Sunday 28th March 2010
Just a quick final thank you to everyone for their words of encouragement and for the donations that everyone made to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
I thought I would provide a snap shot of my day for those interested.
Well the 3.8km swim leg kicked off as the sun was rising and I managed to stay clear of the 1550 competitors by staying on the edge of the swim pack. To my amazement I stood up at the river edge in 1hour and 6 minutes which did surprise me I must say. Off I ran into the tent to grab my bike gear and my bike and before I knew it I was on the 180.2km ride. The bike was 3 laps and I felt amazing upto 143km and was on track to my expectations when yep you guessed it - flat rear tyre. My stop time sadly was 18 minutes primarily due to the fact that I couldn't get my tyre off. I stayed composed (although I did feel like throwing my bike across the rode) and rejoined the race some 20 mins after stopping. I guess it was never the same after the flat tyre disappointment but I scrambled back into the tent to change into my run gear - only a marathon to go I thought. I felt Ok but then realised after 6-8km's that I really hadn't put in hard long km's in training to run to my capacity. It was long and hot and I did think of Cliff Young over the next 4hrs and 55 minutes !!
I would do all the training again and go back for seconds just to run down the finishing shoot with 3000 screaming locals either side, high fiving the kids and hearing "David Burns you are an ironman by the commentator"...amazing. My finish time was 12 hours and 1 minute made up as swim 1hour 6mins. bike 5hours.53mins (with puncture), run 4hours.58mins (ouch) !!
Once again a huge thank you to my soul mate Elly who made the pilgrimage to Port Mac with me and wandered around from dawn until dusk (literally) popping up all over the place to scream at me, hold up a very special dream and believe sign, and she had also chalked on the road and pavement with all the other local messages of support. A huge thank you to CBD cycles for their banner message (with many others) reading something like - Go David burn baby burn disco inferno Burns - Whats all that about ?
This is a ridiculous sport and for that reason I will be back somewhere, some time, but for now I am concentrating on walking again, and a cold beer awaits !!
http://www.cbdcycles.com.au/contact/