For many athletes here in New Zealand the last month has delivered a bit of a blow to those who hoped to take part in the 2012 Ironman New Zealand race. Anyone who trains for this race knows the heartache, time, effort and money that go into getting to the start line. For some people it feels like their one and only chance of ticking this bucket list item and for those first timers in Taupo this year the decision to switch to a 70.3 format due to inclement weather must have been devastating.

Unfortunately disappointment and racing seem to go hand in hand all too often and I sometimes wonder if as a coach I’d better serve my athletes by addressing this right from the start.

In a world where our children are taught that they can do anything, or are constantly told that they are awesome regardless of what they have done success is often a given. Of course the other side of the coin there are those who truly believe that they can never achieve anything of worth whether it’s in athletics or generally in life, so there must be a balance somewhere.

Expectations are dangerous in all aspects of life, unless, of course they come with a survival kit.

My expectations when I entered the world of triathlon were very low. With virtually no athletic career behind me I think it was a pretty fair starting point to launch myself from, but when you get a tiny taste of success and that could be in simply finishing a race, those expectations can begin to grow exponentially and that’s where the problems start.

The more talented you are the higher those expectations can be, but in true Dr Spock, and I mean the Star Trek one, “You can’t beat the laws of physics” – and inevitably there are going to be the downsides.

Some of the most disappointed athletes at Ironman New Zealand this year were those who had placed unrealistic expectations on themselves, truly unrealistic and not ones that had anything to do with their athletic ability – they ushered the words, “This will be my one and only Ironman race”, you could almost hear the crumpled expectations before they’d even started.

When sport’s psychologists talk about limiters they’re not referring to our physical limits, but our mental ones, the ideas we allow to sneak into our minds which stay there and unfortunately pop up when we least expect them or more importantly aren’t able to cope with them. Stating that you’ll only ever do one Ironman race is a prime example of an unnecessary limiter and in the case of IMNZ 2012 came home to roost in a heartbreaking way.

I can’t begin to imagine the disappointment such athletes in Taupo felt when their dream was smashed. How they got up to race a 70.3 I’ll never know. I take my hat off to them big time! But why place yourself in that position in the first place?

I guess I did it a little when I took part in my first Ironman race, not because I didn’t enjoy the process but because I just couldn’t imagine myself becoming so addicted to the sport. And I’ve placed limiters on myself all the way along, mainly to do with my physical ability, but I think I’m gradually coming to terms with it and better still working on limiting those limiters.

I have a very good friend who has told me on numerous occasions the many many things I CAN do, only to have me throw it back in her face and say “I can’t!”

Since Challenge Wanaka in January where I did manage a podium finish something has changed in my limiter mindset. I haven’t become big-headed or unrealistic about my expectations but there’s calmness about my future in the sport. At Challenge I truly enjoyed racing, yes there were frustrations but I enjoyed the process, just like I’ve learnt to enjoy the process of training. It’s taken me a good five years to get to this point and I have no intention of allowing any unnecessary limiters to creep into my mind now I can acknowledge them.

So, my advice to anyone setting a goal of competing in any race but more importantly those races that require time, money and dedication – don’t allow limiters to dictate the experience. Listen to anyone who has advice especially those who have been there and made the mistakes YOU WILL make; especially don’t listen to the Jonahs, who live life with the brakes permanently on! And NEVER, say NEVER or better still ONLY ONCE!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, Lance has proven he’s an amazing athlete in cycling and yep I can understand that his first love was triathlon and as he grows older it might well appeal to him but it does seem a bit unfair that along with his fame comes ‘hype’. 

At the weekend Bevan Docherty took the cycling legend out in the Panama 70.3 race but the headlines read predominantly not about the race but about the fact that Lance finished second or that Lance snubbed Docherty.  

I’ve never found Armstrong’s media persona particularly attractive and my admiration for him only grew slightly after reading his books about the fight with cancer and nothing has changed after the weekend’s race.

Yep, it’s great to have Armstrong on board the triathlon media train but what about the sporting aspects of this story.

The hype around Lance apparently snubbing Bevan tells us nothing other than both guys raced their arses off and probably didn’t have the energy to think, “Oh I’d better be all smiles and do big huggies” .  It offers no insight into how Bevan managed to come from behind and run this media celeb out of the lead position.  It tells us nothing about how Lance felt in his first real race on the road to his goal of making the Ironman World Championships in Kona in October.

I’ve avoided most of the stories about Bevan stealing the race off Lance; Lance snubbing Bevan.  The best piece of sporting information I’ve seen came from Lance’s own mouth.  When Kevin McKinnon asked him how he felt on the bike, Armstrong said,

“You know it was just different to what I thought,  if I had to use one word to sum it up it’s tactical, it’s very strategic”. 

