What followed was about the worst three hours of my life as I staggered along, doubled up with pain, throwing up about every twenty paces. It got so bad at one point that if I had died they’d have had to bury me in a bucket, and I was doing cartwheels trying to guess which end it was going to come out next. I never did get to the bottom of it, and whether it was the energy drink that made me sick or whether I had just overdone it on the bike, we shall never know. All I know is that having decided I’d rather suffer death before a ‘DNF’ (did not finish) I kept my legs and my bowels moving, milked the crowd for as much sympathy as I could get, and crossed the line with a bad stomach, bad headache and bad temper in a woeful 11 hours 48 minutes, just one minute faster than my debut Ironman in Canada and with a skid mark on my tri-suit that you couldn’t remove with a fire. So a Hawaiian dream that began on such a high ended on a puke-strewn low and the prospect of a conversation with my coach Dave for which it was going to be advisable to wear brown trousers and a shirt the colour of blood. If I learned anything from this whole sorry episode it is:
1. Do NOT try ANYTHING new on race day.
2. Not all pain is gain.
3. I need more bottle cages on my bike, although I draw the line at those ones that fit behind the saddle like a couple of rear rocket launchers.
4. Drinking lemon scented bleach does not count towards your five portions of fruit a day.
5. The secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failure.
I also learned that it is never, ever a good idea to go back to somewhere to race again, a lesson I have ruthlessly applied to every race I’ve ever done since. Except one …
Chapter 9
Lost: one mojo. If found, please return to Martyn Brunt, under a duvet, Coventry. ‘Lost mojo’ is triathlon code for ‘can’t be bothered to train’, which is something all triathletes go through from time to time. I suspect even she-who-is-Chrissie-Wellington has bouts of enthusiasm lower than the collective IQ rating of the average Big Brother house, and I had a right dose of it at the start of this season. My lost mojo could have been caused by any number of things:
1. It could have been be the arctic weather we experienced until March that kept my bike wheels in the clutches of my evil turbo trainer rather than sliding along the icy lanes like a penguin in a velvet wetsuit. I kept being invited by friends to go mountain biking in the snow but to me this kind of stupid thinking suggests they must be badly dehydrated.
2. It could have been contemplation of my advancing age. This is the year that I shuffled into the 45–49 age group, my back hurts, and the latest Now That’s What I Call Music CD contains not one song I recognise. And it isn’t even a CD. Welcome to middle age.
3. It could be that I’m tired from doing too much cross-country running on courses that couldn’t be harder if you had to do the water jumps while being kettled by the Egyptian riot police.
Generally I am a nightmare to be around when I’m in this sort of mood. I have all the personality of a VAT return, and gloomily pad around like a Dignitas tour guide. Consequently, I didn’t see any of my friends for a while, let alone do any training with them, although it doesn’t matter because the voices in my head keep me company. Plus, it’s occasionally nice to have a break from them because it’s very hard to keep up good after-dinner form while attending to dreary serfs who think savoir faire is a theme park near Warwick. When I’m in this frame of mind, the only time I ever cheer up is when I swim at 5.30 a.m. with my local swimming club. From 5.30 a.m. until 7.00 a.m. we have the pool to ourselves for carefree training, but at 7.00 a.m. this happy triathletes-only time comes to an end and the seething mass of sagging flesh otherwise known as ‘the general public’ is allowed in to stand pointedly at the end of the lanes willing us to get out so they can flop into the pool. I find there’s nothing that puts a smile on my face like being chirpy with the sullen public at the precise moment they are at their most furious.
There are a number of solutions to hand whenever I am feeling like this:
1. I can visit certain tax-cautious coffee shops for a massive jolt of caffeine, given that these days coffee is just a liquid fag equivalent.
2. I can try to get my hands on some performance-enhancing drugs by sending a round-robin email to all the crack addicts in a 30-mile radius.
3. I can try ending my annual ‘no booze’ New Year’s resolution and start drinking again, although not to the point where I’m back to running through parks chasing ducks, shouting incoherent obscenities at passers-by and urinating freely through my trousers.
4. I can try eating less. As I’ve got older I’ve noticed I have acquired a craving for fish and chips, although even a small portion of chips from my local chippy is so large that if I ate them all I would die in the night. So on the basis that I don’t have three stomachs like a cow, I have to make sure I eat no more than I can fit down my tri-shorts.
5. I can try varying my diet. In the past I have tried switching my diet away from pasta and jam sandwiches to more exciting foods, including one occasion when I switched to spicy chilli con carnes. My fiery breath lit up like an oil rig gas flare, melting my dentures, and it took three buckets of sand and the garden hose to put me out. I also once changed my usual breakfast of choice of strawberry jam sandwiches to my mate Phil’s recipe for whisky porridge, which was a bit like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.
6. I can focus on preparing my bike for forthcoming races by taking it apart and cleaning it and screwing the bits together like a rubbish version of the hitman in Day of the Jackal.
7. I can go abroad. After all, I live in Coventry, and a quick glance out of the window confirms that any mentally capable person with access to transport wouldn’t want to stick around.
