Behind the Scenes of the Kenyan Ironman Challenge! Swimming with the Swans, or Swimming with the Fishes? When Great Gear Means No Gear! Bare Foot Lies! Reflections and Retribution Thanks and Credits www.kenyanironman.com www.bmycharity.com/ironmanchallenge
Kenyan Ironman Challenge Madrid, 18th December 2015 Dear Sponsors and Supporters! I am privileged to send my wonderful sponsors and supporters an End of Challenge Report to give a glimpse of what was really going on Behind the Scenes of the Kenyan Ironman Challenge and offer a few light hearted reflections on the whole undertaking. This was less of a serious endurance event than a light hearted invitation to friends, family and business colleagues to support a worthy cause and a small charity called Kariandusi which does things really well. As in the last four Challenges, a very large number of you stepped up and the total donated to date is 45,018 ( 32,863) inclusive of 12,500 donated by Annabel and me and 6,545 ( 4,777) of Gift Aid. This not only means we build two new schools in Kenya but we build two really good new schools with top of the class facilities! It really will give a lot of small children a chance of education and success, and over the useful life of the two schools, this equates to tens of thousands of children. So a very big thank you for your continuing support and generosity. What of the Challenge s so-called Athlete? Other than the fact that I have brought my first hip and knee replacement forward by several years, I have survived this Challenge quite well and much better than I expected or deserved! As a sporting proposition, it was not about speed. It was more about not passing out during the swim, getting the blood back from vital organs to other parts of the body as soon as possible, to cycle a heavy but perfectly functional bike for a very manageable distance (until you get to a hill) and then not blowing a tendon in the bare foot sandals on the otherwise very manageable run. The time taken for the event of 11 hours and 25 minutes was admittedly deeply shameful and would have the Athlete disqualified from all organized triathlons of this distance. But so too would attempting it without a wet suit, as well as the repeated, egregious breaches of the Highway Code. As it turned out, the Challenge went more or less according to plan. Inexplicably, but as usual, the sun shone brightly on our Challenge as if Kenya had come five thousand miles north for the day! I am confident too that a number of new triathlon records were established including the longest ever swim-bike transition, the heaviest bike ever cycled and, it was of course, a New World Record for this particular event! So, those Brownlee Brothers and Javier Gomez Moya can dine tonight on my little black Kenyan shorts and should be very, very afraid when I come up against them in the World Triathlon Series Olympic Distance in Leeds next year! Oh yes! Returning to Planet Earth for a moment, Annabel and I can only thank you once more for your support and your encouragement. I hope you share the sense of achievement and that our Behind the Scenes makes you smile! Happy Christmas and God bless!
Behind the Scenes of the Kenyan Ironman Challenge! The following account gives you a glimpse of what it was like on the Kenyan Ironman Challenge and what really went on behind the scenes. This account contains some adult humour so be prepared to be shocked if you are at all sensitive! Swimming with the Swans, or Swimming with the Fishes? The Kenyan Ironman Challenge began after a sleepless night of great excitement and anticipation. The sweet shop was about to open and I was first in line! Up at 5.45 am, a breakfast of sugar free Alpen, wholemeal toast, two potassium rich bananas (to ward off cramp) and coffee. At 6.35 am, Annabel (aka Mrs Walker Jr) and I get on our bikes. She s on a Boris Bike rented for two pounds from the George Street stand just outside our house in London, I am on my Fixie (the technical term for a bike with no gears) and at 6.40 am we are on our way to The Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park. We arrive at The Serpentine at 6.55 am, park the bikes and find the water temperature is as expected just 8 degrees Centigrade. It s still fairly dark, but the ducks are already awake and we worry if they have somehow got a whiff from my Tupperware of the fat of their fallen comrades! So, after a photo shoot with a few swans and a bit of nervous prevarication, at 7.30 am, the event gets underway. It is still 15 minutes to dawn, the water is very, very cold especially on first contact, duck fat
