A different path - Matt Wall's IM France preview

In the 1950’s had my uncle at the age of 16 not taken the £10 POM trip so seriously, I may not be at this junction in my life. Yet here I am eager, willing and ready to go for IM France – Nice!

We all know about the sacrifices, the lack of sleep, replacing real food with energy drinks/gels/bars, the cost – Jesus – the cost! But you know what? I’ve enjoyed it immensely. Some say the most interesting part of a story is the end, but I reckon the journey is equally as interesting.

6 months ago someone, and I genuinely forget who, said lets go do IM France, have a chat with Mark at HERT and he’ll see you straight. So I entered the race, went to see Mark and continued to see him at least 3 times a week over the next 5 months. The training has been fun, tiring, motivating. You go through different emotions over that amount of time, anger, frustration, guilt, pain at times solitude but ultimately you know the goal you are striving for and that’s what keeps you moving.

So to Nice and the French Riviera. Pack the family up and off we go.

Coming from Europe I’ve been there before of course but never like this. As an 18year old student becoming accustomed with the finer things in life and over indulging in the fine wine, the French cuisine and various inhalable delights. Monday 29thth June I hope to re-kindle those finer things.

As you would expect there’s lots of nervous chatter being so close to race day. I heard someone nervously point out there will be 3000 swimmers at the start; I say the ocean’s big enough to cope. Somebody else told me the hills are steep, name a hill that isn’t, that same person told me not to worry the marathon is flat – I’m not worried a road is road.

And so to the finish. The crowd, the support, the noise but more importantly the stories.

Amongst the 3000 there are 6 likely lads from different areas of the world all up for the challenge, confident, nervous and very excited.

The race will be tough and long but I’d bet the after party will be tougher and most certainly longer!

Cheers

Matt ‘have I done enough training’ Wall

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