By Andrew Parkinson
A six month journey of BPMs, KPHs, SPLs, LSDs, Cadence, Calories, Chlorine, Vaseline, Bodyglide, Bullfrog & a whole lot of emotionless sweat, pain & boredom, But my God, ooh my god, it was all worth it!!!
But before we get to the “Andrew Parkinson you are an …..” part, we have to go back to the start, a freezing cold morning in Jan, the New years eve’s vodka & red bull fest had finally drained from my system by the 3rd of January, so it was time to shut down my life as I knew it, and switch to living by a set plan of training, eating and sleeping for the next 24 weeks. Basically, it was like a French Foreign Legion boot camp, but on your own.
So, it all began with a 1 hour turbo trainer session in my dark smelly back shed. I must point out at this stage I hadn’t sat on a bike since Sept 9th, and I had also never used a Turbo Trainer before, so after struggling with the set up of the turbo trainer for 1 hour, I felt I had the 1 hour of training done, and went to work. At least it would be ready for action the following day.
Training continued without incident for many weeks, and after a while it just blurs into an endless list of things to do, weekends mean nothing other than extra hours to train, Food means nothing, other than as fuel to run the engine, My job means nothing, other than to rest and recover at my desk. The only thing that matters is the plan, follow the plan, stick to the plan, don’t train more, don’t train less, don’t miss a session, don’t get injured, do stretch, do core work, don’t do DIY (thanks John), do food shopping, don’t go into the biscuit or sweet aisle, do clothes washing, but only do the training gear. Focus, Focus Focus!!!!!
You have good weeks and you have bad weeks, but as long as you stick with it, and trust yourself, it will all come together. But its not all bad, you see your resting heart beat come down drastically, you see your waist line getting smaller, you get leaner, lighter, & the once Burger clogged machinery, finally gets freed up, and works smoother, longer and more economically. Jesus I sound like an ad for car engine oil! :)
The distances slowly increased throughout March, April & May, with swim sessions going from 2000km to 3000km to 4000km, Runs going from 60minutes, to 90minutes right up to 180minutes runs, and my personal favourite (not) bike sessions going from 2 hours to 4 hours to 6 hour bikes.
I have never been to Clifden so often in the last 3 months, and spent so little time there, usually its one lap of the town, giving my Pope type wave, just to show the people of Cilfden how great I am for actually cycling there, and then its straight back out the road for the long road home
So after about 240 training sessions and about 267 hours of training and four million oat bars, it came down to one day, the 24th of June 2007, standing by a lake in Zurich, Switzerland at 7.00am, in my wetsuit.
So the plan was;
1. Don’t die
2. Finish
3. Look at Switzerland and the people and not at the road and my feet
4. Talk to Switzerland and the people and not to the doubting demons in my head
5. Stop and talk to my parents, 3 sisters and brother who have all come over to support me.
6. And most importantly “Enjoy the Day”
10, 9, 8, Holy crap I'm going to be mauled to death in that water, 7, 6,5, if I just hide behind this hedge for 13 hours, and then jump out to finish would they notice, 4,3,2, Shut up Andrew, your talking crap again, get on with it!! 1.
Bang, and we are off!
So its just a 3.8km swim, a 180km Bike, and a 42km Run, and then I can sit down for a large Supermac meal with a tub of curry on the side! Hmmmmmm!!
The Crazy Part;
I made the classic mistake of believing the hype in my head, I was saying to myself, “Andrew you’re a strong swimmer, get up the front and take no shite from these lean German speaking Swiss swimmers, your as good as any of them” and I probably am as good as most of them over 3800metres, but im nowhere near as good as them over the first 400 metres. My advice to anybody, is unless you have a lightening quick first 400 metres, stay well away from front. Easily the scariest I have ever been in water, pure madness! At one stage I was swimming backwards, facing back towards the beach pushing swimmers either left or right as they arrived to pummel me to death. But I persevered and got into it after about 3 or 4 minutes, and from then on it was grand, I just kept my stroke LOONNGG, SSLLOOWWW & POWERFUL, and stayed out of trouble. I got the occasional kick in the head, or arm to remind me not to drift left or right, as there was no room for meandering. It was my little 7 by 2 foot box, and I was stuck in it for 74 minutes.
I hopped out, and ran to the bike, off with the wetsuit, on with the socks, bikes shoes & helmet, and it was time to go, total T1 time 2minutes 15secs, Happy Days, now for the long part.
