By Michael Rand, personal trainer and triathlete
This blog is the post-race update and final instalment of my countdown to the Busselton Ironman journey – read my previous pre-race blog here.
The hope for me for this blog was to tell you all a story of a day for the ages – how I performed better than expected and to the very best of my abilities. Unfortunately, the day didn’t go as planned and indeed was a day that literally brought me to my knees, breaking me emotionally and physically.
Race result
You see I DNF’d (Did Not Finish) the race. You want to see an empty husk of a person after an event, which unfortunately I was for all the wrong reasons. At the finish line are people telling tales of hardship, perseverance, and overcoming inner demons – the DNF’d are the people sitting quietly beside, smiling but not laughing, taking photos but hiding when the lens is pointed in our direction. We are the people that wish the earth would swallow us up for a few weeks until everyone is talking about something else.
What happened? Who knows really. Sadly, there were a list of things that went wrong for me pretty much from the start. I could give you a list of everything, but to me that sounds like excuses. So let’s talk about what I learnt from the race – the dream of completing an ironman triathlon while working full time in my current job is not feasible. Getting up for training at 3:30 am and running for 2 hours before starting work at 6:30 am unfortunately doesn’t work at my age of 53, with my legs not up to the task of spending all day on my feet.
Preparation and recovery with ABMMA PRO
Despite my undesired finish, I would not have felt as prepared as I was thanks to my consistent use of the ABMMA PRO BMT Device to aid race preparation and training recovery. I used the device most nights, and found being able to target intensity toward any niggles or localised pains I had that week very effective.
I want to thank you for following along with my preparation and reading my updates for the last 6 months. I do plan on doing more events and won’t let my Busselton DNF affect my future progress. I will just take a break from 10 and a half hour events for a while!
Follow along with Michael’s future race updates on Instagram at @mickrand_abmma
Other articles by author:
Countdown to Busselton Ironman with ABMMA PRO (Part 4)
Countdown to Busselton Ironman with ABMMA PRO (Part 3)
Countdown to Busselton Ironman with ABMMA PRO (Part 2)
Michael’s Ironman training and recovery journey with ABMMA BMT (Part 1)
