OBE recipient, former army man, coach, recreational runner, swimmer, sunrise cycler, husband and father of two, David Labouchere, 52, may be many things to many people, but on October 10 he was just one: an Ironman. We caught up with Labouchere before the big day.
“This is the race. Kailua-Kona is the holy grail of Ironman triathlons. Only 1 per cent of Ironman triathletes ever get to Kona, so it’s a pretty big thing to do,” says Labouchere, describing the significance of the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. Established in 1978, the single-day endurance race consists of a swim, a bicycle race and a full marathon, with athletes competing against each other and the clock to prove they have the stamina and willpower to get them over the finish line in less than 17 hours.
And stamina and determination Labouchere had, finishing in 41st place in the 50 to 54 age group with a time of 10 hours, 48 minutes and 18 seconds.
For the past few months, Labouchere’s every waking minute has been spent training – tactically and emotionally. A towering 1.88 metres, his body is built like a machine and he treats it like one. “The Ironman is undeniably damaging for your body, but the training is a structured damage. What you’re doing when you’re training is forcing the body to adapt, to grow, to strengthen, to make micro-tears in muscles and then feed them to repair those micro-tears to come back stronger. I try not to gain too much weight because at my age it’s too hard to lose it again. If you’ve got to carry that weight around for the length of the race, then you’re giving yourself a huge handicap,” says the British athlete, who lives in Dubai.
For Labouchere, getting ready for the Ironman has involved a gruelling 25 to 30 hours of training per week, over seven weeks – miles of swimming, cycling and running – in preparation for a 4.1-kilometre swim, followed by 180km on the bicycle and ending with a marathon of 42.2km.
“The trick for training is consistency,” says Labouchere. “In my case, that regularity means two or three sessions a day. Take today for instance: this morning I was up at 2am, clocking nearly six hours of cycling. Then at lunchtime I’ll do 3.5 to 4km in the swimming pool and this evening I’ll run 6km.”
Labouchere also employs other fitness techniques to maintain his muscles. “I try to eat healthily, I try to stretch, I do Pilates and I do yoga to keep my body in balance. It’s very easy to use the wrong muscles at the wrong times and that’s when you get problems. The big risk for me is injury. I have a decrepit old body.” Yet, fighting fatigue, failing or worse, falling during a ride, are never thoughts that cross Labouchere’s mind. And that’s probably because the one thing he doesn’t do “is take a day off”. “The last time I had a day off was on July 2 and I won’t rest until Kona is complete.”
Kona is a battlefield: A tropical 30-degree sun beats down on the seemingly picture-perfect landscape, but look a little closer and you’ll realise the roads that the athletes run on are flanked by black molten lava from nearby active volcanoes, the deep blue waters are home to reef sharks and cyclists have to brave violent winds. Compared to Dubai, Labouchere’s current training track, it’s a demanding dream of sorts.
But this isn’t the first time he’s conquered Kona. Recalling his race strategy from the past two years, when he came 24th in 2014 and 19th in 2013, Labouchere says: “I swim when I [arrive], every morning at the time that I race. At exactly 7am I’ll get in the water and I will swim, so that my body is acclimatised. I won’t necessarily swim the whole course, but I’ll do that a couple of times. When you’re swimming along, looking down into crystal-clear water, you’ll spot a sign on the bottom of the ocean about 2km from shore saying ‘coffee’ with a big arrow. So you just point your body in the direction of the arrow, swim across the coral with all of the fish, and there’s a boat, and it’s giving out espressos. Here you hang onto the side of the boat and get a lovely shot of espresso coffee and then you swim back again. It’s not there on race day, nor would I stop for a cup of coffee, but it’s there for the whole week of race training.” While this seemingly relaxed stint in the water may sound easy, it’s far from it and proves to be the precursor to a difficult transition into the bike ride.
“In my case you’ve gone from horizontal, where you’ve been waving your arms around for an hour, to vertical, which makes you very dizzy. Then you have to get on your bicycle and pedal through town for a bit.”
But that doesn’t quite summarise the entire (and sometimes selfish) journey that it takes to be an Ironman. “It’s getting to the start line that is the journey. The actual race is just 10 hours. It may be seven, eight, nine thousand hours of training to get to those 10 hours. It is definitely a selfish sport. Only one person does the race, only one person fails or succeeds, but it takes a huge support network to get that person to the start line.” On the other hand it also “takes supportive friends, a single-minded adherence to a goal and a lot of luck”.
As swarms of seasoned triathletes continue to champion their inner Ironman – year after year, because it does become a lifelong obsession – Labouchere insists that: “Basically any triathlete is a bad athlete, because he’s a bad swimmer, a bad cyclist and a bad runner. If he were a really good swimmer, he’d be a swimmer; he would be competing at an elite level as a swimmer. If he were a really good cyclist, he’d be out there beating everyone on his bicycle, he’d be on top of the world with his bike. If he were a really good runner, he’d be out there running track every weekend and winning running races. We do triathlon because we are mediocre swimmers, cyclists and runners. OK, I’m a bad, bad athlete.” A bad athlete? Questionable. An Ironman? Absolutely.
The Ironman cometh to Bahrain and Dubai
Two new Ironman championships have been added to the international circuit and they’re happening in Bahrain and Dubai this year and early next year. The highly anticipated events are pegged to be 70.3 races, which refers to the total distance in miles – or 113 kilometres.
The Ironman 70.3 Dubai triathlon will be held in early 2016, with 30 age-group qualifications. The exact date of the race has not been announced.
In another first, the Ironman 70.3 Middle East Championship triathlon in Bahrain will offer 40 age-group qualification slots and will be held on December 5. Competitors will start in the Bahrain Bay before racing to the Bahrain International Circuit, the Formula One track, where they’ll do the last 5km of the bike ride. The run will take in landmarks such as Al Fateh Grand Mosque and the Gudaibiya Historic Palace.
“We are delighted to be able to establish Ironman 70.3 races in the Gulf, which is an emerging hotbed for triathlon,” says Andrew Messick, chief executive officer of Ironman. “Besides having passionate triathletes, Bahrain and Dubai have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to host great events.”
While it’s not the first time Dubai has hosted marathons, the UAE’s entry into the Ironman market is a welcome addition. Dubai is home to international Ironmen, David Labouchere and Luke Mathews, who qualified and competed at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, this year. “With a strong athlete base established, we are entering the Middle East with partners that are committed to delivering world-class events that elevate our sport in the Gulf,” says Thomas Dieckhoff, chief executive of Ironman Europe, Middle East and Africa. Ironman officials are now touting both cities as venues for some of the “greatest races in the world” thanks to their race-readiness. And while there’s no news yet on what path Dubai’s race will take, we can only speculate that it, too, will include some of the city’s most famous landmarks. Ultimately Bahrain and Dubai will be a testament to athletes’ abilities to perform in hot desert conditions.
As far as competitive courses go, “triathlon is one of the fastest growing sports in the world”, says Dieckhoff, so expect to see a new wave of competitors from the Middle East hitting the international Ironman circuit.
For more information on the Ironman 70.3 Middle East Championship in Bahrain and the Ironman 70.3 Dubai triathlon, visit www.ironman.com
