Hawke's Bay triathlete Daniel Begley, 26, who won a bronze medal at the ITU Long Distance World Championship in Oklahoma, US, last month. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
LET'S get this straight from the start. When you have a two-lap 4km swim, 120km bike ride and 30km to negotiate through a multisport course there's a lot of time to ponder what-ifs.
More importantly, there are numerous opportunities pop up to trip you - mentally, that is, on why the heck did you ever enter such a gruelling event.
"You have seven hours to contemplate to think about things so you just try to push on through and think of having a beer or two at the end of it," says Daniel Begley after claiming a bronze medal in the 25-29 men's age group grade of the 2016 ITU Long Distance World Championship in Oklahoma on September 25.
The 26-year-old from Hawke's Bay, who now lives and works in Auckland as a physiotherapist at Middlemore Hospital, was competing in his first world championship.
"The conditions were horrible so the time just went out of the window," says Begley when asked what his time was after clocking 7h 40m 40s to cover the three disciplines.
"It was really hot and very windy which made the swimming, biking and running quite tricky."
The former Napier Boys' High School pupil, who attended Otago University from 2007 before graduating with his physiotherapy degree, tamed the Hefner Lake (the water reservoir for Oklahoma City that only allowed swimming for the world champs) course in 1h 11m 51s, which turned out be his forte.
To put his swim time in perspective, Begley was about 12 minutes faster than the grade winner, American Zachary Miller, who clinched a gold medal on a total course time of 7: 28: 29.
However, it didn't take long for the heat and humidity of the Oklahoma countryside to make matters complex. He lost his 12-minute advantage in the bike ride (3:48:18) and another 10 minutes (2: 44: 38) in the run.
The course, mostly rural, offered a series of "mildly undulating hills". The running leg comprised three laps of 10km each staged on the flat and fast closed course of the Hefner Lake.
"It was my first world champs and it's always pretty exciting," says Begley. "It's hard to know what to expect when a field is completely unknown so what I got I'm pretty happy with."
In their age-group field of 24, six did not finish.
"To be part of 24 qualifiers - and normally most countries are only allowed to have two or three people - I think we did well to get there," says the man who engaged "in a little bit of crosscountry and swimming" while growing up in Napier.
The Oklahoma event hasn't whet Begley's appetite but he intends to go back to it.
"It'll be good to go back but now it's just about putting my feet up for a beer or two and holidaying for a week," he says, after returning to work this week.
Fellow former NBHS pupil Brett Thomson also competed in Begley's grade, finishing 14th in a time of 09:52:26.
Thomson clocked 1:29:51 in the swim leg, 3:56:59 in the saddle and 4:23:10 in the run.
Begley says Thomson had competed at Cozumel in Mexico only a week before in the standard distance championship.
The island event lured 5000 athletes in numerous grades.
Other Bay athletes competing in Oklahoma were fifth-placed Kathy Eggers who covered the course in 8:56:09 in the 40-44 female category in a field of 32 where four didn't finish.
Eggers stumbled her way into the triathlon scene in 2008 as her form of physical rehab following nine months experiencing life as a quadriplegic, after she had been diagnosed with of a rare chronic neurological syndrome.
Small goals of sitting, and walking duathlons lead to short triathlons and now longer distance events.
She swam in 1:51:44, cycled in 4:02:03 and ran in 2:59:19.
"Seven years ago I would never have imagined I would be doing long distance endurance events, let alone as an age group New Zealand representative," she had said before jetting off to Oklahoma.
The other Bay athlete was Tracey Chatterton, embarking on her first world race, finishing 11th in the 30-34 age group.
The chief reporter of Hawke's Bay Today, who drew inspiration from those taking part in IronMaori, clocked a course time of 9:09:01.
She took 1:25:53 to tame the lake, 4:01:30 to ride and clocked the run in 3:38:19 in a field of 28 with three DNFs.
Julie Boshier returned with a bronze medal from Cozumel in the 70-74 age group.
Boshier, who swims, cycles and runs to keep her fit for her expansive garden and curtain shop, where she does the measure, make and fit curtains and blinds in Waipawa and surrounding district, did the sprint course with a 750m swim in 1:49:47, 20km ride in 39:24 and ran 5km in 39:55.
Sherry Majors finished 19th in a field of 33 in the 60-64 female age group, clocking 1:49:09 in the sprint course. She was 31st in the Olympic course in 4:04:53.
Megan Watson was 21st in a field of 50 in the female 20-24 Olympic course (2:29:15).
Jane Lee finished sixth in the 65-69 female sprint category, clocking 1:54:40.
Steve Charles, in the 30-34 male category, was 12th in the aquathon (37:10) in a field of 38 and finished in the same position in the sprint course (1:03:04) in a field of 68.