It’s been a long 9 months since i decided that i was going to do the IRONMAN challenge. Nov/Dec to be precise when my friend Buttsy e mailed me the youtube link about Rick & Dick hoyt. I’ve dreamt of doing the Ironman for many years but wasn’t in no fit state to do it really so it was just something that was put into the back of my mind but it was always there knocking. A lot of people have said why all this keep fit?? why marathons?? Why Ironman??. The answer to that is simple, i saw myself going down a road that was slowly fucking me up and i started bloating out, looking pale and generally looked ill from doing to much of everything. Don’t get me wrong, the reason i looked like that is because i was having the time of my life and grabbing life by the balls and draining it of what i could get, but at the same time it wasn’t doing me any favors. I was basically grabbing all the “bad” bits of life and not clutching some of the good. I remember seeing old footage from Sanchez and decided to do something about it so i joined a gym about 4 years ago. i’ve been a skateboarder all my life so have always been physically fit & looked healthy so when you see yourself in that state its a bit of a shock.
WITH MY GOODIE BAG
I’m a man who really loves a good party so i didn’t want to give that up completely so i found a balance in life where i could do the both train and party and it seems to work well. I did my second cardiff half marathon in 2007 (my first one was when i was 15 years old) and so i carried on doing them every year after that plus i will do it again this year but i’m thinking of running it backwards this year to make it more of a challenge for me. After doing 3 cardiff half marathons i really wanted to do a full 26.2 mile marathon and the samaritains helped me get a place in the virgin london marathon in 2010. In 2009 my friend matthew ryan said he was going to run the length of the country from john o’groats to lands end at the end of may 2010 so i asked if i could join him and he kindly agreed. To run 900 miles i had a lot of training to do so it was perfect timing for me to run the London marathon a month before we headed up to john o’groats to run the country. I found running the london marathon tough but i managed it with a time of 4 hours and 22 mins. Running John O’Groats to lands end took us 30 days with an average of 34 miles a day to compleate.
PARKING MY BIKE UP FOR THE NIGHT
After all that running i was now physically fit enough to do something bigger plus i wanted to set myself a challenge for 2011 and thats when Buttsy sent me that youtube vid of Dick & Rick Hoyt doing the Ironman and it inspired me that much i decided to sign up. If a father can swim, cycle and push his disabled son all that distance then there is hoe for me. The Ironman was now in my sights and i was exited. I literally picked up my computer and typed ironman into google and the first one to come up was the bolton ironman for july 31st so i clicked on the web site, out with my bank card and i booked it. After booking it i decided to call around to see if anyone was interested in joining me to put a SWYD team together and the following people said yes………my brother trigg, Alex Symonds and Nathan Allen. We decided to do it for Ty-Hafan hospice which is a great south Wales charity that looks after life limited children and their family’s. Myself and Alex went to visit the hospice a few weeks ago to see the work they do for these children and it really is amazing and not only do they help the children but they are there for the family too. It was nice to meet some of the children and have a chat to the familys to whilst we were at the hospice. It really hits home when you visit these places and realise how lucky you are and how much they rely on donations to keep this great work up hence doing such events like Ironman. Dont forget you can still donate at www.justgiving.com/swyd-ironman and you can visit Ty-Hafan’s web site here www.tyhafan.org
ME AND ALEX AT TY-HAFAN
Team sorted and all we had to do now was put the training in. We had 9 months to do as much as we could and i knew that the closer it got to the summer for me the less training i could put in due to work/gigs etc as its a busy time of year. I also had to get all the equipment to do this challenge but luckily i had a phone call of Olympic gold medalist Geraint Thomas’s agent Gayle saying that Geraint heard that i was doing the Ironman and he wanted to help being a Cardiff boy himself. All our worry’s were put aside as Gayle sorted everything out when it came to all things “bike”. Fair play she was absolutely brilliant and we are very grateful of her help. From having nothing to having the best of everything and it helped a great deal and to top it off we got to spend a day riding with Geraint Thomas and got to meet all the guy’s who sponsored us and had a great day.
THE 4 OF US THE NIGHT BEFORE
My weakest part of the Ironman would be the bike part as i haven’t really ridden bikes for long distances before. I was fine when it came to swimming and running but i really needed to put the hours in on the bike which is why i decided to ride from John O’Groats to Lands End with Alex. I don’t think i could have got better training than riding 1,125 miles from the top of the country to the bottom. With as much training under my belt as i could do the summer came and it was party/work/gig time for me so i spent the month before ironman in Ibiza, Magaluf, Kavos, Portugal and various nightclubs over the Uk. It’s not really a good idea to be drinking heavily staying up all night and all hours before doing an ironman but i had no choice. When i say that of course i had choice, i could have not drank did my work and gone to bed early but that just aint me and at the end of the day the event is called IRONMAN not playschool. Its the challenge i set myself and i was gonna do it properly. You will never know what your body/mind is capable of doing unless you push it as far as you can go, its there to be punished. Pain is temporay.