The Long Part;
Plan was to get the heart rate down under 150, and stay there for the whole cycle, and eat, eat, eat, and that’s pretty much what I did, except of course for the hills. “The hills are alive with the sound of a grinding 27!!” And boy did I grind that thing. Average speed 10-12 kmph, average heart rate 180bpm. But nothing I could do about it, the hills were there and I had to go over them, so I grinded on and on, over each of 3 hills, on each of 3 laps. But I enjoyed chatting with the swiss cows, who luckily stayed in the same field for each of my 3 laps, & the cold shower the organising had over one of the climbs for the cyclists to cycle under, the closest thing to heaven I have ever felt on a bike. I hit 72kmph going down hill a couple of times, which I have to admit was scary, but felt amazing. But if I had sneezed I was dead. But that’s Ironman for you! I only stopped once in the whole 6hours 46mins, and that was to mix High 5 energy drinks for my 3 by 750 mill bike bottles, but I wouldd say I was no more that 4 minutes doing that. All the nutrition went in and I felt great when I arrived back for T2. I had a quick chat with my parents and siblings and changed my bike shorts to my running shorts, bike shoes to 1000 mile socks and into runners. Then after 5min 54secs in T2 it was time for the Hard Part.
The Hard Part;
Now if your 6ft 4 inchs tall, and 14 stone, but are cursed with calfs and ankles no bigger, or stronger than my 10 year old nephews, running is never going to be your strong point. But the plan was to run 6minute 15sec kilometres for as long as my skinny boy wonder legs would carry me and that’s what I almost did till half way anyway. I ran the first 21km in 2hours 20mins and was delighted to have the worst of it over.
At various moments on the run, I had trouble keeping my emotions at bay. As feelings of pride, accomplishment and having done something good and worthwhile welled up from deep inside where being a normal Irish man I had kept them locked up tight since I was about 12, but I swallowed hard, and said to myself, “Andrew your not home yet, nothing is finished, keep it together, ya spannerhead!!”
So then began the suffering, but a good suffering, I couldn’t run, but who cares, I could walk, I couldn’t eat gels, whos cares, I could drink coke, I couldn’t keep my pace, who cares, I would finish. I just keep repeating to myself “Andrew your actually doing it” I kept a smile on my face. I stopped and chatted to my amazing family who cheered me on solidly for 13 hours.
At this point my stomach began to rumble, and all that went in was asking to come out, and come out quickly, so luckily up in the distance out of the heat haze of the day appeared the beautiful sight of a blue Porta Loo with nobody waiting outside it, ooh Bliss!!, ooh Joy!! (I guarantee that 300 metres was my fastest run section of the day) and when I got there it was the closest thing to heaven I have ever experienced in a porta loo. All ill say is I pity the person who had to clean the remnants of 6000 calories worth of gels, energy bars, and High 5 from that porta loo :o)
The Finish
As I closed in on the finish, I perked up, I had a bit of a stride going, I was happy, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I would rather have been at that moment than right there, 41km done, 1 km to do that's 2 and a half laps of Dangan track, I remember thinking to myself.
I turned into the finishing chute, which I had to temptingly pass by 3 times already, but this time I was allowed enter, I saw my family, hugged each one of them , grabbed the Irish flag, and ran the length of the chute with my arms above my head, smiling, smiling, smiling!! Best feeling ever, I wasn’t close to heaven anymore, I was there!!
So, do I recommend an Ironman? Yes!
Was it hard? Yes!
Was it worth it? Yes!
It was a tough 6 months, with life throwing a few curve balls at me during that time, but as your man in “Vanilla Sky” says “Without experiencing the Sour, you will never appreciate the Sweet”
And how Sweet it is being an Ironman :o)
Thanks must go to Maeve Mitchell from Newcastle Physiotherapy who kept the body in one piece, Nigel from Cycle options who kept the bike in one piece, all GTC members who gave my lots of advice & encouragement, especially Ray with his infinite wisdom of all things Triathlon, Gadgetman Rory, Zenmaster Richard, Chris Burke, Fiona Donovan, Enda Dooley, Aidan Currie for his Bullfrog & Bike box, John (No DIY) Cunniffe, my daughter Reilly Dibner, Tony (Travolta) McNicholas, Eamon Horgan. Special thanks to Steve Glennon for the great press, probably the one and only time in my life i will make the papers for anything!!
Lastly, top of my “Thanks” list is my family, who proved once again, that when things get tough, all you can count on is your family, and I will never forget the effort they all went to be there on race day and the support they gave me for 13 hours straight.
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