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Kona 2014

Race Report

Somewhere down near the Ocean a silent piper played an irresistible tune in the

darkness. 0445. Garry and I walked quietly, alone with our thoughts in thepeace of the night, drawn with a mass of fat-free type-A personalities towardsthe siren. Like the rats coaxed out of Hamelin, and so tragically followed by that

towns children when the pricewasnt paid, there was a maudlin mood to the

purposeful crowd as they walked silently downhill like the flow of tributaries

into a river.

We met up with the diminutive Becky, a British Army Corporal who looks much

less than her 24 years. Shes waiting silently under a spreading Banyan tree,

perhaps reflecting on her second journey to the Big Island and the trial that wasabout to commence. Sombre.

Just as our number swelled by one, so did the flow of sportsmen and their

supporters by many.

As we rounded the King Kamehameh Hotel everything changed and we were met

by a disciplined and efficient machine that processed us through body-marking

to weighing scales and on to the pier. Five thousand volunteers service theWorld Championships of Ironman and we were funneled quickly to our bikes.

From pensive reflection, contemplation and quiet resolve to busy, smiling, over-

happy, zealous, helpful assistance on every hand. People pushed and jostled,

pulled bikes out of racks, pumped up tires, applied sunblock and chamois cream,put nutrition onto top-tubes, queued for the loo, loaded bottles into cages,

attached shoes to pedals, started bike computers, rotated wheels, checked

brakes, wished friends luck, eyed up the age-group opposition either side within

the racking, put recovery bags into the bag check and generally got on with theprocess.

And then, administration complete, they all went back into the trance state that

had preceded the process. Communication ceased. Now we sat or stood, or

leaned on barriers or lay amongst the rapidly quieting mass. Thought,determination and visualisation: of a good swim; a perfect transition, or; a time

at the finish waiting squat and unlit only 50 metres away but between 8 and 17

hours hence. The volunteers still chattered and fiddled, moved barriers and

talked excitedly but the mass was now silent. The silent river had transited therapids and had now culminated in a calm lake atop a concrete pier. We were

two thousand men and women with two thousand bikes, surrounded by the

crystal clear Pacific Ocean, and dawn.

On hearing the opening bars of a bad solo male rendition of The Star Spangled

Banner, we all stood and I looked to the heavens to see two sky-divers spiral

earthwards. Their landing was choreographed to coincide with the slightly

butchered last note of the National Anthem. Then helicopters appeared in thesky and the male professionals filtered through the waiting hoi-poloi to the steps

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and a short swim to the deep-water start. I clutched my hat and goggles tightly.

Idlost Garry and Becky in the crowd when we all attended to our oft-practiced

and very personal pre-race routines. I wanted to be alone. And I was.

A muffled boom signaled the start of the professional race, followed five minutes

later by another as the female pros struck out for glory. The sun had not quiteappeared over the volcanic spine of the Big Island, but it was bright daylightnow, with blue skies and a freshening wind.

Someone opened a sluice and we dropped down the steps of Dig Me Beach and

into the water. Now I looked for Garry as I had advised him to start on the left.Thats where I was heading and I hoped that hed timed his entry well. We knew

that it would take close to six minutes to get from the beach to our chosen point

on the start line. Wed practiced it the day before. Enter the water too early and

youre treading water with a mass ofkicking, jostling, eager, adrenaline fuelledcompetitors and using energy. Enter too late and you might miss the start. I

swam out and was safely in position with two minutes to spare. Volunteer

marshals on surf-skis, Hawaiian canoes, and stand-up paddleboards issued

orders with varying levels of politeness as their instructions to move back werestudiously ignored. Looking across to the cannon and the marker buoys I could

see that we were still a few metres short of the line, but they were determined

that no one would get a jump at the start. A tap on the shoulder, and there was

Garry. We shared a short, significant but suitably manly hug, wished each othergood luck and prepared to press the button on our Garmins1.