THE LAKE
July 30th and its the day before the big day, it was only 3 days ago that i was in Magaluf doing a PVSD gig with Daint in which i ended up at the BCM mansion naked pool party drinking like some kind of fool and missing my plane knowing in my mind i had a big task ahead of me but thats just typical of me, fun first worry second.
Myself and my brother drive up at 6am as we had to register by 1am. Nathan came up the day before and went to what they call the pasta party to meet up with a few people and check out the course in time for the big day. Alex was coming up with his mother the same day as myself and Trigg. We arrived at 9am checked into our hotel and headed down to sign in and set our bike up in the bike parking bit and put our running shoes up in the school ready for the marathon. If you have never done a triathlon before it can be very confusing trust me. If it wasn’t for nathan myself & Trigg would have been lost but then if it wasn’t for me and Trigg alex would have been lost, team effort right there. When you sign in you receive 3 colored bags, blue was for you bike stuff i.e bike shoes, socks, nutrition etc. Red is for your running gear and white is for the clothes you came in. You leave these bags in the designated areas so on the day its all set up and ready to rock. So as you can imaging if its your first triathlon it can get quite confusing but it does work like clockwork.
5pm and we all have to go to bolton Fc’s football ground for a de-brief of what was to happen on ironman day. 1,500 athlete’s more than half of us were first time ironman entrants so i goes to show how popular this event is getting. After hearing the rules it was time to head back to our hotel fill up with food, preferably pasta but myself and my Trigg had a huge mixed grill. I was fast asleep by 8pm as we had to be up at 2.30am to get sorted before the lake start.
1,500 IRONMEN ATHLETES AWAITING DE-BRIEF
My alarm goes off and it just seems really weird to me being up at 2.30am on a sunday morning when normally i’m just getting stuck into clubbing at this time but i can tell you now that the thought of clubbing was far far away in my thoughts, i’ve spent 9 months thinking and training for this day and my stomach is doing summersaults with butterflies. I’ve got everything ready and i sit there on my bed eating some pasta filling up on carbs until Trigg knocks on the door and off we went to catch our bus to the lake and bike start. We arrive and its quite a chilly morning and all i can think about is bobbing up and down in that cold lake for half an hour before the start pistol goes. The place is full to the brim with Ironmen contestants getting last min things sorted, wetsuits getting put on and all walking in the direction of the lake. Myself, Trigg, alex and Nathan wait for as long as possible before we hit the water to save loosing energy treading water before the start and generally hold off from entering that lake till the last minute then all of a sudden we hear loud clapping off everyone and its team true spirit coming through the crowd. Team true spirit are a team made up of amputee soldiers who have been injured in duty fighting for our country in afghanistan. One of the team Joe is a double amputee and has lost his both legs and is being carried on the shoulders of one of his team mates. Seeing this puts me into quite an emotional state, fair play to him and his team all refusing to give up no matter what the situation and there’s us worrying about getting into a cold lake???? sort it out. After seeing this that lake and my attitude quickly changed and in i went, stop being a fart after all this is Ironman not a ballet class. It should be a lesson to all of you out there reading this and saying to yourselfs “i could never do ironman” if Joe can do it with his both legs missing im sure you could too. if you put your mind to anything you CAN do it. Our bodys are here to be pushed to their limits, if you never push your body you’ll never know what you are capable of.
GOT IT. OH YEH
Im in and quite surprised at how warmish the water is. There are now 1,500 people bobbing up and down in a lake waiting to go and BANG off we all went. It was swimming carnage, fighting for a decent place whilst a hand hits one foot another hits your other foot and the someones foot kicks you in the face its like a swimming rugby scrum. After about a mile of swimming it calms down a little but you still have to be careful and especially careful of the ones doing breast stroke because one of their feet in your face will break your nose or give you a shinning black eye. I’m really enjoying the swim and daydreaming away then i see the swim finish in the distance and get grabbed out of the pool ready for my bike. I’m a bit all over the shop after coming out of the lake hence the sheer amount of helpers making sure you don’t fall over fucking yourself on your way to the bike.
Wetsuit off and grab all my bike stuff from my blue bag and replace it with my wetsuit. I have my tri suit on underneath my wetsuit which was made for us by www.maxgear.co.uk so all i had to do was put my bike shoe’s on and helmet and grab my bike and hit the road for my 112 mile bike ride. Before i jump on my bike i hear this woman shouting and screaming at the top of her voice and i look up and its my mother who has come up with my father and little brother who i live with to give me some support. Talking of support i couldn’t believe how many Sanchez fans came and supported me it was unreal and very nice of you all, thank you it really did help.
