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Steve Blun -Ironman Finisher 

I'm back home and semi-recovered from Lanzarote, and I've finally finished my write-up… 
Ironman Lanzarote 1999 was a pure blast --- one long, hot, windy day. I can't really describe how pumped I still am about my first Ironman. Even two weeks after it's still just a great feeling. Happy as hell. I came in last, except for Randy Caddell, the wheelchair guy, but given what he went through, you can't really say he came in last. He was in a whole other race. What a stud. The conditions on 22 May 1999 were pretty interesting. 
The swim was in choppy water off Puerto del Carmen on the south coast of Lanzarote. No finisher went under 52 minutes for the 3.8 Km. It was a two loop swim course. My first lap was reasonable, about 45 minutes, which was right at the upper limit of what I thought my time would be. The chop got worse on the second lap, and my arms tired, so the time stretched another nine minutes or so. But I felt good throughout, and got out of the water in about 1:39, with legs that were surprisingly fresh. Over the winter, our Masters team coach has worked a lot of Total Immersion principles into our training, and I think that really paid off. 
The swim led to a tough, tough, 180K bike with headwinds going out and shifting winds (at least for us ”back of the packers”) on the return. First came a climb up a hill into the wind, to get you warmed up. Then we did about 40K through lava fields, the last 20K of the Montañas del Fuego being uphill and into a 40 to 50 mph headwind. I passed a lot of people walking their bikes, and I never saw them again. I waved at one guy I knew, and he just looked at me and said ”don't get off the bike, you'll never get back on again.” Best advice of the day. I did a ride like that in April, although not on purpose. Riding back from the Corralitos Duathlon a training buddy, George Nye, and I were caught in 50-plus mph winds. At the time, George said if I hit winds like that at IML, I'd be in real trouble. He was right. But Lynne Kosorek-s comment also rang true – all it takes is courage. Well, that and a bit of training. Planning helped, too. I stuck to my nutrition plan throughout the bike, and it worked well. Started with two bottles of Quic Disk on my bike, and drank that as quickly as I could after the swim. From then on I drank water, and lots of it. The aid stations were something like 20K apart, and I tried to drink two bike bottles of water between each of them. My watch was set to beep every twenty minutes, and I kept to a hourly cycle: on the first twenty minute beep I ate half a Met-RX bar, on the second I took a shot of Power Gel, and on the third I ate half a Power Bar and took two Endurolyte tablets. Every so often, I'd grab half a banana at an aid station, or chew on a Quic Disc. I was taking in a little over a litre of water per hour, along with about 300 to 350 Kcals and plenty of electrolytes. I was clear and copious the whole day. Spent the rest of the ride climbing and descending. The really long, straight descents were all into the wind – at one point I was even in my small chain ring. Around the 70K mark, I passed Club La Santa on the north coast of the island. I was staying there, and I started thinking about a soft bed and big sandwich. In a lot of ways, Club La Santa is a trigeek's paradise – fifty meter pool, 400 meter track, well-equipped gym, a bike shop and plenty of room to run and ride. IML is a Club La Santa production from beginning to end, and its experience and professionalism shows. In addition to the legions of volunteers, the club's Green Team staff was out in force, supervising and taking direct responsibility for the truly critical elements of the race. It was time to head inland again, though, and head for the bike course summit. The two killer climbs (as opposed to the merely miserable climbs) were up to Mirador de Haría and Mirador del Río. Spectacular scenery – you just can't believe it. But hard to appreciate at the time. By the time I finished that last, long pull, I had about 2,000 meters of climbing behind me. Phil Liggett's Ironman broadcast commentary – or what I remembered of it – kept running through my mind: ”so you want to be an Ironman, you dumb f***.” The last 40K was the key part of the bike for me. I had figured out the necessary pace for a range of times, and taped it all to my top tube. When I hit the 140K mark, I saw that I had to do 17 mph to make it under the cut off. That would have been reasonable if I got the normal