And when asked about the run:-

“I had been doing a lot of running and it’s no secret that’s the way you win races. I gotta go back and re-discover my running form, lose some weight, work on my stride, stay injury free.   A guy like Docherty who runs low 30s 10km, in a triathlon, there’s no way my old arse can stay with a guy like that”.

To my mind that’s a man who’s gone into a race, given it his all and now knows exactly how he’s going to have to race to be the best.  There is definitely no disrespect for Bevan Docherty.

Equally Docherty is reported to have said about the Armstrong media circus that’s it’s amazing to have someone like him in the sport of triathlon and it’s fascinating to see the way he gets mobbed.

Armstrong’s tie-up with the WTC is a marketing coup but I hope that his presence doesn’t detract from the grass roots appeal that triathlon has for your average athlete.  And I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the pros who for years have been busting their arses off for a pittance when compared to many sporting professionals. 

Maybe the Lance Armstrong circus might just attract the kind of money the sport needs to ensure that future professional triathletes make a decent living.

Obviously someone who knows better knew that rest and recovery wouldn’t come easily and so decided a nasty stomach bug would sort me out and it did, big time and I’m glad.

Even after all these years of racing and gaining confidence I find the least confidence I have is in my ability to rest and come back. Like a lot of newbies to the sport of triathlon I’m afraid that if I don’t train I’ll loose what I’ve gained, which of course is utter rubbish. Rest and recovery is, in reality the fifth discipline.

The bug that struck me down this time was good in many ways. Not only could I do nothing even if I wanted to but I had to reassess exactly what I could eat and what would be good for me. I often find that towards the end of a long period of training for an Ironman race that I’m so desperate for energy that I eat anything that’s within arm’s reach and that’s a bit dumb.

So this time I have recovered really well and some of that I put down to reading Matthew Syed’s book “The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice”. I’ve always thought that I wasn’t a naturally talented athlete and that I’d always be a plodder, much the same as I was academically and even in my professional career as a journalist, but on reading Syed’s book I realised that actually I’m a long way off that 10,000 hours of practice model that he talks about, I’m barely half way there.

The thing that I enjoy most about being an age group triathlete is the learning. When you get to my age there’s a tendency to see more of life behind you and all that’s in front of you is old age, but I don’t see that at all. I see the challenge that being older brings along with the challenges of making my body do what it instinctively doesn’t want to. I love the fact that I’m wrestling with my mind constantly to overcome that inner voice that tells me I’m too old, too slow, too stupid, too everything! I will not rest, except of course after a race.

And so, almost four weeks after Challenge Wanaka I’m ready to get back on the bike (well I will when I’ve put it back together) and I’m going to subject that voice to another marathon in just 10 weeks time, it will give in, in the end and let me do what I know I’m capable of.  And I’m determined to sort out what I eat.  Fortunately whatever the bug is I’ve had doesn’t like anything fatty, milky or stodgy and long may it reign.

Rest is good, it allows time for quiet reflection, but now it’s time for noisy exercise!

Today I raced at Challenge Wanaka. It’s a course known for its scenic beauty but also the tough terrain and the horrendous nor’west winds that can wreak havoc for the best of triathletes.

I decided last year that I’d give this gnarly little race a go after standing on the sidelines and freezing to death, it also gets very cold later in the day and first thing in the morning.

My swimming has been going really well after a couple of years of struggling with open water performances bought about by a bit of a panic attack during the Auckland Half Ironman. The cycling I wasn’t so sure about.  I like to train alone and so the only time I get a benchmark of where I’m at is during a race.  The run, well in an Ironman race it really is just a case of getting through 42km as quickly as possible, style and technique have tended to go out of the window at that stage in the race.

I was quietly confident or was it simply less stressed out about my performance at Challenge Wanaka.  It doesn’t attract huge female fields, in fact this year saw only 52 women on the start line, the rest of the 260 odd athletes were men.

It’s a tough course.  First the swim in Lake Wanaka can be very challenging not least of all because it can be quite cold.  The bike leg is hilly to undulating with a long stretch out to Cromwell before heading back down the other side of Lake Dunstan straight into the infamous nor’westers that blow with daily regularity.  The run is 75% off road on lakeside tracks and gravel which while easy on the limbs is actually much slower and when rain hasn’t fallen for weeks is like running in a desert.

We arrived on Wednesday and an initial bike ride confirmed my worst fears, I’d forgotten about the hills.  And the run, well I’d never really worked out where it went and didn’t find out until race day.