notwithstanding. I start to swim in the cold black waters and take a little comfort from the fact that the best Ironman Triathlons 140.6 (the so called Full Distance ) always start and finish in the dark for most competitors, even if they take place in summer! Now the undertaking to complete the swim with no goggles seemed like a good idea at the time. I am not sure how many pairs of swimming goggles are sold in Kenya every year but, as open water swimming remains very much a minority sport in Kenya with few long term practitioners due to the well documented presence of crocodiles and hippos, we can safely say only a few. Therefore, no goggles were allowed for this event. The no goggles undertaking meant that only breaststroke could be done to avoid filthy water in the eyes and certain conjunctivitis. So breaststroke it had to be, much slower of course, which meant much longer in the water. And that s bad when its just 8 degrees. Normally 35 minutes of crawl is enough for me to complete the 1.9 km swim of the Ironman 70.3 swim distance but this version of the event executed with head out of water and at breaststroke took a full 51 minutes. In the real world of proper triathlons, the event would have been cancelled if the water had been less than 11 degrees and wetsuits would have been compulsory below 14 degrees. This water was 8 degrees. Not surprisingly, and in the interests of having some chance of completing the full Half Iron distance, Invigilator Annabel yanked me out of the lake after some time swimming in just my trunks and made me put on a sad apology for a wetsuit which had, amongst its other failings, no arms. Even in the partial wetsuit, after about 35 minutes, I was starting to swim very slowly as the blood left the limbs and went to the vital organs to try to keep the organism alive. In the event, I was very pleased to avoid an enforced shortening of the swim section which very commonly happens in competitive triathlons when the water temperature is unexpectedly cold. And of course, the event brochure had warned that a wetsuit might be used for part of the swim. This small print notwithstanding, the Invigilators decided that this donning of the partial wetsuit should be compensated by a Forfeit to be determined in due course by the Sponsors. But, as my jaw had locked at this point due to the cold, I could hardly protest. At 8.21 am the Swim Section was successfully completed. I emerged unaided from the lake but was reportedly very white and waxy in the face and a very red on the skin. And it was also reported that I could not take my trunks off nor think straight. What then took place was surely the longest swim to bike transition in the history of the triathlon sport. It took me an other 55 minutes of drinking hot liquid, rubbing down and full body shivering to get the body temperature up to a level where it was reasonable to start a 90 km bike ride on the bike with no gears.
When Great Gear Means No Gear! The bike was always going to be the easiest of the stages. A Fixie is fine on the flat and false flat and enduring five or six hours in the saddle is just a question of having sat on one enough in the first place, which I had many times in training. The difficulty comes when you have to take on a hill of more than a 5% gradient and Box Hill is as high as 8%. Conscious of having lost a lot of time, and anxious that the large crowd presumably waiting to greet me effusively at Speaker s Corner might dissipate if I was late, Invigilator Nick Hill and I resorted to running a few lights and jumping a few pavements as we made our way through dense London traffic into the lovely Surrey countryside. Around 25% of total time spent was out of the saddle and required some drunken zigzagging across the road on the steeper parts. So, instead of a normal time of three hours or so for a 90 kms distance with similar height gain on a nice bike, I took 5 hours and 40 minutes to get back to the Serpentine on the Fixie. Clearly a very poor, and easily improvable performance.
