Namibian Viking

You are an Ironman

Those were the words that I had so longed to hear… And last weekend, after 14 hours and 17 minutes I had taken the step across the finish line. I lifted my arms in the sky and thought “Thank god that it is over”. It had been a tall order to summon enough strength to finish the race only two weeks after finishing the Al Andalus 250km.

Once again Ben and I had gone away and repeated what we did in June for the half-Ironman. Well not completely, Ben had for example forgot to take any extra shoes with him, so after 3pm on the Saturday Ben had no longer any shoes and had to walk around the muddy fields in two plastic bags! Much to the amusement of everyone around. It kind of looked as if he had gaiters and was training for Marathon des Sables!

at 4.10am I was up, heating some water to start breakfast and before we know it we are walking down toward the lake at 5.30. The first couple of strokes in the water feels good and I settle in amongst the back, I guess it adds 100m to my race, but dont want the panic I felt in the half-Ironman. 6.10am and we are off. I settle in to my own rhythm as athlete after athlete seems to pass me. 25min in to the race and I am really worried about the time, will I be able to make it. Another 15min and I am pretty sure I will make it. I spend the rest of the swim calculating how many minutes I have left, how big proportion of the swim I have done, trying to estimate my swim time etc etc. The basic maths is keeping me busy, but is proving difficult. I get out of the water after 1h 41minutes, I am so happy I made it through the swim! As I try to stand up a volunteer helps me, as he lets go of his hands I fall flat on my back straight back into the lake, I hope they didnt get that on camera *smile*.

The long up hill to transition I cover mostly walking. On the bike and the chill of the morning air is there to remind us what is ahead. I have only ever cycled half the distance (90km) and to have 180km ahead of me seems a lot. I settle into a rhythm and before I know it I am at the big climb. About 15min later the downhill bit start. The profile showed a big climb at the start of each of the three laps and I have done the first. This first lap I am taking it very cautiously, since we have not ridden the lap, and I want to conserve energy. I am surprised how much uphill there is towards the end of the lap though!

Up the big hill again and I am doing well. However on the downhill I start to loose focus. I can feel how I cannot really concentrate and my vision is a bit blurry. I try to eat and drink, but a couple of times I wobble so much I nearly come off the bike. To add to this my left knee starts to give me bad pain. Have I started the race too early? Was my body not ready for this, so soon after Spain?

For the rest of the bike I struggle mentally. On one hand I feel that I have proven enough to just stop and not complete the event. However the other side of my brain just want to be an Ironman and complete the race. But no one would blame me if I stop, one half of my brain says. The other responds that I should push on and prove that I can go through it. This debate goes on and on for the next 5 hours. This has been my longest mental battle to date, but I stay on the bike and after 7 hours and 21 minutes my feet touches ground again and I almost loose my balance again!

After a quick transition I am on my feet. The knees hurt badly now and I cannot run. “Keep going, keep going” the crowd shouts (“as if I am about to stop now”! I want to shout back!). Slow slow steps, slightly faster then walking and I start to distance myself from the transition area. I figure I would make the race now, but it could be a long long marathon ahead if I cannot pick up the pace…

Eventually I can start to pick up my pace and start to overtake people again. However it took about an hour or so before I was able to jog again. I see Ben and that picks me up. For the next hour or so I try to figure out how much ahead he is. I end up thinking he is between 2 hours and 2 and a half ahead of me. Even the simplest of mathematical tasks are now difficult to complete. The checkpoints are quite frequent, but none of them have the pretzels that the first checkpoint had. I am dying for them now and am longing to get back to the turn-around point where checkpoint 1 is so that I can get some more. It is difficult to explain the pain and the damage the run does to you. Mentally it is such a battle to keep pushing rather then to let go and just walk the rest of the race. Every part of my body wants to stop, but I keep pushing. In the end I get to the pretzels and I empty a big cup of water so that I can stock up on pretzels for the last 12-14km.

The last 10km goes quickly and before I know it (or at least so I remember it) I am in the final lap of the park just outside the finish. I push on and overtake some more people and 400 meters from the end I see that I might be able to reach two more guys, but rather then stealing their thunder, I decide to sit back and give them 100m or so to finish on their own. Instead I have the red carpet to myself and the Bolton crown is screaming as I run the final steps. And as I cross the finish line there is the famous “Joakim – You are an Ironman”.

I had waited so long and it was such a battle. After 4 hours and 55 minutes I finish the marathon and can celebrate that I made it. It was hard and I had to fight the whole way. The feeling is of pure joy and I take such pride in the fact that I didnt step down, instead I pushed on and got my reward.

I will always remember those famous words “Joakim – you are an Ironman”.