Saturday March 5, 2011. 299 days or rather, 2 days shy of 43 weeks away.
That’s how long I have to prepare for my first ever (and probably last), Ironman. I have never run a marathon, indeed the Tuesday just gone was the first time I had ever run over 10kms in one run. I can’t swim more than about 300 metres without feeling like I am about to die so 3.8kms in a cold lake surrounded by 1499 other swimmers scares the crap out of me. Oh, and then there is the small matter of 180kms on a bike. This maybe the most soul destroying part of the day. The immense pain in the legs and the exhaustion of my lungs will pail into insignificance when compared to the gloom of going through Reperoa not once but twice.
What propels someone who is hardly an athlete, let alone an elite athlete to endure such self inflicted punishment?
Well there are a few reasons, some noble, some not so. Firstly, there is the need to satisfy my ego that I have the mental and physical strength to do it. I want to believe I can but won’t ever really know unless I put myself through the process.
There is also the matter of wanting to find a recreational pursuit that doesn’t involve the drinking of copious amounts of beer. Presently I weigh 95kgs which puts me at least 10 kilos overweight. The strain this puts on my back hinders my ability to do a heavy manual job such as farming. Not to mention the fact that Wendy being pregnant should be the only one to not see her toes in the house. If I don’t change my lifestyle, we will be moving her pregnancy clothes to my wardrobe once she has the baby.
These all pail into insignificance though. when I see the overwelming source of my motivation. Cam Jim Uden. When we were expecting him, I would have these daydreams about how our son (the thought that we could have a girl never entered my mind), would grow to be captain of the All Blacks as a blockbusting number 8. That lofty deed however would only be realised after he had scored a brilliant triple hundred at the MCG to singlehandedly clinch a series win against the aussie’s. Maybe not quite singlehandedly, Kane Williamson could be at the other end, also unbeaten. His would be a glorious sporting career at the conclusion of which, he would cure world hunger and bring peace to the middle east.
And then he’s born and for a brief period of time, I'm just stoked that he has ten fingers and toes. As he grows older I start to lose grip with reality again, the first time I drop him and he doesn’t cry I think quietly to myself that I'm, sure Buck Shelford had the same toughness at 3 weeks old. Then the first time he holds something I see the obvious eye hand talent that will be required. And naturally, the tantrum that is thrown when something doesn’t quite go to plan is just the necessary selfishness required for sporting success coming to the surface. But it wasn’t, it was the signs of Autism coming to the surface and earlier this year, he was diagnosed as having Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Suddenly, all my shallow dreams for Cam to live the sporting life I had always desired were irrelevant. Whilst Wendy had always had things such as learning to count, read and of course, communicate as the number one accomplishments to achieve, I suddenly had to get on board. We are fortunate that Cams battles with these things that most people take for granted, will not be as great as for many other children with Autism and long term, he will very likely lead a life as independent as the one you or I lead. He may well grow to achieve the great sporting deeds but those things are really unimportant. It will be for him to choose his own path in life.
It will be for Wendy and I to give him the belief that he can do anything and this is where the Ironman kicks in. My biggest wish for him is that he has dreams, great dreams and aspirations. We need to help develop his character so that he can deal with any possible failure but we also need to show him to dream big and not be scared of failing to achieve those dreams.
In twenty years time, hopefully he can look back and see that his Dad had a big dream and went out and with some perseverance, achieved it. And if an overweight, out of shape guy with a poor attention span can do something like this, that he can do anything.
Twelve days ago this journey started with me deciding to do the Huntly Half (21kms) on May 23. That gave me just under a month to start from scratch and do the run in under 2hours, a target I had set for myself. Bradley Scott, Knights player and a far better T20 bowler than Jake Oram, has very kindly offered to run with me to help me get through given I haven’t exactly given myself a lot of time. Shane Derry has also taken some time to help with advice as I have bad shins caused by a poor running technique.
The purpose of this post and future ones is twofold. I want to create a record for the little bugger to show him what I did and I want some buy in from other people so I can’t fail.
So if you can, pop back in every now and then and see how progress is going and throw some abuse or support at me. I won’t fail at the Huntly Half because Bradley is investing some time in me and I don’t want to let him down, I need some similar interest with this
Cheers
Jase
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