Bare Foot Lies! The Run Section covering the half marathon distance started at 2.55 pm. Now the secret to long distance running is trying to find your Happy Place and staying there for as long as you can. Your Happy Place is a semi hypnotic state where you can take refuge mentally as you grind out the miles of a very long run with half an eye on your watch to ensure you are not slacking off. One friend of mine says he likes to think of hitting Monte Panesar for six in his Happy Place. Another says he thinks about which of the Spice Girls he would most like to get pregnant. Sometimes, I like to think about when I proposed to Annabel five days after meeting her when she was just 18. But mostly I like to think about the many times I gave Jeremy Clarkson detention at school.. because I was Head Boy, and he wasn t even a prefect. It is probably the only thing I have ever done that everyone everywhere has universally approved of. Even my mum approves! Well, I did manage to find my Happy Place after Kilometre 1. I trotted along in what bare foot runners call the prancing pony technique, running on the balls of my feet in the cushion-less, open toed 1000 Milers - I got into a rhythm which was slow and steady but remarkably constant. But, by Kilometre 5, I hit The Wall. I suddenly became extremely hungry having been deprived of my gels and bars for 8 hours and my left knee and hip joint were quite painful - if only this had been Formula One, they would both have been changed immediately. But as it was, I was given rather roughly two bananas and told to get on with it by Invigilator Annabel who was not enjoying the Fixie at all as she rode along beside me, invigilating. This was quite understandable as the saddle of the Fixie was stuck at my height,
not hers. There was some animated discussion at this point in the Challenge as to who was suffering most, as she tried to cycle a 12 kilo bike with no gears on tip toes. That was another argument I lost. So, the only part of the Challenge which did not go absolutely on wheels was the Run. With very sore lady parts and a bad knee and hip, (for the avoidance of doubt, mine were the knee and hip), we started to dig deep and found the streets of London between 3 pm and 5 pm to be absolutely packed and barely passable. Therefore, after a difficult weaving run to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and the lights of Oxford Street, it was decided we would abandon the Land Mark Tour and return to the relatively unencumbered trails of Hyde Park, and complete the last 10 kilometres doing a couple of laps on the horse gallops known as Rotten Row. After a run section lasting almost 4 hours, (normally 1 hour 42), which was made tedious by the traffic lights and by the constant need to dodge Christmas shoppers with more prams, bags, dogs and small children than I can remember, I finally arrived after 21.1 kms at Speaker s Corner at 6.55 PM. 11 hours 25 minutes after the start. Here, and quite unsurprisingly, I found that the cold weather, the darkness and the far more exciting proximity of Oxford Street and Winter Wonderland had dissipated the tumultuous crowds that had been waiting surely for hours to hear my words about how Less is More. But, by this time, I was no longer sure that Less WAS More anyway. In fact, I had developed a strong feeling by now that Less was not Good at all, and More is definitely better!). And as for giving away More, all I could think about was grabbing as much money as I could, and going to the pub! After all, I was a now the World Champion at the Kenyan Ironman Triathlon!! And the Kenyan Ironman Challenge had been completed!!
Reflections and Retribution Have I learnt much about triathlons as I prepared for this latest Challenge? Yes, I have learnt quite a lot. Firstly, I have learnt that I am not a serious triathlete. I know this because my legs are not as smooth as Annabel s, my bike does not cost more than my car, I don t keep it on a trainer in front of the TV in the living room and I don t wear a heart rate monitor when I am in bed with the Missus. But I do weigh 5 kilos less than I did. And I can look down with that very annoying arrogance of so many under-fed endurance athletes at anyone talking about doing a tough 10k! And what about the Forfeit for wearing the sad apology for a wetsuit for a section of the Swim? Well, a few of the Sponsors in their wisdom said that I could chose between doing the full swim part again properly (i.e. swimming trunks only and no goggles) or alternatively I could wrestle a fully grown African python at night in water of less than 10 degrees with photographic proof to be provided. If you would like to know which option I chose, please see the very last page of this Behind the Scenes. And what about the lovely and long suffering Annabel, who endures these Challenges every two or three years and which she lives and breaths every bit as much as I do. I unfairly get most of the credit because I am Front of House in a Restaurant that tries to serve up a few new schools in Kenya from time to time. But she is most definitely Head Chef, as well as in charge of Heath and Safety and No Swearing. For this, she deserves much more credit than I do especially as she does worry a bit and that probably keeps me safer than I might otherwise be.
