Andrew Felton's Ironman New Zealand Story
Ironman New Zealand 2009
| by Andrew Felton |
| My obsession with fitness and triathlons first started back in 2006 when I was asked to go to Curtis Island and train with “Chopper”. I heard stories about him about how he was a hard task master and was always trying to get the best out of you. I went over there thinking I had a certain amount of fitness and how wrong I was! I struggled for 4 days and on the Saturday night I made a vow to get fit and back into triathlons. I had run triathlons during high school, when triathlons were first popular. I was given my first bike and competed in my first triathlon in a team event and set myself a goal of riding 40km under 70 mins. Which surprisingly I did! I then joined the triathlon club where the Saturday morning rides became the norm and morning runs and afternoon swims with friends were the norm. After many triathlons, duathlons, thousands of laps in the pool, approximately 8000km riding and hundreds of kilometres of pounding the pavement, a close friend of mine who had done 8 Ironman marathons, put an idea into my head, I should give an Ironman marathon a go. From worrying whether or not I could do it, I started training after getting a program that involves training for an Ironman marathon. I set myself a goal, that if I could run a half marathon under 2 hours I would sign up and on the 15th December, I did just that. That night I applied to enter Ironman New Zealand and was accepted. On Monday morning my first training run for Ironman started. I have a very understanding wife who after seeing me complete, lose weight and realised the enjoyment I got out of competing, even though I wasn’t the best. She supported me and she also got involved with my training plan. Our 2 daughters also got a lot of enjoyment out of training as we had a bike trailer that converted into a running stroller, and that helped out heaps. They also enjoyed watching dad compete on the weekends. The swims started getting longer, the bike rides longer and so did the runs on Saturday mornings. One mid January morning, while out running with the road runners, I felt a twinge in my left calf and straight away I started stressing! I went to the sports physio on Monday and put it down to soleus muscle strain. It didn’t affect my swimming or riding, so for 2 weeks I did no running and then tried it again. I ran for 14kms and felt it twinge again. I was pretty upset and the guys I ran with recommended I go and see another doctor who specialises in sports injuries and found I slightly over pronated on my left foot. I went into the podiatrist and had inner soles fitted and the problem was fixed. I didn’t do any more big runs, but I wore the inner soles in by doing 8km runs. As the 7th March got closer, so did my stress level. I was thinking to myself; “have I done enough training, is my nutrition for the bike and run right and can I actually do it?” Three weeks before the race, and after being cooped up inside with the indoor trainer, I thought I’d do one more big ride with the Tri Club. Big mistake! There were 9 of us out on the back roads, when a woman coming the opposite way didn’t see us and caused me to come off my bike. After yelling out abuse and dusting myself off, I continued on with pain in my wrist which caused me a bit of discomfort. Finally, Tuesday 3rd March arrived and I left Australia and landed in Auckland where we travelled down to Lake Taupo. First impressions were how picturesque it was and it was cool which coming from Mackay’s summer, I wasn’t used to. Going over the course on Wednesday, I realised that I was actually going to compete in an Ironman marathon. We took it easy on Thursday and went to the Fitness Expo and bought some warm gear for the weekend. Thursday night we had the “Carbo” party where we sat down and ate with all the other competitors and met some truly inspiring people. Two competitors from New Zealand, who had done all 25 NZ Ironman marathons, and the guy from USA who had completed in 107 Ironman marathons! The pros got all the first timers to stand up, and that stirred me up a bit. On Friday we took it easy and put all our designated gear bags for each transition and admired the professional bikes and generally took it easy. We had an early dinner and went to bed ready for the big day. We got up at 4.30am and made the 1km trek down to the swim start where it was a hype of activity with people getting bikes ready, putting wetsuits on and making sure everything was right. We made sure all of our gear was right and headed down to the start. I started packing death with the sea of people already out in the water and the New Zealand Maoris’ doing the “Haka” out in the water. It truly was a moment in my life that I will never forget. First the professionals started and they looked like they had outboard motors attached to them as they went off into the distance. Next it was my turn as the countdown lights started and then the cannon went off to start the day. I had thought about everything that I had done over the past months and everyone else back in Australia, who were fast asleep as it was only 4.00am. For a minute I thought I wished I was back there! I only got hit once during the swim and I really enjoyed it. You could already hear the helicopters and see the boats moving around you. I got out of the water and ran up to the transition were thousands of people greeted you as you left the water. I took a bit of time in the transition to bike, as I knew it was going to be a long day. I made sure all my gear was right and put lots of chaffing cream on, and I was off! 108kms is a long way. Along that course I met heaps of great people who were all after the same goal. To finish the race! I had 4 seasons in one day on the bike. First the weather was cold, then it started raining. Then it got really warm. Coming back into town the first time it was like I was in a blast freezer with the wind whipping up off the lake. I was thankful I bought a pair of arm warmers. After the second lap, I came back through town where the crowd was going nuts, cheering us on and spurring us to keep going. I was still feeling really good at this time and I came into transition where I had 2 assistants; Chelsea and Nat, to help me out. Two disciplines done, 1 to go. As I completed the first 2km there were the first of the professionals coming into the finish. I tried not to think of them, just the job and hand. The first 6km was very uneventful, where I just got into my rhythm and I caught up to a guy named “Steve”, who was running at the same tempo as me. For the next 16km we ran together talking about everything. We got to the 21km turnaround and he couldn’t continue as he ran into problems. It was a bit sad, as I had run with him for so long. The last 13km seemed to drag on for ages and once I got to 9km, I couldn’t run any longer. I walked the last 8km as I was stuffed, but I didn’t want to walk the last 1k, so with all the people cheering me on and everyone else who was finishing, we were spurring each other on. I came round the final corner with Mike Rile, calling out “Andrew Felton from Mackay Australia – you are an Ironman”. It was the greatest feeling in the world! |
