Chasing Kona

by Rob Cummins

  Again I got an intense a sense of the huge occasion it was, with World Champions Craig Alexander and Mirinda Carfrae in transition with all the top professionals. Television cameras and journalists were wandering around and I was trying to soak it all in. I wanted to remember every second of it. I didn’t know if I would ever get back there again so I didn't want to forget anything. Once I was sorted I headed out to Aisling and my family. The sun started to come up and the atmosphere and excitement was building. Pretty soon it was time to go to the swim start. The pro men started 30 minutes before us and the pro women were five minutes after them. Then the age group race people started to enter the water.

  I waited till about seven or eight minutes before the start and waded in. It was about 200 metres out to the start line and I swam easily, trying to enjoy the buzz, stopping and looking around a couple of times and still not quite believing I was swimming out to the start of the most iconic and famous triathlon in the world.

  They fired the cannon to start the race and we were off. It wasn’t as rough as some of the other races I've competed in. I was surrounded by good swimmers who were going in the right direction for the most part and I wasn’t hit or pushed around too much. I wasn’t expecting a fast time. In fact I thought it would be probably one of my slowest IM swims, as it was non-wetsuit. I settled quickly into a rhythm and got into a good group. The first half flew by and we swam around a boat at the furthest point of the course before turning back for home. I was constantly reminding myself to enjoy it. I didn’t get much time to check out the extraordinary wildlife swimming around below us because I was sighting and following feet, but every so often a flash of yellow or blue shot past, making me smile.

  Thankfully I didn't see any of the sharks Alan Ryan kept telling me were out there. I got out of the water at about 1hr 19. It was a very slow swim by Kona standards, but about where I expected to be. A slow transition followed and then out onto the bike course, passing Aisling and my parents waving Irish tricolours just at the start, which put another big grin on my face. I started conservatively, knowing how hard the bike course is reputed to be. The first couple of hours went fairly well, albeit slower than I had hoped. I wasn’t sure if it was the wind or just my legs but I didn't seem to be making my usual progress through the field. I'm used to getting out of the swim down the field and then spending the next couple of hours making my way up towards the front.

  That was not happening that day and I had to remind myself that I was competing with the best athletes from all around the world – the top of the age groups from each qualifying race. I hoped that my steady start would see me move up the field later in the day. At the climb up to Hawi we really hit the famous Hawaii winds. It was a hard swirling head and cross wind all the way up the climb, but I was starting to move better getting through the field and I was feeling good. After the turnaround in Hawi it was a wild ride back down to the Queen K Highway with a mixture of screaming tailwinds, switching to harsh crosswinds without warning, which pushed me wildly off line several times on the descent, each time causing a massive blast of adrenaline to course through me.

  I was still moving well and able to stay in the tri bars almost all the way. At that stage I started thinking that if I was lucky with the winds on the way back I would actually have a pretty decent time on the bike. I'd started out hoping for about a 5:15 bike split and at that stage it looked like I would be ahead of that. I had reached the 90k mark in just over 2:30. When we got back to the Queen K we turned into a wall of wind and I quickly readjusted my time expectations. The wind was in our faces relentlessly the whole way back and it kept getting hotter and hotter.

  My legs were really hurting and I started to fade. I realised I was going to be on the bike for maybe 5:30 and then 5:40. I dug in harder but I started to lose places. I felt like I was going backwards. The wind and heat was harder than I had ever experienced. Everyone had talked about how hard Kona is and I was learning first hand what they meant.

  I tried not to get too worried and reminded myself that everyone had the same conditions to deal with. I focussed on enjoying the experience. I reminded myself that it was not every day I rode my bike in Hawaii. Aisling and my parents were again waving the flag and cheering as I came into the last couple of hundred metres and into T2.

  After a quicker second transition I headed out onto the run, in boiling heat, with very heavy legs. I had decided the day before to run with a bottle belt for the marathon, but after less than a kilometre I took it off and threw it to my parents after Palani Hill. It took another kilometre before my legs settled and I started to feel good. I moved past people steadily for the first 10k and I was exactly on my target pace. I had decided to start a little slower than I would usually run an Ironman marathon because I was worried about how I would handle the heat. Just after the 11k mark however, I started overheating and slowing down. I told myself not to panic, reassuring myself that I was (sort of) still moving My pace settled at about six minutes a kilometre, a good minute slower than I'd started out at but still an acceptable pace. I felt I could maintain that speed for as long as it would take. I'd had bad patches in the middle of marathons before and I’d recovered so I felt that if I was careful my legs would come right again.

  Heading back into town I knew Aisling would be on the hill at Palani and I planned on stopping and giving her a big sweaty kiss on the way. I knew at this stage that my time was going to be very slow, so I was determined to enjoy it all as much as possible. Kisses done, I high-fived my way all the way up Palani, with great support from the huge crowds and I loved every minute of it. At the top we turned onto the Queen K for the second time that day. We then had 26k of running ahead of us. It only took another mile for things to go very wrong for me and I was reduced to walking the aid stations to fill my hat with ice and take on water and the occasional banana or gel. The end of each aid station was torture in terms of getting going again, but the thought of being out all night kept me running, albeit very slowly.

  I was constantly being passed by people in their fifties and sixties. They were very fit-looking 60- year-olds, but still twenty years older than me all the same, which was unbelievably humbling. In the last year I had got myself into the best shape of my life by a long way and there I was falling apart in what was supposed to be my strongest part of the race. Not only was the marathon in particular – but to be honest the whole day – a very humbling experience. I felt like a complete beginner – just like I did at my first Ironman.

  I could not believe how hard the race was and how far down the field I was lying. And not just then when I felt like I was falling apart, but also getting out of the swim and seeing more than half of the bikes gone from transition. I didn’t get much further up the field on the bike and to top it off I was fading out on the run like I hadn't done in years.