DONT FORGET YOUR SUNCREAM NEXT TIME TRIGG
The bike started off really well but i knew deep down that once i put some miles in it was going to hurt. I’ve heard a lot about “the hill” and i was waiting to hit that thing up and before i knew it there it was in the distance this great big, steep juicy hill that i had to get to the top of. You have to do the bike course 3 times so i knew attacking the hill first time round would be fine but come second and definitely third time would be close to finishing me off and i wasn’t wrong. I hit the 80 mile mark pretty comfortably but i started slowing up and feeling every bit of this ironman, i’m in agony and in need of food. I’ve eaten so many bananas from the feeding stations i feel like a monkey and sipped energy drinks whilst keeping up my hydration with water but i’m feeling it all. I start eating raisins, flapjacks that i have on my bike, energy bars but i try to keep all my nutrition from natural sources as i cant be doing with shoving all that sweet shit into my system and feeling sick. The flapjacks work and i get a welcomed boost but it doesn’t last for long and i’m struggling again. My mind is racing with thoughts of “am i going to do this”, “what if i dont” “how am i gonna run 26 miles after this” blah blah blah then i hit “The Hill” for my 3rd lap and i almost never entertained it. Time for some kick arse shouting and talking to myself time because there is no way am i getting off my bike to walk “The Hill” the shouting works and i get to the top of that hill, before i know it i break down tears strolling down my face and pure adrenaline pumping around my body, reminders of why i’m doing this challenge racing through my mind, there are many personal reasons. The whole situation gave me a huge boost to finish those last few miles of the bike and into the school for the marathon.
Getting off a bike after 112 miles can be quite a comical scene, your legs have had it and as soon as you put your feet on the floor it becomes very alien and i wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people just collapsed. I waddle into the school gym hall resembling the walk of John Wayne whilst my arse looks like dale Wintons had a go on it, find my bag and slowly but surely put my trainers on and stretch whilst filling myself up with a mixture of seeds and nuts for energy. I hit the road and i’m not really running properly i’m just shuffling from side to side for about 4 miles until i then get a good pace on. Running through very affluent districts of Bolton admiring the lovely houses and getting some great support from the locals who are all out on their front lawns cheering us all along. I do like running it’s great and a perfect time for me to go into my own little world and daydream away which i’m very good at. There are no headphones allowed which i totally agree with as there are streets lined with supporters so why would you want music?? plus you get to chat to many of the contestants on your travels. All was going well then my arse/stomach started talking to me and gave me the nod that it wanted a great release but there was nowhere to go. I’m holding it in for as long as possible but its now painful and i’m close to shitting myself. I’m too scared to fart just incase but then in the distance i see some portaloos and i ran in and released, the feeling was great but there was no toilet paper so up with my tri suit and off i went.
Like the bike course the run is the same, you have to run the same circuit 3 times receiving a band at the top which you put on your wrist. As soon as you have 3 bands you can make your way to the finish line. 20 miles into the run and all i can tell myself is “one foot in front of the other and dont give up” i cant explain the pain i’m feeling by now but in a weird way its enjoyable. I received my 3rd band and i knew i was literally half an hour away from being crowned ironman and the excitement was unreal. All that training and i was almost there. I cant explain the feeling my body was going through but i was liking it a lot, i had a spring in my step a smile on my face that no one could have wiped off if they tried. I came into Bolton city centre and the closer i got to the city hall where the finish line was the more my adrenalin was pumping, i could see my Mam, Dad, 2 brothers Aled and Trigg (Trigg had finished with a great time of 12.43min which is amazing considering a few years ago he never did any form of exercise) nathan allen (finished in 10.17min and was 73rd which is unbelievable) all shouting for me then over the microphone i heard the words i’ve been waiting to hear when i first decided to do this challenge and they were “MATHEW PRITCHARD, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN” i went mental then crossed the line to receive my medal which now takes pride of place in my living room.
4 HAPPY IRONMEN
To sum up my ironman experience it was one of the most life challenging things i’ve ever done and something i’ll never forget. From start to finish i enjoyed every minute of it. will i be doing another??? of course i will, i cant wait to do it again.
thanks to the following people who made it possible. my brother Trigg, Alex Symonds, Nathan Allen, Gayle from seren pr, Geraint Thomas, Todays Cyclist, Maxgear, Dolan bikes. and anyone i forgot your all ace.
THE MEDAL
My next challenge is called ‘One man, one mission, one party’. starting in john o’groats i want to rollerskate to lands end, run from lands end to Dover, row the channel, Skateboard from Calais to Paris and then cycle from Paris to Barcelona and jump on the ferry to Ibiza and party.
Go and set yourself a goal next year and suprise yourself’s. it’s a lot of fun
Pritchard
Sleep when you’re dead
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