Post 50 - What now?

And so the question becomes “What now?” It’s not a case of “What now, will I try again, or will I call it a day?” Of course I will try again. I know I have it in me to do this. To qualify and to go and compete in Hawaii at the Ironman World Championships. Just before Ironman Wales, there was a photo that came up on the official Twitter feed, with a caption along the lines of “Just to remind you what this weekend is all about….” It was a photo of the swim start at the Ironman World Championships, Kona, Hawaii. Such an iconic sporting scene. The mass of swimmers. The clear blue Pacific Ocean. The support/safety boats and canoes. Kona pier, covered with bikes. The finishing arch. Ali’i Drive. Spectators everywhere. Awesome. I want to go there and compete.

What it's all about...

So I’m obviously going to try again. I want to qualify for Hawaii. That’s the number one goal. I’d also like to think that before I call time on my Ironman career (because it won’t be forever), I’d have a chance of getting on the podium or even winning my age group at Ironman UK, and then going under 9 hours at Ironman Austria. Maybe even having a crack at the Irish record.

The question I am asking myself at the minute is more a case of “What will be my plan for 2015?” Or indeed, “Is it realistic to compete in 2015, or should I put it off until 2016?”

I suppose the ideal situation for me would be to go back to Bolton and do Ironman UK in July next year. I know the course inside out, and I know I would have a good chance of qualifying there. To do this, I need to train between January and July, uninterrupted. Then I can go into the race knowing I’m well prepared, and hopefully deliver a good performance.

However, it’s not as straightforward as saying “I will do Ironman UK in July 2015”, because my situation is looking a bit complicated for 2015, with regards to work. Work commitments look like they could come into play during the first half of 2015, and it looks like there will be significant amounts of travelling. There might even be potential relocations.

I’m not sure it’s worth planning to enter a race, paying out a small fortune to book everything, and then having my training curtailed by factors outside my control. It’s tough enough at the best of times to train for a high-level Ironman, but if I can’t train exactly how I want, when I want, and if I can’t have access to the things I need, when I need them, for a period of 5-6 months before the race, then the chances of qualifying for Kona become severely, arguably impossibly, diminished.

Normally I like travelling, but it’s a difficult thing to travel while training for an Ironman and maintaining health. You lose control of your training structure, diet, access to physios and medical personnel, access to your bikes, ice baths, gym equipment, dietary supplements and so on. I’ve got a good set-up here in the house that I live in, and it took years to perfect. My training routine is pretty rigorous. So from an Ironman point of view, anything that upsets the equilibrium is a bad thing. It’s tough.

Ideally I’d know that there would be no business travel and I could just do my normal day at work, get home as usual at 6:30pm and have every evening to train. But at the end of the day, if the job means that I have to travel, then I will have to travel. Although I am a dedicated Ironman triathlete, I am also a committed professional. And so I am wondering if I should enter Ironman UK in July 2015, or if I should put it off until 2016. Or even consider a late-2015 event. Competing in late 2015 or in 2016 would mean that the early 2015 business travel will be over, and hopefully then there would be less potential for training disruption. But then, who knows what could happen and what situations could arise in late 2015 or 2016? I could be facing exactly the same scenario. I’ve thought about asking for some unpaid leave, but I want to work and learn and earn. I’ve also considered trying to find a sponsor, but this would probably be easier if and when I qualify for Hawaii.

Some tough decisions are to be made, and urgently. I can’t just wait and see how things are looking in February 2015, and make a decision then. Ironman races are becoming more and more popular, and selling out faster and faster. They open for entries a year in advance, and they sell out literally hours later. All the accommodation gets booked up nearly a year in advance. You need to get in there early and get everything booked, or else you won’t get an entry. Most of the races for summer 2015 are already sold out. There are a few entries left via sporting agencies, but taking an agency place means paying an extortionately marked-up accommodation fee.

Although I haven’t made any decisions yet, I think I’m most likely to enter Ironman UK in July 2015 and try to make the best of it. I could have something like Ironman Wales in September 2015, or Ironman Barcelona in October 2015, or a 2016 event, as a back-up. Tough sport? Absolutely. The sporting side is tough. That’s what you sign up for. The non-sporting side of things – the logistics, the money, the fitting in of training around a busy job, the trying to keep healthy, the commuting, all of these things are equally as tough as the actual training.

I recovered quite quickly after Ironman Wales. I didn’t run the last half of the marathon very hard – my knee and stomach prevented that. It’s the last half of the marathon that really does the damage and that forces a longer recovery period. I didn’t run the last half of the marathon hard, and so I didn’t have a very long recovery period. After a few days, I was back to feeling normal. Incidentally, I’m still 29, but I race in the 30-34 age group, as per the rules, as I will be 30 before the end of the year. Even with such a poor marathon, I’d have qualified if I’d been racing in the 25-29 age group. Needless to say, I wish the rules were different! I wish triathletes race in the age group of the age they are on race day…

After Wales, I had a brief flirtation with entering Ironman Barcelona at the start of October. It’s a flat and fast course, and I may have gone there and done very well. I may have qualified for Hawaii in October 2015. Or I may have gone there and not raced well. I don’t have a crystal ball. I wish I did.

It would have cost a few thousand pounds to go there and race, and I finally decided against it. I had no guarantee of a good race. I’d had a long tough season, and I needed to give my body a break. I wouldn’t have gone into Barcelona well trained or well tapered. Everything was too much of an unknown and to have competed there would have been a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. I want to go into an Ironman in great shape, with no issues. If I can do this, I’d hope to deliver a performance worthy of Kona qualification. To go to Barcelona 3 weeks after Ironman Wales, at the tail end of what has been a nightmare of a summer, both physically and mentally, isn’t the best approach for an attempt to qualify for Hawaii.

That said, I was tempted, because if I could have pulled it off and gone to Barcelona and qualified for Hawaii, it would have made 2015 so much easier. It would have meant that my entire 2015 could have been planned around a Hawaii trip in October 2015. Hopefully towards the latter part of 2015, all the business trips will be over so training for a late-2015 Ironman should be OK. Going to Barcelona and qualifying would have given me ample time to book flights and accommodation for October 2015 for Hawaii well in advance. Qualifying for Hawaii a year in advance, as at Wales or at Barcelona, is advantageous in this respect. Qualifying for Hawaii at a summer race such as Ironman UK only gives a couple of months before Hawaii to book flights and accommodation etc.

But I ruled out Barcelona, it was a case of head ruling heart. It would have been an expensive gamble, and I believe I made the right decision. I’m just trying to work out what to do for the best in 2015, and indeed into 2016. I’ll make it happen, one way or the other, sometime in the next couple of years. Somehow.

As a penultimate paragraph, highlights of Ironman Wales are being shown on Channel 4 in the UK at 7am on Sunday 28^th September (and at 8am on 4+1)…

And as a final paragraph, here are some more photos from Ironman Wales 2014…