A swim of one lap of the course proved to be much easier than I’d remember so the quiet confidence remained.

Race morning dawned and we could hear the lapping of the waves on the lake from our room, this wasn’t going to be an easy swim.  Lake Wanaka is currently very low so we had to walk about 20m before we could swim but immediately I felt very comfortable.  All the tuition I’ve had from Alex at swim squad seemed to be working – long, controlled strokes.

The first leg of the swim was choppy with not much chance of seeing numerous buoys laid out on the course but the Lake Wanaka swimmers group had kindly told me that all I needed to look for was a cute little tree on the hillside.  As navigation isn’t one of my strengths this was a great help in the conditions and I didn’t go off course once in the first lap.  With numbers being much smaller than for a WTC race I thought I’d find it difficult to find feet but that wasn’t the case. I even felt like drowning one swimmer, the one clad in bootees and gloves covered in velcro.  Every time I got close to the bloody things they scratched  - maybe that’s why she wore them, as protection.

The second lap seemed to go even quicker than the first and when I felt tired it was technique I fell back on and exited the water in just over 1.19 – a great result for me in an IM swim which is traditionally about 5mins slower than Taupo IM.

Transition was smooth and uncrowded and I liked that, in fact, I really like the grass roots, but professional approach Challenge Wanaka has all round. On to the bike and the first section out to Treble Cone and back is the hilliest but after Wednesday’s ride it didn’t feel anywhere near as bad and I settled into the ride really easily.

The second bit of the ride is back into Wanaka and out to Lake Hawea before eventually going through to Luggate and Cromwell.  This bit of the ride was where the speed started to pick up – I hit 64kpm at one point and the stretch to Cromwell was fantastic, not least due to the tail wind.  But I had been warned about the return journey and they were right.  With approximately 60km to go out came the head wind and it stayed there, slowly building with every kilometer until the finish of the ride.  In the past I would have been really down but despite losing a water bottle and struggling with getting the right electrolytes in place I was really pleased with the way I handled the wind.  If my coach, John Newsom has taught me nothing else, which isn’t the case of course, he taught me how to ride hills and in wind – for many of the male cyclists out there that wasn’t the case.

Anyway back into Wanaka battered by the winds in just under 7.15, a great time in the terrain and weather.

I had been leading the race for my age group right from the swim but was aware that my closest rival had been on my coat tails throughout the ride and she took her chance to get ahead on the run and I just couldn’t catch her.  Third place woman was some way behind, however, I just couldn’t find my run legs today no matter how hard I tried.

The conditions on the run were equally if not more windy. The off road bits were dusty and gusty and on a few occasions I couldn’t run straight let alone fast.

The less said about the run or rather walk the better and with just 6km to go 3rd place woman in my age group passed me.  I tried to stay with her but I knew she was a runner and my hamstring had started to play up so didn’t want to chance it. As it happens it wouldn’t have taken much to get her as at the finish line she was only 2mins ahead of me, c’est la vie.

So, how do I feel.  A bit peeved I couldn’t maintain my lead but I’ve never been in that situation before so it was a novelty.  I was stoked with my swim, very pleased with the bike and frustrated with the run but overall it’s a podium finish.   Yes there were only four in my age group but the point is, there were only four women 50-59 prepared to take this race by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake and I was one of them.

Never let a win when maybe there’s only a few of you in the race seem less than if there were lots, the fact is YOU raced and others didn’t for whatever reason.  So I will take my podium win and bask in the glory of a job well done.

Final splits:

Swim – 1.19:12  1st in age group, 21st woman and 126 overall

Bike – 7.15:30 2nd in age group, 30th woman and 163 overall

Run – 5.33:38 3rd in age group, 40th woman and 167 overall.

When you are training for something like an Ironman race the taper period can seem like a blessed relief on the horizon but when you get there it can often be a bit of a struggle.

Those who know me are aware of the taper traumas I have experienced; the crashed car, the torn foot and the piste de resistance – boiled rice!  But it’s not the traumas that are the problem, it’s tapering that’s so hard.

I’m not known for being able to sit still and when you’ve been training for up to 23 hours

a week and then suddenly someone tells you to take your foot off the accelerator the sensations are often far from relief.

