I was looking forward to this big result for the last 7 years and now I have achieved it. One of my biggest dreams in sport has always been a slot at the Kona Hawaii Ironman World Championships. On Sunday 28th July at Ironman Zurich I set myself a target which I have been planning for the last 9 months. It had to be now or never! This was my 7th Ironman .
I started strong with a good non-wetsuit swim. The hot conditions changed a bit my plan. I like swimming with a wetsuit, and having invested in a HUUB wetsuit in the last year it made a big difference to my swimming. Unfortunately I could not make use of this piece of equipment but HUUB was still present - I used the HUUB speedsuit which did a fabulous job! Starting the swim at a very strong pace I found myself in a good position in front and from what I could say well ahead from my usual schedule. Did the non-wetsuit swim favour stronger swimmers I thought? Must have done! Coming out for the Australian exit I over took another two athletes and pushed my way to catch the group in front. In the end I finished the 3.8k swim in 1hr 02mins. I made my way to the changing tent and had a quick change over and was out on the course in less then 3mins.
Onto the bike it was a question of pacing and not to push the pace. Thanks to Johanna who worked out my nutrition I know exactly what and when to eat and drink, and later into the race the proved to be a great tool. We had 2 laps on the Zurich course which I thought was reasonably fast... NOT. Four really hard hills on the course made it hard to keep a good average speed & the heat was not helping at all. I made sure to keep my salts topped up to avoid dehydration and I set out on the first lap planning to keep it relaxed as much as possible. This worked out as I had more in the tank in the second lap and managed to keep quite even laps. I finished the 180k bike segment in 5hrs 16mins. With another fast transition I set out onto the marathon course at a very conservative pace.
My original plan was to go for a 3hrs 10mins marathon. My training had showed such times but when I realised that the temperature was around 38 degrees I realised immediately that it was going to be a suicide plan to set out at that pace. I settled for a 4mins 45sec per km pace and make sure I kept throwing water on me in every feed station to keep my body temperature low. At times I also put ice in my running cap and kit. It was a completely different experience from my other six ironman but surely experience was a key factor.
Though while racing I was far from satisfied with my pace and splits I kept pushing all the way. Deep down I knew this was going to be my last Ironman so I wanted to finish it strong. In the end my time was 9hrs 51mins with a 49th overall placing out of 2600 participants and 9th in my age group.
It was such a special moment when the day after the race they called my name at the Kona-Slots presentation. I cannot describe the feeling. When you work so hard to achieve a target, and I must say that at times this target was becoming close to a bit of an obsession, and it finally arrives all I could do was scream... and so did the other six supporters in the room. We screamed, shouted, hugged each other, made a big show but we were all happy. Happy that I finally made it, happy that the first Maltese will at last go to Kona to represent Malta, Happy that a long journey is finally over.
Thanks to Johanna for her patience and support, its hard to find someone like her that really believes in you and supports you all along, even when at times training took over other important things. Thank-you to my parents for their support, my brother Keith for training with me, my Ironman Training partner Barry who also made history being the first AFM athlete to do an Ironman and his partner Nicoletta for her support on race day. Finally my great friends from the UK who drove all the way to Zurich just to support me, Bill, Pam and Sophie. Also thanks to Malta Triathlon and my club B'kara St. Joseph.
I now hope I get some help to get to through this last journey to Kona. I will give it my best shot at the Ironman Worlds on Saturday 12th October and then the rest will be history ........
