Being behind the pack isn’t a situation I’ve spent a lot of time in during my career. That’s what happened to me, though, at the start of this year’s Nutri-Grain IronMan series.
In our first race at Perth the water was very flat, which makes the race that much more difficult. Flat water was really not what I’d hoped for when travelling all the way to Perth from my home on the Gold Coast.
I had a poor performance, probably one of the worst of my career. I don’t really know what led to that, maybe I was a little flat, a little sick – I wasn’t jumping out of my skin when racing like I usually am.
I’d spent the pre-season last year training for the Lifesaving World Championships in France. I won my fifth world title over the before taking some time off to travel with my family.
My preparation for that left me a little underdone for the first round, and I had to get it together in round two. I got myself back in contention, but still a few points behind off the lead.
This sport has always been in my blood. I was born on the Gold Coast where my dad worked as a council lifeguard and was a nippers coach. I started out as a nipper at Surfer’s Paradise surf club, but played a lot of other sports at school – rugby, soccer, swimming, and cross country.
From about fifteen or so I knew IronMan was what I wanted to pursue. My dad was my coach to start with but soon I was being coached by Trevor Hendy, one of the Surfer’s Paradise greats.
I learned a lot from Trevor about the sport, especially about how to use the surf conditions to my advantage, and having such a great career himself he helped me avoid some of the pitfalls along the way.
Trevor really helped to fast track my development, and we still have a great friendship to this day, starting more than a decade ago when I was teenager who just wanted to be like him.
I won my first world title at Dayton Beach in the USA in 2002, when I was eighteen. I’ve been at the top of the game for more than a decade since and I’d like to think I’ve been pretty consistent throughout my career.
On top of the titles I’ve won, being able to represent Australia, and captain Australia, has been one of my proudest achievements.
The Australian and World titles are one-off races, so you can sometimes get a little lucky, but the Nutri-Grain series is split into six rounds, meaning you need to be really consistently at your best to win. So to back up my first world title by winning the series was pretty cool.
As part of the Nutri-Grain series we go to three different beaches and face a variety of surf conditions, and there are a number of different race formats as well. It’s a real test, and probably my favourite of the different competitions I’ve done.
The beauty of the sport is the challenge that comes from testing yourself against the surf. It’s not like lap-swimming where you just move through still water. The surf is ever-changing, it can be flat one day but six foot and windy the next.
I’m not the type to just go at it hammer and tongs from the start line, instead I like to read the surf, and approach it cool, calm and collected. I like to calculate and think the race out – a few of the commentators like to call me ‘the professor’.
The time I spent in cross country helped me as an IronMan. It meant I could use the running legs to really make up ground on the other athletes. It used to be something of a recovery period, a rest before the next leg on the water, but now it’s become a tactical sprint.
Another great aspect of the sport has been being able to share it my brother Caine. He’s found his niche in the Coolangatta gold and has won that five times. He’s a big endurance guy, and holds the world record for most chin-ups in 24 hours.
People have talked about me becoming the greatest of all time – Trevor likes to push me to keep going on because he wants people to stop calling him that, he thinks it’s a burden on his shoulders.
That kind of accolade is not really something I think about, it doesn’t change anything in my world. I’ve enjoyed my career and I’ve had fun doing it, and I’ll continue to do it as long as I can, and when I retire I think I’ll look back and be pretty happy with what I’ve done.
Through my career it’s been the challenges I’ve face that have motivated me to keep going. The challenge of the surf, the challenge of out-thinking my opponents.
This time around it was a challenge that I wasn’t too familiar with, being behind on points and needing a big finish to take out the series.
But it’s just the kind of the challenge that I love.
WITNESS THE UNSTOPPABLE
The Nutri-Grain IronMan and IronWoman Series showcases some of the most daring and impressive athletes in Australia.Witness the strength, courage and determination of these super-fit men and women as they tackle brutal surf and sand all around Australia.
Check out the full broadcast on Channel Nine this Sunday or head here for more information
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