Melanie
Coming home was lovely; we had a congratulations banner and cake from Sorcha, flowers, chocs and wine from my family and lots of praise and admiration from friends. We’ve both got our tattoos done and we’re pleased with ourselves.
The body wants to keep training but the mind is more reluctant. Someone’s blog once said the training is harder than the race, I think I’d agree.
I think doing an Ironman to triathletes is like an Oscar for actors so here’s my acceptance speech.
I’d like to say thank you to:
· Sylvia Price for inspiring me to take up the challenge
· Carsten for so quickly agreeing to join me
· Don Fink for his tips and training plan
· To my family for having so much pride and faith in me
· To everyone that sponsored us
· To the KVG girls for making cycling so much fun
· To everyone that read our blogs and supported us
I’ve really enjoyed writing the blogs; I wish I could write my work papers so easily. It’ll be a lasting diary for us to remember how far we’ve come and the trials and tribulations we had along the way. Its allowed us to share with you what it’s like and how we feel. But mostly it’s kept us all in touch and really made you part of our journey. When I had doubts I would make it I thought it would have been better to just quietly have got on with it, but your involvement has made it much more enjoyable and kept us going when things got tough. And of course we haven’t had to keep repeating our stories to you all. I’d also like to think a future Ironman will be inspired by it as we have been by reading others.
Friends say we’ve inspired them to do more exercise and to try and push themselves a bit more and take up challenges they may have thought not possible. I like that idea; my friends and colleagues inspire me in so many ways. It’s good to give something back.
We think Regensburg was a perfect place for an Ironman and we would highly recommend it to anyone considering their first or next one.
You also donated around £600 – so thank you very much.
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Carsten - The Aftermath
Coming home was nice; we had recovered a bit by then and I was looking forward to my own bed. Walking through the door we were greeted by a ‘Congratulations Ironmen’ sign and an Ironman father’s day card from Sorcha and Aaron. We also received some lovely flowers and wine from Melanie’s family, and of course with everyone else giving us their congratulations it was good to just relax and enjoy the aftermath.
It has now been nearly 4 weeks since the race and I have had time to look back at it; to do the ‘we should have done that’ analysis and to be a bit objective about it. I don’t think the day itself was as hard as I’d been lead to believe, I’d read articles before hand on how achieving the Ironman race changed their life and their perspective on how they looked at themselves - with re-newed confidence etc. I didn’t really feel that, though I did learn more about myself and am pleased I could push myself harder and further than before. As Melanie said above, the hard bit was staying focused and dedicated in the training - 8 months of training 6 days a week, sometimes twice a day took effort.
At the moment I’m picking my training back up. I pulled a calf muscle by training too hard too quickly but now that’s better I intend to take my running back up to a comfortable long run of about 9/10 miles, and a long cycle of 2/3 hours; but there’s no plan to it!
Next year I’d like to do something different, a cycle or swim event - not necessarily a long or big event but something a bit different. I have pondered doing another Ironman, and it does appeal (sort of), but I think at the moment other challenges beckon first. Though I will still dip in and out of the odd short triathlon.
Thank you all for reading our blog, it’s been fun to write and cathartic in a way too. The Ironman has been a great adventure; if you haven’t already I hope you find an adventure as well.
Here's us in our finisher T-shirts...
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Here's us in our finisher T-shirts...
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