Heart of a Champion

by Patrick Lindsay

  Greg had begun to recognise that he had some rare abilities. He could surge when he was already running in an anaerobic state—where his body was going into oxygen debt. He had the ability to kick into overdrive. He knew most people didn’t have that capacity. More importantly, he learnt that he could drop his heart rate back down again. He looked at the studies being conducted at the time. They concluded that, during the course of a 10-km (6.2-mile) run, an athlete in peak fitness could surge for about 7 seconds above his anaerobic zone and then drop back into it again. Greg could do this about six times during the course of the race and then, about a minute later, fully recover and be back in his aerobic zone. That meant that in a 10-km race, if Greg was running at a 30-minute pace—that is, 3 minutes per kilometre—then for surges of 7 seconds he could probably speed up to a pace of 2 minutes 45 seconds per kilometre, and still recover again. It was a potent weapon in a race. It gave Greg the ability to shake off his competitors—or break their spirit.

  GREG DECIDED TO FURTHER BROADEN HIS HORIZONS by competing in Europe. He was the reigning Short-Course Champion and had received many invitations to race there. More importantly, he was starting to receive worthwhile appearance fees. He accepted invitations to race in France and Germany. He was especially keen to try out the course in Nuremberg, as it was the venue for the following year’s World titles.

  Once there, Greg was disappointed to find that, because of pollution and the cold, the organisers had to drop the swim leg and turn the race into a duathlon, with the bike and run legs contested mainly over cobblestone roads. He won the race, but the battering his light-weight bike took on the road had almost disastrous consequences the following week.

  The problem surfaced in Nice, on a massive course—a 4-km (2.5-mile) swim, 120-km (74.6-mile) bike and 32-km (19.9-mile) run—through the hills above the Côte d’Azur. Greg was already feeling the benefit of his Colorado mountain training. On the bike, coming down an enormous hill, he was on level pegging with Dave Scott. ‘We were on a 90-kph (56-mph) descent and suddenly my front wheel started popping spokes. Bing, bing, bing, bing—four spokes off! I started getting the death wobbles alongside a half-metre retaining wall that overhung a 500-m (1640-ft) drop. I had a disc wheel on the back so I hit the rear brakes. It took me 300 m (328 yd) to stop. I left rubber on the road all that way. It was super scary. I had to pull out of that race, but I was unbelievably lucky I didn’t crash.’

  The scheduling of the 1991 World Olympic-distance Triathlon Championships for 13 October meant that Greg had to choose between contesting them or continuing his quest for the Hawaiian Ironman title on 19 October. Greg chose Hawaii.

  However, he began to doubt his choice as soon as he looked out the plane window on the final approach to Kona. The white caps on Kailua Bay and the mirage caused by the heat rising from the lava fields told him that the Big Island was preparing to use her most potent weapons against those who dared to challenge her. The dreaded ho’o mumuku winds would play havoc with the riders, and the searing heat would test every competitor’s inner resolve.

  From the gun off Kalakeakua Beach, the pace in the leading pack pushed Greg out of his comfort zone. He knew immediately he would have to swim faster than he had ever swum before, just to stay on the pace. Sure enough, he came out of the water in 51 minutes 2 seconds, his fastest swim at Kona and just 45 seconds behind Mark Allen and 3 minutes behind American Rob Mackle and German Wolfgang Dittrich. For once, Greg had a poor changeover to the bike and he surrendered more time to Allen and the leaders. He was passed by Pauli Kiuru of Finland, who came out of the water a few seconds behind him. Once on the bike, Greg felt strong and set about making up the lost time. He caught Kiuru and Allen about 40 km (24.9 miles) into the ride. Mackle had to pull out after two flat tyres and a disastrous wheel change. Dittrich powered through the lava fields on his own and tried to set a lead that would give him a chance to hold off the others on the run. But he began to fade, and around the 140 km (87 miles) mark, his lead had been cut back to a little over 2 minutes. Renowned cyclist Jurgen Zack rode into second place shortly afterwards, with Greg and Mark Allen in third and fourth, respectively, followed by Ken Glah and Jeff Devlin.

