The unexpected

Caught up with several athletes today and had interesting conversations with all of them. However, one conversation in particular sticks in my mind.

The athlete I was speaking too had just sent me his race summary from his first Ironman. It was an interesting read. The race report itself was a testament to my belief that no Ironman race goes exactly to plan, the unexpected always occurs sometimes in big ways, hopefully in small ways. My belief is that it is the people who cope with these unexpected occurrences the best, who have planned and prepared for them are the ones who have the best experiences on race day. Obviously people can reduce the likelihood of the unexpected occurring by training well and preparing for their race, but that is another topic, This athlete's particular race was a good example of coping with the unexpected.

First up the race (which was in Europe) ended up being a non-wetsuit event, which apparently spooked a whole bunch of people, with a large number of DNS. There were storms on the ride and run making some of it treacherous and other bits just plain unpleasant. And finally he realised about 30km into the bike that his seat post had somehow slipped and he had to stop at a course mechanic to sort it out.

I am very proud to say that all of the athlete coped very well with all of these unexpected events. Some of this was due to preparation and race planning we had done before and a lot of it was down to this athlete's temperament and his approach to the event. He didn't panic, rolled with the unexpected , slowed down when he had to and made sensible and timely decisions under pressure (like choosing to stop at the mechanic rather than persevere). The ability to stay calm and sensibly absorb the unexpected was a big part of why he got to the finish line as well as he did.

Sure some of these unexpected occurrences cost him time and he certainly would have been quicker if they hadn't occurred. But the alternative to this lost time was not finishing at all and so I think he did well in the circumstances.

In an ideal world your Ironman day goes off without a hitch, the perfect day. The perfect Ironman is possible, however, in my experience it is rare. I think that facing the unexpected on race day and developing techniques to deal with it calmly and positively is an essential skill for all Ironman athletes.