Iron Man cops in top-20 finish

Shane Johnson triumphed in the same heat that left some pro athletes conked out on the sidelines of this year’s gruelling Iron Man Australia. But the 33-year-old STAR Group officer, who had craved a coveted top-10 finish in his first Iron Man event, could well have gone the way of his collapsed competitors.

He had cruised through the 3.8km swim and 180km bike ride, and charged through the first 10km of the 42.2km run in just 36 minutes. After that, however, the heat of a 25-degree day in Forster, NSW, hit him “like a brick wall”.

“I wasn’t racing anymore,” he says, “I was just surviving. I didn’t know what to do. I thought: ‘I’ve got to do something, because my whole body’s just overheated’. It’s like an ache that makes you think: ‘If I keep going, I’m going to fall over’.”

To stave off his own collapse, Johnson filled his cap with ice at a series of aid stations, where he also quaffed some Coke and Gatorade. The ice melted over his head in just the two kilometres between stations, but cooled him down enough to enable him to continue the agonizing run.

His run-in with the “brick wall” at that 10km mark, however, would deprive him of his goal. He was, then, in 11th place, from where a top-10 spot seemed tantalizingly close. But the unusually punishing April conditions burdened him – as they did the rest of the field of 1,500-odd – mentally as well as physically.

“It was funny,” he says, “I knew I was between 10th and 15th, but I couldn’t have cared. I was just that fatigued, and all I cared about was getting to that next aid station, because all you’re thinking about is trying to stay cool, trying to get fluids in.”

Forging on in defiance of his ailing body, Johnson made it to the last 5km stretch of the race. Only from the cheering crowds who, from the sidelines, urged him to “pick it up”, did he learn that he could cross the finish line in under nine hours.

Still overwhelmed by the conditions – which were hot enough for race officials to ban wetsuits for the first time on the swim leg – Johnson did not react. At that stage, he still “couldn’t have cared less”.

And, of the 30-odd pro triathletes who competed, he had seen some reduced to a walk, and about six pull out altogether.

But, after he entered the home stretch, Johnson caught sight of the digital clock on the finish line. It read 8:59:50, and so brought him some powerful inspiration.

“I had this huge surge,” he says, “and just sprinted my guts out to cross the line. When I crossed, it (the clock) was 8:59:59 – and that’s on my finish photo as well.”

Johnson ended up second across the finish line as a “first-timer”, 14th in the pro category – in which he competed – and 17th overall.

Some months before the race, it had seemed possible that he and three other PASA members, including his brother Ryan, might all have finished in the top 10.

Accomplished triathletes, Matt Stephens and Matt White, had – like the Johnson brothers – undergone brutal training regimes, and planned to make up half of the SA police foursome.

Owing to injuries, however, Ryan pulled out of the race about 10km into the run, and Stephens did not take part in the event. White enjoyed the most success, emerging in 11th place in eight hours, 57 minutes.

Johnson remains disappointed that he and his police colleagues were not able to compete, and excel, together. He particularly laments the hip injury that afflicted Ryan who, before the bike leg, emerged from the swim in the top 10.

By the 110km mark of the ride, Johnson had caught up to his younger brother and managed to talk to him, as the two rode together. Ryan said he was “starting to hurt” and “not going that good”.

Says Johnson: “Ryan came off the bike a minute-and-a-half behind me, just out of the top 20. He got about 10km into the run and couldn’t go on. He just had to pull out.”

Johnson, despite his top-20 success, felt his race strategy – to conserve energy for the run – had somewhat failed him. “The swim went fine,” he says, “and I got off the bike feeling really great.

“In hindsight, I should have gone a bit harder towards the end of the bike (ride) because it was there in the legs, but I decided to wait for the run.

“Had I made up a couple of minutes in that last bit of the bike, I don’t think it would have affected my run. I could have finished higher up.”

Nonetheless, Johnson insists that the 2004 Iron Man event was the greatest race day of his life. Although his final sprint drew all his concentration, and allowed him no time to savour the crowd’s cheers for him, he can see those last moments in his finish photo.

He finds the picture, with its multitude of faces and raised arms, sensational, and says it gives him goose bumps even now.

So will he attempt another Iron Man event, either in Australia or abroad? “That’s it for at least the next five years,” he insists. “With two young children and a very supportive wife, all the focus has been on me for the last year.

“It’s time to take a step back and spend more time at home – but never say ‘never’.”