  There was a bit of Aussie larrikinism at the last aid station on that year’s bike ride. Mick Maroney, John and Tony Southwell and a bunch of Greg’s mates had volunteered to help out at the aid station. It was between the airport and town, where it’s pretty desolate and the riders are lonely. When Greg reached it on the bike, he was leading the race with Mark Allen on his wheel. Greg was hunched down, riding his new prototype Zipp bike—never before seen at Ironman—and looking good. When he looked up he thought he was hallucinating. His mates were there, ready to hand out drinks, but their pants were around their ankles!

  ‘You’ve got the two guys leading the race, TV cameras capturing all the action, and then all of a sudden we hit this aid station, and I hear, “Plucky, Gatorade!”, and their arses are hanging out. There was Mark, sitting on his handlebars, smiling and laughing and I thought, “I’ve cracked him.”’

  Greg and Allen chuckled and came in off the bike together. Greg had the better transition and led up the hill and along Ali’i Drive, but Allen dug deep and stayed with him.

  When Greg took the lead, he became the first Australian ever to lead the famous race. But around 21 km (13 miles) he fell into a hole. He was hit badly by cramps and was forced to walk them off. He recovered a few kilometres later once he was able to pick up his ‘special needs’ bag, the personal bag each athlete is allowed to leave at the designated aid station. Greg had packed his bag full of his favourite lollies and glucose. ‘I started to feel a bit better after that. Jeff Devlin passed me while I was standing still and I thought, “You’d better pull yourself together, son.” After the turnaround, I regained my rhythm and ran a lot better. I passed Devlin and chased after Mark Allen but I’d given him too much of a lead.’

  Greg cut Allen’s lead to 3 minutes, but over the closing stages, Allen kicked again and beat Greg home by about 6 minutes. Greg’s second place was the best ever result by a non-American. He came away knowing he had the ability to win the Ironman, but realising there was something missing—that tiny edge that separates a champion from the rest. He was beginning to understand that the edge came from self-belief but he also knew that understanding that fact, and doing something about it, were two different things.

  MEANWHILE, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GREG AND SIAN had developed. Greg next saw Sian in 1992 at the Orange County Triathlon, where they both competed. Sian’s parents came down to watch her. They were delighted when Greg won the race and they warmly congratulated him afterwards. On the way home to LA, Sian’s parents told her how concerned they were at her apparent unhappiness. By the time they arrived home, Vince had convinced his daughter she should take some time out and have some fun to break the cycle. He suggested she ring Mickey and Greg, and go down to San Diego for a few days.

  By the time Sian made it to San Diego, Greg and Mickey had adjourned to the Red Onion nightspot, where a big dance party was raging. It was around 9, and after a few drinks Greg and Mickey were setting the dance floor alight. Mickey was dancing with his girlfriend Trish, and Greg with Amy, an old friend.

  ‘I noticed Sian out of the corner of my eye and she was just staring at me. And soon I was just staring at her, though I was still dancing with Amy. I went over and chatted to her for most of the night. She stayed with friends and then returned home.’

  Some months later, Sian and Chip’s relationship broke up and she moved to San Diego, where she joined two girlfriends in a cramped one-bedroom apartment. Shortly after arriving, Sian ran into Mickey Morera and told him her story over coffee.

  ‘I told Mickey all my sorrows and he said, “Sian, I know the perfect person for you.” I told him that the last thing I needed was another relationship. He said, “It’s Greg.” I knew Mickey was right because I’d always had Greg in my heart, but I didn’t say anything.’

  Micke
y called Greg immediately. By then he was in Japan where he’d just won the 1992 Ironman Japan in 8 hours 7 minutes 39 seconds—at the time the fastest Ironman time by an Australian. He told Mickey that he was flying to Australia that night. He’d been invited home by the Nine Network’s Wide World of Sports team: hosts Ken Sutcliffe and Max Walker wanted to devote a large chunk of their program to Greg’s win, chatting to him in the studio and featuring his race. Then he was due back in the States for a special duathlon series in Ontario, California—a high-powered competition featuring some of the world’s best, including Kenny Souza, the world duathlon champion. After that race he was scheduled to go to Boulder in Colorado for some major altitude training prior to Hawaii 1992. But Mickey was insistent: ‘Greg, I’ve got to tell you, Sian and Chip have broken up, you need to get back here really quick. There are plenty of people lining up for Sian.’

