Who was Tony Jackson

 

When Janette, Race Director from NZIM contacted me after Tony’s passing in 2013 to moot the concept of establishing a Tony Jackson Scholarship I could not have been more supportive. 

For all the years that Ironman has been in NZ Tony would have helped many, many very ordinary people complete some very extra ordinary feats;  while at the same time managing to achieve being a quite extra-ordinary person himself.

Tony competed in every single NZ Ironman since its very first one in 1985 until the nasty Grim Reaper decided the 2012 Nutrigrain NZ Ironman was going to be his last.

Tony was a very ordinary, happy man;  a man who quietly managed to mentor, encourage, guide, instruct and enthuse every day, ordinary people into doing things they had thought impossible to achieve. 

Back in the 1980’s Tony would say to people, and this is long before IM, or Asics or Nike picked up on the saying,  “Nothing is impossible ...” but he always added  …  “to the willing mind.”   

To many people competing in any triathlon let alone an Ironman seemed a formidably impossible thing to achieve.  Yet Tony would show them that, with a willing mind, it was not. 

Tony lived his life by that motto.  Born in England he came out to New Zealand at the age of 40 and never returned.  He came out here by driving a Triumph Spitfire from London to Auckland, via Europe, Eastern Bloc countries, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Asia, Australia .  But that's a whole other story in itself.

Tony arrived in New Zealand a total Brit, not having really experienced a great deal of the Kiwi easy-going spirit, sense of mateship and hospitality.  His sporting background consisted of managing and coaching in a weight lifting gym in South-East London and some localised swimming success at his grammar school swim sports in south-east London.  And cycling around the streets of South-East London as a kid was as much biking he had done. Within days of arriving in New Zealand he found his own can-do attitude, sense of humour and innovative nature slotted ideally within the Kiwi culture.  Two years later he official became a Kiwi and would correct any person who ever dared to call him a 'Pom'. He was a proud 'Kiwi'.

By then everything in the New Zealand outdoors had him living in his little paradise.  He lived in Auckland all his NZ life and used to tell his friends and relatives in Britain he lived in a seaside town as that is how he viewed Auckland in comparison to his London experience. He loved our New Zealand beaches, bush and lifestyle. 

He arrived in New Zealand in the early heydays of the new sport of marathon running.  It took him no time to become involved in his new found sport and over the next 2 years he became a consistent 3 hour marathon runner.  All that outdoor fun and mateship and endomorphic highs meant his enthusiastic personality rubbed off on others and he very quickly became a running mentor for many people new to the sport. For years every Sunday morning Tony would be out running the streets of Auckland with packs of YMCA runners chugging behind him, training for their first or next marathon.

It was at that time Ironman was becoming an established event in Hawaii and a few adventurous souls in New Zealand were organising their own small triathlons here.  Tony, with his sense of can do attitude, willing mind and belief he could do anything quickly became involved.  Indeed, he was one of the original initiators of the setting up Triathlon New Zealand.   

Then, in 1985 with Air New Zealand sponsorship Ironman arrived in Auckland. There was no way Tony was not going to be involved.  If I recall correctly he was at that stage an official Athletics NZ Course Measurer, so was the official measurer of the original Ironman cycle and marathon course. 

At the starters gun to that first Ironman event Tony started and finished the event at the young age of 45.  And he continued to do so for the next 27 years.

It is refreshing when one reads his old diaries and realises how different it was in those early days – their training, their equipment (10 Speed bikes, no wetsuits, no helmets, no Garmin watches) their methods – they were real iron men in those days.

Tony was never a world beater – but the records do show he could turn out some good times, his best being 11 hours 30 minutes, I think he was over 50 at that time.  And on the horrendous Auckland Ironman course of Sandstone Hills, Twilight Road hill and to great climbs to the Firth of Thames and back.

He qualified for Kona many times, but only went 3 times – even managing to podium place. 

I cannot recall which exact year it was, (perhaps it was 1999?) Ironman NZ asked Tony if he would deliver a talk at the Ironman venue to first time athletes who could find listening to one of the two individuals who had done everyone one of them an inspiring plus nerve settling way to pass an hour in the days before they were to be at the start line.  That was a great success for the nervous first timers, with many walking up to Tony in the street post the event to thank him for his calming advice.  That 'talk' became an annual item on the Ironman event schedules.

He had competed at 22 consecutive New Zealand Ironman events when at Christmas 2007 he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.  His Christmas gift was two major brain surgery operations where the neurosurgeons found he had a Glioblastoma Brain Tumour.  We had never heard of the word 'glioblastoma' before but certainly knew what a brain tumour was and could tell by the faces of the neurosurgeons giving us the news that this was not good.  Tony had the worst tumour one could have, a Grade 5. 

Grade 5 has a life expectance of ten to twelve weeks, if not sooner.  We could lose him any day. 

Santa was not kind to us that year. 

Everything was bleak.  Up until that diagnosis the two of us had been enjoying the start of our 2008 Ironman training.  It just seemed so unfair.  Cruel. 

Later that night after giving us the bad news as I sat beside his hospital bedside in the dimmed lights, he turned to me and said, "I'm going to beat the bastard." 

"I've got twelve weeks to live, Ironman is in ten weeks, that means I can do it with 2 weeks to spare."

I remember grinning, nodding and saying if he gets himself to the start line we'd do the thing together.

Late in January, after yet another major brain surgery, he began his 6 weeks of concurrent chemotherapy and radio therapy.  Neither were due to finish until the middle of March, two weeks after the Ironman event in Taupo.  And the specialists informed Tony he wouldn't be able to Ironman it as he'd still be involved with their trying to extend his shortened time with the two interventions.  He was resigned that perhaps they were right and best to concentrate of his chemo and radiotherapy than ironmanning.

