It was a little over a year ago that I decided to bite the bullet, and tackle the big dance: Ironman New Zealand. I've been in the #triathlon scene for somewhere around six years now (that long?! Eek!), slowly building up the distance until I finally felt ready to try what some consider the pinnacle of the sport: a 3.8km swim, followed by a 180km bike ride, and - just because nobody feels utterly stuffed after doing either of those, never mind both on the same day - a full marathon.

Crazy stuff, right? Well, honestly... the really crazy stuff with that sort of distance isn't the event itself. It's the training. You spend anywhere from three months to a bit over a year and a half building up a base, and then you have the final build towards the race proper. In the two or three months leading up to the event (so basically, January and February this year), I had bike rides up to six hours long, runs up to two hours long, swim sets of up to 4km... the short of it is, I had no life outside of work, eating, sleeping, and training.

Then came race day. The swim was a mass start (everybody starting at the same time), in the waters of Lake Taupo. The water was a little choppy, and there was a definite current against us at the start, but I rate that swim very highly indeed. Fresh water, clear enough that you could see the bottom, close enough to shore that people could watch and cheer... just stunning. I was mainly worried about making the cutoff time (two hours, twenty minutes), figuring that as long as I could get through the swim in time, I'd make it through the bike, and be able - worst case - to jog/walk the run leg.

Ironman have taken to running 70.3 events (half Ironman - 1.9km swim, 90km bike, 21.1km run) in parallel to the full distance events, mostly because numbers for the full distance events aren't high enough to fully cover the cost of running them. In the case of IMNZ, they start it one hour, ten minutes after the full distance event... and the cut off time for the swim leg for them is one hour, ten minutes (so, the exact same time of day on the clock as the full Ironman, in this particular instance.) So when I reached the point on the swim that it rejoined the half Ironman swim, and noticed that the lead 70.3 swimmers still hadn't reached that point, I knew I'd be fine. And I was: swim complete in one hour, 41 minutes.

The nice thing about a full Ironman that you don't get in a shorter race is the change tent. You get a gear bag (packed and handed over the day before) for your bike kit, and another one for the run kit. For first transition, you grab your bike kit bag, go into the change tent, and do what you need to do with the help of a volunteer. Wetsuit off, bike kit on (or wear a tri suit under the wetsuit, whatever works for you), helmet on, and off you go.

The bike leg was tough this year. Tailwind heading out on the first lap (nice), headwind coming back (not so nice), headwind going out the second time (sigh), headwind coming back (seriously?! What the hell?! Jeez!) Roads were typical NZ chipseal, so not particularly smooth riding, but tolerable with the wheels pumped up to about 90-95 PSI (instead of the more usual 110 PSI - makes for a little bit more shock absorption on the day.) Special needs had a few extra energy bars (I chose to go with bars rather than gels, as I find the gels a bit cloying after a while), but apart from that, pretty routine. Back to transition for the second time after spending 7:26 on the bike (181km, 1310m of elevation gain.)

Then the run. This is where it all went pear shaped. I got through the first lap, feeling pretty decent about it all, but I struggled a bit to get food and water in. I tried to mix it up - fruit, lollies, chips, etc. - but it didn't really help. By the end of the first lap (about 14km), I was feeling a little bit queasy, but not too bad. I saw a few of my club mates out there - there were six of us, total, doing the full thing this year - which was kinda nice, even if one of them - the club president - was already on his last run lap (the bastard). About three km into the second lap, I saw the guy I was closest to (race wise), coming back at the tail end of his second lap. He asked me how I was doing, and I said to him, "I think I'm in trouble." (Exact words.) He told me to speak to the medical guys at the next aid station, which I was already planning on doing.

I didn't make it there. About a kilometer later - just over 18km into the run leg (out of, remember, 42.2km), the nausea and discomfort turned into full blown emesis. Not much actually came up, which in itself was concerning, and the discomfort was... not good. I decided to take a breather, and lay down on my back, on the grass beside the road. A passing runner asked if I was okay; I asked her to alert medical at the next aid station. Whether she did or not, race staff found me, and a paramedic checked me over. Pulse was good, I was alert and answering questions. But after consideration, when the paramedic asked me if I wanted to keep going, I decided the best course of action was to pull the pin and DNF, 12:14 after race start, 204.1km in. (So about 7:30pm, ballpark time - I wasn't really paying much attention to the clock for some reason. :) ) They got me in an ambulance with another guy and took us back to the medical clinic they'd set up near the race finish line.

One thing that they do before a full Ironman is weigh you. I weighed in at 88kg, wearing street clothes and shoes. At medical, they weighed me. Running gear, no shoes... 84kg. Now, I don't know about you, but there's no way that there's a 4kg weight difference between my running gear and my street clothes. Dehydration it was, then, in a major way. Just as well I made the decision to bail; I can do without the kidney damage, thank you very much. (Honestly, I might have made it another 5-10km, tops, but it wouldn't have got me to the finish line, and it would likely have ended up worse for me if I'd tried.) They went looking for a vein to stick an IV in, and couldn't make it work. Meanwhile, I asked if I could have something to drink. They gave me a cup of electrolyte fluid, which I got down without any problems, so they decided to just keep feeding me cups to get my fluid levels back up before trying the vein again.

Another nurse (I think) passed by, found a vein first go, and they got the IV drip going. A little while later, the club president popped in; they knew I'd DNF'd, thanks to the athlete tracker, but finding me took a bit of doing. We chatted, I was in decent spirits, and he popped out; and shortly after that, another club member - who'd come over to support, not to race - popped in to chat. Somewhere along the way, they started playing some Village People through the sound system at the finish line. Ever seen somebody, lying on a trundle bed, doing the YMCA dance one armed? The medical staff did that night... :D

About 10pm or so, they discharged me with orders to get some food from the recovery tent, keep drinking, and generally take it easy. The amusing bit was when a volunteer asked me if I'd got my finishers' shirt. Not having finished the whole thing, I didn't accept it - I'd never wear it.

But the really trippy thing? At the time, and right now... I was okay with my result. Sure, I didn't finish the race. But I got a hell of a lot further than I would have done five years ago, and the only real mistake I made was not drinking enough on the bike leg. I was on track on the run leg to finish within the cutoff time. I genuinely felt - and feel! - that everything I needed out of the race, I pretty much got. Sure, there are occasional pangs when I see the finishers' gear, but I'm not feeling any need to get out and do it again any time soon. Maybe in a few years' time, but not soon.

So I guess the biggest takeaway from all of this.. it doesn't matter if you finish. What matters is that you know what you're looking to get out of it when you go in, and knowing whether or not you did after the event. Triathlon's been a crutch for me for a long time - something to focus on when there was a whole pile of crap going on that could easily have swallowed me whole if I focused on it too much. Mentally, I feel that I don't need that crutch any more. A month on, I'm still doing the swimming training - that's the hardest thing for me to pick up again if I lose it - and I'm working towards the Christchurch marathon. But apart from that, I have no set goals, and I'm kinda enjoying that feeling. (I have unfinished business with marathons - I DNF'd at Melbourne Marathon because of foot problems, and Ironman NZ makes marathon DNF number two. I'm going to get one done this year, one way or another; Christchurch is just a convenient opportunity, since I'll be in the country at the time for other matters.)

I doubt I'll ever really leave the triathlon scene. I like the bike too much, and I have too many friends there. But it's time to step back a bit and make room for other things in my life. Health and fitness remains a priority; just not at the expense of everything else.