27

Sequel

ABIT of internet browsing told me that the sole requirement for obtaining a professional Ironman licence was proving you were competitive. If you posted results in age group races, showing you could keep up with the top boys, you were there. Achieving that was my ticket towards prize money and sponsorship contracts. Until then I would have to race as an amateur and rely on personal training work to pay the bills. That wouldn’t necessarily be easy, but is the way it is for athletes in most sports, below elite level.

The goal of every professional Ironman is to compete in and (for a select few) ultimately win the annual world championship race in Kona, Hawaii. Prize money for the winner is something in the region of £100,000, with another £600,000 or so available for athletes who place. Qualification is achieved through regional events like Ironman UK.

My personal target was straightforward. In the first instance I aspired to get myself among the best in the country. I wanted to arrive at races and other competitors to understand that I was a man to beat, an athlete of substance. I would not just be another guy there for a day out.

The winner of my age group in Bolton, a Kiwi by the name of Graeme Buscke, had completed the course in nine hours 40 minutes, two full hours ahead of me. I needed to match that sort of performance and in order to do so I would utilise every angle I possibly could.

My quest for professionalism led me first to search out and visit the human performance unit, a sterile-looking white room, part gym and part science lab at Essex University. The décor reminded me a little of prison. They were advertising an aerobic testing programme which could assist with training by setting challenging, yet realistic goals based on natural capabilities.

I signed myself up, to get a measure of where I was starting from. My baseline of fitness would be high, I hoped, from the years of rowing, but this would give me indications specific to cycling and running. At the end of it all they would define my VO2 max score, the most important single measure for any endurance athlete.

VO2 max refers to the amount of oxygen the body can consume per kilo of bodyweight. Essentially it is a measure of cardiovascular efficiency. While the average man will typically record a score of 40-ish, elite endurance athletes are often up in the 70s or 80s. Lance Armstrong, at his chemically-assisted, multiple Tour de France-winning peak, hit 84. To some degree this score is innate. You can train to improve it, but without performance enhancing drugs, it is unlikely to increase dramatically.

They made me run on a treadmill while steadily increasing the incline, until I could not continue. Then I performed a similar test on the stationary bike, all while wearing a breath mask attached to a bank of monitors.

My VO2 was logged at 78. Combined with a body fat percentage of eight per cent, it put me up there with international class athletes, especially considering I recorded it in disciplines I was not yet performing efficiently in. If they had tested me on a rowing machine, I may well have scored higher. That cemented it. The potential was there, it was scientifically proven and all I had to do was train and train until I couldn’t train any more, then carry on training.

Step one was to get myself a proper bike. Regardless of how hard I worked, it would be nigh-on impossible to be competitive on the Moda. Johnny once again put himself out for me and lent me three grand to buy a time-trial bike. I promised to pay him back as soon as I could. Due to its lighter frame and superior gearing, the bike on its own would mean about 30 minutes of gained time in a race.

From there it was simple, I thought, no shortcuts, no easy routes, no excuses, just effort. I applied the single-minded mentality I trained with in prison, doing cell circuits and on the Concept 2, to my new discipline. A combination of determination and stubborn refusal to fail would see me through, just as it had in breaking indoor rowing records.

Scotsman Graham Obree, the former world record-holding cyclist, became my number one role model. His was one of the books Darren had given me to read in Lowdham Grange and his entire philosophy was built on solo training.

‘The only person you can never lie to is yourself,’ Obree said. With a coach, there is always room for deception. You can smash a personal best in training and delight your coach, while within yourself you know that you eased up at one point and could have gone even faster.

‘My biggest fear isn’t crashing this bike at 85mph and losing my skin,’ Obree said. ‘It’s sitting in a chair at 90 and thinking, “I wish I’d done more.”’

The levels of obsession and ruthless self-examination in his methods connected with me and I decided that like him, I would run my own sessions. I would demand the absolute best from myself. No one could push me harder than I could.

My approach, Obree’s approach, worked wonders. My runs took place in Battersea Park, with my programme informed only by a bit of reading and some YouTube videos. Everything was high volume, high intensity. Rest days were for wimps. Within five months of starting I ran sub-three-hour marathons comfortably. Only 0.2 per cent of people who run marathons are able to do that. Sometimes I did one a day, every day, all week.

In the same vein, when I compared my cycling performance to other triathletes, I was streets ahead. Using the wattage output meter on the bike, I could hold power levels for an hour that most of them only managed for 20 minutes.

