“Shut up, legs”, read the sign on the ground.
I’m at the 35km mark of the 42.2km run leg of the Ironman triathlon. Everything is hurting, but the little voice inside is saying – “7kms to go, 6, then 5 and then nearly home!” So I commit to the voice and move along, carefully watching my heart rate and any other indicators that give me hope. In the meantime, I’m catching up to a whole lot of triathletes who are starting to walk and slow down from exhaustion – the same ones that passed me what seemed like hours earlier – this is for real.
Luckily, by this time, the sun is already past its full blast, around 4 pm, yet it’s still 28 degrees, with no cloud cover, and I am doing my very best at every aid station to cool down. I look for anything to get my hands on – ice, water sprinklers, flat Cola for sugar and caffeine bursts and water to try to balance things out, all the while trying not to overdo it, so I wouldn’t have to use the bathroom or worse, cramp up because I overloaded on electrolytes.
Such was the precarious position I found myself in after around 6 hours into the experience. But the training prevailed, legs still had plenty of power left, and the heart rate was at a manageable 140-150bpm, so I pushed on. This was the last 10km lap of the marathon and just before I had my coach ride past and yell out that I was stronger than I thought plus one of the guys I had trained with was catching up to me. Well, that was it then – I thought of a few choice words towards the coach, but after a few minutes I got over myself and put my head down to finish the race.
Prior to this, I had settled into the run and was feeling like it was just another Sunday long run – only with a lot more people around me. My family and friends were at the 2km point, and so every time going past them I had put on a brave face and celebrated, yet the race wasn’t over to celebrate just yet.
Busselton is a beautiful part of the world to have this race on, the beachfront is stunning with manicured public gardens and a perfectly paved, wide footpath to run on. I had experienced this while completing a half-distance Ironman triathlon here in 2023, so I was kind of prepared for what lay ahead. Only this time, the distances are twice as long, and I’m in for a whole lot more pain than I’ve ever experienced before.
Why Ironman?
So why was I so hooked on trying to get this done? Well, I got onto this idea around 2012, when I was introduced to a group of triathletes and was learning to swim in open water to overcome one of my fears and complete a 1,200m open-water race called Pier to Pub in Lorne. (You can read about how I did it here).
I started swimming with them regularly and discovered something quite extraordinary. Most of them were high achievers in either business or the corporate world, and at the same time, they seemed different from other business high achievers that I’d met elsewhere. These had a sense of purpose and happiness that I didn’t notice in the others.
And the only insight I could glean was that the sense of purpose had come from their striving to complete various physical challenges that to mere mortals seemed incredibly unattainable. The pinnacle of these challenges, the holy grail of all, was the Ironman world championship in Kona, Hawaii, which the coach of this group of triathletes had just completed the year before at 72 years old!
All throughout my life, I looked for “shortcuts to success” or perhaps proven ways to see how others had done it – this has been a sort of mantra for me, so when I stumbled across this phenomenon, I felt like I wanted more, and there was so much possible personal growth across the three sports that I just couldn’t get enough.
It was also a goal worthy of the Japanese concept of Misogi, which I read about in a fantastic book called “The Comfort Crisis” by Michael Easter. The principle is that most humans have an innate need to undertake quests. These quests must follow two cardinal rules of Misogi – #1 – Don’t die, and #2 – The challenge needs to be outside of the comfort zone by about 50% – so it’s a real stretch. I really liked this idea for an annual goal like this – then the side benefits, such as focus on wellness, building discipline and lots of other positive habits, get built automatically.
An Ironman triathlon certainly qualified for all of the above – hence the urge to get it done. And I was finally here, all the years of training and thinking about how I was going to get through this incredible challenge, but the day had arrived when I was going to put all that to the test and see if I had what it took to finish the event under the 17-hour cut-off limit.
From the start to the day to the finish of the race, it all now seems like a bit of a blur of getting from one focused action to the next, all the while trying to maintain composure and not think too much of what’s ahead, and hoping that I’ve done enough in training to get to that ultimate finish line. But bit by bit, I got there and learned some great lessons in the process. So here are five key lessons I feel are critical to anyone wanting to undertake an experience like this.
Ecosystem of Support
The first step is to find the right coach and an accountability group of others training for similar events. I feel that everything changed once I got that in place. Especially for someone coming from some sporting background, I had a few preconceived ideas that maybe I could get away without it, but all that overconfidence went out the window when I had my first bungle on the bike.
I’m forever grateful to Tim Sammons, the coach from the Flow Endurance squad, who patiently guided me back to training and put the program in place to gently build my bike skills and strength so I could be competitive. Our mind is often our greatest enemy in creating false perceptions and ideas about who we are and what we’re capable of.
If I didn’t have someone like him in my corner, the first and a few other experiences along the way may well have derailed my big dreams. Plus, all the knowledge transfer about nutrition, hydration, and other critical preparation steps that I just wouldn’t have known about may well have sabotaged the race itself, let alone the training.
This is a really big rock, so getting it done requires a significant investment of time and money; be ready for it.