  The heat was savage. I filled my hat with ice at every aid station, giving myself an ice cream headache and still it melted way before I got to the next aid station. I repeated the process, threw cups of water over myself and stuffed sponges down the back of my Tri-suit and I was still roasting. It was so hard to keep on running and I still kept telling myself to enjoy it. I would not allow my head to drop or to feel sorry for myself. I asked to be in Kona and there were thousands of people who would have swapped places in an instant, so I didn't allow myself to do anything except to soak it in and try to hang on to as many memories as I could.

  At about five miles to go I decided I was going to run all the way, with no more walking in the aid stations and I was going to run it well. I tried to pick up the pace, holding it for about a half-a - mile and then started to slip. But I dug in again and again and the next thing I knew I was at the top of Palani with a blessed downhill and only one mile to go. I picked up the pace before telling myself to run steady. It'll all be over in a couple of minutes I told myself and I wanted to enjoy the last bit.

  The time was meaningless at that stage so I continued to soak in the atmosphere. People were c
heering and high-fiving all the way in. I couldn’y stop smiling. I stopped to kiss Aisling on the way into the finishing chute and took the Irish flag for the best finish line I've ever experienced. The finishing chute was the longest I've ever done and at the same time not nearly long enough. I wanted the feeling to go on and on. It was the first time I'd carried an Irish flag over the finish of a race and I felt a huge sense of pride. I'm very proud to be Irish, but this was the first time I felt like I earned a finish carrying our national flag – something I never thought I would ever do.

  Immediately there was a huge feeling of relief as I crossed the line. It was the first time since my first Ironman that I was afraid of not finishing – afraid of something outside of my control that would end my race early and stop me crossing that line. The pressure for the last couple of races had been in the performance, in the need to qualify. This time I knew that a lot of people were watching me at home. I’d had tons of good luck messages in previous weeks and I didn't want to let anybody down, so the overriding feeling was one of unbridled relief. There was still a part of me that was very disappointed because I was so slow, but I tried not to think about that yet, because there would be plenty of time for that later. For then I just wanted to go on enjoying that wonderful feeling of being in Kona.

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  Chapter 24

  Becoming an athlete

  Before I’d ever taken part in an Ironman, one of the big attractions for me was hearing the many stories describing how it had changed people’s lives. For years I’d imagined that when I crossed that line I’d realise a life-changing epiphany – a moment when I would experience a deep life-enhancing revelation.

  Of course that didn’t happen on the day I crossed my first Ironman finish line in Nice, back in 2008. Ironman isn't magic, it doesn't change you fundamentally in a single moment.

  That single moment running down that finishing chute was and still remains with me as one of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever enjoyed. There weren't any angels hovering around my head whispering the secrets of the universe. Instead, as soon as I crossed the line and stopped moving, a blackness started to descend and slowly and gracelessly I crumpled to the ground.

  After I was brought to the medical tent and placed on a fold-out bed with a drip in my arm, I still looked skyward in anticipation, waiting for a flash of something . . . anything.

  But that sign failed to materialise, at least not right then. Lying there in the makeshift medical centre I felt a mixture of elation at finishing an event that on the start line I thought might be an impossible task, while there was also a feeling of disappointment that I hadn't found that moment of epiphany. So I hadn't felt a life-changing sensation after all. Having heard all the stories about Ironman changing the lives of people I felt a little cheated then, and if I’m honest about it, that soured the experience for me just the tiniest bit.

  It was about a week later when I had given up on having any sort of flash of insight into the meaning of life or the universe that it suddenly hit me. I realised that it wasn't the moment of crossing the finish line of my first Ironman that was the life-changing part. It was the six months of being an athlete leading up to it.

  I’d only discovered sport in my late twenties after being a chronically unfit and heavy smoker all of my teenage and adult life. Now, for the first time despite the fact that I had finished in the last 20% of the field, I felt like an athlete. It was the discovery that I loved the discipline required to fit in all the training and that I loved the feeling and lifestyle of being an athlete. That was the life-changing moment for me.

  I made the same assumption years later when I started trying to qualify for Kona – the assumption that I was chasing a moment, a feeling or an epiphany. And again I learned that what I was chasing wasn't a second in time, but a process and an adaptation. For me to take part in Kona I needed to become what I thought of as being a Kona person. I needed to learn how to live the lifestyle of a Kona qualifier. It wasn't just that I had to train more. It was learning how to run a business while training almost full time. It was learning how to find the balance of family and Ironman, while training like a semi-professional athlete.

  It wasn't any one single change. When I qualified and then completed the race in Kona (a very similar experience to my first Ironman) there was no moment of revelation as I crossed the finish line. There was just a feeling of deep gratitude that I’d made it, a sense of pride at what we’d accomplished together and the desire to come back and do it better.

  Qualifying for Kona for me wasn't an event or a moment. It was changing from being one type of athlete to being another. It was changing from being one type of person to another. It was the realisation that with enough hard work, support and time we may achieve seemingly impossible goals. In many ways getting to Kona for the first time was only the start of my personal journey.

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  Free Book

  I write a twice weekly blog about Ironman racing, training, lessons I’ve learned as a coach and athlete and what I’m up to with my regular training diary. You can check it all out here

  I’ve also written a mini book which examines how Ireland, a country where triathlon is a fringe sport and Ironman is an even tinier proportion of that population managed to produce some of the best Ironman athletes in the world.

  It’s the story of seven Ironman athletes who between them currently have over 80 Kona slots and two Kona podium finishes not to mention dozens of podium finishes at qualifying Ironman races around the world.

  You can download it FREE by going here

  If you're feeling motivated to get out and train you can check out some of my favourite swim, bike and run workouts here

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