Through the internet I got in touch with an Ironman called Keith Sanders, who also lived in south London. A fireman by day, Keith was a strong athlete who had completed numerous events, achieving a personal best just outside nine hours, a good time. We went on some training rides together and discussed technique. I more than held my own with him despite my inexperience. He was impressed with my performance and enquired after my VO2 score.

‘If you put those together with your bike wattage output,’ he said, ‘you could be a genuine competitor at this.’

My splits got quicker in swimming too, although I found it by far the hardest to master of the three disciplines. Raw fitness will only get you so far in the water and I soon saw that my performance plateaued. I was looking at a time of one hour six minutes for the 2.4-mile Ironman swim distance, which was reasonable but not markedly quicker than I had managed in 2013.

With the different loads being exerted on my musculature, my physique began changing and I lost bulk from my upper body. I drove myself and drove myself. If I became fatigued, I didn’t care. I kept going. Nothing would stand in my way.

It reached a stage where I was training so hard, that even after dinner and a good night’s sleep, I would wake the next morning feeling weak, drained, shaky and groggy.

‘It’s all part of it,’ I would tell myself. ‘Just battle on through. Pain is temporary.’

My head was filled with slogans that extolled the virtues of mental toughness, never giving up. I found them inspiring. They had worked for me in rowing and would work for me again.

After cereal for breakfast I would be back out on the bike, or in the water and once I started to train and endorphins kicked in, I felt fabulous. Each day I ran 15–20km and either cycled 100km, up and down hills, doing sprint sections, or churning laps in lidos or the Serpentine river for two hours at a time. I behaved like an addict, for whom a deep-seated need for success was the drug of choice. I was so fixed on my goal and had complete tunnel vision.

Of course my calorific output was huge and I ate accordingly. Breakfast could be five or six Weetabix. While out on the bike I would scoff energy bars at regular intervals. Lunch would be brown rice and mackerel, followed by a generous portion of fruit and nuts, to provide potassium, iron and omega three oils. An evening meal would be a couple of chicken breasts with brown rice again, followed by a banana with peanut butter.

I touched no alcohol at all. The only fluids that went into my body were sports drinks and water.

As my times for all three disciplines shrank, I became excited and super-energised. I used websites like Strava and Sportstracker to GPS log my performances and compare with other athletes, where I could see that what I was doing was working. My ultra-high volume approach garnered results that a coach would have said were impossible. On our joint sessions Keith sometimes said he thought I was going too hard, that I was risking burnout, but I wouldn’t listen.

In that relentless build-up to Ironman UK 2014, I spent the vast majority of my waking hours alone. I still did my indoor training at the rowing club, where I conversed with other triathletes who worked out there and occasionally hooked up with Keith, but other than that my regime was spartan and detached. Requests to socialise came my way, which I typically ignored. Most nights I was in bed by nine. Distractions could dilute my focus and drag me off course. My mission was all consuming. I was fanatical.

Through the internet I began communicating with Hywel Davies, the Welshman whose British rowing record I had broken in Lowdham Grange, and early in the year he invited me on a cycling camp in the French Alps. Hywel’s sporting achievements were highly respected, particularly with regard to Ironman, and he had been named triathlete of the year in 2008. Spending the week with him and his squad could only improve me.

I suspected that probation would not allow it as it involved foreign travel, but they were impressed by my sporting dedication and wanted to offer encouragement, so gave special dispensation under certain provisos.

‘I have to tell you that I’ve been in prison for serious crimes,’ I told Hywel on the phone, going through my now familiar confessional. ‘Is it still okay for me to come?’

‘Of course it is, John,’ he said. ‘You’ll find that many of the guys have things in their past lives they’re trying to get away from. We train as athletes, nothing else. Don’t worry about it.’

It seemed the power of sport to heal and offer hope was real and among endurance athletes, many of whom seek validation through pain, I was accepted and welcomed. I looked forward to the camp hugely. Hywel had been a fantastic source of advice and encouragement in our online chats and his personal best for Ironman was eight hours 40 minutes, a world-class time. To be able to absorb his wisdom face-to-face and train alongside him was a fabulous opportunity.

Still, when I arrived in France and probably due to my own instincts, I felt acutely aware that to the rest of Hywel’s boys I was an unknown quantity. They were all tremendous athletes. Some of them were Ironmen, some were cyclists but all of them competed at a very high level. Despite the fact I had already been pushing myself so hard for months, I was tenacious and refused to take a back seat.

