Leaving New Zealand shores

An innocent abroad

It’s hard to tell a story about your own life that stays in a straight line.

I set out to recall my triathlon career, but over the last few columns I’ve continually branched off into running, swimming and local history.

I avoided talking about cycling, work, family life and local history. But only just. Under every stone you turn seeking history, you find a heap of other stones and under each there’s yet another story - and some more stones.

For now, I’m going to stick to one narrative - triathlon.

In my last column, I got about as far as 1991, but the interesting triathlon history had hardly begun.

In the early 1990s, Triathlon NZ, or whatever it was called then, had started holding national races - or at least lending their name to races organised by other organisations. Somewhere early in that decade I treated myself to a trip to Wellington for a race - it may have been sponsored by a company called Kiwi Lager. It least it wasn’t Rothmans behind the funding.

The return fare to Wellington was about $180 - not cheap by the standards of the day.

I didn’t know much about how such things worked. 

The race started with a 1500m swim in Oriental Bay. Lightly padded bike shorts came a few years later. In those days I think I wore speedos with a tiny patch of imitation chamois for biking comfort. Maybe the chamois patch came later - for a while I just raced in my speedos - fortunately my reproductive years were behind me.

That’s what I swam in - along with goggles and probably a swim cap.

For the bike section I had a running singlet draped across the handlebars, but found it impossible to get on my wet body, so I did what others did and biked off around the coast to Moa Point and back dressed only in speedos and bike shoes.

I don’t remember much else about the race except that from time to time I’d be swept up in a large drafting bunch. Even then there were draft busters, so I let myself slide back through the bunches. I had no notion of placings, so I just enjoyed the experience.

That was my first Olympic distance race and I did something like 2hr 25min - not flash, but a great experience to have. I was sixth in M40-44.

Somewhere along the way the International Triathlon Union had got going and started organising world championship events for age group competitors.

A couple of Nelson athletes, Greg Fraine and Phil Howes had gone to one on the Gold Coast in 1991. Greg won his M25-29 age group in 1hr 53min 20sec, finishing with a 34.31min 10km run.

At the start of 1993, I found myself at one of two qualifying races. This one was in Tauranga and I did ok in swim and run but punctured on the bike course.

The second qualifier was in Picton. I can’t remember how I did, but it didn’t matter much because after Tauranga I knew I was out of the picture and even if that hadn’t been the case there was no way in the world that I was going to be able to afford to get to the world champs in Manchester in August.

Sometime later, I got a surprise letter saying that I had been selected for the New Zealand team.

I told my parents about it and to my surprise they absolutely insisted that it was such a great honour, that I should go. Not only that but they’d quietly slip me some money to make sure it happened. Nobody need know.

And so I went.

I put myself on a rigorous training programme through the winter and by late July was as fit and fast as I’d ever been.

As well, coach Eddie Saxon had taken Greg Fraine and I under his wing for a weekly track session to sharpen us up (see the picture at the top of the page).

A fortnight before leaving I ran my fastest 10km race of all time. Not fast by most standards, but just a second or two over 37 minutes.

Even better, I ran that race with Phil Howes and Gillene Haldane - both amazingly good runners - and sprinted them off in the end.

I peaked too soon. 

My life had been a bit stressful through that period and when I got on the plane out of Nelson I felt as if I’d escaped a crushing weight. 

My brother Ian was living in St Heliers at the time and when I went up to Auckland for the flight, I stayed overnight with him.

As soon as I arrived there, I put on my running gear and ran along the waterfront and back. It must have been 20km or more.

Caution should have told me to take it easy but the relief of setting out on this adventure made me throw caution to the winds and I had a lightning run from sheer exhilaration. Not the best preparation - it may have been my best half marathon ever if it had been a race.

The next day we all got on the plane and flew to Manchester, where we had a week until race day.

Although I was only a few weeks from turning 45 I was like a child on his first big outing.

The NZ team - about 80 of us - was housed in a new student accommodation complex in Bolton. Because of his experience, Greg had been made team captain.

Every morning there’d be a bunch ride or run. It was always too fast or too far for me, but I wasn’t disciplined enough to shut that out and do my own thing. 

As well, I was completely enchanted with being on my own for what seemed like the first time in my life and every day I’d catch a train into Manchester and haunt the galleries and historic buildings. 

And pubs. One day I found that there was a visitor information centre in the town hall. It wasn’t well marked, so I got lost in some remote staircase in the depths of the building.

A friendly civil servant from India asked after my well-being and when I told him what I was seeking he took me to the right place, ordered the staff to load me up with maps and brochures and then took me off on a guided lunchtime tour of obscure pubs.

After three pints, none of which he would allow me to pay for, he had to go back to work, leaving me lurching happily back for a siesta.

With all that, I’d completely lost focus by the time it came to race day.

The swim was in the Manchester city reservoir in a lake up in the hills. It was followed by a crazy bike ride down through winding country lanes and through little villages where the spectators flattened themselves against buildings as cyclists whizzed by at 60-80 km/h.

Eventually we got on to a long and boring motorway, finishing that leg at the town hall and running 10km through city streets.

I had a pretty undistinguished race, finishing 51st of 90 or so in a time of 2hr 22min.

British triathlete Simon Lessing was the favourite in the elite race, but he got gazumped by the incredibly powerful Spencer Smith.

Kiwis Hamish Carter and Ben Bright were third and fifth in that section, while Greg was 28th and Cameron Brown was 40th. Interestingly, there were an incredible 117 competitors in the men’s elite field.

That was my first international triathlon. At the time I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but a lifetime is a very long time and I’ll resume the story in a few days.

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