I want to be an IRONMAN !

Sunday 25th of March 2012 was the day a seed was planted in head. That seed is to grow into making me an IRONMAN ! 

Our adventure to Ironman Melbourne 2012 all started the day of our 100km treadmill team world record attempt up at Shift60 gym in Bondi. We had just smashed the record and raised much need funds for the Kids Foundation. After the event I was chatting to a lady from the Kids foundation named Susie. Susie is an IRONWOMAN herself and was telling me all about her experiences in these crazy races that can last up to 17 hours. She mention that her foundation received an entry into the teams section for this years Melbourne Ironman and asked if we would like put a team in with myself doing the Marathon run leg, yes all 42.2 Kilometers of it. I was hesitant at the time as I had only ever ran one before on the Gold Coast and swore black and blue I'd never do it again. With only about a month to prepare and after chatting with Adrial "Bacon" Young (swim) and Clint "Clipper" Kimmins (bike) we decided we'd do it. What had I gotten myself into?!

To prepare in total I think I ran about 100km over 2 weeks. It probably wasn't the best preparation but all I could think was "hey, if there will be people doing all 3 legs on their own, surely I can get through a marathon by myself".

Biggest run before the marathon was 30km Many-Bondi with V

Another training run. 16km

Before I knew it, Saturday the 24th of March had arrived and we were down in Melboure getting ready to race the next day. There was another motivator in Team KIDS Fdn's race as another lifeguard team from Bondi was entered as Team Ironman Aus. Now as most of you know we are quite the competitive type and neither wanted to lose! The other team, made up of some very athletically talented lifeguards was  Ryan "Whippet" Clark (swim) Greg "Bisho" Bishop (bike) and Gavin "Bagas" Stevenson (run) and they wanted to beat us as bad as we wanted to beat them but it was all friendly of course. 

After a huge carbohydrate loading session together for dinner we said our goodnights to each other and went to bed knowing at some point the next day we were each going to be in "THE HURT LOCKER" !


It was a 4:00am when we woke on Sunday morning which is never nice but the weather was perfect for IRONMAN racing with no wind and cool temperatures. We packed the car and left our hotel in St Kilda and headed 40km south to the sleepy little town of Frankston where the IRONMAN race was to start at 7:00am. Once there Bisho and Clipper made some last minute adjustments to their very expensive bikes and we headed down to the water to see the start of the race and wish Whippet and Bacon luck in their 3.8km swim in a dark and Murky Port Phillip bay.

About 16 million $ worth of bikes here...

Final bike adjustments

Whippet and Bacon, ready to swim.

Swimmers setting off in the dark.

With very minimal training, Whippet, being the freak of nature he is in the water came out of the swim in (49:03) just in front of Bacon by about 1min & 45sec. He went so hard he actually vomited as he ran up the beach but that kind of determination from both of them for their teams set the standard for how we were going to race for the rest of the day.

Bacon gassed..

After a very quick change over by both teams, Bisho and Clipper were on their way to hell (so to speak). They had 180km of road ahead of them and 2 team mates each that wanted them back first.

Clipper and Bisho, ready to roll...

Timing chip change over.

Lets go Clipper...

Clipper is a former pro surfer, Gold Coast lifeguard and now an IRONMAN in the making. He has been training very hard and is set to do his own full IRONMAN in a few months time up in Cairns so he was always going to have an advantage over Bisho as he had only trained about 8 times on the bike due to work and other commitments. Although you can never... ever underestimate someone with Bisho's athletic ability.

The bike riders were hammering along.

The turn around point before heading out for another 90km

Clipper came in after about 4hours and 57mins of pedalling his guts out and passed the timing chip off onto me with Bisho coming in only 44mins behind him sending Bagas on the hunt to run me down.

Bacon decided to try and throw Bagas off his game by interrupting his nap before his run. I thought it was funny :)

One of my motivators..

So here I was, running my second ever marathon. I was a little nervous and even more excited, but mentally ready. I did my first kilometre in 4:11. Way to fast ! In my only other marathon I underestimated the distance and just crumbled around the 35km mark from going out to hard so there was no way I was going to let that happen to me again and pulled back a little. Not to much though as I know Bagas is a good runner and I wanted to win this one for my team. I ran the next 36km at an average of 4:29 per km and felt really good. The whole course was fantastic, quite flat for the first 20km with some slight hills in the last 22km. There was aid stations at every 2km and crowds cheering you on every time you looked up and needed motivating. Around the 36km mark another teams runner came up behind me and we ran together for the last 6km, pushing each other harder and faster with every km. His name was Rob and he was a very good runner, I knew it was going to come down to a sprint finish. Once I could see the finish line about 1km away I remembered why I was there. To raise awareness for the Kids foundation and do my best for my team so I just took off and went for it. I could hear Rob's feet, he was staying with me. He was right on my tail for at least the next 500m so I kept on pushing myself until I couldn't hear him anymore. I ran that last km in 3:47 and crossed the line with my teammates Clipper and Bacon in an overall time of 8 hours and 57 minutes. We were so stoked and ended up 4th in the open mens team. I couldn't feel the pain from my run just yet, I was to excited from smashing my first marathon time of 3:18 by 10mins and running a 3:08. Bagas came in not long after me and also crossed the line with his teammates with a personal best marathon time of 3:35. It was especially a great effort from Bagas as his training was also minimal because of his wedding 2 weeks prior to the race. There were smiles all round from both teams as everyone had given their best for each other. We were all 1/3 of an IRONMEN and proud of it !

14km out and the white pins are feeling good. Thanks for the pic @Kelscha

My Garmin stats

The course

Bagas was Happy but Sore !

Being the blokes we are, we all had a thirst for a well deserved beer after a big day. We raced back to our hotel, had a hot shower, donned some fresh threads and headed back to the finish line to talk story and be inspired by the other athletes that had already finished and to watch others finish. We even got the honour of catching some of the athletes with IRONMAN towels as they finished, it really was amazing!

Well deserved beers

Bacon met his hero, Greg Welsh. 5 x World IRONMAN champ

One on the many legend solo finishers

IRONMAN is one of the greatest experiences of my life. The men and women that do these races solo are all my heroes. It doesn't matter if you're a professional like Craig Alexander winning in a time of 7:57 or you're just an average Joe or Jane finishing in the dark in a time of 16:50 you are a true champion to me. They put their bodies through hell and come out legends and I am in awe of you all.


My next goal is to be back there next year doing it solo. I want to be one of them. I want to join that elite club of legends.

My little IRONMAN buddy...

IRONMAN, I will be back...


Reidy :)