Life Without Limits, A (22 page)

The first thing to do is to ignore the legs. After the bike, they feel heavy and wobbly, but within a kilometre I have settled into my rhythm. I try to maintain a shorter stride length, keep my shoulders and elbows down, lift my hips and look forwards. Following the nutritional formula above, I take one gel every twenty-five minutes, washed down with water. I think of the marathon as four sets of 10km with a little bit more at the end. It’s a way of tricking the mind into thinking the run more manageable than it might seem as an unbroken 42km haul. Landmarks can also be ticked off as I pass them as a measure of progress. I find male athletes similarly useful.

The energy from the spectators is vital, too. My wonderful family and friends can be relied upon to appear at strategic points round the course with their Chrissie banners and t-shirts, and to indulge in the kind of antics that would have them arrested under normal circumstances. The boost this gives me is incalculable, as are the cheers of the many complete strangers. I smile and smile as much as I can. And as the pain really kicks in, I dedicate each of the final few kilometres to people or causes I care about.

Every moment in that finish chute, whether as a professional or an age-grouper, is one to savour and remember. Look up and smile, and let the race photographer give you a tangible record of the moment you crossed the line.

Then, one of the best parts of the day: put flip-flops on. Ahh, the relief!

After the cocktail of emotions has abated slightly, it’s time to listen to the body and do whatever it commands. Mine usually says, ‘Pizza!’ ‘Burger!’ ‘Kebab!’ and ‘Chips!’ Whatever the command, it is your duty to obey. Two half-pound burgers, two plates of chips, one plate of onion rings and fifteen doughnuts is my ironman record. It’s one I’m as proud of as any. Moderation is swept aside. You’ve just finished an ironman. You deserve it.

11

Wearing the Crown

It should have been the best time of my life. Instead, it was one of the hardest.

I had just become a world champion. The truth is, though, that the period following a triumph like that is often difficult. There’s always a different reason for any downturn, but a downturn there so often seems to be. It’s probably not a coincidence.

Brett was at the centre of the first one. He suffers as much as anyone in these periods. He has always borne a feeling of doom when his athletes become successful. He’ll tell you that money is the problem, something he has never been motivated by. As far as he is concerned, success is not only the motivation when it comes to coaching; it is also the great enemy. His methods demand that he has total control over his charges, but when success comes along, he knows that its trappings will provide a new threat to that control. Suddenly, he is not the only voice in their heads. He becomes fatalistic about his ability to remain the prime influence. The moment I crossed the finish line in Kona, he probably thought it was the end of our relationship. He certainly thought it well before the idea ever occurred to me.

Nothing was occurring to me back then. Everything was a bombardment and a blur. I was even weepy at times, as I took refuge under Asker’s wing. His was one of only a few familiar faces out there. Thousands of miles away in Asia, Brett and our team manager, Alex Bok, were aware of this, too. I could tell Alex was seriously regretting his decision not to accompany the team to the biggest race in the triathlon calendar. Now I was out there on my own, naive, vulnerable and, in Brett’s view, at the mercy of the sharks who swim around at these events.

Amid the chaos I received an email from my old coach, Tim Weeks. He knew someone who worked as a sports manager for the Wasserman Media Group, and thought I should speak with him. As it was Tim, I agreed to speak to this contact, Ben Mansford, on the phone on the Monday. I was exhausted and hoarse, but we spoke for about 45 minutes. I immediately liked him. He suggested I come back to the UK to meet up. Alex and Brett wanted me to go to Singapore. I was caught in a horrible tug of war.

In the end, I went to Singapore. I owed Brett that, at least, and I trusted him and his judgement. I owed Alex, as well. We met at the chaotic Team TBB offices, above Alex’s bike shop, down a back alley. Nothing up to that point had ever been signed between us – it had all been gentlemen’s handshakes and back-of-the-envelope stuff. But this time there was very definitely something to sign, and it was pretty much thrust in my face upon arrival. Brett was there, as was a girl called Steph Cox, whom Alex had recently met in Thailand. Alex introduced her as my PR manager. Although she didn’t stay in the role for very long, that did turn out to be a happy relationship. Steph remains a good friend to this day.

I felt under huge pressure. There was a voice in my head saying, ‘Whoah! Take your time. Something’s not right here!’ But overriding all that was the desire to stay with Brett. It felt as if I had no option if that was what I wanted, so I signed. Alex would be my manager, Brett my coach and Steph would do the PR.

Immediately I knew it was something I hadn’t wanted to do. I wasn’t given enough time to discuss things with people, or to straighten myself out. Why couldn’t I just go home to Norfolk for a while? There were definitely no sharks there.

The next thing I knew, Alex was whisking me off to the airport again. He and I flew to the UK, where we were going to meet with sponsors and journalists.

My parents greeted us at the airport with a Union Jack. This was the kind of homecoming I’d had in mind. I went straight to Norfolk – home at last. After just a few hours, a peace descended, and I regained the clarity I had lost since the race. From there, I rang Alex to voice my concerns. I didn’t feel he had the time, as manager of the team, to focus on me as much as someone else might. Now was the moment to make hay. Professional sport is a precarious business, and if you have a chance to secure your future, you must take it. I wanted a manager of my own to help me with that.

We disagree over what was said next. I maintain that he said I could speak to other potential managers. He would tell you otherwise. Nevertheless, he was there at the meeting I organised, through Asker, with Ben Mansford at Birmingham University. It was awkward. I sat quietly and let Asker do most of the talking. Alex tried to be his usual charming self, but he was clearly not happy with the way things were going. Ben held court for much of it. I immediately warmed to him, although I was aware of the fact that he was an agent. They don’t have the most wholesome of reputations, do they? I was struck by how young he was – about twenty-eight. And I enjoyed putting a face, a cheeky round face, to the dulcet Humberside tones I’d first heard on the phone in Hawaii a week earlier. He looked like a car salesman, and he made me laugh. He also seemed to know his stuff. We struck up a strong rapport from the start.