Radiotherapy was five days a week and with the knowledge anything to do with training and Ironman was completely off the schedules we ploughed through the horrid daily trips to Auckland Hospital for his treatments whilst  continuing to coach, mentor and train our 'mates' who were encouraged by Tony to keep going "make me feel all this is worthwhile," he would say.

Weeks later on the Monday prior to the March Ironman event, when Tony was still having both therapies and still alive - with the Grim Reaper still sitting on his shoulder telling him he had two weeks of life left - the radiotherapists at the hospital informed us that Tony's radiotherapy treatment for the Thursday and Friday would have to be cancelled as the machines would be down for annual maintenance.  As we left the hospital building that Monday Tony turned to me and said, "... hey, that means we've got 2 days up our sleeves.... we've got the two days before Ironman free, shall we go down ....  and do it?"  

I grinned.  That was so Tony. How could I not say "lets".

On the Wednesday after his radiotherapy at Auckland Hospital we drove home, hooked our bikes up on the back of the car, threw our gear into the boot and drove to Taupo.

At 6.30 a.m. on the morning of that Ironman we stood on the lakeside beach, arm in arm, ready for the 7 a.m. start gun.

It went, we waited until the crowds swam off, entered the lake and began to swim.  Tony with his head wrapped in layers of bandage to keep his brain surgery wounds dry and safe, and keeping well away from fellow swimmers so he could not get kicked in the head. And with the Ironman approved guidance of a dear medical friend kayaking alongside us, we started the event.  The day was not kind to Tony.  It became cold.  It was windy. It rained.  Lots.  We finished.

In his last two weeks of life expectancy he completed what he thought was his last Ironman.  He was a truly happy man.  Content that he had the opportunity to show that Grim Reaper that he may be ready to take his life but he wasn't giving up without a fight.  That was March 2008.

Then 2009 came and he was still alive.  Two major brain surgeries later, but still alive.  He started and finished that Ironman.  The 25th New Zealand Ironman.  And he podiumed.

In the months following that Tony had yet more surgery, this time with plastic surgeons who had to remove & lift off his entire scalp and reshape his hairline and put the scalp back on purposely back to front.  He had staples and stitches around his entire head – yet in March 2010, Tony, again, started and finished the NZ Ironman, his 26^th.  He was still "beating the bastard". 

The following summer Tony was still biking, swimming and running, but in January 2011 whilst out cycling with a good IM training mate, training for Ironman, Tony suffered a stroke.  It was January. Only weeks away from the next Ironman.  Whilst in A&E at Auckland hospital he became paralysed down one side of his body.  I reflect with bemusement the looks on the medics faces when at 11 o’clock that night whilst still in A&E the medics came into his cubicle to find Tony had wriggled himself out of bed and was unsteadily leaning himself on the side of it attempting to lift his paralysed arm to try and get his finger to touch his nose - and trying to perform some form of Pilates routine that he thought would help to get his paralysed side working again. 

During all his years of brain tumour diagnosis Tony had embarked of several weekly sessions of yoga and pilates and swore they were an essential part of keeping him going.

All this time he had continued to coach, train with and mentor budding Ironman triathletes.  Always for no financial return.  Always for his love of his fellow athletes.  He was fun to have around too.  Always a practical joker, no training session was boring when Tony was with us.

Miraculously 2012 came around and he was still "beating the bastard".  Although at this stage even Tony knew he was pushing his own envelope.  However, he began and finished yet another Ironman.

Five Ironman events after that awful Christmas in 2007 when he was told to 'tidy up your affairs' as he only had a maximum of twelve weeks to do so.

Somewhere among those five Ironman events he and I managed to be part of a joint competition with Cameron Brown and Terrenzo Bizone and a fundraiser challenge for the event's charity, Cystic Fibrosis.  We raised over $37,000 in three months, just he and I.  Cam and Terrenzo raised another $50,000 between them. 

That year made Tony a proud man.

So last year in 2013 when Ironman was on here in Taupo, Tony was not here.  Sadly he was back in Auckland, very ill in hospital.  But even so it was a special Ironman for Tony – for our son completed his own first Ironman – for us this was achieving the almost impossible – for no one would ever have expected this son to do an ironman – a drinker, a smoker, a nighclubber, a recidivist electric puha smoker – even to Tony this would have seemed impossible – yet the impossible was achieved - because our son had a willing mind - he did for and because of Tony.

After finishing he returned to Tony who was in hospice care in Auckland  and presented his finishers medal to Tony in his hospital bed during the last ever moments that Tony had any sign of consciousness.  Our son put the medal in Tony's hand and told him, "I've got your medal here Tony, your Ironman medal." Tony almost nodded and smiled, then folded his fingers tightly around that medal in his left hand. 

He died five days later with that medal still firmly gripped in his hand.  

I am damned sure he would have arrived at the Pearly Gates and convinced St Peter that he had done his 29^th Ironman.

So this scholarship that Ironman NZ has developed comes with real meaning and purpose.  Over his 28 years of Ironmanning, and throughout those last 5 Ironman years, Tony would have helped, trained, coached, mentored, inspired, assisted and guided many people to achieve not only their first Ironman, but sometimes their 2^nd, 3^rd, 6^th or 10^th Ironman.  Ordinary people, whether 20 or 70, ordinary people, who without his encouragement would never have achieved that personal goal.

This scholarship is New Zealand Ironman’s way of continuing Tony’s and their belief to each person out there -  that, like everything in life, including Ironman -  ‘Nothing is impossible to the willing mind’.