Failure.

I have been happy to write in the past on my wonderful experiences doing Ironman races. This week in Vichy France Liz and I were in the same race and the wheels came off. Here is the report I wrote for my fellow club members as I know a lot of you will be keen to know what happened and have been too polite to ask.

I have often written in the past of the relationship between ‘challenge’ and ‘sense of achievement’ and why it is the human spirit thrives on this particular phenomenon. The greater the challenge the greater the sense of reward etc.. This simple relationship explains why nearly all Ironman races sell out and why late on the day, at the end of any Ironman race, you will see people at the very edge of their human endurance celebrating widely as they accomplish their dream. Ironman races are very, very hard to finish and that is why people do them.
However there is a third leg to this particular triangle of ‘challenge and achievement’ and it is a very powerful one. Until this date I have thankfully avoided discussing it, but now I must. The third leg is ‘failure’. Failure happens to us all, in work, maybe in our education or worst of all in our relationships. The fear of failure is a mighty force as it spurs us on to achieve because the alternative is unthinkable. Lets be honest failure hurts it really does and on Sunday in Vichy Liz and I felt that pain full on.
We were both ready for the race as, despite my lies, we had trained hard and all our times were good,particularly in Liz’s case her swim times. The weather in Europe last week was freakish and we spent all week dreading the news that was delivered to us a mere hour before the race start-No wetsuits! No excuses but Liz and I are both just hopeless in open water (and anywhere else for that matter) without the support a wetsuit brings, especially over a long distance swim. My heart sank as I lined up with many other disillusioned Brits all who were facing a similar challenge to us. The start area provided some relief as we met the wonderful Elizabeth Model again (she needs only 3 more IM races to join an exclusive club of 3 men who have finished all the 56? IM races in the world)-her other half,the famous John Wragg, has completed well over 200 races!!!) Elizabeth is an absolute joy of a person and she spread positive cheer to all around.
Our time came to enter the water and we had to drop off a pier. I sank so deep into the water I feared never surfacing again and Liz, who was alongside me, got stuck under the pier.! We were then water bombed by following racers as they entered the fray. We had decided that given the hot weather and given we had trained together, we would face the Ironman challenge as a team. Not to cheat in any way but to support and care for each other just in case the heat was too much. As the swim progressed I was to have a ring side seat at a macabre dance. The water was inky black and we soon reverted to our worst swimming style and generally floundered along. In truth Liz has had many swimming demons over the years to deal with, as many others have, but as I mentioned above she was well prepared for the swim as she was comfortably recording swim times of 90 minutes for the 4 km distance-in a wetsuit of course. The first lap of the course took us nearly an hour and with the second leg slightly longer the prospect of not finishing began to dawn. Liz absolutely refused to give up and my admiration for her spirit was coupled with the sad realisation we would not finish ahead of the cut off time. Soon we had an escort as we were right on the limit for the cut off. The time remaining was read out to us and we were surrounded by a flotilla of canoes and the race umpire who was on a jet ski. This jet ski was most annoying as it belched out black smoke and from time to time its pilot would jet off enabling us to imbibe some of the black water as he created unwanted waves. With six hundred metres to go we got the bad news,6 minutes left. Still Liz refused to give in until, with perhaps a hundred meters to go, she decided to avail herself of the rescue boat and ‘enjoy’ a ride in. I joined her and we came ashore. We then suffered a further ignominy as our swim hats were removed and taken away. Thankfully I have benefitted a lot from Ellie Dominey’s efforts to improve my colloquial French. As a result I was able to fully express my sentiments to the marshal who triumphantly seized my cap.I encouraged him to put the thing somewhere personal- I fear I may soon receive a lifetime ban!
There were tears of course but as we walked along the jetty, the lovely Down family were there to welcome us. Some quiet words from Jane will stay in my heart for ever. We then went to the bike park and joined a rapidly growing party. A party we would never choose to be at. We were mostly Brits at this party, many were openly crying. A man from Jersey listed the amount of money he had spent on the adventure -his detail was remarkable. An Irish man sobbed in Liz’s arms and various others just wandered around with blank stares on their faces. The array of beautiful bikes, hanging redundant from their racks, were strangely reassuring but also achingly sad. We were the ‘failures’.
I spent most of the day in relative silence,for me anyway, as I tried to rationalise events. Nigel Down was superb as he provided all the support I could need. “Why on earth in many other Ironman races do they allow wetsuits for those taking part with a temperature up to 28 degrees.(apart from the professional racers and relay teams) with the proviso that wearing a wetsuit in warm water precludes entry to Kona?Yet here they were banned to all? For all those in our ‘failures party’ Kona is not remotely realistic anyway. Unfortunately the French organisers,for all their wonderful attributes, did not seem to get this fact. Interestingly after the longest swim Liz and I have ever had Liz was shivering uncontrollably when the end came.

Now before you reach for your handkerchiefs there is a happy end to the tale. Of course we had Helen and her ‘boys’ to cheer on but we also had a very special person to support. I will not repeat Matt Collin’s story here but he is a man who we both hold dear to our hearts. When Matt announced, last November in The Bowd Inn, he intended doing an Ironman race we both decided to join him. Matt could hardly swim at the time of entering the race and as we floundered in the water my deepest fear was that Matt would not have made it too, especially as he had aligned his efforts to a particular children’s cancer charity. Thankfully that was not the case and he managed his first ever triathlon race,of any sort, in a way that many could learn from. He battled through the swim, he rode as fast a bike leg as was sensible and then executed a run plan that suited his stamina and the weather conditions perfectly. The result was an almost ‘fairy story’ ending to the day and an example that even when times are dark if you hang on the light will come. Liz and I were heading to the finish line to await Matts arrival when, as luck would have it, I spotted a tall man ‘galloping’ around the approach track in the darkness. It was Matt and Liz and I sprinted to the finish area to see a wonderful sight as ‘Mathew Collins- N1 Tri Club -Great Britain – entered the floodlit arena and was hailed an ‘Ironman ‘. His victory dance was something to behold.
When failure hits it will hurt but it is time for us to “bank the experience” (thanks Rich Coleman) face up to your failings and then move forward because you cannot change what has happened and to wallow in self pity serves no purpose. We both failed because we could not swim the course distance without a wetsuit in the necessary times and we both chose to ignore the possibility that we would have to do this. Rules are rules.

We are now back home, some polite letters have been written to the Ironman organisation and I am sure my letter asking for a more consistent approach to wetsuit policy will be joined by many others. In the meantime we have both committed to learning to swim well in any conditions so you won’t see that fat pull buoy any more at swim sessions.
In the end, honestly, failure is a good thing as it makes you take a step back and evaluate your life. Triathlon is only a sport after all and Liz and I have so many things to be grateful for and we are currently counting our blessings.
For the many words of support we received thank you all. As Nigel Down so succinctly put it. ‘Ironman’ races are incredibly hard and inevitably some people fail, if only to prove the point. I am immensely proud of all N1 members who have completed Ironman races and after Sundays experiences even more so. I end this rather personal article with a salute to all of them and if you will forgive me a very special one to Matt Collins.