everywhere! It was great to have a familiar face around especially as he is one of the friendliest people in the world. He was also probably the only person in Taupo travelling with a spare set of race wheels and definitely the only person who was happy to lend them to me for the race!! Thanks sooo much for that Jonathan

(Note: Jonathan is now in Noosa training for a week. Whilst I new he was coming I had no idea he had arrived when we bumped into each other during my run this morning, something weird is going on here!)

My first job on arriving in Taupo was to find another generous man by the name of Jason Benniman. Some friends who was in New Zealand at the time (thanks Ste and Liz) put me in touch with Jason who very kindly agreed to lend me his training bike which will now forever be known to me as ‘The Kestrel'. My initial thought was that Jason was at least 2-3 inches taller than me and that there was no chance I was going to setup a good position. However after some messing around and mainly thanks to the wonderful invention that are Profile Ironman Tri Bars I'd cracked it. In fact once Jonathans Reynolds wheels had been fitted and I'd had a couple of days to ride it around I started to look forward to the bike leg to see what ‘The Kestrel' could do.

The rest of the pre-race week was spent on the following:

• Fiddling and messing with kit
• Getting lost whilst trying to work out the bike route (which really shouldn't have been as hard as I was making it) and slowly coming to love ‘The Kestrel' far too much
• Swimming in Lake Taupo (which despite everyone's assurance that it would be calm was choppy as hell every time I went anywhere near it)
• Running far too fast in all my taper runs showing that I was definitely nervous and tapering was working as I had energy to burn
• Drinking silly amounts of coffee against all my pre-race plans and more beer and wine than I'd had in the last 2 months (which wasn't a lot but enough to get me off to sleep nicely each night)
• Visiting Dan, Naomi, Ste, Liz, Jason et al in the T3/Blueseventy shop at least 5-6 times each day
• Did I mention I drank a lot of coffee....

My only moan was with the local Avanti bike shop who were running the pre-race bike checks and general race support. In fact just with one lady that worked there. She was totally unhelpful when I went to ask about renting/borrowing race wheels and didn't even offer a single suggestion or point me in the direction of other shops in town, she failed my helmet, she failed ‘The Kestrel' saying that the head set was ‘loose', but was very quick to ask if I would like to buy a new helmet from her and that she could fit my bike in for a headset service immediately. I declined on all accounts, walked down the road and took it to the other bike check stand which passed it immediately. And breathe....... On the positive side she was now the object of any anger or negative thoughts I had that week and would be my motivation to finish the race no matter what, even if my headset failed :)

Race Day

Race day started at 4.00am for an early breakfast. With the age-group start scheduled for 7.00am this gave me 3 hours to the start. After that it was back to bed for another half and hour. Next was a 5 minute jog to wake my body up before collecting my things and heading to transition. As we had racked our bikes the day before and handed in our T1 and T2 bags there really wasn't much to do. I pumped up my tyres, fitted my drinks to the bike then headed to body marking. Finally I dropped my ham sandwich, pretzels and cashews into the bike special needs then headed to the start.

I was feeling pretty calm at this stage until I could hear a haunting sound getting steadily closer. All the chatting went quiet and a group of Mauri's dressed in traditional dress marched passed chanting a traditional ‘song'. It was very spooky with it still being pretty dark and made the hairs on the back on my neck stand up. I said to the guy next to me that their job was to round up anyone who bottled it before the start so there was no going back now. He was looking very nervous and I don't think he found it funny!