Second, and just as important, was the triathlete squad to help with accountability. These days, there are lots of squads out there – but for me, the key was to find a group without too much bravado or egos swinging around and minimising participants’ efforts. This is a highly individual path, and everyone is going along their own journey – so arbitrary metrics like finish time, running pace or power on the bike or any other metric can not be truly compared to someone else – it’s all about us and trying to better ourselves at every step of the way.
But having people around who are on a similar journey was exceptionally helpful for me as it provided me with training buddies as the bike rides on the weekend do get quite long – at the peak of the training, we were averaging 120-150kms on the bike per ride and generally around 4-6 hours in one go at a time. It’s not that someone couldn’t do this on their own, but it’s just that much more fun riding out in a group, stopping over for a break along the way and pushing each other in the hill climbs.
Running is far more straightforward and can be easily done alone – after all, at the Ironman, after all the swimming and riding, we still had to run the 42.2km run by ourselves without any music in our ears – so might as well get used to being with your own thoughts for a while.
So, once I had those two crucial elements in place, I felt far more supported and encouraged along the way – because training did get quite intense towards the pointy end. Some weeks became nearly full-time in training and recovery from the training sessions – I think at the peak, I had a couple of 16-18 hour weeks worth of training, and one week was around 21 hours of sessions. It’s a lot and I’m grateful to my wife and family for being so understanding – I kept my promise of making up for it afterwards 😊
Lastly, when it comes to the ecosystem, it’s important to have the right technology to help with the training process. I was very lucky that my brother-in-law sent me a smart bike trainer that he wasn’t using and that became a pretty important piece of equipment – especially during the winter months when it’s wet outside and probably not the safest to be riding in.
Aside from the bike trainer, having the right training software was also very important – my coach got me to use Training Peaks (TP), which synchronised with my smart watch and Zwift software for the bike trainer. So once the weekly program was set up in TP – it automatically connected sessions onto the Garmin watch and I could just press start and it took one more thinking step out of my head and let me just focus on what I need to complete.
Every training session was getting me closer to the end goal, so it was a matter of keeping that North star in mind and letting my doubts and fears go by the way side. Another side benefit I didn’t really think about before getting into this was that I built a pretty strong discipline of completing training sessions, which hopefully now translates to other tasks I may not necessarily enjoy but need to get done.
Once the habits were established, these days, training seven days a week is just a normal way of life, whereas before I couldn’t even fathom what that would look like. Sleeping past 5 am is also a thing of the past – once the eyes are open, it’s pretty hard to get back to the comfort of the warm blankets.
Embrace the Imperfect
This was one of the biggest lessons throughout the journey. A typical week would have a schedule made up in the Training Peaks software with a daily session or two and this rolled on week by week. My weekly challenge would be to complete as many sessions as possible in that week and my ideal metric was to achieve at least 90% of the training sessions.
This was theory, but when it came to practice – the reality would often be different as life got in the way. I travel interstate almost on a monthly basis – so my training sessions had to work around this and then injury or illness may also alter what sessions I would complete. All in all, it was a huge lesson in just trusting that I would somehow work my way around this and come out on top and ready for the race.
The Japanese have this concept of “Wabi Sabi”, which roughly translates to embracing the imperfection of life. As a business owner, I aim to minimise variables and strive for perfection, but in training for the Ironman – so as not to drive myself crazy in the process and the impossibility of controlling all the variables that could and did come up, I had to really let go of trying to control the training program too much and just adapted it on the fly together with my coach as things came up.
Towards the end of the training, as weekly hours crept up to 20, it took all of my mental fortitude to keep pushing through to complete sessions. And then even if I didn’t want to do them, I would remind myself that there’s only so many weeks left before the event and all the other reasons why I should. It was a real test of resilience and building discipline.
And the other challenge was that we were trying to balance training across three very distinct disciplines of swimming, cycling and running – and if two of the levers were improving, the third was typically either maintained or dropped off. Hence, the lesson in embracing the imperfect!
Envision the Outcome
Progress is very difficult to measure in the micro steps or from one training session to the next. So I built a visualisation routine that, after every swimming session, I would affirm to myself what I wanted to achieve: breaking the 11 hours total for the event. And again, it was about letting go of the outcome but trusting in the process that visualisation would help achieve this result.
I joked after the event that I had become an Ironman before completing the Ironman triathlon. The affirmations and visualisation routine made me believe that it was possible to not only get through it – but finish it with flying colours.
If anyone has ever tried affirmations, they feel really weird at first, and it takes a long time to stop feeling completely out of place. So, when I first started saying to myself that I’m going to complete the Ironman easily and effortlessly within 11 hours, it felt completely outlandish. Of course, it was never going to be easy or effortless – but at least if I had tried to intone it to myself, then perhaps that would help in some way.
I’ve had lots of examples of athletes around me who struggled and barely got to 13 or 15 hours total for the experience. So 11 hours was a real stretch – conservatively, I hoped for around the 12-hour mark. But slowly but surely, as my training increased, 11 hours started seeming possible. What it meant was that the swim had to take roughly an hour, the bike leg under 6 hours and then the run around the 4-hour mark or better. With those numbers – it added up to 11 – so anything better would let me break through the 11-hour barrier.