Kona

Experienced Ironman competitors will recognize the picture thus far. But in

Kona it is all just a little more intense. Here the guy who looks fit prob ably is.

And the one who looks less fit, probably isnt[less fit]. There are very few slow

racers. 90% have qualified by winning or coming close to winning their age -group in a qualifying race. A few have earned their Legacy place by completing

twelve or more full Ironman races, and a handful have won entry in a lottery

draw.

Here if you travel from as far away as Dubai, you will spend at least a week in thetown prior to the race. You have to get over jet-lag for a start. With my budget

ticket I spent forty-nine hours aloft or in Dubai Airport, Dulles Airport

(Washington DC), Los Angeles Airport, San Francisco Airport and finally Kona-

Kailua. And you suffer too from the time change with Dubai being 14 hoursahead.

The week is spent training on the course, and building and rebuilding your bike

which inevitably develops some minor fault either as a result of the journey orjust because the more important the race the more likely you are to have an

issue. Sods law. Kona has good bike shops that will help you out. And the major

1For non-triathletes, most of us wear a GPS computer on our wrists to chart time, distance,heart-rate (doesnt work in the water) and collect other data throughout the race. The generic

term is often Garmin after one of the major manufacturers.

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training routes have sponsors tents set up on them, so when you swim you might

see a large sign anchored to the ocean floor, twenty metres below you, with an

arrow: Kona Coffee this way. Followits direction and you will swim up to awooden catamaran dispensing espressos to water treading swimmers. On the

run route GUhas a tent. At times it is manned by the great and the good, and

your mid training run nutrition, all free of charge, might be proffered by ChrissyWellington. And on the bike, if you have a problem you are likely to attract theattention of a roving van with Bike Works emblazoned on its flank, dispensing

mobile technical support to the unfortunate; a Kona version of the AA or RAC for

triathletes.

You wake up in the middle of the night, and struggle to avoid the old-mans half

hour snooze most afternoons. If you dont have a car and dont want to eat out

for every meal, you will walk a long way clutching stereotypical US brown paper

grocery bags full of sustenance designed to preload muscle glycogen whileavoiding putting on extra weight. No one wants to gain anything extra to carry

around any Ironman course, let alone at Kona where athletes are at such a peak

that performance can be influenced by the tiniest factor.

Alii Drive, and the narrow streets that feed it, consists of a mixture of slightly

jaded post-colonial structures and more modern concrete tourist

accommodation. There are parts of Kona that verge on the shanty, and those

buildings erected recently are still relatively small, particularly by Dubaistandards. The tallest building in town is the King Kamehameh Hotel at six

stories. It is the official race hotel and stands, squat and sixties unattractive ,

close to the pier transition. At night the sounds are punctuated by the

clattering thump of unsilenced fully dressed Harley Davidsons, ridden bybearded, leather-wrapped men with tattoos, or women of exactly the same

description. You pass doorways where the homeless have set up temporary

residence. Five or six contented dogs on a selection of old mattresses and

cardboard lie scattered in the hard sodium light of a second-hand clothes storedoorway. Their master, hair matted and trousers loose over bare feet, sweeps

the next-door stoop. Is this payment for his temporary abode? The smell of

herbalsmoke hangs in patches in the tropical air. Tattoo parlours proliferate.

Ink is part of the US culture and is particularly prevalent in Ko na. Shop fronts

are tidy, hand-painted and haphazard. But like the almost impressive facades ofthe old west Main Street, if you view any of the buildings from an unexpected

direction you find amateur practical plumbing, tin roofs, bare electrical wires

and half finished studwork.

By day, there are some wonderful places to sit and watch the fitness parade.

Bicycle pornography and shirtless runners in training pass, posing, on Alii Drive.

The Ironman contenders almost always sport a heart rate strap, and any others

are just not the same shape. Sebastien Kienle, days away from being crownedChampion, sits next to a seventy year old female competitor on the communal

coffee tables of Lava Java. Faris Al Sultan talks to friends old and new near the

swim start. Rebecca Joyce perches on the sea wall and watches the sunset.