Once the pros went off at 6.45 I downed the rest of my pre-race drink then got into the water and had a token splash around for a few minutes. The lake was totally clam for the first time that week and it felt more like swimming in a pool than a lake as the water was crystal clear. As it was a deep water start I found a spot off to the left, towards the shore, but right on the front row. Everyone around me was pretty relaxed with little pushing and shoving so I had quite a lot of room. Most of the testosterone action was off to my right closer to the buoys and shortest line. After a little whooping and hollering from the spectators the NZ Prime Minister fired the gun and off we went. I put my head down and did 10 strokes without a breath waiting for fists, arm and bodies to come pilling over the top of me. I waited, and waited but nothing. I looked ahead and couldn't see anyone.... I was winning! Then I looked over to my right and saw a massive group of people already 20m ahead and realised that I was a good 40m away from the scrum. As it was a 1750m straight swim following the shore line before the first turn I decided I was happy with that and just swam my own little race, very gradually moving towards the pack. By the time I hit the turnaround I hadn't been wacked once! I put some effort in round the turn and decided to pick things up on the way back. I was swimming great, relaxed but fast(ish). I was passing a lot of people now who had either got a good draft on the way out or gone off too fast. About half way back some guy came past at quite a rate so I decided it was time to get a free ride and followed his feet for the last 10 minutes. When I stood up to exit the water I glanced at the clock and nearly fell over when I saw it said 55 mins!! Result. I nearly stopped there and then happy with my days work.

I ran the 500m into transition pretty quick knowing I was going to take an age in transition. I recon I had one of the slowest T1 ever taking over 7.30 minutes! I got change into bib shorts and a tri top which isn't easy when you're wet, put on calf compression things, nipped to the loo, had a chat with the people at the food table about what sort of a selection they had on offer, had a good swig of water, etc, etc, etc. I think Jac thought I had got lost. As I went out onto the bike I enjoyed passing all the crowds in town and was in no rush to head off up the hill and out onto the first lap knowing I had 112 miles to go. I kept checking my heart rate which was a bit higher than I had planned but I just thought stuff it and kept going (For those that are interested in this stuff my average heart rate was 140bpm with a peak of 154bpm during the first few minutes I came out of T1. As my max on the bike is around 170bpm that works out at about 82%). I tried not to push hard on up hill sections but at the same time kept my speed through the flats and pushed on the downs. Unfortunately my rear mounted bottle thing slipped after about 20k and I had to take a 5 minute pit stop to try to fix it (most of this time was spent trying to break into the makeshift tools holder I had made from a plastic vitamin bottle and electric tape). This turned out to be a waste of time as it immediately fell down again so I just had to throw away one of my bottles and pray that my tools and spares wouldn't wall out. I checked my watch at 40k and I went through in 1:09 including the stop! If I could keep that going I'd do ok. Much to my surprise I pretty much did. It was slower on the way back due to the wind and having to climb a long steady hill, but I just kept on feeling better. I'd been passed by a lot of people on the way out on the first lap, but on the second lap I started to pass most of them back. My legs felt fine and I wasn't at all out of breath. I ate for England taking advantage of anything that people handed me.... powerbars, gels, banana, mars bars, energy drink.... At special needs I was handed my bag and had no idea how I was going to get the food out and eat it. I ended up throwing the sandwich away and stuffing the bag of pretzels and nuts down my top and just stuck my hand down to grab out a handful. Everytime I had to change bottles I was doing the same thing sticking empty ones down my top to make room for full ones. This I would say is the key skill required in an ironman, trying to maintain your speed whilst balancing far too much food and drink around your body and bike. I stopped taking in solids during the last 25km on the bike and just drank energy drink and water. As was tradition I bumped into Jonathan in the last 3km of the bike and we had a quick chat before heading into transition for another change of kit. Not as slow as T1 but still took some time to put on running shorts and my MTC vest along with compression socks and my shoes. If only I had taken a second to put on some more sun cream I might have avoided the sunburn that stayed with me for most of the week after the race.

