My story
The journey of an unlikely Ironman.
I am a chartered accountant who spent forty years in boardrooms and C-suites. I was not an athlete. At fifty I decided to become one anyway, and it took me until I was fifty-four to get it right.
Twenty-six minutes, and five minutes thirty-two
26 July 2010, Lake Placid, New York. I crossed the line at 12:26 in the morning. The clock had closed at midnight. Twenty-six minutes late, no finish, no medal, no result beside my name — and a very long drive home with a family who had stood in the dark for seventeen hours to watch it.
12 October 2013, Kailua-Kona, Hawaiʻi. The Ironman World Championship, the race every age-grouper dreams about. I came down Aliʻi Drive at 11:54:28 at night with five minutes and thirty-two seconds left on the clock. Sixteen hours, fifty-four minutes, twenty-eight seconds.
Between those two nights is everything I have to say about preparation, belief and what you do when the plan runs out.
How it went
- July 2008The dream starts
In the hours before midnight, and a sign on a wall: if you can dream it, you can do it.
- June 2009Tupper Lake Tinman, New York
First distance race. Determination to finish it, and to finish it on time.
- July 2010Ironman Lake Placid
Finished at 12:26 a.m. Twenty-six minutes after the cut-off. The race that made the rest of it necessary.
- July 2011Ironman Lake Placid
Back on Mirror Lake at 6:59 a.m., seventy seconds before the gun — and this time an official finish, on the course that had turned me away a year earlier.
- Nov 2011Ironman Arizona, Tempe
Kicked in the head on the swim. Regrouped in the water and got on with the day — the first time I found out what I would do when it went wrong early.
- Mar 2012Ironman New Zealand, Taupō
Shortened to half distance when a cyclone hit the course. You race the day you are given.
- Aug 2012Ironman Canada, Penticton
The last running of the race on the original Penticton course, in British Columbia.
- June 2013Ironman Coeur d’Alene, Idaho DNF
Missed the cut-off. Sixteen weeks later I was on the start line at Kona.
- Oct 2013Ironman World Championship, Kona
16:54:28, with 5:32 to spare. The dream, finished, on the Big Island.
- June 2014Ironman Coeur d’Alene, Idaho DNF
Heat hit 115 degrees on the same course. I walked off it for my own safety. Three months later I set my personal best at Chattanooga.
- Sept 2014Ironman Chattanooga, Tennessee
My personal best over the full distance.
- Aug 2015Ironman Mont-Tremblant, Québec DNF
Raced it ill and did not get to the end. Four weeks later I was in the water at Lake Monona.
- Sept 2015Ironman Wisconsin, Madison
Lake Monona at dawn — the calm before the storm.
- June 2018Ironman Cairns, Australia
On the beach at the swim start with my sherpa, near the Great Barrier Reef.
- April 2019London Marathon
There is always an opportunity for a selfie, even on Tower Bridge.
Every shirt, one blanket
Three people who moved the line
Every time I decided something was impossible, somebody else was busy doing it. Sister Madonna Buder, racing Ironman into her eighties. Chris Nikic, the first athlete with Down syndrome to finish one, one per cent better at a time. Hector Picard, racing without arms.
None of them made my day easier. All of them made my excuses smaller.
October 2013