By the end of the meeting I had decided I wanted him to be my manager, which I think Alex realised. We had another meeting in London a couple of days later, where the deal was confirmed and its details thrashed out. I would continue to be a part of the team, wearing their logo and, of course, most importantly of all, being coached by Brett. I would also be free, with only a few restrictions, to have Ben negotiate sponsorship deals for me, independent of those negotiated for the team. I don’t deny it was the best of both worlds. I was happy, for the time being at least.

My next assignment was to fly out to the team camp in Thailand to prepare for the Laguna Phuket Triathlon.

I knew Brett was extremely upset with me. He seemed to feel I had defied instructions in speaking to Ben, which was absolutely not the case. The atmosphere had changed. I was heavy-hearted about that, because Brett was the one – more than anyone – I wanted to celebrate my win with, and I felt I couldn’t. Sure enough, when I arrived in Thailand, he was distant and just went about his business. No congratulations, no nothing.

He did make one devastating gesture, however, which knocked me for six. He had a stash of cigars, which he had always said he would smoke when he had coached an ironman world champion. Now that he had, I’d given him a few more when we’d met in Singapore after Kona. Almost as soon as I arrived in Thailand, he wordlessly handed them back to me. To have made so angry the man I had always been so eager to please hit me very hard.

But I know now that Brett struggles in the aftermath of a win like the one in Kona. He gets very depressed. I understand, because I feel it too, to a degree. You go through this euphoria, then all of a sudden you feel quite empty when it subsides and the long road ahead is revealed again. I can empathise with that, but I found this breakdown in our relationship incredibly difficult. I craved Brett’s approval. I had just won the biggest race in the world, and was so sincerely grateful to him for getting me there, yet I was unable to share it with him. He didn’t want to acknowledge any of it.

Another part of my pain was that I could see where he was coming from. All he had ever wanted to do through the team was to find athletes, make them successful, manage them and with their help, bring on more. I was undermining that, he felt, or at least, the last part of it. He’d made me a star very quickly, and now, in his view, I was chasing the money.

This notion touched a nerve, which I’m sure Brett realised. He knows how important the question of development is to me. Helping those less fortunate had been my career before I became a triathlete; it had been my reason for going to Nepal. It has been my life. I spent hours every week helping mentor the other athletes in the team, particularly the Filipinos who had come to train with us. In the season to come I spent many more hours working with Alex and Brett to formulate a coherent development strategy. I hated the idea of my commitment to those projects being questioned. But I also had my own security to think about. I didn’t see why the two had to be incompatible.

I hated, too, this icy relationship with Brett. I appreciated everything he had done for me. I wanted so much to continue to work together. I needed him. I didn’t feel I was capable of succeeding without him.

Things got worse before they got better. I raced averagely at Phuket, which was a unique race, length-wise – basically, Olympic distance but with a longer bike – and came fourth. From there, it was back home for Christmas.

Trouble was brewing, though, on a number of fronts. First, the team had yet to decide on the bike sponsor for next season, who were also the main sponsor. One of the conditions of my staying on the team was that I had to take the same bike sponsor. Cervélo were up for renewing, but now, not only did we have Alex negotiating with them on the team’s behalf, we had Ben negotiating on mine. Second, I still had to be paid my prize money for Hawaii, which meant I still had to pay Brett his win bonus. Third, while we were in Thailand, Brett had been electrocuted in the shower. He was thrown across the bathroom, and now he was suffering short-term memory loss and occasional seizures. Fiona, his wife, was ‘scared shitless’, as he put it. I’m not sure he’s fully recovered even now.

It made for an explosive cocktail. Brett was already bothered by all the advice I was suddenly getting from people on ‘Team Chrissie’, another of his phrases. This was not how he worked. He liked me to take orders from him and him alone, but now I had other people offering me their tuppence-worth on all kinds of matters, from sponsorship to training to physio. Brett was getting riled. He was also worried about the bike deal going through. He wanted it finalised as soon as possible, so that the team’s future might be secured for the year ahead. We agreed a package in the end, but there was a delay with the contracts. This meant a delay in the deal being signed. Brett, naturally, blamed this on Ben and me.

He was also getting jumpy about the fact that I hadn’t paid him that commission on Hawaii. There was an agreement Brett had with all of his athletes, whereby they would pay him 20 per cent of their winnings from their top three races. This meant I owed him more than $20,000 from Kona. I couldn’t pay him until the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) had paid me, and that still hadn’t happened. He was worried, though, in view of the money monster he so obviously thought I had become, that I was not going to pay him at all.

Early in the new year, we exchanged a few emails. He seemed calm and philosophical, but there was the undercurrent of an uneasiness building in his words, and strong hints of melancholy. He was in Switzerland with his family, still recovering from his electrocution; I was in Norfolk with mine.

‘I am the lone ranger, kid,’ he wrote in one email. ‘That’s why I have grave doubts it will work. Now I am thinking I can no longer make you the best you can be. However, you are already world champion, so not a big problem.’

He said that all these advisors would be coming at me, armed with qualifications and letters after their name, and that their advice would always conflict with what Brett the maverick had to say. He said the academic in me would instinctively lean towards them, or at least make me nervous about following the advice of the boy who left school at fourteen, or at the very least make me angry if I took his advice and then something went wrong. He remembered how I’d told him I would be the one to break the pattern of his successful athletes leaving him. He also said that we humans can live with absolute misery, but it’s hope that destroys us. He was clearly dejected.

About a week further on, though, and still with no money from my win in Hawaii, he was getting angry: