Life Without Limits, A

A Life
Without Limits

To my family. My foundation.
My victories are also yours.

Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

Copyright © Chrissie Wellington, 2012

The right of Chrissie Wellington to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-84901-713-8 (HB)
ISBN: 978-1-780033-671-8 (TPB)
eISBN: 978-1-84901-889-0

Printed and bound in the UK

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

My life has been shaped by so many amazing people. I have been able to include many of you in this book, but by no means all. I am indebted to each and every one of you for your unconditional friendship, advice, tough love, inspiration and guidance.

In particular, I want to give thanks to my wonderful mum and dad, my brother and sister-in-law, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and cousins for providing me with a family cocoon of love, support and encouragement; to Tom for teaching me the meaning of true love; to my friends around the world, most of whom have known me long before triathlon, and whose support means more to me than they could ever know. To Brett for trusting in me and in himself when all around might have doubted, to Dave for refining me into the athlete I am today and to Frank Horwill, Don Feltwell and Jon Sadler who taught me always to try and never to stop believing in the power of my dreams. Since the writing of this book, Frank has sadly passed away. He was a true legend in British athletics, and his loss leaves a large hole in the sport, as well as in the lives of so many athletes, mine included.

To Paul Robertshaw and all at the BRAT Club, as well as my first triathlon coach, Tim Weeks, for introducing me to this wonderful sport and in so doing changing my life beyond recognition. And to my manager, Ben, for showing me that it can be ‘show-friends’, not simply ‘show-business’. Of course, my incredible sponsors deserve a special mention. You know who you are, but, in particular, I’d like to thank Ryan and Matt at TYR, who have been there from the start, and Brooks, Cannondale and CytoSport – our long-term partnerships have powered me to heights I could never have imagined.

We are privileged in triathlon to have our sport driven by the most enthusiastic and inspiring participants, both the spectators and the competitors of any age or ability. I am constantly inspired by the time and energy people devote to the sport, as well as by the emails and tweets I receive in the way of personal support. On race day, sharing the highs and lows with so many thousands of age-groupers is always a joy. But a special thanks, too, to my professional competitors and training partners, whose talents have given me the kick up the butt to be the best I can be and whose generosity of spirit knows no bounds.

I would also like to thank the charities for which I am honoured to be a patron, including Jane’s Appeal, The Blazeman Foundation for ALS, Challenged Athletes Foundation, Envision, Girls Education Nepal and GOTRibal. I am honoured to be involved with your wonderful work and will do what I can to support you in whatever ways I can.

For the production of this book, my deepest gratitude goes to Andreas Campomar and Nicola Jeanes of Constable & Robinson, Rolf Zettersten and Kate Hartson of Center Street, Jonathan Conway of Mulcahy Conway Associates, Jonny McWilliams of the Wasserman Media Group and to Michael Aylwin for enabling me to put my life into words.

Your support has enabled me to live a life without limits and for that I am so sincerely grateful.

Foreword

I’d been cycling at a steady pace for nearly a hundred miles. The barren road knifed through thick, black lava fields that tolerated little in the way of life among their rocks. Every now and then a bougainvillea bush would appear in splendid isolation on the roadside, but otherwise I had just the long white line I was following on the side of the road for company. The tropical sun was high overhead, so high that my bike and I cast barely any shadow. And the road stretched out ahead of me, now empty of cyclists. I was in the lead.

I took a moment to allow this to sink in. I wasn’t sure who the two girls I’d just passed were, because I knew barely anyone in this race. It might have been the World Championships of the most gruelling single-day event in sport, but this was all new to me. The Pacific Ocean was royal blue to my right, and to my left rose the volcano of Hualalai, shrouded in cloud. If you’re lucky, the cloud cover extends down to the coast, but we were having no such luck, and the heat hung over the tarmac like a wicked spirit distorting the way ahead.

It was just past midday. Five and a half hours earlier our race had begun in the waters of that ocean. If everything went well, I could expect another four until the finish line. Officially it was up past ninety in the shade, but out here on this stark naked road it was over 100. And the wind was ferocious. Coming down off the volcano, it had already forced me once onto the rumble strips at the side of the road. It was frightening to cycle in such a crosswind, but it stripped you bare as well. This was like racing in a blast furnace. In a couple of hours’ time I would be back out here, this time on foot, well into the marathon that completes the day’s activities. By then it would be even hotter. Would I still be in the lead?