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Accommodation and hire cars are at a premium for these ten days every October.

I booked my accommodation before leaving Kona in 2013 and even then I had to

settle for my second choice. Auto rental is impossible unless you have pre-ordered and without a car you are denied the myriad of Big Island Hawaiian

experiences that lie more than a walk away from the town. If you are marooned

by financial constraint or lack of transport the options are limited. US Televisionis not entertaining. Even popular TV shows are punctuated by endless tastelessadvertisements for variety packs of do-it-yourself catheters, cures for erectile

dysfunction, cheap loans and wheelchair mechanics pandering to the terminally

fat. You can flick between thirty channels without finding any programming at

all. Even the News is a dramatic sensationalization (an American word) of whatis happening in the world. Ebola dominated the weekscurrent affairs, and

degenerated quickly into a racist argument over whether the first victim to die

on US soil would have succumbed had he been a white man. It is very difficult to

respect the editorial choices and production values of American media.

Luckily, if you are out and about, the local people will embrace your being in

their hometown. The fat, sick and nearly dead will congratulate you on what you

are doing. Any sense of irony is lost.

Swim

The cannon smoke preceded the boom by half a second and, with the Garminbutton pressed, my lead arm struck for the catch as the sound reverberated over

the start line. We were off. I quickly got into a racing rhythm, breathing right to

avoid the glare of the sun that had finally crested the ridge and now bathed the

race in warm, tropical sunshine. Starting on the left meant a gradual bias to theright on a tangent that would bring me to the line of buoys at just under the two

kilometer point. I was not alone with this tactic and from the start, with the girls

afforded their own start ten minutes later, the age group men were in full contact

mode. Stronger swimmers can get out of trouble with an early surge to clear themass, but the workaday splashers like me are always going to have to fight to get

round. In Kona the spread of competitor ability is much narrower than in

qualifying races and the whole one thousand four hundred strong male age

group pack was separated by only about fifteen minutes in the swim. Thus, I

never found space. I sighted for the turn buoy only very occasionally, relyinginstead on shadowing the main body of swimmers to my right. Its an effective

tactic that resulted in a very straight Garmin track. But I took a pasting and

probably gave as good as I got. Sadly when you are bashing into bodies rather

than gripping large armfuls of water, your forward progress is always going to beless rapid.

Garry is a stronger swimmer than me and I assumed that he was long gone. I did

not see him again until over fifty kilometers into the bike. But he did see me. Atthe three thousand meter point he somehow recognized my stroke in the

maelstrom that continued to the bitter end. We were swimming within twenty

meters of each other for the whole leg.

Garry

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Garry Whyte is an Oilman ex matelot who has been a lynchpin of TRIbe Racing

since he moved to Dubai in 2012 from Abu Dhabi. Last year he slipped quietlyinto the forty plus bracket, and then achieved fourth in age at the European

Championships in Alanya, Turkey with the second fastest bike leg of the day.

He then qualified for Kona with me in April 2014 at Ironman South Africa with asecond place in age. Over the Summer, on promotion to Oil Baron First Class, hehad relocated his family to Houston in Texas where he purchased a home called

South Fork and settled Claire and Sophie into the Lone Star State.

Our reunion in Kona was bittersweet. While reveling in a deep and enduringfriendship founded on shared interests and experience, we were both very

saddened by the exclusion of Chris Knight, the third member of TRIbes most

experienced Ironman racing team2. His employers would not stand his absence

for two weeks in October and had disqualified him. Thus, only four weeksbefore the race, having raced both South Africa and UK Ironman (Bolton) in

order to qualify, he had to pull out. Both Garry and I felt his absence keenly in

the lead up to the race.

