25th July Ironman Zoorick Just Pissing About..

"Funnily enough it's the swim I'm most worried about." said Old Nick (42) doing his first Ironman. "So long as I've got space in front of me to swim in I'll be ok - It'll be ok" He assured himself. We shuffled barefoot along with two and half thousand other rubber suited clones through the muddied grass towards the early morning lake. "Yeah and then your goggles mist up halfway through and you don't know where the hell the bouys are." i interjected, "DON'T TALK IT UP MATE! DON'T TALK IT UP!" That was the last I'd see of Old Nick and buddy Tone until 5 mins before the end of the race...  Now you can always pee in a wetsuit but try as I might I just couldn't relax the old bladder enough to get the flow started whilst I was front crawling. So I kept on, tried to forget about it but the pressure kept on mounting, Bloody Hell! Carter! it was becoming unbearable - I'd  just have to break off and tread water to finally get some relief. I knew what would happen though - as soon as you stop swimming the nearest bloody race marshal in a kayak thinks you're in difficulty. Well I WAS but not cos i was gonna drown. So this Swiss German comes paddling over just when i was in  warm relaxing midstream ach I just had to get swimming again and make straight for the porta-loos in transition one. The cycling was something best forgotten about and there was two laps of it. I stuck to coca cola and water and I think I only needed one roadside urination in the whole 112 miles. What sticks in my mind is umpah bands and steel bands and pretty girls coming past in Lycra with names like Jolleen. Any girl's name that was part of a song made you want to break out of delirium into an  appropriate refrain - "Jolleen Jolleen Jolleen JO-LLEEEEEEN! " or whatever. So the run? - well you could drink yourself silly on that and there were handy urinals every few kilometres but then I wasted so much time at the urinals I missed getting under the 14hours by 13 seconds. God damn it to hell!