1. Self-doubt – whilst I’m training hard I feel confident that I’m heading in the right direction – take even a small amount of training away from me and I begin to doubt whether I’ve done enough of the right stuff and now it’s too late to do much about it.
2. Managing nutrition – this is a real struggle for me.  Whilst training it’s relatively easy to keep fuelling on track but again take away some of the sessions and it’s a different ball game altogether; however careful I am in that last couple of weeks before the race I end up feeling like a barrage balloon.
3. Scratchy as – take a pre-menstraul woman, a menopausal woman and a female triathlete in taper mode and you’ve got a clue of what I’m talking about.  I can be a real nasty piece of work the week before the race.  I’m so focussed on the day to the point of obsession, what comes after race day becomes totally irrelevant and anyone who tries to engage me otherwise is either brave, mad or likely to be dead.
4. Chillax allergy – this is tough, very tough.  Unless I’m actually asleep I find it very difficult to switch off and even then the old sub-concsious can take over.  I have over the years used meditation if all else fails and it does work but it’s taken a while to realise that I do have an allergy to chilling out.

So why bother tapering?

When embarking on a training schedule for a race it’s relatively easy to find lots of information about what you need to do to reach peak performance, but when it comes to tapering how you go about it can hinder or benefit your race.

There’s quite a bit of controversy about how taper should be approached.  Do you reduce mileage?  Do you reduce intensity? Do you cut both mileage and intensity?  And then at what cost? How long should your taper be?  Should you take whole days off?

The recipe for a successful taper for me is a work in progress but for Challenge Wanaka we have reduced mileage by just over 25% three weeks out but increased intensity slightly even up to five days out from race day. In the past I’ve had a complete day off before a race but this time we’re keeping things ticking over every day, even if it’s just an easy ride or a swim and I’m quite comfortable with this as it tackles some of the issues I have with taper mentioned above.  I don’t feel tired so I must be rested and despite a few ‘crappy’ moments in the pool, on the bike or running there’s definitely no more than usual.

Between now and Saturday, (it’s Monday evening) my focus is to rest when not training or working; eat sensibly but not excessively (no real carbo load for me); keep hydrated at all times and most of all stay away from walls, moving cars and boiling rice.

Challenge Wanaka starts at 6.30am Saturday 21st January 2012 and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be – bring it on!

Annette on the run in Auckland

When one’s other half takes up Ironman it doesn’t change just her life – it changes yours, too.  I’m married to Annette (of TriAnnette.com), and I would like to think I have more sense than to even attempt a 4k swim, 180k bike and 42k run (as my friend Greg says, ‘has the woman not heard of getting a bus?’.  However, as a family our lives have been enriched by everything that triathlon has brought us over the years.  So when people ask me if I am an Ironman Widower, I always reply that no, I am an Ironmate. I may not swim, bike or run, but when it comes to be an Ironman athlete supporter and spectator, I’d like to think I’m at least on the podium. (Well, there was the incident at this year’s ITU World Championships in Auckland which might spoil that but we won’t talk about it).

There is no getting away from the fact that Ironman and other long-distance triathlon races – and the training involved – make huge inroads into family life. When your spouse is doing a half-Ironman simulation on a Saturday morning, you can be pretty sure when she goes out at 6.30 am that you’re not going to see her again until lunchtime.  Similarly there are the early morning swim squad sessions. Getting up at 5am again darling? Don’t mind if I do.  Then there are the emergency calls, “Help! I’m stuck in  (…fill in the blanks, but it’s usually at least 70kms away…)… and I’ve run out of food/water/inner tubes/swimming togs (delete as applicable)! Bring me a rice pudding/bottle/new tyre/complete set of new clothes (again, delete as applicable but don’t mix them up)”  When you go out shopping, not for you the pleasant stroll around Dick Smiths or Whitcoulls – not unless they happen to be next door to Hedgehog Bikes/Rebel Sports/Pack and Pedal etc.

Waiting for the start at Ironman NZ, in Taupo

And then there’s race day. Fall out of bed at 4am.  Spouse is grumpy and nervous.  Fall over bike which has been propped up against the bathroom door in the motel room, which was designed by the same man who designed the Thunderbirds puppets, to about the same scale, during a spare moment in 1965.  Mad panic because timing chip has disappeared. Get accused of losing it. Discover spouse has forgotten she put it in the ice tray of the refrigerator for safe keeping. Realise that logic has gone out the window.  Trudge through the predawn darkness in the pouring rain to a muddy field to find a bunch of other Ironmen and their Ironmates struggling to put wetsuits on by the light of a torch.  Once the race is underway, there’s an hour or so spent hanging around waiting for the swimmers to return.  Not much to see, though the commentary team make a good job of pretending that distant speck on the horizon is Terrenzo Bozzone, narrowly followed by Cam Brown. It could be a duck, actually.  No, it is a duck, that OTHER speck on the horizon is Terrenzo.  And even when the swimmers come out of the water, they all look the same. One Ironman wetsuit is much the same as another. You become very expert in spotting the minute differences between one brand and another. I have suggested strapping a rotating beacon to the spouse’s head but she seemed less than keen.