Garry had been travelling for the three weeks prior to Kona and had completed

significantly less training than I had. My assumption that he would be far ahead

of me on the swim was based on past performance. He has hair the colour of

Hawaiian Oak and skin to match. After a morning out in the sun he tends to looklike a badly creosoted fence and for this race he was wrapped up in a new,

covered-shoulder Fusion speed suit, under a slick HUUB swimskin, in

preparation for a hot day on the bike and run. The jury is out on whether it

helped in the water. He was perhaps a little bit undercooked on his swim andbike, but had managed some high-quality run training. He was, is and probably

always will be the fastest Ironman Athlete in TRIbe and on reflection over the

last four years I cannot think of a more capable UAE based age-grouper.

Bike

I dispensed with T1 quickly and was out and onto my bike in less than three

minutes despite the long run to the end of the Kona pier and back that evens out

the distance for whatever bike rack position you are allocated. As usual, evenamongst the seasoned Kona veterans, there were those who went off on the bike

as if this was the local sprint event. Going through town on the convoluted route

that guarantees maximum spectator access, I was overtaken by bike after bike

piloted by balding or shaven headed maniacs, veins popping on foreheads,putting out in excess of four hundred watts of power through the pedals. This

was suicidal riding for an Ironman and I concentrated on maintaining my race

plan, which called for a meager two hundred and twenty watts. I knew that I

would see the speedsters again, if not on the bike, then on the run. The keymessage here or in a qualifying race, is to have a plan and stick to it.

2Chris has completed nine full distance Ironman branded races, more than anyone else (I

believe) in the UAE except Faris Al Sultan.

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Once out on the Queen K Highway I settled into the right cadence and the right

power and started to fuel my body for the rest of the race. From the moment we

left the relative shelter of the town, it was clear that today was not going to be asquick as the previous year. The trade winds battered the coastline, swirling back

from the volcanoes with no discernable pattern3. With the omnipresent

marshals draft-busting with gay abandon, the racing riders separated and mostlymaintained the requisite seven-metre gap. The zealots on the motor bikes stillhad a field day, flourishing red cards to cheats and the unwary, and it was

heartening to see the penalty tents full of guilty transgressors declaring their

innocence. The winds built and I spent more and more time in the little ring.

Speeds dropped drastically but the key factor, power, was spot on. I was ridingto plan and would reap the benefits on the run.

Seeing the familiar riding style of Garry up ahead at about the fifty kilometer

point, I assumed that I was either having a very good day, or he was having avery bad one, for surely he had exited the water several minutes before I

emerged, coughing and spluttering from the furor. I passed him and he smiled,

happy in his work. I smiled too, happy to see him; not my Chrissy smile,

designed mostly, along with a closed mouth, to intimidate other opposition withthe ease of my overtaking manoeuvre. From that moment forward we were

almost always within about a kilometer of each other, focused on our own goals,

but gaining support from our proximity. We probably overtook each other more

than half a dozen times and often shared a couple of words of encouragement.As the gap widened I would forget who was ahead. More than once I was

surprised to find myself overtaking a Garry who I thought was behind me. There

is so much of consequence to concentrate on: cadence, power, nutrition, bladder

voiding, cheat avoiding, balance in the wind, aid station self-harmers cuttingsuddenly across your path, and so on. Garry was the least of my concerns but at

the same time, I knew he was always wishing me well, and I him.

We turned at Hawi, the halfway point, and briefly both wind and hill were in ourfavour. I hammered down the incline, fixed in the aerobars, overtaking tens of

athletes who had less confidence in their ability to keep the bike between

themselves and the road, or worse, the lava fields. There were bigger moments

than last year, the wind would catch the P5 and lift it and me two metres to the

left or right, and Id grit my teeth a little. Due to the wind danger, no one isallowed to use a disk in Kona. I was running Zipp wheels with the deepest rim

permissible, and I was glad, if only for these moments, to be a heavier athlete, for

I could anchor the flapping sail of carbon that bucked and fought me as I flew

down the mountain at eighty kilometres an hour. I have that stone-facedstalwart of the Dubai Tri scene, Clint Covey, to thank for the loan of the beautiful

Zipps. His generosity with his Firecrest 808s meant that I was using the most

advanced wheel weaponry available. Lance said its not about the bike, but

irony aside, for me it is. At least if I believe that I have the best kit it is one lessissue to think about during the race.

