I think for people to understand a lot of this blog, I will need to write a
bit about my sporting background, my situation, and how I came to be training
to try to qualify for the Ironman World Championships.
I've always been pretty sporty and reasonably fit. In my teens, I started to run the beach at home in Northern Ireland a few times a week. I can remember my first run on that beach took me 23:55, and in time my PB got down to 17:47. I ran the Belfast Marathon at 18 years old in 3:40, having done very little training. I joined Metro Aberdeen Running Club while in Aberdeen on a working gap year before university, and it was here that the running bug bit. The following 4 years were spent between Aberdeen, the University of Warwick, and Northern Ireland, with two summers working in France, where I cycled in the Alps and Pyrenees.
As I trained and raced, my PBs started improving, and I enjoyed the banter and camaraderie of the club in Aberdeen, ticking off races all over Scotland. I also trained hard while at university and my running continued to progress. My first half marathon was in Inverness in 2004, where I ran 1:25. I ran Inverness again in 2005, knocking 10 minutes off my time from the previous year, and in 2006, as a 21 year old, I came 3rd overall in 1:11.
Around this time I joined City of Derry Spartans AC in Northern Ireland, who have become my home club, and a group with whom I have enjoyed great races and team successes. As I’ve said, I’ve always been reasonably sporty and I’m fortunate to enjoy being active, so while at university, I cycled everywhere and I forced myself to swim once a week to complement my running training. I say forced, because to this day possibly the worst 5 minutes of my whole training week are the minutes when I force myself into a swimming pool. Usually I am freezing and usually the water is freezing, and these two combine to make it an effort to get in and get going.
On finishing university I took time out to travel, and went off the athletics radar. This decision was prompted by a really bad ankle injury a few months before I finished university. I rolled it while running on grass, and it swelled up to about twice its normal size. Then it turned black. Then my toenails turned black. It was really painful and I couldn’t walk for about a month. It was a bad time. One of the frustrating things about running was that I always seemed to pick up injuries for no apparent reason. At least with this one, there was an obvious reason. So, with running no longer an option, I spent time travelling and working, with running on the back burner. In time, the ankle did get better, but it took about a year before it felt normal again.
Triathlon had always been in the back of my mind, but I had never been able to afford it as a student. I ended up becoming fairly unfit while working in Sydney, and so I decided to force myself to get back in shape by training for an Ironman. I went to South Korea for 9 months, taught English from 1pm to 8pm, and so had 7am to 12pm free for training. I swam, I cycled, I ran, and I got quite fit again. Notably, I picked up no injuries while training for the Ironman. This was perhaps because out of the three disciplines, running takes the heaviest toll on the body, but the running training involved in doing Ironman is less intense than the running training I had been doing when running half marathons in 1:11. The swimming and the cycling are non-impact and non-load-bearing, and seem to have less propensity for injury.
I completed Ironman UK 2011 in 10 hours 23 minutes on a basic entry level bike, finished 11th in my age group, then went and cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats and on to Orkney and Shetland. Then I thought, "That’s enough of triathlon and cycling, I need a full-time job and I won’t have time for it, I'll go back to running." I ended up working in London, and started to train seriously again as a runner.
Not long after, I injured my left knee pretty badly. My left knee has always been my proverbial Achilles Heel. I think this left knee injury came on from trying to do too much too soon and not being patient with my running. Also, possibly I have some sort of imbalance from my left ankle injury. Anyway, I tried to train at a similar intensity to how I had been training when I was at 1:11 half marathon level, and my left knee decided not to accept this and gave out on me. With hindsight, it took me two or three years to get to 1:11 half marathon level, so patience would have been a virtue this time around.
MRI scans, X-rays and some fairly intense rehabilitation and frustration followed this injury, and to keep my fitness levels up, I went back to the pool. I enjoyed the swimming again, and as my knee progressed and got stronger, the physios recommended doing a bit of cycling, so I got back on the bike and enjoyed it again. Thoughts of triathlon started to cloud my head again in the summer of 2012.