This was an ironman triathlon,
the
Ironman Triathlon. Every October, the World Championships of the sport are held in Kona on the Island of Hawaii. An ironman is the longest distance of triathlon – a 2.4-mile swim, 112 miles on the bike, and then you run a marathon.

Unbeknown to me, four previous champions had by now dropped out of the race. In an ironman, even the world’s best face a challenge just to finish. I was in pole position. This didn’t seem real.

I don’t think I’d ever struck anyone as obvious world-champion material. For a start, there’s my nickname. It’s Muppet. And, yes, it’s for pretty much the reasons you would think. I have always been accident-prone and low on common sense. I was sports-mad as a kid, but there was no sign of any unusual talent.

But I’ve also been driven, for as long as I can remember, by a fierce determination to make the best of myself and to try to make the best of the world around me. Eight months earlier, I had given up my job in the Civil Service to become a professional triathlete. International development was my passion, but when bureaucracy and red tape started to get me down, sport offered itself as the perfect way to get things moving again – both in terms of my own development and my ambitions to help others. I have seen how sport can empower people and cross boundaries.

It has always empowered me, but only now, with that road stretching clear ahead of me, did I start to sense what a chance I had. The girl who had come from nowhere, the muppet who had taken the lead! I had to make sure that this was just the beginning. There was a hell of a long way still to go, so much more to overcome. But if I could do it . . .

1

The Ironman

The ironman. Just the name excites me. It is one of the most awe-inspiring events in sport. I fell in love with it the first time I attended one – and that was as a mere spectator, less than five months earlier.

It’s a question of scale. Biggest is not necessarily best, they say, but it is when it comes to endurance sport. There is a special mystique about the marathon, for example, because of its length – but that’s just the bit you do at the end of an ironman.

That first taste I had of an ironman was in June 2007, at Ironman Switzerland in Zurich. I was there because the day before I had competed in, and won, an Olympic-distance triathlon (in length, less than a quarter of an ironman). Immediately, I realised that the ironman was the main event. The sense of occasion had risen with the length of the race.

There is a special buzz that hangs in the air, like when the best team in the world comes to town. The occasion inspires extraordinary things in people – extraordinary excitement in those watching, extraordinary levels of performance from those competing.

But what raises ironman above other sports is the visceral nature of the contest against a fixed and unyielding foe: the contest against the race itself. You see humanity at its rawest, at its best and its worst. The ironman brings that out in you. Finishing it is a victory. People vomit at the side of the road, they lose control of their basic functions, they collapse, they become delirious, desperate to reach the finish line, when sometimes that finish line is still miles away. It evokes such emotion and requires you to dig to the depths, physically and mentally. And then there is the euphoria and relief of making it to the end. Inspirational is the only word to describe it. You don’t get that from a game of cricket or football.

The first ironman triathlon took place on my first birthday, 18 February 1978. It started life as an argument. Who were fitter, runners or swimmers? The debate raged around one table at an awards ceremony after a running race on Oahu, Hawaii. John Collins, a US Navy commander, threw cyclists into the mix, having read that Eddy Merckx, the Belgian cyclist, had the highest oxygen uptake of any athlete ever measured. There and then, it occurred to him that, if they combined the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Around Oahu Bike Race and the Honolulu Marathon, they would have the perfect test to settle the argument. The first to finish would be called the Ironman. He leaped onto the stage, grabbed the microphone and proclaimed his idea. They laughed at it.

Nevertheless, a year later the first ‘Ironman’ was contested by Collins and his friends. Fifteen competitors started; twelve finished. The winner was Gordon Haller, a taxi driver, completing the 140.6 miles in a little under twelve hours. Collins finished in seventeen hours.

The following year’s race attracted the attention of a passing journalist, who wrote an article for
Sports Illustrated
describing what he saw. This inspired hundreds to compete in 1980. In 1981 the race was moved from Oahu to its current home, the less-populated Hawaii Island, or ‘the Big Island’, as it is fondly nicknamed. The US network ABC expressed an interest in covering the race. And in 1982, its legend was sealed.