This was a mental game that started playing internally with about 6 or so months before the event. And that’s a big part of attempting the event – the mental fortitude or mindset to let us achieve that milestone.
Once I had completed all the training sessions and a few practice events (Melbourne Ironman 70.3 in November was a key training session), I felt much more confident about attempting that 11-hour goal. I ended up completing the entire Ironman in 10.47.42! Well ahead of my 11-hour target, and it even gave me room to think about possibly breaking 10.30 in another event. That’s the other part of the journey – trying to better myself every and each time. I know now that it’s not necessarily realistic, as conditions are always different, but a stretch goal is a stretch goal, and it makes for a much more motivating goal than just keeping it at the same level!
Evoke the Ironman Identity
On the day of the event, a friend said to me, “Today you’re going to become an Ironman!” Wow, I thought – what a concept, and secretly hoping that this statement wouldn’t jinx my experience. But I replied – that I’ve already become one. Even though the physical experience hadn’t happened yet – I visualised each leg of the triathlon so many times and practiced the distances, that I felt that I’d already broken through and was confident enough to complete it and so today was only going to be the realisation of the internal confidence.
I touched on the mindset earlier, but developing the mental game is in some ways more than 50% of what it takes to achieve this goal. I’ve met a few athletes who attempt the full Ironman distance as their first long-distance racing event. I feel that by doing it this way – there’s far too much left up to chance and the likelihood of failure is extremely high. Swimming nearly 4 km, then riding 180 km, and then running 42 km is a very long day for someone who either hasn’t conditioned their body for these distances or just wakes up one day and decides to attempt them.
Admittedly, it’s probably not as many as the ones who decide to take on a full marathon the night before the event (I’ve seen a few of those too) – but the chance of something going wrong is still very high and the resilience required to overcome may or may not be there.
About a month prior to the event, I had a bike training session scheduled that required me to ride for 5 hours and complete 4 x 50-minute efforts within that time. The weather for the entire weekend looked horrible – rain and wind – so I really wasn’t sure how I was going to get through that session on my time trial (TT) bike. I also needed to do a 30-minute swim before the session and run an hour afterwards. So it was going to be a full day of training – nearly 7 hours’ worth.
The swim was fine – we found a lake to swim the 1.5km distance, and the weather had just cleared up enough to get onto the bike part without too much rain. I got through about an hour of riding, when I rode over something and the rear tyre got a puncture. So I had to pull over and fix the tyre. Luckily, this was training – because I realised that the tube that I was carrying as a spare didn’t have a long enough valve to get through the deep dish of the wheel, so I couldn’t pump up the tyre and continue on.
Long story short, I had to work my way back to the car at the lake and then work out what to do next. I caught up with my coach and the other two training buddies for a quick breakfast, who reassured me that I probably didn’t need to do the bike session, and it’ll be ok. Yet, I decided that once I made it back home, I’d jump on the bike trainer and pump out this session regardless. The rain had set in – so it was dangerous to be out on the road, but in the comfort of the home, it’d be ok.
Pushing through that trainer ride took all of my strength – I barely made it through the last 50-minute interval on the trainer. I soaked through 3 or 4 towels, drank 4 or 5 litres of water, and took a couple of quick breaks – but I got through it. And once I had done that session, my confidence reached a whole new level and I felt internally that I had could complete the entire Ironman triathlon.
This was just one of the formative experiences to build that Ironman identity – there were many others throughout the journey, and all of them added up like table legs under the table of belief to solidify the mental fortitude and understanding of what I was getting myself into and what it was going to take to get through it confidently.
Enjoy the Journey
And finally, the main lesson of the experience was to truly soak in and enjoy the journey. We are here on this Earth for such a short time that we may as well enjoy what we do. And training for an Ironman triathlon is like no other. I spent countless hours by myself, without any music or audiobook in my ears, to fully immerse myself in exploring the physical boundaries or perceived mental barriers of my capabilities. The insight into what’s possible and what isn’t was phenomenal – what I previously considered impossibilities, were shattered as soon as real training started.
Most people are shocked when I tell them that I train 7 days a week, or sometimes my bike rides would be 120-150 km in one day. And yet, the body conditioning and mindset strengthening somehow worked out – so to me it no longer seems like such a big deal anymore.
And whilst shattering those kinds of limiting beliefs along the way, I stepped up to the possibilities of doing more – I’ve long held a dream of swimming the English Channel crossing (a 32km swim), or there are a myriad of other cool adventures to be had across the world.
So wherever this may lead me from here on is unknown – but I’m forever grateful to the team that helped me achieve this long-held goal, as it opened up my eyes, it truly does take a village to make it there safely and successfully.
And here’s to you reaching for your dreams – whatever they may be, the key is to visualise that finish line and hold onto that vision. And know that whatever challenges you may encounter along the way, you’re strong enough to overcome them if you never give up on the vision.
To your success,
Stan Zaslavsky.