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New Zealand sports people competing in South Africa, is pretty common place these days but for one Kiwi competing in Ironman South Africa, as the sole Kiwi participant, it was a unique experience. Blair Cox co-owner of Avanti Plus Mitchells Cycles recently returned from Africa and agreed to be interviewed by TRI NEWS reporter John Lykles.

How did you end up in Africa Blair? An old friend of mine, Ken Glah organises groups of athletes to compete in a variety of events around the globe. He was looking for a bike mechanic come man Friday to assist him and he asked if I would be keen to help out.

So tell me about the venue. Port Elizabeth or PE as the locals call it lies on the coast roughly half way between Cape Town and Durban. It’s known as the Friendly city or the Windy city and its both. It’s like New Plymouth in that they have a coastal walkway with beautiful beaches that winds its way to a busy port. It also cops a lot of the coastal breeze that we know so well. On the Wednesday of race week I experienced it firsthand as I went biking on the course in 60 kph winds.

Your friendship with Ken goes back a fair way, doesn’t it? It’s over twenty years. Ken’s wife Jan Wanklyn had family in Waitara and they used to come out here and train for the Ironman of old, in Auckland

Back when it was hard! Opps, I can’t say that to the Taupo guys, they’ve paid their dues. Yeah (they have). We used to work on Ken and Jan’s bikes and train together.  About six years ago he asked me if I would act as a mechanic for a group he was bringing over for Ironman New Zealand.

I seem to recall Ken was instrumental in setting up Ironman Brazil, is that correct? Yes he is a co-owner of the race and this year he will bring 660 athletes to IM Brazil.  

So what’s the name of his company? Ken Glah’s Endurance Sport Travel. The beauty of it for a New Zealander, especially in a country were you can’t speak the language is that sometimes he can arrange a race entry when it is officially sold out. Secondly you can get picked up from the airport and delivered back to the airport without any fuss. Mechanics are provided to help set up your bike. A variety of accommodation options are provided. For example in PE our accommodation was on the course and only a kilometre away from transition.

Where else have you been with your Ironman travels? In China I had 100 athletes from 26 countries to look after and everyone spoke just enough English to survive and none of us could speak Chinese. That was pretty tough.

Getting back to Africa, is this a new event? No it’s in its seventh year now at Port Elizabeth and they’ve just signed for a further five. The race was deceptively hard. On paper it looks similar to Taupo’s profile but it took more out of you.

For at lot of Taupo's bike course you can use the big chain ring. In PE you’re still using the big chain ring but the course is bumpier. They don’t flatten the roads out; they just put the tar seal on. Its hard to get into a rhythm.

You must be going fast to notice that mate. To some degree it was like biking on tyres that are over inflated where you bounce across the road.

IRONMANLIVE.COM said there was a decent sized swell pushing through the swim course in Nelson Mandela Bay, how did you find it? There was a huge swell.

Any talk about turning it into a duathlon? They talked about shortening the swim DURING the race. Bearing in mind I heard all this via Chinese whispers after the race. They pulled a hundred people out of the water. The swell was big enough so as to put you in the dark at the bottom of the trough in dawns early light. You would be swimming with a group and a swell would roll through and they were GONE. Navigation was tricky, with the buoy’s disappearing you needed to use land based landmarks to guide you. There had been a strong current prior to the race that thankfully didn’t eventuate on the day.

So how do help your charges familiarise themselves over the course? We took them out over the bike and run course either in vans or bikes. I took a crew down to the swim course and gave them some pointers about swimming in surf.

So tell me about this other hat you wore? While you there for an Ironman and working for Ken you’re also a tourist operator.

So you did you visit any game parks? We went out to a couple, we did a township tour, a shopping tour. Some of the laies wanted diamonds so we just found the best mall selling diamonds. It’s all optional.

I guess one of the advantages of being in a group is safety in numbers are there any others. It’s a good environment for first timers; they can learn a lot of little things from the old hands. The experienced ones love to pass on their often hard earned lessons to the newbies.

Was there a big international contingent for the race? No it was mostly South Africans. Some of the Europeans couldn’t make it down because of the Icelandic volcanic ash airline disruption. So in all they had about 1700 starters out of about 1800 entrants. They have a large South African entry due to the generosity of the major sponsor. Spec Savers will pay half your entry fee if you wear their shirt for the entire race.

What about the race organisation? There were some issues with volunteers. The civil servants were on strike that week and there was talk they may not even be able to hold the race. The organisers had arranged for university students to help but it turned out to be exam week so that was a spanner in the works. Our crew gave a hand at registration. It was a bit of a scramble but the race went ahead thanks to a large number of last minute helpers.

  After the race it was a lot more spectator/supporter friendly than IMNZ in the sense that supporters can come into the massage tent for a chat.

What about the local support? It was huge. Because you were in a more affluent part of the city the BBQ’s and chairs were out on the side of the road. The braes and booze were flowing and because a lot of locals were taking part there was great encouragement coming for them. The run loop was fourteen Km and roughly in a d shape. The loop part was through the university and the toughest part of the run. It was hitting 27 degrees with no wind and little shade. Hot but not China or Kona hot.

Would you do it again if the opportunity arose? It’s a race I’d go back too. Everybody this time was low maintenance and that makes things easier. We’d just say the night before, “We’re planning to do XYZ tomorrow, who’s up for that?” There were no stragglers so that helps.

What about the local cuisine? You have to give your taste buds an adventure too. We tried kudu, crocodile, springbok, water hog and ostrich because that’s what you do when you’re somewhere different.

Thanks for your time Blair for this interview.  You’re welcome.

For the record Blair’s splits for IMSA were 1:06:50 swim 5:11:53 bike 4:22:14 run total time 10:47:54, good enough for tenth out a hundred in his age group. The men’s race was won by Port Elizabeth local Raynard Tissink in a highly respectable time of 8hrs23min28sec ahead of Swiss Mathias Hect. The women’s race was won by German Sonja Tajish in 9hrs 16min55sec ahead of another Swiss Caroline Steffen.