So I am doing the 2014 New Zealand Ironman event next week

Was going through some old files tonight, once all the Once Were Runners runners were gone.

It is only ten days to Ironman and it seems everything in my life at this particular point of time is all about Ironman, ironmen, ironwomen and iron things. Up until the past few days there was a little more balance in my life, but once it got to the two week count down, everything became Iron focused.

Fortunately the focus is not about me.  Or my Ironman.  For although I am doing Ironman this year, it almost feels that my event will be a virtual event due to the fact that my focus has been, and will be, on so many others on the day.  Purposely so.

They will be the group of amazing individuals who I have categorised in my file as ‘Finely Tuning Athletes’.  Those who I have coached or trained with for many, many months now – most since early winter last year.  Those who had set themselves their own personal challenges and who I have seen ride the roller coaster of athletic endurance challenges.  Six who will be competing in their first ever Ironman event and others returning for their 2^nd, their 4^th or 5^th time.  Throughout the whole day I will be constantly searching to catch a glimpse of each one and in a nano second will be analysing how I think they are faring.

It will keep me from the edge of disintegration into emotional wreckage. 

I had decided a long time ago that I need to be doing Ironman this year.  However with certain health and injury problems I could not make a final decision on entering until the very last minute.  There were supposed to have been hospital procedures to have been done, knee operations to have occurred – but due to the public health system and some very weird circumstances neither of these ended up being done.  Thus the body is still battered and broken, but the spirit is stronger than the body so come the last critical days my entry into Ironman 2014 was submitted. With a sense of immense relief and certainty.

I need to do Ironman this year.  Not just for myself.  For Tony and myself.  For neither he nor I can move on, move into the future, until this is done.  I have such a strong sense that he wants me to do this Ironman – that he has planned for me to do this Ironman and to do it alone.  Without him.  For every other of the 13 Ironman events I have done it has been done with Tony somewhere around me on the course, somewhere in reaching distance where one glance of eye contact from him would lift my spirit, my drive and my confidence to move forward and reach that finishing line.  And be with him.

                 

Had Tony lived this year’s Ironman would have been his 30^th.  How he would love to have gone out on the 30^th.  I can do that for him.  Last year son Glenn did the 29^th and presented Tony with his personal finishers medal two days later when returning to Auckland to see Tony in Mercy Hospice.  The very last thing Tony consciously did was clasp that 29^th finishers medal in his left hand and hold it there as he went into unconsciousness, forever.  I know he was so very proud that one of our sons did his 29^th Ironman for him.  I shall do his 30^th.  And tie our personal Ironman legacy of Tony Jackson all up in a tidy finality, for us both.

So tonight I decided to pick up a couple of old folders, ones that I have not been able to open for quite some time and flicked through photos and papers of Ironman events past.  For the first time I was able to look at the photos with an almost happy sense of gratitude, rather than despairing grief.  Yes, this Ironman will be a tough one – and I know I am going to have many private heartbreaking periods throughout my long day, but for me it has more purpose than any of the others I have done. 

For I have to complete this finalisation – and at the same time focus on a number of those special ‘Finely Tuned Athletes’ who will be creating their own legacy, of being an Ironman.