3Locals, asked to describe the wind on a scale of one to ten, rated the winds for this race as

eleven.

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There was another brief period on the long drag home through the lava fields

when the wind blew well from behind. Only the long distance cyclist or a racing

Ironman really knows the sound of good and bad wind. A following wind is agood wind and makes a pleasure of listening to the woody resonance of carbon

wheels revolving at speed. The rhythmical hum becomes a soothing

accompaniment to the sights as nature lays out her bounty ahead and on eitherside. But with the pleasure comes the understanding that sometime much toosoon you will transform from a great professional cyclist to an amateur in crisis.

Just as what goes up must come down, so those that ride with the wind, must at

some point pay nature back for their free speed. Ironman triathletes spend

many often lonely hours training on their bikes on the road and most dread theturnaround. With a change of direction, the pleasurable, efficient soundtrack of

carbon, rubber and road transforms into a cyclonic roar of air being forced

through and around the vents in your helmet. The turbulence is so close to your

ears that everything else is excluded. Riding into wind creates white noise andas your sense of hearing is overwhelmed to the point of almost absolute

deafness, you have to rely much more on sight, touch and the balance of the

inner ear. So just as quickly as the following wind had been given, it was taken

away. It felt so unfair that I was still going in the same direction towards homebut that the assistance had been turned off and replaced with a gale of a

headwind. Over the course of about five hundred metres my speed dropped

from a potential PB delivering sixty-five kilometers an hour in top gear to a soul-

destroying twenty-two in the little ring. And the wind refused to turn again.Deaf and battered I caught a whiff of avgas and looked to my right to see the

airport a couple of kilometers off my right flank fifteen minutes to T2!

Nutrition at this stage was going to plan. I ate and drank regularly, and alwayspicked up water or fuel in each aid-station. In transition I had seen one carbon

framed superbike with thirty BonkBreaker bars stuck to the top tube. No, not in

packets stuck on with tape but applied loose to the expensive frame with the

sticky gelatinous sugar of the recipe. Brown blobs of pre-chewed puppy poo in along line from stem to seatpost. The rider was a German man and serial cheat

who spent most of the bike leg just behind someone else and must have suffered

a stiff neck later from looking over his shoulder to try to spot the quick draw

marshals before they saw him. A drafter. Scourge of our sport. With turds on

his bike. Each time I saw him, always close up behind a sporting competitor, hehad a few less brownies to work through. It didnt help that his bike was the

colour of mustard, and his dirty yellow cut off racing top bared his fake-tanned

midrif of much the same colour. Even his wheels included decals in new-baby-

nappy yellow. His hair was a spiky dirty bottle blond a la Rod Stewart in theeighties. A complete study in burnt umber.

Carrying all your nutrition on the bike strikes me as counter-productive. In

Kona you ride uphill for about thirty kilometers to the Hawi turnaround and thewhole bike course is rolling in the extreme . Uphill, weight is the biggest

handicap. We buy bikes that are super light. We buy wheels that almost float in

the air and act like sails in the wind. We are happy to pay hundreds of dirhams

to save two or three hundred grams on a seat or tribars, and then we plastersweet biscuits or gels to our bikes, fill three water-bottles with liquids and strap

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them to our super slick, wind cheating steeds4. A combined additional load of

three thousand grams represents a fifty percent increase in the weight of a good

racing bike. It doesnt make sense. So I rode with one half-full Tri-Dubai waterbottle in a minimalist carbon cage in the wind shadow behind my Adamo seat

and an emergency supply of three gels tucked into a Pocket 200 faring behind

the stem. Combined weight three hundred grams. Estimated aero drag less thanfifteen grams. I was thus insured against a missed aid station. But still very light.