How does she cope? Well, she gets by with a lot of patience and a wonderful sense of humour. As it is SO GOOD for my humility, which let s face it I really need to work on, I will leave Annabel to close this Behind the Scenes account of the Kenyan Ironman Challenge with some reflections on the state of my Manliness as I would climb virtually naked out of our freezing cold swimming pool at night in Madrid whilst trying to acclimatize to the coldness I could expect from The Serpentine in London in December. She really did say all of the following things on different occasions at she watched me get dry: Gosh, where s it gone? Wow, this really does take you back to when you were a very little boy! Oh dear, oh dear, your thingie now looks more like my thingie! Oh no! I think something has bitten it off! Thanks and Credits The effort we put into the Challenges is nothing beside the work of the core Kariandusi School Trust/ Langalanga Scholarship Fund team led by Harry Vialou Clark MBE. They provide us with a shining example of how to live a full and active retirement (what retirement!?). The team is Harry Vialou Clark MBE, Alison Vialou Clark, Anne Smyth, Rosemary Price, and Nigel Trent. With an honourable mention of honest Kenyan builder Mathenghe. I owe a debt of gratitude to Antonio Mollinedo of Inmasan, who very kindly built our fabulous website www.kenyanironman.com and posted our News Items. He very selflessly gave up a lot of his hard earned personal time at weekends to this event. Again, the world s best outdoors pursuits ad agency, Joe Public, stepped up to produce this end of event brochure, so my thanks to Richard Hamshire and Ian Hogg and all the other little hogs at Joe Public. Our friend Jojo Bates took it upon herself to market this madness enthusiastically to all her colleagues at Mondrian, and this group became the largest Collective amongst our wonderful group of sponsors, suggesting that perhaps, after all, not all bankers are bad! A big thank you to Nick Hill, the second Invigilator, for taking a morning off important other work, to accompany me on the bike stage and ensuring this was done exactly as it said on the tin. And last but not least, a very big thank you to the team which tried as best they could to build the Kenyan Ironman through a year long training programme: Jorge Blasco and Miguel de Miguel Morales (who also designed our logo) my two fantastic personal trainers at the REEBOK Sports Club in Madrid, and to Raquel Calvo, my physio. Finally, the very last word from Harry Vialou Clark MBE from Kariandusi with his own thanks to us all.
A Word From Our Hero ----Building an Educated Future for Kenyan Children---- Colonel HE Vialou Clark MBE Folly Cottage Penton Mewsey ANDOVER SP11 0RQ England Tel: +44 (0)1264 773674 Email: vialouclark@btinternet.com Dear Supporters of the Kenyan Ironman Challenge, 7 December 2015 I am asking Nick to send this letter to all those who have donated money in support of his legendary adventure challenges. My charity has been the lucky recipient of a great deal of the funds that he has raised over the years and to which you and he have given so generously. Nick s latest escapade has been the Ironman Challenge that he has made more difficult and eye-catching than any Ironman attempt in the history of the event (my words). By the time you read this, the Challenge will be have been attempted. I can only hope and pray that the lion dung has kept Nick safe and he will recover soon from his extraordinary undertaking! The money you have helped him raise will be spent on the construction of a new, two classroomed nursery in the grounds of Ngeteti Primary School. A few years ago my charity brought that school to life. Since then the Kenya Government has started to build a secondary school close by. On a recent visit we discovered there was a great need for a proper, independent nursery school for the growing number of 3-5 year-old children. This new school will provide early education for around 80 small children who so urgently need rooms of their own. It will release two classrooms in the primary school to enable the older children to have more space. All parents will then know their children will be properly looked after while they toil in the fields. I am now able, thanks to you all, to give the go-ahead to start building on site. By the September term 2016 I believe the first lucky children will be admitted. We have very recently completed a similar building at Langalanga Primary School named Annabel s Nursery School in recognition of Nick s long-suffering wife and which Nick has very largely funded and which he continues to help financially. Nick and I are fully aware that without the remarkable support of so many of his friends, family and business partners none of this would have been possible. I send you all my sincerest thanks, together with the thanks of countless youngsters who are benefiting, and will continue to benefit, from your generosity. I will send Nick pictures from time to time as we build this new school and I am sure he will send these on to you. With sincerest thanks and good wishes. Trustees: Colonel Harry Vialou Clark MBE (Chairman); Ms Sue Phelps; Mrs Alison Vialou Clark. Hon Auditor: Mrs Amanda Cavanagh ACA; Hon Treasurer: Mrs Rosemary Pryce Registered Charity No: 1101103 Website: www.kariandusi.co.uk
The Terrible Forfeit! Now you know how tough I really am! Challenge Completed!