Twenty Five years of Ironman

In 1985 I was heavily involved in building my fortune. I worked seven days a week, most weeks and often started at 5.30am and finished at 7.30pm at night. I had married very young and had gotten into the habit of hard work from an early age. By this stage I had two Cat machines, two International trucks, a Mercedes-Benz car, two plant nurseries and in my spare time I built swimming pools and carried out landscaping contracts.

When I started out all of this I didn’t work at this level, I gradually loaded more and more onto myself until I cracked. I was working on a landscaping job about four hours north of Brisbane when I collapsed with what was eventually diagnosed as a perforated duodenal ulcer. At the time I didn’t see this as a gift.

I was given a timely warning. I had to change course, or my life was not going to be, what was destined for me. It takes a little time to unload equipmant and assetts. I sold one of the Cats and one of the nurseries. I had a lot of money tied up in the nursery property.

Once that money was freed up, before I used it for some other investment, I decided to take the kids to Disneyland. While they were still kids. The Disneyland trip was going to happen in late September/early October.

I’d heard about the Hawaii Ironman from my kid’s swim coach. It just happened, that we’d be travelling through Hawaii within a week of that year’s Ironman. We arranged a detour on our return trip to watch this crazy race. This was our first visit to the beautiful little hotel on the ocean shore where we have stayed many times since. The Kona Tiki.

I had done a sprint distance triathlon and nearly died of exhaustion. I could not believe how humans could do 3.8km, 180km and 42km in one day. I had to see this. I was hooked instantly, I was already a workaholic. All I had to do was redirect my energy and I could do this.

I signed up for the next year (that was the last year a foriegn competitor could enter without qualifying. In 1986 without knowing much about what to eat, what to wear, how to pace myself, in fact not knowing too much about anything, I did it in 13hrs 50min. I walked away totally defeated by the course. My spirits were crushed. When I came home I was treated like a hero by the triathletes I knew, just because I’d “done it”.

I didn’t go near a race of that distance until 1990. I was beaten again. I don’t like to be beaten. I had to learn about this damn race distance. I sought out everybody I could find who was successful at long distances in any sport. I spoke to the best sports science guys I could find. I found that not many people knew a lot about this crazy race or how to get it right. They had theories, they had clues, but it was left to me to join the dots.

I found that in order to be successful at any sport, you must start with good health. To achieve good health, you must start with a good diet. Even with the best diet, unless your digestive system is in the best shape, you will not reap the benefits of that good diet. So the secret I discovered was in the digestion.

Well as a result of many years of good eating habits, steady training, practicing good technique in each sport. I stand here now, having just qualified for the Hawaii Ironman 2010. I have already raced Hawaii twelve times, seven of those times placing in the top ten of my category.

I look back over the years, not game to count up how much it has cost me financially to race thirty-three Ironman races. But whatever it has cost me in dollars, I have taken so much back in excitment, in life experiences, from the Ironman. Today at sixty-one, I’m fitter and healthier than my sons. I live a far different life than my brothers or my cousins.

When I stand here looking back over that twenty-five years, I am thankful for that ulcer, and the way it changed the course of my life. It was meant to be. So for those who come up against an obstacle in your life, something which halts your progress in one direction, it may not be all that bad.