But for sheer spectator endurance, it’s the bike leg that sorts out the sheep from the goats. Unless you happen to be married to Chrissie Wellington, your other half is out in the wilds for several hours.  And woe betide you if you aren’t waiting at the side of the road waving like a mad thing for the 1.75 seconds it takes for her to whizz past as she heads out for the second lap.  So you have three hours or so (minus 1.75 seconds, of course) to kill.  Twice, if it’s a two lap course.  Breakfast? Well, you’ve been up since 4am so that’s probably not a bad way to kill half an hour.  Coffee?  Be careful, after six hours you could have end up with so much caffeine inside you that you’ll set off the drug detection machine at the airport from a distance of 2 kilometres. Incidentally, I now have an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the good, the bad and the ugly coffee joints at most triathlon sites in the Southern Hemisphere.

And then there’s the run.  Will she make it? You see people staggering past looking like they’ve aged forty years in the last eight hours. Has she dropped out?  Have you missed her (you lose points if you do)? No, there she is… she’s looking cheerful, but there’s still another 20k to go.

Finally there’s the finishing chute. Somehow I always manage to end up standing next to a flag which completely obscures the view of anyone coming down the final 300 metres as it flaps across your face. Or else, just at the crucial moment, a man arrives next to you carrying a two year old on his shoulders which blocks out the field of vision better than a total eclipse of the sun.  And there she is, looking strong, thundering down the chute, leaping over the finish line, and it’s all over. (Though there was the time when I was sitting chatting to a mate on the bleachers waiting for her to arrive, and his conversation went… “Here she comes now… Here she comes… oh…. ummm… she’s looking a bit rough… umm… think we’d better go and be ready to catch her”.  Thankfully, that’s only happened once).

So, you could look on this and say how invasive, time consuming and energy draining it is to be an Ironmate.

But on the other hand…

As a family we have made friends with an amazing, fascinating, inspiring, delightful, funny and encouraging bunch of people. We have laughed together, cheered together and occasionally cried together.  I once interviewed Mike ‘Voice of Ironman” Riley. “If you’re an Ironman,” he told me, “You’ve joined a very special, very exclusive family. If you meet a complete stranger who has also done Ironman, you’re NOT strangers. You are brothers. You have a bond that nothing can break, and no-one outside will ever understand”.  He’s right.  Triathlon binds people together.

The waka glides out of the mist and rain on Lake Taupo

We’ve travelled to places we probably would never have gone to without triathlon. We’ve been to Hawaii, Western Australia, and places in New Zealand where we would not have known there was anything to see. And there’s something special about racing in these places. Watching the sun rise over Maraetai beach as you wait for a race to start.  Visiting the wild north of Hawaii’s Big Island where the bike turn round takes place at Hawi. And at the start of Ironman NZ as the Haka takes place in the grey dawn light, and a waka glides silently and eerily out of the morning mist on the still waters of Lake Taupo – if you can watch that without every hair on the back of your neck standing straight up, you must have a heart of stone.

And finally, there is the pride of seeing your life-partner, the person you love best in the world, giving her all to achieve her aim.  I’ve seen her cross the finish line at everything from a Special K Women’s Triathlon in Ruakaka to huge Ironman or Half Ironman events in Taupo, Australia and Hawaii. And it never fails to make my heart burst with pride that this incredible woman, this inspirational soul, this astonishing triathlete,  chose me. And that moment’s magic turns every second spent hanging around the bike course or the swimming pool or the finish chute into pure gold.

So am I an Ironman widower?  No, I am an Ironmate.  And I’m proud of it.

“Burning desire to be or do something gives us staying power – a reason to get up every morning or to pick ourselves up and start in again after a disappointment.

The Auckland ITU Cup race this weekend was a fantastic occasion.  Not only did age groupers get the chance to race in our beautiful city but having the chance to watch elite athletes go through their paces was nothing short of a privilege.  

With 48 hours to reflect on what was at the finish of my race a huge disappointment I’m now seeing the positives from the day. 

Going back to when I signed up I realised I hadn’t bought into the race with my heart, more my head and some gentle persuasion from my coach.  

Lesson no. 1 – follow your instincts and don’t do races you can’t buy into. 

Having said that I’m glad I did the race but with hindsight I should have set my expectations at a more realistic level. This wasn’t going to be my A race and training for an Ironman distance race is a totally different beast but I did feel ready for the Olympic distance, just perhaps not at 100% peak.  