Garry was gone. At that time I didnt know if he was in front of or behind me but

I rode into T2 expecting him to have a slight lead. And so it transpired.

Hasan Itani

Its a personal thing, but the support of family and friends underpins my life and

the lifestyle choice that is Ironman Racing. An outstanding Ironman finisher inhis own right, Hasan Itani is the sort of friend who, absent any expectation of

quid pro quo, represents a rock on which to build. He travelled to Hawaii to be

with Lynette Warn, also a fantastic age-group athlete. She has three times

qualified and twice raced Kona. She has fourteen thousand freefall jumps behindher, and, like Garry and me, in Kona she had Hasan. He drove us to buy

groceries5and to a health food store so that Garry and I could imbibe fresh juiced

beetroot in the three days leading up to the race. He took us to the bike shop,

and to various parties thrown by Triathlon suppliers in race week6. He was onthe wall at the swim start, cheering us on. He was there again as we got out of

the water, and in the crowd as we mounted our bikes. At hot corner he shouted

us up Palani hill both on the bike and later on the run. Finally, after we had

finished, he was there at the exit of the athletes-only area, to help tired friendscarry bags and push bikes. At every turn, Hasan was there for the Dubai team,

with a huge smile and palpable good wishes. Dubai, and TriDubai as the premier

triathlon club are very lucky to have him in their ranks7.

Run

Herr Rod Stewart, the cheat, was in deep trouble on the run. Just as my legs

finally started to function, about fourteen kilometers into the marathon (Im a

very slow starter on the run leg), I saw him staggering out of an aid station. Ienjoyed a moment of Schadenfreude. Moments later Hasan high-fived me and

with that double injection of encouragement, I felt set for a strong run.

I walked briefly at every aid station and fueled religiously. As per my plan Iwalked Palani Hill and then overtook those who had run up it. I saw friends,

4The cheapest route to a better power to weight ratio lies in a balanced diet and carrying no

unproductive weight physically, rather than through Wolfis Bike Shop. Although its a lot more

fun to take the Wolfis option.5There was a danger that I wouldnt eat enough in the lead up to the race due to logistics ofwalking damp paper bags of food from supermarket to kitchen fridge.

6The lure of free good food cooked by someone else was very strong. Cant cook, wont cook. 7A week later he was awarded the Roy Nasr Trophy, in recognition for his contribution to the

sport in Dubai. Never more deserved.

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including Garry at each turnaround. Garry was gently but consistently

increasing the gap between us. Hes probably a 2:45 standalone marathoner, and

off the bike hes capable of 3:10 or better. He claimed later that he was in a darkplace when we saw each other in the Natural Energy Lab (which sounds like a

stark place of test tubes and white coats but is in fact a five kilometer long

corporately owned road to a scruffy beach near the airport) with twelvekilometres to go. While he looked a bit miserable, he was still running, from myperspective, very quickly.

Walking through aid stations is my solution to the cramps that afflicted me on a

couple of less successful Ironman races. I always assumed that muscularcramping was the body indicating a lack of salts, but for me, it seems that it is

just an indication that I have run out of fuel. By walking I can get nutrition into

my body rather than plaster and splash it liberally to the outside, as is the case

when I try to eat or drink and run. Also, I am easily distracted when running andon more than one occasion in the past Ive tried to drink the ice while putting flat

coke down the front of my race suit. The intended goolie-coolingfails miserably

and running with sticky sugar and molasses around your undercarriage is less

than comfortable.

