4th October 2013
Now there is a thought, the best ever Ironman? Challenge Roth perhaps, or Ironman Hawaii? How about Ironman Nice or Ironman Frankfurt. Well as I have only ever done Ironman UK I have to say that is my favourite.
On a previous post (if I recall correctly Monday 30th September) I concluded by saying I had an idea which I will share with you. Well now is a good a time as any:
I am probably not the first person to suggest this and some have no doubt done it, but why not create your own Ironman event.. Let me expand, I have an older son who lives with his Mum, the distance from my house is around 85km or so. Well I have made that drive many times and it dawned on me why not cycle it, and then I thought, why not do a 3.8km swim first, jump on the bike and map out a scenic route to his house measuring 90km, pop in a say hi to my son before cycling back home jumping off the bike and running a marathon.
There are many things to consider of course, first and foremost could this be done without support crew, answer I believe is yes, but that would mean the swim would need to be done in a pool. Potentially I could leave my car at the pool car park do the swim, run out to the car, extract bike from car and off I go. So pool car park is T1. I could then plot out a route which ensures I pass garages and other places where I could use toilets and purchase supplies if required. I would leave some supplies at my son's house with things like spare tubes, so this would be no different to picking up a bag on the cycle part of an Ironman event. T2 would be my own house where I would simply drop my bike get my trainers on and again off I go for the marathon.
Let's look at the positives, Ironman events don't come cheap this would cost nothing more than the supplies and bits you would take out on a long training ride. Secondly and perhaps most appealing is that you choose your own route. I would pick the most scenic route imaginable, I even had the idea of taking a camera so I could capture the beautiful countryside of southern England. You can also choose when to go, looks a bit cold and wet on the Saturday but the Sunday looks good, then you can easily delay 24 hours. You can run where you want, one big loop, an out and back, cross country and so on.
What about the downside, well this would be solitary just you and the great outdoors, no crowds to cheer you on, no other competitors to race against and to share in the misery and glory and no medal waiting for you at the end. Yes this is private suffering and perhaps satisfaction, who knows how you might feel. Why not download the route for others to try, may even catch on and you can exchange routes with others home and abroad and try out their events. I guess its a bit like an underground movement for endurance seekers.
So instead of waking up one morning and saying '"Honey just off for a run be about an hour"you might say: "honey just popping out to do an Ironman, in about 11 hours would you mind running me a nice bath!'
Will give this some thought and keep you all updated
Bye for now David Ed Smith
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