I’d taken a lot of negative stuff into the race.  I don’t like the qualification criteria and I find the cost of ITU races exorbitant despite the huge costs involved in putting on such a wonderful event.  I’d looked at the field in my age group and I’m realistic enough to know that qualification at this distance for the big race next year wasn’t a given, it would require hard work and a real desire to succeed.  The hard work was there, the desire wasn’t.  

The swim took part off Queen’s Wharf and it was a stunning venue.   I wasn’t nervous and that should have been a warning.  I’m probably one of those athletes who need a slightly raised level of arousal to be able to ‘fight’ through the swim section.  The start was a bit disorganised and I knew right away I wasn’t in a good position off the pontoon but thought I could cope.  When the hooter went off everything seemed fine.  It wasn’t a huge wave and although I knew I’d started to drop off the front a bit I wasn’t overly bothered.  The first buoy seemed a long way off but I was still in with a group and relatively happy.  Getting round the buoy I got stuck on the rope anchoring the thing in place and really that’s where it started to unfold.  Once I’d freed myself everyone else seemed to have gone. The second buoy was only 60m away but by the time I got to it the strong current had taken most of those in front of me way off course. As I rounded the second buoy one of the lifeguards came over and told me to swim diagonally across from the main group into the current, he was only trying to help but for me it was the end of the swim.  

I’m not good being ‘abandoned’ in a swim, I panic, it’s something deep-seated that I’m aware of and try to cope with, but in a stressful situation like this I hadn’t prepared for it.  

Lesson no. 2 – ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS HAVE A RACE PLAN, especially the ‘what ifs’ scenario. 

Needless to say the rest of the swim was a huge struggle, not physically, but mentally; I even threw a tanty in the middle of the swim, not a good look, but a bit of anger might have been the difference between me giving up or carrying on and I carried on. 

The swim exit and T1 were just a wave of disappointing feelings. Looking back I guess I am quite experienced because I really don’t remember much about T1, everything that happened in there was done on auto-pilot. 

Lesson no. 3 – practice transitions to death; you never know when you might need that auto-pilot. 

Onto the bike and the section I’d been worried about.  Being a slightly heavier athlete hills are always a bit of a struggle, not because I find them hard, it’s just I’m carrying just a tad more weight up them than others.  Fortunately someone shrunk the hills because they seemed to have melted away and once I’d got over the negative feelings about the swim I started to really enjoy the ride.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch any of my age group up, or at least I wasn’t aware of them, but I felt I rode well, took downhills, corners and turnarounds technically well and came off the bike in under the time I’d set myself feeling a bit happier.  

Lesson no. 4 – never give up, you just never know what’s ahead so best be nosey and go take a look. 

Admittedly by the time I got to the run what heart might have been in the race was disappearing rapidly.  I knew I was way down the pack but I still wanted to put in a solid run.  It wasn’t going to be fast but I wanted to give it a nudge.  I felt strong and controlled and although quite a few other age groups passed me I was focussed enough to be able to run my race.  Funnily enough the hardest bit was dealing with the negative voice that kept creeping back into my head about the swim.  Without realising it I hadn’t left the swim behind but dragged the whole thing around with me on the bike and now on the run. 

Lesson no. 5 – leave the crap behind, it just slows you down. 

The support on the run and indeed the whole day was fantastic.  I’m truly blessed to have so many friends who were out there rooting for me. With the second lap ticked off and able to cope with two growing blisters I could feel on my left foot, something I’ve not had before I got ready to enjoy running down the ITU blue carpeted finish chute I’ve seen so many times on ITU TV coverage.  As I turned onto the carpet the announcer called my name, “Next coming down the chute is Annette Lee, 25^th out of 26 in the 50-54 age group”  It was one of those moments in time where literally the carpet was pulled right from under my feet. Never in all my  years of racing have I heard a commentator announce a last or second to last position as an athlete came down the chute.  I couldn’t get to the finish fast enough and disappear; it was humiliating, not the position so much but having it announced to the crowd.  The start and finish of the race were huge disappointments. 

However, here I am with time in hand to reflect on the race.  So was it a good or a bad race?  At the time I was disappointed to say the least, quite tearful and with a sense of frustration, but now, no, it was a good race. 

As Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 900 shots in my career.  I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take a game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed” 

I think sometimes we can all get caught up in the times and positions we achieve in life whether it’s a race or choosing the right queue in the supermarket, there’s an obsession with being right first time.  And sometimes you surround yourself with people who seem obsessed with position and then start comparing yourself with them even though you say place and time doesn’t count. 

The fact that I was able to get on that start line, work through issues in the swim and carry on to finish the race in a half decent time is surely a win for me. 

No, I didn’t qualify for the world cup race next year but I didn’t want to. 

As for the idiot commentator, well, as a media person myself what can I say other than, “Who let the moron have the mike?”  but it was out of my control, and I might add he was wrong, I didn’t come second to last I was 19^th out of 26.  

Will I live to race another day? – of course I will.

Will I wear my ITU t-shirt with proud? – of course I will.

Will I learn from this race? – of course I will.

Will I go out there and try to qualify in another race? – I might just give it a go. 

Big lesson to learn – ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY.

There they all were a bunch of 18 year olds about to leave the safety and comfort of a school that has really just been an extension of home, a family. 

There were all shapes and sizes; all kinds of dreams and expectations of what their future lives might bring and there was fear too.  

Fear of the unknown; fear around whether they’d made the right choices about what to do next; fear surrounding the realisation that they hadn’t done all they could do to give themselves the best possible start in life and fear of leaving their real families – at this point in time they are on the start line to the rest of their lives, that’s scary stuff. 

In two weeks time I will be putting myself on the start line of a race I said I would never take part in again – the ITU Auckland World Championship qualification race.  I tried to qualify for the New Zealand team once before and was bitterly disappointed to the point that I said I would never try again and I’m scared. 

I’ve trained properly; I’ve told myself it’s just another race; I’ve told myself it doesn’t matter if you don’t qualify, I’ve done all that stuff but I’m still scared. 

You see, I think where I’m standing today is a bit like the kids at the graduation dinner; they are eager to get out there and live; they have dreams of success in careers, life and love but to get where they want to go, well, it’s not just going to happen.  It has to be experienced and sometimes that bit seems to go on and on and on with no rewarding end in sight, but they’ll do it because there is no alternative, they can’t go back.

Whilst all my fears for the race are there I know I can’t go back, I have to move forward, I have to find a way to get everything I can out of a race I’m frightened of.  

Wisely my coach has said worry about the things you can control and leave the other stuff behind and he’s right.  My panic at taking part in this particular race is just a bi-product, the lactic acid to the challenge I’ve set myself. 

And so, the level of fear I feel at the moment is nothing compared to that a young person must feel when they take those first tentative steps into the real world, but then at my age I’m experienced in life. Perhaps that’s the way I need to look at the race, it’s just another experience I have to go through to get what I really want – I need to take a deep breath, close my eyes and jump. To all those youngsters leaving school this year, do the same – Panic at the thought of doing a thing is a challenge to do it.  ~Henry S. Haskins

Now that might sound a little self indulgent but in learning what makes ME tick I believe I’m a more rounded person. 

BT, before triathlon, I was driven; ambitious; dedicated and hard working with my career. I’ve never taken my family for granted and fortunately always been able to marvel at my good fortune but I was defensive and unsure about ME, some might even say ‘aggressive’ in my insecurities. I guess I was scared of ME. 

When I first dipped my toes into the water at Mission Bay back in 2004 I was scared; I’d put my-self on the line; I was competing in an arena that exposed me.  There were no secret job applications or interviews that only a select few were privy to; no warm, secure family to hold my hand when things got rough; I was there for all to see. Whether anyone noticed me or cared is irrelevant, I’d put IT, ME, out there and I’d never done that before. 

Last weekend my husband was hunting through some old photographs and came across one of me at what was probably my fourth triathlon, a little 300m swim/20km bike ride and 5km run.  I remember the event very well and yet the person I was looking at in the photo is familiar but seems so much smaller, not physically because actually I was a completely different shape back then, but the real me was smaller inside. 

What I love about coaching my athletes is watching the ‘minis’ inside blossom and grow; sometimes there’s a bit of a growth spurt other times it takes a while for the gem to appear and occasionally the blossom suddenly disappears overnight and then we work together to find out what happened.  

A friend of mine who has been competing as a top class age group athlete at Ironman distance for years now was at the Ironman World Champs this year. He had a great swim and bike but in his own words, 

“On the run it was immediately obvious I was in trouble.”

He then goes on to describe in very emotional terms what happened out on the Queen K and this is a man I consider to be strong both physically and mentally.  I couldn’t do justice to his race report so I’ll let you judge for yourself  here. 

But the point I’m making about this whole triathlon business is that it’s NOT just a sport, it’s a lifestyle.  Yes it’s addictive and many of us could be described as obsessed but it’s also a caring, inclusive, passion-filled sport that brings like-minded people together, caring people who just want to see others grow and succeed in all walks of their lives.

Learning the ins and outs of the sport and gaining experience over the years is fantastic but the over-flow into ME and hopefully people I come into contact with is ten times more valuable.  

