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Australian Ironman Titles » Port Macquarie 2006
Our man, or half man as he has been called in the past this year traveled to Port Macquarie for what is commonly known as the Australian Ironman Titles. Timmy did all the training with Terry last year and decided that this year he’d give it a go himself.
It was a very committed and inspiring performance from Tim, who modified his slow training in favour of slow training!
Jokes aside, well done Tim.
Tim trained long and hard with many hours spent in the water and on the road alone. It all came together on the day for an amazing effort of willpower. While Tim says that it wasn’t a great performance, there are only two other Pack members that can verify or refute this. For my money—awesome effort!!
Well done from The Pack.
Tim's recollections of the event »
It was a perfect day in Port Macquarie. 24 degrees and a light SW breeze as 1545 competitors lined up for the 3.8 k swim. It was a strange feeling to be in the washing machine with all of those people swimming around and sometimes over you, getting bumped and bashed and dunked until finally I found some clear water!
Time: 1.17.28 Overall: 1216 Category Position: 145/192
A great swim for me. Was really happy with this as I’m a sinker not a swimmer! The 180 k on the bike was a hilly 3 lap course with steep pitches ( Matthew Flinders Drive has a 10 metre stretch at 17%, followed by a 5 metre pitch at a little more than that) and rolling hills separated by a flat stretch between Port and Lake Cathie. A good first lap on target for a 6 hour ride but on the first climb out of town of lap 2 my legs (yes I call them legs!) decided that they weren’t going to work with me in the manner that we’d spent all those hours training! This meant that a long day was even going to be longer and so I changed to survival mode.
Time: 6.54.18 Overall: 1179 Category Position: 151/192
This is not good, especially as usually my bike is stronger than my swim and I’d put a lot of work into the bike training. The average time for my age group was 6.25. The run course was first of all flat then went along the hilly parts of the bike course and was a 2 lap course. I just set out to cruise the run and survive as time was of no consequence and you don’t know what hours 9, 10 & 11 will hold! I just wanted to run down that chute and finish! So I walked all the aid stations and made sure I was properly fed and hydrated, so in the end I felt good and was running strongly.
Time: 4.19.52 Overall: 559 Category Position: 47
I pulled up really well in the end, just didn’t have the legs for the bike course.
Overall Time: 12.31.40 Position: 944 Category Position: 99/192
If you’ve never been to an Ironman it is a great event. The finishing chute is packed with people and the music is pumping and everyone is so excited to finish! I had been to Forster and knew what to look forward to and so I was really pumped to run down to the line and hear the announcer call, “Number 347, Timothy Curran of Ringwood, Victoria. Yooooooou are an Ironmaaaaaan!” (Don’t laugh that’s what he said!)
So all in all I had a great day, full of ups and downs, but in the end I got there and achieved my goal. If anyone had told me in 2001 when I started riding that I would do an Ironman I would have told them they were dreaming…so I suppose there’s a lot to be said for living your dreams.
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