  Greg barely had time to break off the fledgling relationship he’d been having in Australia with Kristin before he jumped on the next flight back to LA. He immediately invited Sian to dinner with Mickey and Trish. Both Sian and Greg tried to play it cool over dinner. ‘We were like two kids: I couldn’t even look at him; he couldn’t look at me. It was great. We were like 10-year-olds. We didn’t do anything that night. It was just a 5-hour stopover.’

  Greg was totally smitten. ‘We had a great time, and I was so in love with Sian, but still nothing happened. I was staying at Mickey’s place because the next day I had to drive to Ontario, a town just outside LA, for a big race against Kenny Glah and a few other guys. That next morning, Mickey and a group of other triathletes, including Sian, had arranged to meet at his place at 6 o’clock for a long bike ride. Sian got there early. She came upstairs and I was so afraid. I basically stayed under the covers because I knew something would happen between us. I think I was almost afraid that we would start dating and that would be it—marriage and everything—and I wasn’t sure whether I was ready for that right then.’

  After a chat, Sian and the others headed off on their bike ride, and Greg drove to his race. His commitment fears dissipated as soon as he left Sian. She occupied his mind both during his race and the long drive to Boulder. ‘I called her every day from Boulder and said, “I know you’re training for an Ironman, why don’t you come out here and train for a couple of weeks? See if you like it. Just so I can see you again.”’

  Unfortunately for Greg, Sian had agreed to go to England for a month for two family weddings. She flew out and Greg, in the days before email, wrote her postcards. ‘I got his cards. I returned home, and three months went by. I called him and said, “I’d love to come to train for a month before Hawaii.” I remember getting ready to get on the plane. I knew he would be on the other side to pick me up and I changed clothes ten times. I was so nervous. We never even talked about going out at all. We just both knew. He was there to pick me up and we were both, you could tell…it was seething, seething.’

  A very attentive Greg helped Sian settle in at a friend’s place and then offered to pick her up at 6.30 the next morning to take her to the pool. After breakfast he would show her the local bike and running trails. He recalls, ‘That morning at swimming training, two guys asked her out: “Hey, Sian, want to go out on a date?” I stood back and thought, “Go for your life, mate, don’t let me get in your way!” The next morning, another guy asked her out. I’m thinking, “Hang on!” That’s when I jumped in: “Sian do you want to go out tomorrow night?”’

  As it happened, the morning after Greg and Sian’s dinner date, Greg and Paula Newby-Fraser were committed to fly to San Francisco to race in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, a big deal with appearance fees and television commentary. But that was far from Greg’s mind as he squired Sian out to dinner at a romantic alfresco café on Pearl Street Mall, Boulder’s finest.

  Unfortunately, Boulder’s summer storm season interrupted the proceedings and the diners were forced to wait out the downpour in the nearby St James pub. Two beers later, Greg and Sian were pouring their hearts out to each other. The storm passed, dinner resumed, and romance blossomed. ‘Didn’t get any sleep at all that night. I had to pick up Paula at 5.30 for a 7.30 flight out of Denver. At 4.30 I went for a run.

  I never, ever run on the day before a race. I ran for an hour, like a frigging gazelle. My feet didn’t even touch the ground. I did the race, broke the course record by 7 minutes. Came back on Monday and that was it. We started dating.’

  The romantic dinner in Boulder was on 18 August 1992. It was only a few months later that Greg proposed.

  HOWEVER, DESPITE THE JOY OF BEING IN LOVE, things were not all rosy. In the altitude at Boulder, Greg had learnt a painful lesson. He had badly miscalculated the amount of rehydrating needed. In the low humidity at altitude the air was much drier than it seemed. An athlete’s recovery took much longer at altitude than at sea level and it demanded much more rehydration than usual. Greg was known as ‘the camel’ because of his ability to go for a long time without water. ‘In races, that probably made me who I was because I was very efficient. In fact, in races I’d be very good at rehydrating, but in training I’d just go and go and go.’

  Greg knew hydration was important to an athlete. He was about to find out that it could be critical. Water comprises about 60–65 per cent of an elite athlete’s body weight. Most resides in the body’s cells and is known as intracellular water. The balance, extra-cellular water, is either in the bloodstream or between the bloodstream and the cells. When an athlete sweats, he loses water from the blood first, then from the fluid bathing the cells and eventually from inside the cells. Dehydration reduces blood volume and causes the heart rate to jump as the heart tries to maintain the body’s demand for blood to supply its overworked muscles and vital organs. It leads to fatigue and overheating and, of course, it impairs performance. Tests have shown that even a drop of 1 per cent of body weight through fluid loss can impair performance.