This was not a series of sprint repetitions up and down Box Hill. We rode serious climbs like Col de la Forclaz, Col de la Colombiere or the Signal de Bisanne, an 84km loop, with 460m of elevation on an average eight per cent gradient. On some sections the incline rose to 11 or 12 per cent. These were all mountains that had been used in stages of the Tour de France and were seriously challenging. On most you would find yourself riding through cloud then emerging among snow-capped peaks at the top. The scenery was breathtaking, the air was crisp, but the riding was brutal.

Every day I beasted myself, aiming to beat the other guys and trying to ‘drop’ them on the mountains. I would ride alongside someone for a while, maintaining a pace before picking a moment to surge. As they tried to come with me I would keep surging, pushing and pushing it until they fell back. It was the attitude I always had in training.

Four days into the camp I woke with a cough, which I ignored, continuing the same way. Some of the other guys made comments about me overdoing it, that I should ease up. I didn’t listen. I knew best.

When the week was done, I flew home on the Saturday night with a sore throat and a thumping headache, went straight to bed, then got up on Sunday morning and ran 35km around Richmond Park. I allowed myself no recovery time whatsoever. Six weeks out from my second stab at Ironman UK I did not feel I could afford respite. There was no way I would be under-prepared like 2013. Only 100 per cent effort was enough.

On the Thursday, four days after returning from France, I went swimming at Tooting Bec Lido and emerged from the water with sickening, choking pain down the right side of my face. Much as I tried, I could not shrug it off and by evening had lost the hearing in my right ear.

Waking the next day after a terrible night, my face pounding and my breathing laboured, it felt as if someone had filled my sinuses with quick-drying concrete. I had to accept there was something seriously wrong and saw a doctor, who confirmed my ear canal had closed up due to a massive viral infection.

He asked what I had been doing, I explained and he arrived at a simple conclusion. My body had been pushed beyond its limits and my immune system had been unable to cope. At first I struggled to believe him. My arrogance and determination to better myself would not let me accept that somehow I had screwed up.

I had believed that single-minded stubbornness would make me better. That my mentality set me apart from the rest, but instead I was being forced to face a grim fact that hits many endurance athletes at some stage – there is actually a paper-thin line between supreme fitness and total physical breakdown. Maximum effort is important, but you have to apply it intelligently.

The final stage of my carefully designed training programme was meant to be a half Ironman race in Staffordshire, about a month before Ironman UK. The competitive element would peak my performance at just the right time, allowing me to taper off and lighten my regime before the big one.

‘Listen to me, there is no way you can do that race,’ the doctor said. ‘You need to rest. If you attempt it, it could even be fatal. Strenuous activity with a viral infection can cause terrible damage to the heart. In fact, when you see people drop dead running a marathon, more often than not it is because they were carrying an infection and didn’t know.’

I left the surgery absolutely distraught that morning, my unassailable plan collapsing around my ears. It was six weeks until Ironman UK and I was unable to complete the final stage of preparations. It wasn’t even clear that I would be well enough to compete.

When the Staffordshire race rolled around, my feelings of misery were compounded. Although it was only a half-Ironman event, a distance that some athletes specialise in, there were ranking points available. The winners of my age group were guys I knew I could beat. If I had been there, I could have begun building my reputation and gone to Bolton full of confidence.

On doctor’s orders I eased up and endured a thoroughly boring few weeks. Resting and relaxation were neither restful nor relaxing for me. I felt twitchy and anxious and had no idea what to do with myself. Once or twice I went out on the bike, just for a gentle pootle around. I had to do something.

By 16 July I kidded my inner critic that everything would be okay, packed my gear and headed up to Bolton. I sought no further doctor’s advice. If he had told me ‘no’ again it would have been too demoralising for words. I had trained so hard all year. The antibiotics must have cleared up the infection. Surely 11 months of training in the bank would still enable a good performance?

I saw Keith, who was competing in his last season and aiming for Kona, at the orientation meeting and discussed tactics with him. He said if he had a terrible swim or bike, for any reason, he would pull out and save himself for Ironman Wales later in the year. I nodded sagely, saying I would do the same, not confessing to the full extent of my health problems.

The next day, as I waited in my wetsuit to start the swim, among the broad shoal of fellow masochists in the timid morning light, I tried to ignore the warning signs from my body. I felt fatigued, light-headed and shakily weak before the race had even started.

The swim was tough, but not disastrous. The water made me a little woozy, which I put down to floating algae. By the time I dragged myself out of Pennington Flash after the third lap, I was well off the pace, 20 minutes slower than a year earlier.

‘Come on, you can salvage this,’ I told myself. ‘The swim was slow but you can recover.’

I got my bike from T1 and climbed on. My mood blackened. From the very first pedal stroke, I knew. There was nothing in me.