But this plan backfired this time. The aid stations came up every kilometer or at

worst every mile and while I found it easy to accelerate back into a run having

iced my head (put it under your hat), my back (but be prepared for a cube to slipdown and sit disconcertingly close to an exit orifice) and my front (this works

well as the ice sits above the race belt and slowly releases cold water to the

nether regions), I was using up a lot of time. In each aid station I would guzzle

half a banana, a cup of coke, a GU gel and a cup of energy drink. I would pour acup of water over my head and swap out the rapidly warming sponges from the

shoulders of my race suit for new, cooler ones. This was a full pit stop every five

to eight minutes and if theyd offered a massage and asked me to fill out a

questionnaire from the local telecom company Id have probably have done thattoo. So while I got my moneys worth from IM Corp, I spent at least a minute in

every ten walking and thanking volunteers in each station. Mistake! A

conservative estimate would put my intake for the marathon at fifteen bananas,

ten GUs, four litres of warm coke and about the same of energy drink. Of course I

shot out of each station as if it was the start of the day, running at 04:30 minutesper kilometre or better and feeling happy, healthy and fresh. Its a great way to

complete an Ironman, but a poor approach to competing.

Had I managed to press the right buttons on my Garmin I might have been givena cue, earlier in the run, that I was averaging a much slower pace than Id

intended. But I didnt and my one kilometer splits were not coming up to tell me

that I was well over a five minute pace, the worst case scenario in my plan. With

the long uphill drag to the top of Palani Hill in sight, I realized that I was notgoing to have a physical crisis on this run. I was going faster and faster between

stations and there was no hint of discomfort in the system (apart from some

minor ice-burn around my naval, where the ice was sitting). Too late I realized

that I was fitter than I had ever been and that I had been too cautious with mystrategy. With this blinding flash of the obvious I opened the sluices and emptied

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my tanks with about five kilometers to go. With much crowd encouragement

and the prospect of the last four kilometers being mostly flat or downhill, I

pegged it for home. I threw my legs out in front of me, and the crest came andwent in a blur. Down Palani I was probably out of control and every runner will

recognize that abandonment of caution when you are stretching your stride

longer and longer, stamping down hard with huge jarring shocks on a steepdownhill. You start to hope for a bit of flat before you fall on your face. Thecrowd were full of frenzied Good Jaarb! and Way to Go! and Awrsome! and

Finish Hard, Man! (plus various other Colonial abuses of the English language).

But despite the lingual butchery I was inspired and continued to pick up the

pace. I think dispatching those last five kilometers in a little fewer than nineteenminutes might be a new personal best. And while its always nice to run a PB

this was not the place or time that I should have been delivering it.

With fifty metres to go, the chute narrowed and the crowd was almost closeenough to touch you from both sides. The noise was intense. And wonderful.

Two runners ahead of me were recording their finishes for prosperity and rather

than have a group photo for my memories, I zipped up my tri-suit, removed my

hat and glasses and slowed to a walk so that I could have the line to myself. Tenhours and twenty seven minutes on the clock. But home. And safe.

The catchers seemed disappointed when, with my HR rapidly dropping from flat

out to resting, I pointed out that I was in good order and would make it to thePizza and Ice-cream without assistance.

Lynette, Paul, Becky

Dubai is blessed with some outstanding Ironman athletes. Lynette Warn is an

inspirational figure. She races in my age-group and has qualified and gone to

Kona for the last two years. A hugely talented swim coach, she has time for

everyone and anyone and is kind and generous. In the week before the race sheand Hasan looked after us. Lynette raced for the UAE (and the Kiwis) this year,

repaying the magnanimity of her sponsor, Crown Prince Hamdan. With the

toughest bike leg in recent memory, she came home in twelve hours and

eighteen minutes. Seventeenth fastest athlete in her Division, in the World!

Paul Miles, with the dedicated close support of Heather MacKenzie, ran in

strongly for a ten hour forty-eight finish. He had qualified solidly on his first

attempt at the Ironman in South Africa and then executed a perfect race in Kona,

his second full-distance race. Hes normally known as one of the elite Frankiesteam cyclists but this performance demonstrates the great depth of his

multisport ability.