  Training at altitude, Greg misjudged the amount of fluid he was losing and the amount he should have been drinking to replace it. Unknown to him, the problem gradually became more serious. By August, just at the time he and Sian were starting their relationship, he was experiencing mild discomfort in the stomach. By September it had worsened. ‘I passed blood but I didn’t do anything about it, and by the time I went back to San Diego I was just in excruciating pain. I was staying at Paula’s, getting ready for the 1992 Ironman, and only two weeks out I just had to go and see a doctor. He booked me in for a colonoscopy straight away and found that I had burnt a small hole in my colon—just through dehydration. After the colonoscopy, I went home, had a few days’ rest and flew to Kona and did the race.’

  In addition to the breakdown in his intestinal wall, the dehydration caused Greg to suffer severely from haemorrhoids. They required painful operations and involved subsequent major soreness, not to mention a severe case of constant mirth from his friends. And this was happening less than two weeks out from Hawaii.

  Nevertheless, and against his doctor’s advice, Greg decided to compete in Hawaii. He kidded himself that he would race but wouldn’t push himself. He took a few days off, rested completely and concentrated on making sure he was getting the best nutrition. Then he went to Kona in October 1992.

  Once there, Greg forgot all his doubts and went flat out. He had a brilliant swim, going under 50 minutes for the first time. He stayed with the leading pack on the bike and came into the changeover in fourth place. Many observers had noticed how much thinner he was than usual but, at that stage, he looked strong. Greg moved into third place, behind the ultimate winner Mark Allen and Cristian Bustos of Chile but he soon began to lose touch. Around 18 km (11.2 miles) into the run, he was struck by painful stomach cramps that brought him to a standstill. As he waited for them to subside, he was passed by Jurgen Zack and Wolfgang Dittrich. Greg ignored his pre-race resolutions about not pushing himself and battled on. He forced himself to run through the pain and the discomfort, and somehow managed to regain his rhyt
hm. In another example of a determined mind overriding the body’s warning systems, he finished the run just 1 second over 3 hours, gaining sixth place.

  ‘It did affect me. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have risked it. On the run, I didn’t have very much left in the tank at all, and during the ride I was a little hampered as well. But I still finished sixth. When I look back at my 1992 results, they were OK, but it was a race that I’d rather forget.’

  At the time, Greg said, ‘In hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, I have learnt a valuable lesson. It seems life is full of these lessons. When your body hurts, listen to it. Slow down!’

  IT WAS DURING THAT TRIP TO KONA, on 13 October—Noelene’s birthday—that Greg proposed to Sian…in typical Welchy style. ‘Greg told me later he’d planned to propose on the morning of the Ironman race but he didn’t want to ruin my race. After the race he went out with all his Aussie mates and I went to bed early. He arrived home at 3 o’clock in the morning, singing at the top of his lungs and carrying a cardboard cut-out of a beer model he had borrowed from a bar. He was very drunk and very funny. We started wrestling in the closet and he pinned me down and said, “Will you marry me?” I said, “I will if you remember this in the morning.” That’s how he proposed. In the morning I sat on his lap and said, “Do you remember anything about last night?” And he said, “Yeah …when do you want to get married?”’

  As he often did, Greg knew what he was doing, even when he was playing the goose. But Vince Williams called his bluff. After they became engaged at Kona, Greg and Sian went to Honolulu for a couple of days and looked for a ring. When Mary and Vince picked them up at the airport on their return home, only Greg’s parents and a few close friends knew of their engagement. Greg tried to broach the subject with Vince on the way home but Vince kept avoiding it. They diverted to a Hamburger Hamlet in Westwood for a few beers.

  ‘I was trying to ask him the question. He kept on changing the subject and he just wouldn’t let me get there. And I just came out with it, I said, “Well, you’re not listening to me, so I’m just going to tell you anyway. I’d like to take your daughter’s hand in marriage. Would it be all right?” And he wouldn’t give me an answer. Then Mary jumped across the table and it was all big kisses and hugs. “Of course, of course, of course!” Vince, the bastard, just kept stringing me out. It was one of the funniest nights.’