It was December 1993 and I was living
in rural Natal, South Africa. I’d been asked to spend a winter there playing
and coaching cricket, which was a common situation for young professional
cricketers at the end of an English summer season. I’d been a fitness runner
for many years already and routinely lifted weights and
stretched a lot in an
effort to be as good a cricketer as I could. I also needed to offset the heavy
drinking and eating schedule that accompanied this very “social” sport! I’d
gone from being a chubby teenager to typically holding 30+ miles a week of
running while I often played 6 days a week of cricket for club and county. The
effects on my game were amazing and I was playing my best cricket ever and
enjoying it to the full. Life was changing though……
I’d seen the Ironman on TV that
year and became instantly addicted. Mark Allen and Pauli Kiuru were the top
dogs on the block and they were talking about their hi-tech training. Both used
heart rate monitors, which were a new thing at that time. Kiuru was the main
spokesperson for Polar heart rate monitors and what he was doing with them was fascinating
to me. I got my girlfriend at the time to bring me a “Polar Edge” heart rate
monitor when she visited at Christmas and I studied Polar’s guide to using it
over and over again. My interest in cricket started to wane and I spent all my
spare time training and thinking about Triathlon. I was hooked.
I was living with a doctor and his
family who were all athletic. There were the two parents and their six kids. I
became the seventh. The doctor was also an ex-springbok rugby player and swim
coach and once he knew I was keen he used to wake me every day at 6am to go and
swim. Anyone who knows me knows that I “don’t do” mornings but doctor Derek was
a huge guy who you didn’t mess with, so each day I would follow him up the road
to the outdoor pool for swim practice.
The only swimming I’d ever done
before was for survival. I could play in the water and not drown but swimming
for speed was new to me. I can remember seeing the doctor as he walked very
very slowly along the poolside looking at my stroke during my first ever timed
200 meters. I say very very slowly as I recall that the time was not
impressive. Around five minutes rings a bell. But I persevered and after a few
months I at least looked like I knew what I was doing.
At the same time I’d visited a bike
shop in Durban and found a second hand racing bike that I had to have. It was
black with a fluorescent purple stripe and clipless Look pedals! I got it for
2500 rand (about $300 at the time) and had the latest one-piece profile
aerobars put on it too. I borrowed a friend’s old helmet (the type made of
leather straps!) and I had no shoes to go with the clipless pedals so I rode it
in my running shoes. I was now training like a madman and looking for a race.
My local town was Matatiele
(pronounced Ma-tot-ee-ella). It was perhaps one of the most remote towns in the
whole of Natal with one road connecting it to the next town that was 100km
away! Remote but beautiful and at 6000’ feet the air was thin but clean. The
local town lake was at 9000’ and a 6-mile hike above the town. This was where I
did my first ever Triathlon.
It was a 300m swim across the lake,
followed by a 6 mile run down the mountain then a 25 mile ride on an out and
back loop from the golf club. About 50 of us did the event with about ten times
as many helping and watching. It was a true family event. Parents and kids
raced together. The rules were very loose and practical jokes and sabotage were
part of the game. The swim started with someone shouting, “go” and waving their
arms madly from the other side of the lake. Outside assistance was fine and I had and I had several people
assisting me with getting my shoes on in T1. As we ran down the mountain you
could see for miles and miles over to the Drakensberg Mountains in the
distance. I felt like I was on top of the world. T2 was a barn with bikes
leaning up against the walls. The local ladies club gave us a cup of water
before we got on our bikes. Someone had taken my racer so I used someone else’s
bright yellow mountain bike, which had a banana taped to the top tube. I can
remember that I worked really really hard and came in 5th overall. I
loved every minute of it and was now convinced that this was my future.