As I ran down the ramp out of transition I took a moment to check how my body was doing. To be honest I feared that I might have pushed too hard and would now suffer but I have to say I felt absolutely great. Much better than at the end of an Olympic distance bike leg. As I ran past Jac, my mum and dad, Andy P and Jen (friends from the UK now living in New Zealand) and Ste and Liz I was running strong. I had a look at my watch and I was running around 4:05 per km. A quick calculation told me this was too fast, more like my flat marathon pace than ironman pace. I thought about slowing down but decided that I'd just go with it and see what happened. I past 10km in 42 minutes and carried on at a similar pace to the turnaround at 12km. Then, very suddenly, it happened, I hit the wall. Dizzy in the head, desperate need for to loo, general feeling of wanting to curl up into a ball. I'd gathered I was being optimistic as Cam Brown (the eventual winner) had finished his first lap just as I went out on the run and it took him till 11km to pass me. In my deluded state the mistake I had made was that I didn't take on any gels or water at the aid stations. I'd somehow convinced myself that I was on the charge for the finish rather than having well over 2 hours to go. When I ran the Paris marathon last year I drank the best part of 2.5 litres of water and ate 8 gels so I should really have loaded up a fuel belt as I did then and followed the same plan. I think if I had done this and held back a little during the first 10k my run time might have been closer to 3.10 rather than the 3.31 it turned out to be. For the final 30k I stopped and walked through pretty much every aid station trying to take on board as much food and drink as I could without making myself feel sick. When I was running I was still holding around 12km/h+ but with all the walking this slowed me a lot. Jac and everyone supporting was a great lift at the end of the first lap even if my response (or lack of it) might not have given this away. The final 10k was really hard with cramp threatening to kick in and thank god the wind was behind me and by the time I reached the finish I was totally wasted and very happy to sit down.

My finish time was 10:05.57. Swim: 55:36 (1:27 per 100m), T1: 7:40, Bike: 5:27:55, T2:3:37, Run: 3:31:09. Rank: 110 overall and 31 in 30-34 (flippin tough age-group!). Quite a few people said it was a shame I'd just missed out on going under 10 hours but to be honest I wasn't bothered in the slightest. My best geustimate before the race was 10:30 and with it being my first IM and everything that could possibly have gone wrong just finishing would have been enough. Not meaning to sound like an arse but I knew I would be suited to Ironman as I've done quite a lot of training over the years and tend to cope well with long steady stuff so I guess the main thing I've taken from the race is that I'll do another in 18 months or so, be a bit more planned and specific with my training, ride my own bike and try to do the best race I can. So for now 10:05 is just great thanks!

The rest of the day was spent sat in a café on the lake front watching people running the final 1km to the finish. I was so happy to have my day done and be enjoying a beer rather than being out on the course. Ironman is such a different challenge to an Olympic or sprint distance race as at no point was I really out of breath or suffering from that muscle burn that accompanies most shorter, sharper efforts. Dehydration and running out of energy are clearly a problem but the real issue is muscle damage and cramping on the run combined with keeping motivated through the pain and discomfort. So it's the time you are on your feet that is the issue making it a more difficult event for someone taking 15 or 16 hours. That's why so many people stick around until midnight to support the final finishers or console those who miss the 17 hour deadline. I'd planned on being one of those supporters, but fatigue had other ideas and I was out like a light at 9pm. I was woken up now and then with the cheers for another competitor still out on the course which made my bed feel all the more comfortable.

Muscle pain and sunburn woke me up at 7am the next morning and killed any chance of a lie in. I also had a lot of returning of borrowed kit to do as most people were heading out of town that morning. Once all that was finally out of the way I got back to bed about lunch time, slept for a few hours before celebrating with Jacqui, Liz, Ste, Naomi, Jason and the T3 folks who probably burned more calories that week working in the shop than any of the competitors. The next week was spent hobbling around, drinking even more coffee than before, eating absolutely anything I fancied and trying to be supportive for Jac who had the Oceanic Elite Champs in Wellington the following weekend. I managed to do some swimming and a nice bike ride around Napier but running wasn't on the cards till about Friday by which time we had arrived in Wellington. If you want to know how Jac got on have a look at here website - www.jacquislack.com . We are now happily back in Noosa where Jac is half recovering from Wellington and half preparing for her first ITU race in Mooloolaba next weekend. I'm still eating, drinking and sleeping a lot whilst training a little, but all happy in the knowledge that ‘I am an Ironman'........over to you Brad, Dan McP, Skip, Amy, Mark Hanna.......