tail wind out of the north. But like the brochure for this race says, ”the normal limits don't apply”. Actually, normal is not a word you should use in any context with this race. I cranked it up, and tried to hold the pace, despite the fact that the wind had quartered around the west. At least I hadn't flipped completely into a headwind. On one blessed easterly jog, the tail wind assist got me up to 46 mph – if only that had been coming from the north. One thing that sustained me was the people of Lanzarote. All day, the stood along the course, clapping and cheering. Even for a guy as far off the back as me. And carloads of people kept pulling up alongside and cheering me, with shouts of ”Ferro Hombre”!” and ”A-ni-MAL!” Encouragement like that can melt away fatigue and frustration in a heart beat. I knew it would be close when I saw volunteers starting to take the course markers down, but the Guardia Civil took pity on me, and gave me a motorcycle escort into the finish. It was pretty neat, if very tense. With about 5K to go, I cranked up what I could of a sprint, and another quote – this one real – from Winston Churchill became my mantra for the rest of the day: ”Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never.” I didn't give in. I made it to the run transition with about 10:28:30 showing on the race clock – 90 seconds to spare in the bike cut off. The run was hot and windy. One report had it at about 35 degrees C (~85 degrees F) on the run, other reports said 30 degrees C (~85 degrees F) on the bike. The run course was very gently rolling – I might have described it as flat if I hadn't have just come off a 180K bike segment. At that point though, you can feel even a small rise. I tried to run, but my knee – I tweaked it at Wildflower – was not happy, and in general my legs were not co-operating. So I ran-walked the four laps of the marathon course. 100 paces walking, 100 jogging. Started out doing 12 minute miles, and saw that slipping to nearly 15 minutes by the end. On my first lap, I saw my cousin Sean Hayhow heading around on this last lap. He finished in 11:45, which was very good by the rigorous standards of the day – the men's winning time was 9:05, second place was 9:18, and the winning woman came in at 10:43. It was more than enough to sew up his place on Team UK for the Long Course Worlds in Sweden in July. I also saw my roommate, David ”Major Tom” Barclay of RST fame, out on the run course. I'll let him tell his own story when he returns home – he left on a voyage to West Africa after the race – but when I saw him he was obviously having a hell of a good time, and he finished hours ahead of me. I'll just mention that one mark of his success was the fact that Ogopogo was not on the receiving end of a Technicolor prayer this time. The sun set, but the wind didn't, and it started getting cold. With about 3K to go, I saw flashing blue lights behind me. It was my old buddies, the Guardia Civil, doing their final sweep of the course. They followed me nearly to the finish line. When I could finally see the finish, about 300 meters out, the volunteers at the last aid station starting running with me. And then the finish – five years of training and twenty years of dreaming all culminating in one moment as I ran through the archway. I just don't have the words to describe it yet. 16:50:50 was my official time. I made with about nine minutes to spare. But I made it. The race director, Kenneth Gasque, was there to welcome me in, as enthusiastically as he greeted the winner, Matt Belfield hours before. One woman I knew and several I didn't started hugging me. People kept asking how I felt, and I kept saying great! The funny thing was, I did feel great. No pain, no fatigue (that would come soon enough), just total exhilaration. All I could think was ”I made it”. Afterwards, I took the obligatory walk into the medical tent, and saw a lot of the people who didn't. More than a quarter of the field didn't finish. Afterwards, at the awards ceremony, the verdict was that this year's race had the roughest conditions ever, and that's at a race that prides itself on being the toughest stop on the Ironman circuit.There are some goals you work for years to attain, and when you finally reach them there's a vague feeling of disappointment, Not so with an Ironman. I knew I wanted to do it, and I thought I knew why, but crossing that finish line was better than I ever imagined. All I can say is I'll be back for more someday, at Lanzarote and other Ironman races. See you out there, 
Stephen A. Blum