Still, I kidded myself. Sometimes while training I had started sessions feeling washed out then picked up when endorphins and adrenaline kicked in. Perhaps that would happen again? But by the 40km mark I was gaining no ground on those in front. My body still would not respond. Bleakly, I pressed on.

At around 80km, all my remaining strength deserted me. I slowed terribly and tried to refuel with an energy bar and some fluid. As soon as I swallowed, my guts convulsed. Bile rose in my throat and I threw up. Thin, rancid vomit spattered my legs and the side of the bike.

Feeling weaker and weaker, I tried again a short while later. The same thing happened. Whatever I put in my body came straight back out.

At 100km my stomach and lower back cramped and my pace slowed to a crawl. Spectators could probably have walked beside the bike and kept up with me, not that I would have noticed if they had. I saw only the handlebars and the road, framed in a dark circle, as if I were filming my own race through a fish-eye lens.

Deep within myself, I felt ashamed, because I desperately wanted to stop. An internal voice pleaded with me to pull over and sit by the side of the road. Just have a few minutes, rest on the grass, you could even lie down, gaze at the sky and all this will be over. But I could not bring myself to do it.

In a moment of clarity, I drew a stark conclusion. John McAvoy had come from prison to be in that race. John McAvoy would not fucking give up.

Quitting, especially so publicly in front of spectators, was not going to happen. Instead I would continue until I collapsed, which I assumed would be fairly soon. It’s impossible to finish an Ironman with no energy intake so my chances of getting to the end were minimal, but I could not show weakness. They could scoop me up from wherever I dropped and take me to hospital. Let the chips fall how they may. Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever.

From there I stopped bothering with food, but continued drinking. Every time I drank, I threw up. My tri-suit was soaked in it and I must have smelt terrible, but figured if I kept taking the 750ml bottles of energy drink from the marshal stations, even if I puked most of it, I might retain some. Somehow I vomited my way right to the end of the bike course.

Crazy as it sounds, off the saddle and in T2 I tried to kid myself again that maybe the worst of it was over. Maybe I would be able to run well? My pre-race target had been a sub-three-hour marathon off the bike. Perhaps that was my one target for the day I could still reach? Come on!

Determined, I set off on the road hard. For the first 3km I actually maintained three-hour marathon pace until, unsurprisingly, I threw up violently again. I stopped at an aid station, got some more drink and heaved that everywhere too. My ribs hurt from all the retching. A couple of marshals stared at me searchingly.

Every time I threw up, I would walk for a while then try running again, until I threw up again and so on. At around 10km I found myself in a village chundering over a wall. An old woman came over and put her hand on my back.

‘I don’t know why you people do this to yourselves,’ she said. ‘You’re all barmy. But as you’ve come this far, don’t give up, love.’

I wiped my mouth and looked at her. She had no idea how far I had really come, but she had a kindly, maternal face.

‘I won’t,’ I said and pressed on.

At the end of the first 16km loop I saw Terry and Darren, so stopped for some words of wisdom. They had followed me on the athlete tracker and seen my splits fall away after a reasonable start. In my heart I wanted one of them to tell me to pull out. Come on John, you’ve done enough for today, save yourself for the next one. I needed to hear it from someone else, to validate what I was feeling, but Terry looked me straight in the eye.

‘How will you feel if you quit?’

It was a simple question that pierced me to my bones. I knew the answer. I knew.

So that was it. I had no choice. I continued, running and puking and running into oblivion.

Nothing I have ever felt comes close to the physical and mental depths I sank to on the rest of that run. Finding myself at the Old Bailey at 18, receiving a life sentence at Woolwich Crown Court, even learning of Aaron’s death, agonising as those things were, they did not compare. This was steady and irreversible annihilation.

As my body ran out of everything and I shuffled on, I was no longer an athlete, I was a zombie. I passed through delirium and into a semicatatonic state. My world compressed to a zone two feet in front of me. Completers jogged past me. I crashed and burned.

I knew it. It was proven. I was a let-down. Darren, Laura, Terry, Oonagh, everyone who had helped and believed in me, I let all of them down. And myself, for whatever that was worth at that moment. I let John McAvoy down too.

In the game or in prison I always maintained composure, an appearance of being in control. They could threaten me, isolate me, deprive me, treat me inhumanely and I didn’t give a shit. I was bigger than that and would show it.

This was different. I had fallen apart. Anyone could look in my face and see I was broken. I had shown weakness. I had failed.

Ironman UK 2014 was supposed to be my coming out party as a top class athlete, a triumph, a vindication of my new direction.

Instead it was an unmitigated disaster.