Category: Life

I have recently joined two driving agencies. Now that I have wasted two years of my life they can insure me, or blag their customers that I’ve been driving for two years, or some such. Whatever the detail, now I’ve held my license for two years suddenly two agencies have taken me on their books. Until now I’ve not even warranted a “piss-off, newbie!” email.

The first one I applied to was exactly what I was expecting. A chair, a desk and ‘phone in a room above a shop. Obviously someone setting up an agency and just getting names on their books in case they ever landed an employment contract. The woman was actually ringing firms and blagging them whilst I was filling in my details!

I have been spending my last day off wisely reading through the works of the master, Alan Moore. In particular ‘The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (a wonderful collage of  fin-de-siecle fictional characters) whence upon I perused this missive and reply;

Dear Sirs-

Last post on this, promise. And I’ll make it brief.

I have some images to show for my ordeal. Unfortunately they are not very good. They seem to show me being really slow, and in the case of exiting the swim, totally shell-shocked. Which is mainly because they are accurate.  Damn!

…And that makes us mighty.”

Nine months ago, when I first discovered there was such a thing as an Ironman, I used that quote (from Mel, in Firefly) to express what I thought it would be like to have completed one. Nine months. Didn’t realize it was that quick.

I know, I’ve already covered it; it was stupidly hilly, uneven underfoot, hotter than a chilli in a microwave, and we  had to ford a stream, so ran the last eight or so kilometres with soaked, very heavy feet.

Now though, I have the race statistics!

I said it was tough, here’s how tough: there were 610 people started the race, only 383 finished it!  My time, which for a flat, road race would have been lamentable at 4.09:25, was good enough to put me 85th on the day. Which was 28th in my age category (Male, 40-50). These are things that please me. As did outlasting a guy with a ‘100 Marathons Club’ T-shirt on. Hehehe. He was good most of the way around but I had him (ooo-er, Mrs!) in the last 6k.