I tentatively decided to compete in Ironman UK 2013, but on a “see how it goes basis” between summer 2012 and Christmas 2012. I had a hybrid bike and trained on this, got myself back into a structured training routine, and found that by Christmas 2012, things were going well and no injuries or show-stoppers had thrown their spanners into the works. By New Year 2013, I had decided to go all-out for Ironman UK, and try to qualify for Kona. I accepted that this meant buying a decent time-trial bike and having it professionally fitted. In January 2013, the purchase was made, clearing the way for a work-train-eat-sleep routine for 6 months, until the race.
I knew the Ironman UK course from 2 years previously, I knew where to place myself in the swim to avoid trouble, I knew what the bike climbs were like, and I knew the marathon course. None of it held any fear. It was all known and familiar, and in an Ironman, this is worth a lot. I was in good shape, and the race was going great. Up until mile 16 of the marathon. At this point I was leading my age group and looking set for Kona until, without warning, I exploded in a mess of vomit and diarrhoea. After this, my energy levels were zero and I fell to the ground. I couldn’t stand, let alone run or contemplate finishing, so the Kona dream ended in the back of an ambulance on the way to the medical centre.
This was totally out of the blue, particularly as I had been so comfortable in the race and nowhere near my physical limit and nowhere near the “red zone”. I had done much tougher training sessions, and felt really good in the race. I suspect that having eaten such a rigorous diet for the previous 6 months, the hotel food during race weekend was totally alien to my body, and probably greasier than anything I had been eating. I think it lubricated my guts up and disagreed with me, spectacularly and disgustingly showing just how badly it disagreed with me at mile 16 of the marathon. So near and yet so far…
Obviously this was very disappointing, but within a couple of days I was trying to formulate a Plan B. I was clearly very fit, suffering no after-effects, physically I was fine, I just wanted another chance. Soon. This came in the form of a late entry to arguably the toughest Ironman in the world, Ironman Wales, to be held a few weeks later. Ironman Wales was new to me, and I executed the race badly. I got caught in the scrum at the start of the swim and came out of the water like a beaten-up drowned rag doll. My swim time was 61 minutes, compared with 55 minutes a few weeks back at Ironman UK. The Wales bike course was savage, with no flat, steep climbs, dangerous descents, rough roads, wind and rain. I paced it badly and struggled with the final 30 miles, then didn’t have a lot left for the marathon. Needless to say, the marathon was hilly and tough too. I didn’t get any updates on my position during the race, but I ended up finishing 5th in my age group.
Finishing Ironman Wales 2013
At Ironman UK, my age group had 5 qualifying slots for Kona, so a top-5 finish was enough to qualify. At the awards ceremony for Ironman Wales the following day, I was gutted to learn that there were only 4 qualifying slots for my age group. However, I stayed right through the prizegiving until the bitter end, because sometimes people who are entitled to a slot will decline it. This awards ceremony was nothing less than excruciating, and it turned out that no slots “rolled down” in my age group, so once again Kona didn’t happen and I was disappointed once again. So near and yet so far…
Having taken a couple of easy months and allowed myself to rest and recover, and having got though Christmas, I intend to try again at Ironman UK 2014. This time around, I am under no illusions that it will be much more challenging, for a variety of reasons. I will be in a different, and much more competitive age group in 2014. In 2013 I was in the 25-29 age group. I will turn 30 at the end of 2014, but the rules dictate that I must race in the age group of the age I will be at the end of the year. So it’s the 30-34 age group for me. I would guess, for Ironman UK, someone in the 25-29 age group would be reasonably confident of qualifying with 9:45 – 9:50, whereas someone in the 30-34 age group would be looking at 9:30 – 9:35.
Furthermore, to compete at this level in Ironman, it is necessary to be fairly stable for a 6-month period, with work, housing, location and so on. I am stable in none of these, as my work location is likely to change this year, possibly several times. If my work location changes, it will either mean a longer commute (and I already waste 2 hours a day in transit: fitting Ironman training around a busy job with long hours and a long commute is tough), or it will mean going overseas. Also, currently, I live in a house-share which has no security of tenancy, I’m on one month’s notice. None of this is ideal and clearly it is going to be a challenging year.
