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Ironman UK 2012...the aftermath


I am sure this is a common feeling but immediately after the race - by immediately, I mean for a few seconds - I don't actually feel that my race and day was over. Medal and official race photo, then a sort of limbo – my brain is still going, but my body isn't. Massive hugs with my wife and son in the sort of U-bend, then into the tent to be subtly eyeballed by some medical staff , collect my Finisher t-shirt (oh YEAH), and grab two slices of pizza and a slice of orange. 

I sit down on a white plastic chair in the finisher's area, feeling a bit like a lab rat, being peered at in a friendly way by spectators through the fencing. Perhaps they think I am going to die, but actually all I do is sit there and for about 2 minutes silently chomp my pizza, swig from a bottle of water and (this sound self-indulgent but, give me a break...) marvel at what I have achieved over the past day, weeks and months. I look around and there are four or five other newly-minted Ironmen in the same mental state – we aren't exhausted, (well, we also might be exhausted) we're just … calm, and finding a quiet place.

Pizza scoffed, I get to my feet...what next? I look at the queue for massage and decide against it : want to get out and share the moment with my family. Ah yes, get my bags. These are in an annexe of the Town Hall, and are pretty efficiently handed over by the ever-so-helpful IM people. I squeeze through a manned gap in the fencing and after a bit of shuffling about, hook up with Olly and Freddie. We get back to the finish to cheer a few more people in, including a husband and wife who hold hands across the line, and a (Spanish?) guy who is sent back to re-cross the line because he ran across the first time with his baby on his shoulder.

It's a lovely warm evening and we walk back to the hotel together, past others coming up the main drag and cheering finishers, and, for some with a way to go yet, those on their way to complete the final laps. The hotel's only about 500 metres away (a nice change from the morning's complex logistics) and it's nice to cool down with a chatty walk back. What I really want is a cold Coke, so we sit in the busy bar, and that's what I have. I am still feeling a bit psychically overloaded by the whole event, a little unable to take it all in, so it's really good to sit in and chat with my family about the day. I spot the Danish guy from breakfast, relaxing with his dad, and walk over to chat to him...he's had a good day. Doesn't actually look like he'd been anywhere – impressive. Despite promptings, I am not really hungry....feel a little nauseous, and not really in the mood to eat, but still incredibly euphoric. We are getting north of 10:30, it's been a long day for all of us, so we head up to the hotel room, I grab a quick bath to get the (considerable) dirt of the day off, and into bed. I am last to get to sleep, around 1 am I think, but I'm not anxious about it, and just enjoy a feeling of rest and creeping exhaustion. It's quiet, dark, my lovely family are around me and I am expecting to sleep till midday.

So, it's 05:30 and I am wide awake, and feeling incredibly full of energy. I want to get up, think about going down to reception to read (“A House for Mr Biswas”, by VS Naipaul), but realise I'll wake up everyone up. So I quietly have a shave, and try to get back to sleep, but I am too full of the energies of the previous 72 hours to relax much. After a while my fidgetting wakes the family and we get up and head down to a breakfast room mostly occupied by IM competitors, and have a nice family breakfast. My wife has to get back to London to work, so we check out and Olly and I get set for the final act : getting to T2 to get the bike, and then back to London. Freddie drops us at the Reebok, and we get the estate car up to Rivington. Olly's let into T2 to help me find my bike and bring it out:


a bit of mild panic, because they aren't racked in race number order - an IM guy says “Never too early to get them (the kids) into it”, and gives us a big smile. Then we're in the car, packed up, and ready to roll for home.

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