ROAD TO AN IRONMAN EPISODE 5: ALL WAYS SELL

Published: 14/10/2026 | By: David Van Wetherill

After months of unconventional Ironman training, David Van Wetherill arrived at IRONMAN Kalmar following a complete two-week taper. The race did not end at the finish line he had imagined. Instead, it delivered the biggest lesson of the entire journey: training can prepare us to meet an outcome, but it cannot guarantee one. 

I didn't complete the Ironman. I think that matters. There is a temptation when writing about endurance sport to tidy everything into the same ending: struggle, training, setback, comeback, finish line, victory. 

My Road to an Ironman didn't end like that. 

After months of preparation, after rebuilding from hip replacement, after marathons, HYROX races, open-water swimming, a half Ironman, mountain cycling and climbing Kilimanjaro on crutches, I arrived at IRONMAN Kalmar believing completion was possible. 

Then Mother Nature spoke. The wind made the race cut-offs impossible for me to reach in time. I didn't begin the crutch marathon I had spent months preparing for. 

And yet, strangely, I have rarely felt more at peace. 

The Taper: Nothing Left To Build 

My final Ironman training block involved almost no training at all. After Kilimanjaro, I rested completely for two weeks. 

Earlier in this journey, that would have made me deeply uncomfortable. When sport becomes part of your identity, there is always another session available to reassure you: one more swim, one more ride, one more gym session, one more opportunity to prove that you're ready. 

But fitness doesn't suddenly appear in the final fortnight before an Ironman. Fatigue can. 

So I stopped. 

The challenge became trusting everything I had already banked since my hip replacement: the London Marathon, HYROX, IRONMAN 70.3 Bolton, life, the HYROX World Championships, cycling through the Alps and Pyrenees, Kilimanjaro, pool and gym sessions, strength sessions focusing on the shoulders I would eventually depend upon for a crutch marathon, and pull work for my back and biceps to balance the enormous amount of pushing already coming from crutches and racing. 

Yoga, mobility, sauna and recovery were all part of it too. 

My preparation wasn't conventional. But it was real. It was human. 

And by Kalmar, there was nothing left to prove.  

The Machine Was Ready  

In the final days, I packed everything into the van: bike, nutrition, hydration, crutches, equipment. Everything had a purpose. 

For months, I had treated the body almost like an engineering problem. How do I make the shoulders survive? How do I balance pushing with pulling? How do I increase cycling capacity? How do I preserve energy in the swim? How do I fuel for hours? How do I make a replaced hip tolerate an Ironman?  

The work had become increasingly specific. The machine was ready. What I hadn't completely understood was that the machine was only half the story. There was still a human being inside it. 

Training Can Increase Possibility 

One of the biggest things this journey taught me is what training can – and cannot – do. Training increases possibility. It doesn't guarantee outcomes. 

Bolton had shown me that I could put swim, bike and crutch running together. The Alps and Pyrenees had built confidence on the bike. Kilimanjaro had given me several days of prolonged crutch-supported movement and forced me to become more patient. 

The gym had helped me prepare the upper body for demands most triathlon programmes never have to consider. Rest had allowed me to arrive without carrying unnecessary fatigue. 

All of that mattered. None of it gave me control over race day. 

The Race You Train For And The Race You Get 

A lot of athletes arrive with some version of the day already written in their heads. You imagine the start. The swim. The bike. The difficult moments. The final discipline. The finish. I'd imagined beginning the crutch marathon in deep fatigue and discovering whether months of shoulder training, mountains and endurance work were enough to carry me through it. I never got that answer. The conditions changed the equation.  

Cut-off times don't know how much you sacrificed to arrive. Sport can be wonderfully indifferent like that. For most of my life, my response to difficulty has been straightforward: push harder, adapt, find another way. And usually, I have. This time there wasn't enough road left. 

It's teaching me that some finish lines are not supposed to be reached, and perhaps never supposed to be reached. 

The Moment The Machine Stopped 

Looking back, I think it was the moment the machine stopped and the human finally felt everything. The months of preparation. The surgery. The miles. The uncertainty. The mountains. The expectation. The people. Everything arrived. 

For most of an endurance race, you don't have time to process what something means. You simply keep moving. Sometimes the moment you stop enduring is the first moment you can actually feel what it took to get there. 

Nothing To Prove 

My first response surprised me. I'm not disappointed. I'm not desperate to immediately book another Ironman. I don't feel the urgent need to turn the result into a comeback story. I feel proud. Deeply proud. And strangely free. 

For much of my life, capability has been linked to identity. If I can do something difficult, perhaps that proves something about me. If I overcome enough, perhaps eventually I become enough. This journey has gradually dismantled that idea. 

Just because something is within our capabilities doesn't mean it has to happen. And just because something doesn't happen doesn't mean the journey towards it loses its value. 

Nothing Left To Prove. Everything to thank.  

Winners find a way.  

I still believe this. Completely. But I understand the phrase differently now. 

At the beginning, finding a way meant solving the obstacle: change the equipment, change the training, strengthen the shoulders, adapt the technique, take another route, keep moving. This journey has added another sentence: 

Winners find a way. Wisdom knows when not to force one. 

That isn't surrender in the negative sense. It isn't passivity. It means understanding the difference between something that requires your courage and something that requires your patience. 

Sometimes the courageous thing is continuing. Sometimes it is stopping. Sometimes it is trying again. Sometimes it is letting an experience remain exactly what it was. 

Some Things Don't Have To Become Anything 

Endurance sport loves the concept of unfinished business.  

Didn't finish? Go back.  

Didn't hit the time? Try again. 

Failed? Create the comeback. 

Perhaps I will attempt another Ironman. Perhaps I won't. Right now, I don't need to know. That is new for me. Some things don't have to become anything. They can become what they become. 

The attempt can simply be the attempt. The mountains can simply be the mountains. The next chapter doesn't have to exist to justify the last one. 

A story doesn't need the ending we had written for it to be whole. 

What My Training Actually Taught Me 

If I strip the entire Road to an Ironman back to its practical training lessons, I would keep these. 

Specificity matters. My marathon wasn't going to look like anybody else's marathon. My shoulders and arms needed training for endurance in a way most Ironman programmes wouldn't require. 

Balance matters. Crutches created enormous push volume, so pulling work through my back and biceps became important alongside shoulder conditioning. 

Events can become training. HYROX developed intensity and strength under fatigue. IRONMAN tested all three disciplines. Mountains developed sustained endurance and pacing. 

Pacing matters more as duration increases. The mountains repeatedly taught me not to confuse what I could do now with what I should do if I still needed my body hours later. 

Recovery is training. Rest isn't time lost. It's time gained. 

Training prepares you to meet uncertainty. It does not remove uncertainty. 

That may be the most useful lesson of all.