Athletes channel upside to delay
‘As soon as I found out I went to the fridge and grabbed a beer.”
That was multi-event athlete Mike Phillips’ first reaction to the news last weekend that Ironman New Zealand had been postponed because of the increase in Covid-19 alert levels.
The iconic Taupo¯ event was scheduled for this weekend, but organisers were forced to put it on hold following the Covid announcement from the Government.
For Phillips, who won in 2019 and finished second last year, it was a bit of a shock when the news came through last Saturday night.
“Wasn’t really expecting there to be a one-week lockdown, so I was pretty disappointed.”
“You put a lot of work in for just this one day with several months of sacrifice set to count for nothing, as I didn’t expect them to be able to reschedule it.”
“I went to the fridge and grabbed a beer straightaway and let the hair down for a day or two.”
“The motivation took a bit of a hit as it’s hard to set the alarm clock for an early Sunday morning and go and spend six hours on your bike when it looked like the event wasn’t going to go ahead.”
The news of the postponement was also a shock for Tauranga’s Dr Hannah Wells who was set to compete in her first Ironman.
Wells, who has become prominent in the 70.3 (half-ironman) distance since 2017, had decided to step up to Ironman this year and was set to make her debut in Taupo¯ over the full distance of 3.8km swim, 180km bike and 42km run.
“There were obviously a lot of unknowns for the first couple of
days and it was pretty unsettling, but I just had to go with the flow as there’s not a lot you can do about it other than hold on to hope.”
Both Wells and Phillips went through the next couple of days unsure of what may happen and whether their seasons were over.
“I didn’t think they’d be able to reschedule it as there are so many moving parts to an Ironman with the staff and volunteers and all the extras,” said Phillips.
Wells was a bit more confident and admits having two days of light training planned, did help her cope with the situation.
“I did feel a bit tired on the Monday because it was a little bit stressful not knowing what was going on, but I carried on with training in the hope that we would be racing eventually.”
The 28-year-old says having a couple of light days training did allow her to get her body and mind adjusted. “Obviously, if you’ve got some mental stress it also affects physical training so having those couple of easy days was well planned.”