That’s the current situation. I still believe qualifying for Kona is possible and that the challenges can be overcome. Nothing worth achieving is ever achieved easily…
I've always been pretty sporty and reasonably fit. In my teens, I started to run the beach at home in Northern Ireland a few times a week. I can remember my first run on that beach took me 23:55, and in time my PB got down to 17:47. I ran the Belfast Marathon at 18 years old in 3:40, having done very little training. I joined Metro Aberdeen Running Club while in Aberdeen on a working gap year before university, and it was here that the running bug bit. The following 4 years were spent between Aberdeen, the University of Warwick, and Northern Ireland, with two summers working in France, where I cycled in the Alps and Pyrenees.
Where I started to run: Portstewart Strand.
Fast at low tide, and tough going at high tide in soft sand.
As I trained and raced, my PBs started improving, and I enjoyed the banter and camaraderie of the club in Aberdeen, ticking off races all over Scotland. I also trained hard while at university and my running continued to progress. My first half marathon was in Inverness in 2004, where I ran 1:25. I ran Inverness again in 2005, knocking 10 minutes off my time from the previous year, and in 2006, as a 21 year old, I came 3rd overall in 1:11.
Inverness half marathon 2006 - 1:11:39.
This remains my "finest hour (and 11 minutes)", arguably my best athletic performance.
I was running about 28 miles per week in training, all pretty intense mileage.
Around this time I joined City of Derry Spartans AC in Northern Ireland, who have become my home club, and a group with whom I have enjoyed great races and team successes. As I’ve said, I’ve always been reasonably sporty and I’m fortunate to enjoy being active, so while at university, I cycled everywhere and I forced myself to swim once a week to complement my running training. I say forced, because to this day possibly the worst 5 minutes of my whole training week are the minutes when I force myself into a swimming pool. Usually I am freezing and usually the water is freezing, and these two combine to make it an effort to get in and get going.
On finishing university I took time out to travel, and went off the athletics radar. This decision was prompted by a really bad ankle injury a few months before I finished university. I rolled it while running on grass, and it swelled up to about twice its normal size. Then it turned black. Then my toenails turned black. It was really painful and I couldn’t walk for about a month. It was a bad time. One of the frustrating things about running was that I always seemed to pick up injuries for no apparent reason. At least with this one, there was an obvious reason. So, with running no longer an option, I spent time travelling and working, with running on the back burner. In time, the ankle did get better, but it took about a year before it felt normal again.
Before the ankle injury:
Metro Aberdeen Running Club annual series winner award and overall club champion award.
Triathlon had always been in the back of my mind, but I had never been able to afford it as a student. I ended up becoming fairly unfit while working in Sydney, and so I decided to force myself to get back in shape by training for an Ironman. I went to South Korea for 9 months, taught English from 1pm to 8pm, and so had 7am to 12pm free for training. I swam, I cycled, I ran, and I got quite fit again. Notably, I picked up no injuries while training for the Ironman. This was perhaps because out of the three disciplines, running takes the heaviest toll on the body, but the running training involved in doing Ironman is less intense than the running training I had been doing when running half marathons in 1:11. The swimming and the cycling are non-impact and non-load-bearing, and seem to have less propensity for injury.
I completed Ironman UK 2011 in 10 hours 23 minutes on a basic entry level bike, finished 11th in my age group, then went and cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats and on to Orkney and Shetland. Then I thought, "That’s enough of triathlon and cycling, I need a full-time job and I won’t have time for it, I'll go back to running." I ended up working in London, and started to train seriously again as a runner.
Not long after, I injured my left knee pretty badly. My left knee has always been my proverbial Achilles Heel. I think this left knee injury came on from trying to do too much too soon and not being patient with my running. Also, possibly I have some sort of imbalance from my left ankle injury. Anyway, I tried to train at a similar intensity to how I had been training when I was at 1:11 half marathon level, and my left knee decided not to accept this and gave out on me. With hindsight, it took me two or three years to get to 1:11 half marathon level, so patience would have been a virtue this time around.
MRI scans, X-rays and some fairly intense rehabilitation and frustration followed this injury, and to keep my fitness levels up, I went back to the pool. I enjoyed the swimming again, and as my knee progressed and got stronger, the physios recommended doing a bit of cycling, so I got back on the bike and enjoyed it again. Thoughts of triathlon started to cloud my head again in the summer of 2012.
