Of the 1600 hopefuls shivering in Lake Taupo tomorrow waiting for the boom of the starter's cannon, it's a safe bet Papamoa's Nic Gill will be the only one with his own Rugby World Cup winner's medal.
Gill, the All Blacks' strength and conditioning coach, is lining up for his second crack at Ironman NZ eight years after his first - and this time the 36-year-old has added a healthy dose of R-E-S-P-E-C-T into his race-day plan.
"I didn't cross the finish line eight years ago and vow 'never again' - I actually thought when the timing was right I'd definitely be back. I enjoyed it but didn't respect it enough last time, thinking I'd roll into Taupo, nail and walk away happy, when it was actually quite the opposite," said Gill this week as he rounded out his preparation with five small sessions to keep the wheels turning.
The way Gill, pictured, recalls his ironman debut you'd think he shuffled along Lake Terrace with all the other stragglers, desperate to get inside the 17-hour cutoff. He actually finished in a respectable 12 hours flat for the 3.8km swim-180km bike-42km run but has been churning out some decent bike-run mileage to ensure the nightmare journey home last time isn't repeated.
Gill swims well, with an hour in the lake posing few problems, while as former team pursuit national champion and Auckland time trial champion he's no novvie on two wheels. It's when the rubber met the road that Gill's struggles began last time around.
"I'm not a big guy but I'm by no means small either, but running 42km when you weigh in the mid-to-high 80kg range is always going to be tough. Having been a cyclist I tend to push too far on the bike, making the run even harder.
"Last time I had a good race until the run and just cramped the whole way, walking and struggling through a horrible five hours. I want to stay well away from that this weekend so I've been trying to pace myself a bit, learning how the body handles that sort of volume.
"I wouldn't say my run has been getting serious attention but I've been trying to teach myself how to run slower when I'm fatigued, how to pace myself when my legs are tired from being on the bike for five or six hours. I'm keen to go low 10 hours [finish] which is realistic if I judge the race right."
Gill has been in charge of whipping the All Blacks into shape since 2008, having worked with the Chiefs for four years before that and also with Waikato rugby and Rowing NZ. He targeted ironman this year because of the time he knew he would have post-World Cup.
"In a normal year we'd finish in December after an end-of-year tour, but last year it was the end of October which gave me an extra month of training up my sleeve.
"I haven't gone crazy with the training. Ironman's not family friendly so I've tried to keep a reasonable balance and pick my moments - I'm not going out to win the thing, that's for sure! You could always do more and would always like to do more but everyone's got other things going on in their lives."
With his RWC medal tucked away and the euphoria of October 24 now just a memory, albeit a good one, Gill has swung straight back into work . He met with the new All Blacks coaching staff - head coach Steve Hansen and assistants Ian Foster and Aussie McLean - and the rest of the management group for three days last week to plan what will be a challenging year.
"We were straight back into full swing but it was a really neat few days. After what we went through last year we probably all needed something to change to keep it stimulating and refreshing.
"I know Ian Foster, having worked with him with the Chiefs and with Waikato for eight or nine years, so for me it's just like having a family member back."
Gill will have his work cut out this year juggling the national team's 14-test programme, starting with a three-test run against Ireland when the Super 15 series is interrupted in June, the expanded Rugby Championship with Australia, South Africa and Argentina in August, September and October and an end-of-year tour to Europe.
"Our monitoring programme will grow some arms and legs this year because the tests towards the end of Super 15 mean we're going to have players picked as All Blacks still playing Super Rugby. We'll have some camps, play three tests, send the players back to their franchises then they'll come back to us for the Championship.
"That's a lot of toing and froing between campaigns and a lot of monitoring of players but there's also a lot of really good communication and working with franchises to make sure the players aren't compromised by working across two campaigns. I'll travel around all the teams in April and it's going to take everyone a bit of time to get used to, but we've got to get it right otherwise we'll undo the players."