Race Day

Iron Man Austria 2014

an invisible mist hangs over transition. Unseen ,cannot be touched but can be felt.Its presence is there It weighs heavy on all of us. It bogs us down so we feel we can barely lift our feet from the ground.

The half light of a 4 am start. The dawn chorus ,clatter of equipment, bottles mounted,start gear selected. The constant swoosh of track pumps pumping. In a daze of half concentration half nerves and fear we do all these things like metronomes its sunday the 29th June 2014. The countdown to IM Austria is accelerating towards us at speed we cannot comprehend. The thousand yard stares are everywhere. The thoughts of whats to come are hung heavy on everyones faces. We all have our own thoughts at these times,Most things are done in silence. The eerie cacophony of heart drumming noise in our ears of 3000 people moving slowly around and not a sound to be heard.

Race Day morning.

Here we go. One year of training,5 am starts in the cold of a welsh winter,thousands of laps of the pool. The hundreds of in head chats ,’ I dont want to go out and do 50 tonight,its dark already,its raining’ you go anyway. All those times you have said’ once more to the breach my son’ All count here now. All that effort,pain,hopes,fears,set backs,triumphs massed into one time slot ,one short distance in front of you.. In 2 hours time u will know. . Now is the time. Its Your time. Its time to start running.

Your brain shifts a switch clicks. lethargy ??what does that mean. Your thoughts go into overdrive. the blood surges through your adrenaline stream. You are buzzing.Now its war, Race face is on. You want to tear this race apart. The start ,feared for so long, cant come quick enough now. Everything is warp speed,tunnel vision,full focus.There is nothing else in this world,no one else .its you,you,you, go hard or get the fuck out of my way cos i’m going harder. Your heart is smashing into your ribs the pain feels good. Like a caged tiger your breathing is coming fast , faces come at you out of the crowd ,noises,voices,people are talking to you. You see you hear nothing.All you care about is tearing up this fucking lake like you’ve got a v8 chevy strapped to your back.

Silence,thoughts of friends drift in and out. The people who got you here, This is their day too, they are here with you.Thoughts of them will get you through the low points today and there will be some. There is no doubt you will do here what you came to do, no doubt. You owe it to everyone of them ,you owe it to yourself. No fucking doubt at all.

Under 10 hours is your only option or come home in a box. I haven’t brought a box so that leaves option one.