I tentatively decided to compete in Ironman UK 2013, but on a “see how it goes basis” between summer 2012 and Christmas 2012. I had a hybrid bike and trained on this, got myself back into a structured training routine, and found that by Christmas 2012, things were going well and no injuries or show-stoppers had thrown their spanners into the works. By New Year 2013, I had decided to go all-out for Ironman UK, and try to qualify for Kona. I accepted that this meant buying a decent time-trial bike and having it professionally fitted. In January 2013, the purchase was made, clearing the way for a work-train-eat-sleep routine for 6 months, until the race.
I knew the Ironman UK course from 2 years previously, I knew where to place myself in the swim to avoid trouble, I knew what the bike climbs were like, and I knew the marathon course. None of it held any fear. It was all known and familiar, and in an Ironman, this is worth a lot. I was in good shape, and the race was going great. Up until mile 16 of the marathon. At this point I was leading my age group and looking set for Kona until, without warning, I exploded in a mess of vomit and diarrhoea. After this, my energy levels were zero and I fell to the ground. I couldn’t stand, let alone run or contemplate finishing, so the Kona dream ended in the back of an ambulance on the way to the medical centre.
This was totally out of the blue, particularly as I had been so comfortable in the race and nowhere near my physical limit and nowhere near the “red zone”. I had done much tougher training sessions, and felt really good in the race. I suspect that having eaten such a rigorous diet for the previous 6 months, the hotel food during race weekend was totally alien to my body, and probably greasier than anything I had been eating. I think it lubricated my guts up and disagreed with me, spectacularly and disgustingly showing just how badly it disagreed with me at mile 16 of the marathon. So near and yet so far…
On the bike at Ironman UK 2013, before the eruption
Obviously this was very disappointing, but within a couple of days I was trying to formulate a Plan B. I was clearly very fit, suffering no after-effects, physically I was fine, I just wanted another chance. Soon. This came in the form of a late entry to arguably the toughest Ironman in the world, Ironman Wales, to be held a few weeks later. Ironman Wales was new to me, and I executed the race badly. I got caught in the scrum at the start of the swim and came out of the water like a beaten-up drowned rag doll. My swim time was 61 minutes, compared with 55 minutes a few weeks back at Ironman UK. The Wales bike course was savage, with no flat, steep climbs, dangerous descents, rough roads, wind and rain. I paced it badly and struggled with the final 30 miles, then didn’t have a lot left for the marathon. Needless to say, the marathon was hilly and tough too. I didn’t get any updates on my position during the race, but I ended up finishing 5th in my age group.
At Ironman UK, my age group had 5 qualifying slots for Kona, so a top-5 finish was enough to qualify. At the awards ceremony for Ironman Wales the following day, I was gutted to learn that there were only 4 qualifying slots for my age group. However, I stayed right through the prizegiving until the bitter end, because sometimes people who are entitled to a slot will decline it. This awards ceremony was nothing less than excruciating, and it turned out that no slots “rolled down” in my age group, so once again Kona didn’t happen and I was disappointed once again. So near and yet so far…
Having taken a couple of easy months and allowed myself to rest and recover, and having got though Christmas, I intend to try again at Ironman UK 2014. This time around, I am under no illusions that it will be much more challenging, for a variety of reasons. I will be in a different, and much more competitive age group in 2014. In 2013 I was in the 25-29 age group. I will turn 30 at the end of 2014, but the rules dictate that I must race in the age group of the age I will be at the end of the year. So it’s the 30-34 age group for me. I would guess, for Ironman UK, someone in the 25-29 age group would be reasonably confident of qualifying with 9:45 – 9:50, whereas someone in the 30-34 age group would be looking at 9:30 – 9:35.
Furthermore, to compete at this level in Ironman, it is necessary to be fairly stable for a 6-month period, with work, housing, location and so on. I am stable in none of these, as my work location is likely to change this year, possibly several times. If my work location changes, it will either mean a longer commute (and I already waste 2 hours a day in transit: fitting Ironman training around a busy job with long hours and a long commute is tough), or it will mean going overseas. Also, currently, I live in a house-share which has no security of tenancy, I’m on one month’s notice. None of this is ideal and clearly it is going to be a challenging year.
That’s the current situation. I still believe qualifying for Kona is possible and that the challenges can be overcome. Nothing worth achieving is ever achieved easily…
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