If you’re ever struggling with a lost mojo, never forget that ‘impossible’ is just a word – whereas ‘fuck this for a game of soldiers’ is a far more expressive seven words. It was for this reason I decided that, as part of my tortuous build-up to Challenge Roth, I would get outta this place and go on training camp to Lanzarote in a bid to freshen up my mood and my BO.
At the end of the last chapter I tried to inject a bit of mystery into proceedings by saying that I’ve successfully avoided returning to any scene of triumph or disaster with the exception of one place – and that place is Lanzarote, despite the fact that each time I go I swear that I will never, ever go back again. I’ve now been to the volcanic equivalent of Margate five times, twice of which were to do the infamous Ironman Lanzarote, which, as well as being billed as ‘The Toughest Ironman in the World’ remains the only Iron race I have ever done more than once – and bitterly, bitterly regretted it. The last time was just a couple of years ago and I crossed the line swearing (profusely) that not only was I never going to do that race again, but I was never going to set foot on that glorified pumice-stone of an island again in my life. It was the second time I’d finished there with a brand new personal-worst time and I was vehement that there was more chance of seeing Ryan Giggs on Family Fortunes than of seeing me in Lanzarote ever, ever again.
By now you may have reached the conclusion that I’m so full of crap I’m basically just a bowel with a haircut. So, true to my word as always, I returned to Lanzarote agaaaaiiinnn a few weeks before Roth to spend some happy hours labouring up hills into howling headwinds with a face like a buffalo straining to shit into a lake. In fairness to my worthless word-of-honour, at least I wasn’t doing the Ironman there, having vowed never to return and having already parted with my not particularly hard-earned cash to do Roth. Instead, I was doing the Volcano Triathlon, an Olympic-distance race that follows part of the Ironman course – inevitably a hilly and windy part. The race takes place at a resort called Club La Santa, a sort of Stalag for athletes where the very fit gather to train, drink smoothies and compare physiques, a game I don’t really indulge in thanks to having a body that looks like the last surviving semi-deflated balloon from a children’s pa
rty. I’m only able to look like I have stomach muscles by shoving the plastic bit from the bottom of a Milk Tray box down my shirt. La Santa is a haven for all sorts of athletes, and those who just want to get fit in the sunshine by doing daily Body Kombat classes, which I popped in to, mainly to point out their tiresome misspelling of Combat, but also to find out what weapons were involved. I was very disappointed to learn that it’s bare hands only, and the only body being ‘kombatted’ was my own, although I did have to agree with them that there is no room for guns in any public place, except perhaps the auditions for The Apprentice.
The Volcano is one of the main events of the year in Lanzarote, so me and three friends decided we’d give it a go and stay at La Santa for the whole week rather than try to mix it with the holidaymakers at Puerto del Carmen, who all looked about as healthy as the contents of an ashtray. Joining me on this trip were:
Neill Morgan – my good chum and a balding, Welsh primate who looks like a cross between Mitt Romney and a sexually ambiguous robot, and who glories in the nickname of ‘Wetwipe’ on account of his obsession with personal hygiene.
Andy Golden – a man whose sharp legal mind and athletic toughness is undermined by being ginger and having a voice like a bored carpet salesman. Andy runs his own firm of solicitors and spends most of his time staying in touch with how his clients are faring on his iPad, making the world beyond his screen just a dull blur.
Rich Palmer – a highly intelligent scientist and extremely strong cyclist whose constant urging for us to cycle faster when he rides with us is so delusional we have almost zapped him with lithium.
After a winter that made it feel like we’d spent six months on the ice planet Hoth, we arrived at Arricife and staggered off the plane into the Canarian sunshine with the giddy wonderment of newly freed battery hens, suitably refreshed after visiting the airport terminal bar (which is the only place you can drink at 6.00 a.m. without being judged). This feeling of well-being continued when we realised our apartment overlooked the venue for the outdoor aerobics classes, making our veranda a popular meeting point for middle-aged men pretending to be looking at the sunset. However, as anyone who’s ever shared an apartment with three friends will know, it took about five minutes for the room to resemble a baboon prison, with kit and half-eaten grub all over the place and a toilet that made everyone who walked into it turn noisily blasphemous as they tried to warn others about the stink. In fact, my most vivid memory of the whole week is sitting on the veranda chair, which was positioned just outside the bathroom window, and weeping with laughter at the sound of Neill walking into the loo just after Andy had walked out, and subsequently retching like a fox with a pube stuck in its throat. Within five minutes of arriving the only things not strewn around the room were our valuables, which were secreted around the place depending on each owner’s attitude to security. Andy hid his money in his pile of worn pants, while Neill kept his in his purse – or ‘Essentials Case’ as he insisted on calling it whenever anyone asked him, ‘Why have you got a purse?’
