“You are an Ironman!”.  And just like that, it ends. 225.8km; 15 hours of mental challenge. I feel though that that callout is an understatement to the journey. It is however, an evidence that such a feat can be achieved by someone like me (read: 49 yrs old, not physically gifted, not technically talented, full time husband and father, full time corporate employee with responsibilities beyond job description and don’t have the luxury to train more than 10 hours per week).

Having said that, I have also managed to complete marathon, a Trifecta Spartan, ultra trail run, 5k Oceanman open water swim and Hyrox on top of completing Ironman twice. All in the span of 3 years.

Why? How? Answer: Clarity on what I was doing it for, mental strength, balancing life priorities and discipline.

I’m not looking to proof anything to anybody, I learned that long ago when I rode 1,600km across Vietnam to raise USD 72K for kids with congenital heart disease. I learned to be clear on what I was doing it for and just focused on that. Same for all these races for me, the goal was always to finish safe and healthy. Why these races? Well I enjoyed the notion of doing something that is stretching but achievable within realms of common people. Ironman, for example, is actually quite achievable without risking killing myself. So if I can rationalise these races, take out the mental block (read: swim in ocean?!, doing marathon after 180k bike?!) then it becomes realistic. Anyway, all of these excuses was practically nullified when I found out that there are a bunch of 70+ yrs old Ironman finishers (the oldest I met was 81yrs old!). I mean what more excuse do you have? Clearly it wasn’t physical. Indeed Ironman and these endurance races are much more a mental challenge than physical for me. And I suppose having the mental resilience to finish the race is the game for me. That’s what Ironman really means to me, a display of mental strength that also epitomised my professional career.

And being able to achieve that whilst keeping my life priorities intact? That’s the ultimate balance for me. My family will always come first and my work is an enabler to achieve my life goals (going to these races included). Clarity on those priorities helps me to decide what’s important on any given day, e.g. finishing safe and healthy, family matters takes priority over training, squeezing a run on business travels. And that’s how balance is achieved. Balancing life priorities, this is the most difficult part.

Now since training is 3rd priority, then training smart and disciplined is key for me. Train smart is training with purpose, find coaches that fits the purpose, do programs that fits the objective. And then do it with unparallelled discipline. Discipline by the way also means dragging yourself to train when you don’t feel like it.

Same for the races, be clear on your goals, build a race plan and stick to it. Focus on that, don’t give a s$%t about anybody else.

Indeed Ironman is not for everybody. But if any of you out there aspire to do it, and you find similarities with me then go for it guys. Get over that mental block. Take out the emotion part of it and approach it rationally. I ran out of excuse when I see that 75 years old speed walking in front of me. What’s your excuse?

-Bangun Istyaji