Becky Hoare (her UK official address starts with The Hoare Houseyou have tolove soldier humour!) had lost her father and training partner only six weeks

prior to the race and was racing alone for the first time in her life. She is tiny

(her bike is just like a tri-bike only smaller, and Orange), but unbelievably tough

and determined. She was far from finished with mourning the untimely andsudden loss of her beloved father and mentor. She overcame a full dose of man-

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flu in race week too. Last year she competed in Kona and come seventh in her

category. This year she was sixth. She quickly became an integral and hugely

valued member of the Dubai contingent. And with any luck we will persuade herto come to Dubai to train and race at some point. She will be an honorary TRIbe

member.

Lessons

It is not normal to finish an Ironman, particularly Kona, wishing that you had put

a little more effort in. I attribute this strange state of affairs to the quality of my

preparation, and for that I thank the brilliant Nick Tipper who is starting out on apath to coaching stardom. His new business, Nick Tipper Coaching, looks after a

very small group of very capable age-groupers and professionals. For those of us

who are lucky enough to have been in at the start of his coaching career, and are

retained more through his loyalty than for our ability, we thank goodness that heputs an equal effort into both the rapidly aging amateur and the future greats of

our sport. So lesson one is: get a good coach and follow his advice. If you can

execute a consistent, scientifically based training plan in the run up to an

Ironman, you might find that you finish too strongly. Its a great place to be.

I offer four pieces of training wisdom by which I live. Readers should remember

that none of my ideas are original, I just cant remember where I picked some up,

and so they are now mine

You cannot over-train, but you can under-recover. Recovery is where the

body adapts. No amount of training will deliver improvement if you dont

get the right sort of rest and recovery.

Be consistent. A little training every day is much better than a smashfest

once in a while with Brunches in between.

If you smile, you will go faster. OK, Chrissie Wellington does this, but she

got it from me.

Dont disassociate staying focused on what you are doing, what your

body is saying to you, and analyzing constantly in training and racing, is

key. You cannot do this with earphones in.

The second lesson is, even if you cannot take your nearest and dearest to be a

physically present support crew for the race, surround yourself with friends.

With modern communications and athlete tracking, they are there all the time,

virtually. This was vital for me. And they all know who they are and how much Iattribute my limited successes to their unquestioning support. They deliver me

to my races in the right frame of mind and physically ready for anything. I race

for them, and they carry me forward.

Now, for this race I have no regrets. Despite my fast finish, there is no certainty

that, had I gone faster earlier the race, I would not have broken down at somepoint. Ironman racing is a matter of diligently identifying and executing the

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correct paces for each discipline and the execution of the fourth discipline:

nutrition. However, its not an exact science. Race conditions are different every

time. Preparation is subtly different for each race. Mental states ebb and flow.And you will never find a the same formula to apply on each occasion. If you

have a perfect race (and I got close to this the previous year) then that is as much

a matter of luck as anything else.

My aim of being one of the top ten in the world is still alive. It might take until

the others have all fallen off their perches, and a lot of luck, but this is endurance

racing and I plan to endure for a few more years. As for the dream of World

Champion, well if I keep going until I am in the eighty plus age group, Ill justhave to get round the course before they shut the finish!

Conclusion

I love Ironman racing and the privilege of doing it in Kona is a pinnacle. I am

already looking forward to the call of the piper on 10 October 2015. Ive booked

my accommodation. There will be many obstacles to overcome if I am to run up

to the World Championship finish line in three hundred and fifty or so days. Thefirst problem is to build a plan to balance family, job and my addiction. Then I

must recover properly and not succumb to the temptation to train too hard too

early. I must learn to swim more quickly, for my adolescent bison imitation is

not good enough. Then I must qualify; I have lined up a target race, and a spare,and a spare spare in case it takes a few to get the ticket. And in all this I have to

stay healthy. But I suspect that with a smile and your continued support I will be

there.

Thank you all.

David