The race took place just after our arrival at La Santa, meaning that the spectators were treated to some seemingly experienced triathletes hastily assembling their bikes in a flurry of spanners and bubble wrap before flailing around in transition unpacking kit and trying to remember how to lay it out. At the swim start, being an eighties football supporter, I went to the front of the bunch because it’s the only place left where you can get a good, old-fashioned punch-up. I wasn’t disappointed, getting a good mullering through the entire 22-minute swim – and just in case you missed that enormous hint, I’d like to just repeat that I did the swim in 22 minutes. The bike leg leaves La Santa, taking you to a town called Teguise and back with flat sections of the course that total about 8 yards, the rest comprising handlebar-chewing climbs, howling side-wind descents and a sand-blown sprint across Pothole Alley at Famara. I’d opted for a road bike with no tri-bars for the simple reason that I couldn’t arsed to pack them, which is my excuse for why it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to cover the 40k course. Once back at La Santa you head out on the running track before hitting the local roads down to the harbour and back. The 10k run was a much better 39 minutes despite it being hotter than Rich’s now sunburnt neck.
In the battle of Apartment 149b, it was a resounding victory for me in a time of 2 hours 29 minutes finishing in sixty-ninth place overall and first in the 76–80 age group, which is a pity as I’m only 45. Next was Neill, who staggered over the finish line looking like an ageing Thundercat, followed by Andy who took time out from checking his iPad to dawdle over the line waving to his many female admirers and looking as sexy as a scabby knee. When you finish any race in Lanzarote, something special awaits you at the finish line, namely legendary race organiser Kenneth Gasque, the world’s coolest man, who stays there to shake the hand of every finisher. I’d last shaken Kenneth’s hand at the end of Ironman Lanzarote and on seeing me he said, ‘Nice to see you back again,’ with the same knowing grin as the clerk at my local magistrates court. Before I could say anything stupid about never coming back, the lads ushered me away and it’s good to know that, no matter what I say, my friends always stand by me – although it’s a bit unnerving when they do it in an otherwise deserted urinal.
After we got the race out of the way, the real reason why we were there revealed itself, which is that we were there to do miles on the bike. Lots and lots of miles on the bike. In the wind. Up hills. For hours and hours. Lanzarote is full of climbs that strike fear into the heart of any triathlete, and anyone who has ever done the Ironman there will know that they are pretty much ALL on the bike course. There’s:
• Timanfaya (aka Fire Mountain), a long strip of steadily rising tarmac that stretches for miles in front of you as you grind up it, inevitably into a head wind.
• Haria, the longest climb on the island, which takes a bloody hour to get over, inevitably into a head wind.
• Mirador de Rio, shorter than the others with a spectacular view, but steeper and crueller because it takes you to the very edge of the island, not letting you turn one millimetre short, inevitably into a head wind.
• A climb whose name I don’t know but which comes between Haria and Rio and is thus dubbed ‘Pre Rio Rio’. Steeper than all the others, it is the only one on the Ironman course that I have seen people walking up – inevitably into a head wind.
If this weren’t enough, there are several other leg-sapping stretches of road, all of which we tackled in a bid to shed a stone of flab and a long-term hangover. Over the seven days of our stay we did progressively longer rides, culminating in a 100-miler doing the whole Ironman course with the exception of the bit through the cellulite manufacturing capital of Puerto Del Carmen, full as it was of indolent British holidaymakers. This particular ride helped enormously to shake off my lost mojo, even though I bonked massively near the end and was found by the lads sat on a pavement outside a supermercado trying to give myself a Mars Bar enema.
The concept of being sat on a Canarian roadside feeling smashed is not a new one for me thanks to the two Ironmans I have done there. The first was back in 2008 when I entered in order to ‘get it out of the way’, having become fed up with people who saw me parading round in my Canada and Lake Placid T-shirts asking whether I’d done Lanzarote yet. And, like every triathlete, I constantly have something to prove (mostly that modern psychiatry doesn’t work). I knew it was going to be hard because Iceman Howes had done it and told me that the bike course, inevitably into a head wind, will put at least one hour on your normal finishing time. Annoyingly, he was absolutely right; I crossed the line in 12 hours 45 minutes, vowing that this would be my one and only time at this race. Looking back at the photos from the race and seeing myself smiling, I wonder whether it was as hard as I remember, or whether I am just a grinning camera tart. I don’t remember there being any particular episode of success or failure during the race – it was just a grind from start to finish with a bike leg that took me seven hours to comp
lete and a run that I completed marginally faster than Nicky expected, hence her having to come legging it out of a bar she was drinking in to cheer me. Despite the unkind things I may have said about some of the holidaymakers in Puerto Del Carmen they were incredibly supportive of the athletes as we plodded down the ‘beer mile’ and the party atmosphere they create almost offsets the all-pervading smell of burgers that threatens to make you retch at every step. I remember one particular guy wearing a Coventry City shirt spotting the word ‘Coventry’ on my top as I ran past and drunkenly hurling his arms around me kissing me on the cheek, which would have been lovely if he hadn’t used his tongue. All in all, it was ‘job done’ when I crossed the finish line and shook Kenneth’s hand – so I thought …
Accidental Ironman Page 13