As with my sporting ability I’m by no means perfect.  I’m a long way off that mythical 10,000 hours of practice and won’t give up personally until I draw my last breath. 

One of the athletes I coach didn’t want to take part in a particular activity because they couldn’t see they’d gain anything from it, what a mistake.  Every day we wake up, we breathe, we go about our business and there are opportunities out there to learn something new.  When those opportunities are put on a plate, served up to you and you push them away you can never get that moment back.  As Mark Twain said, 

“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” 

So next time an opportunity comes your way, whatever it is, think twice before saying ‘No’ It might just be the catalyst for something much bigger and even if it’s no big deal, once you’ve experienced it, it’s yours forever.

It was a truly remarkable performance some of the pros put on at Saturday’s Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. There we have three times ladies winner Chrissie Wellington for a second year running with a question mark over whether she might race following a bike crash only two weeks out. Miranda Carfrae the reigning champion with the pressure that that title alone must bring; Julie Dibens triumphant in the swim and the bike only to be crushed on the run by a foot injury. On the men’s side it appeared to be a more open race with some questioning whether Craig Alexander could come back after losing out to Macca in 2010; young Pete Jacobs storming to second place with an amazing run and poor old Chris Lieto just not able to nail a decent run after a phenomenal bike ride.

On Saturday many of the pros would have deemed their placing in the race a bit of a failure and as a professional athlete, yep, it’s all about being first! But what about those age groupers who just lapped up the atmosphere, pushed the envelope to places it had never been before and didn’t ‘place’ are they not winners too?

The word ‘winner’ can be seen in three ways;- 1. The contestant who wins the contest 2. A gambler who wins a bet 3. A person with a record of successes All too often we focus on the first use, the number one in the race. I’m not taking away the fact that to come first in anything is a fantastic achievement but there can only be one first, what about the rest of us, aren’t we winners too?

I think I’ve only come first about two or three times in my life but I consider myself a winner. I’m not a gambler in the true sense of the word but every time I go out and train I’m gambling to some extent that all the work I put into that session will eventually pay off. If you’ve ever read “Bounce” by Mathew Syed about the myth of talent and the power of practice then you’ll soon realise that every time you go out to train you’re a winner with each step you take even before you get to the start line of a race. And how do you measure success?

I’ve been very successful in many aspects of my life. I’ve had lots of people say “No you can’t do that” and gone on to prove them wrong, that, to me is success and I hope that I’ll never give up proving to myself most of all that there’s just no such word as “NO” in my vocabulary. Don’t get me wrong and think I’m always ‘successful’ I’ve made some monumental cock-ups but what I have done is try and turn those cock-ups into positives. I am, rather irritatingly a glass half full kind of person.

Chrissie Wellington is a bit of a freak of nature in the nicest possible sense but not because she’s won the Ironman World Championships four times; her freakishness is in the absolute determination to make her body do what she believes it is truly capable of, crossing the finish line first is to some extent irrelevant, her success is in wringing everything out of herself, pushing to achieve the ultimate in physical and mental performance.

It was very evident in Saturday’s race that as she crossed the finish line she had achieved that, “I was emotionally and physically spent. I left everything out there..”

My admiration for Chrissie and other professional and age group athletes who do push to exhaustion is for their mental strength. I’m a long way off being that strong. I haven’t succeeded in going to ‘puke zone’ as my coach puts it with my racing and I still don’t know how they do it.

A couple of years ago when I was reporting in Kona I saw Chrissie sitting alone in the media room after her third win. She was still wearing her race suit, had the lai around her neck and looked just very ordinary. I wasn’t going to talk to her but as I passed her I just said, “Congratulations Chrissie”, she looked up, smiled and said “Thanks” and then we both paused for a moment.

After years of being a journalist I know what it’s like to have people ‘bother’ you so I tend not to do it but this time there was a voice in my head that said, “Go on, ask her” so I did.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” “Sure she said, sit down” So there we were the 2009 Ironman World Champion and me alone in a room, not a very grand scenario for a champion eh, but that’s Ironman for you, few airs and graces.

My big question was quite simple,

“You always seem so confident and sure of yourself, how do you do it?”

Her reply was equally simple,

“I’m not really deep down, I have all the same doubts you have but I train hard and I tell myself over and over again, Chrissie you can do it. There’s no magic in there, nothing special about me and you can be the same.”

And really that was it.

She gave me a hug, my husband rather embarrassingly took my photo with her and we parted.

So there you go, nothing ventured, nothing gained, if you want to be a winner, if you want to succeed, only YOU can determine whether you’ve  done the best you can or reached your winning post – you’ve really got nothing to lose at all, so today, decide “I’m going to be a winner!”