Brian Barach says it is "definitely possible" for anyone to compete in an Ironman challenge. Photo: Supplied
A 75-year-old man from Whangārei is gearing up for his fifteenth Ironman and says it has just become a "family addiction".
Brian Barach will be lining up again to compete in Ironman New Zealand on the shores of Lake Taupō on Saturday, 2 March.
The swim alone is 3.8km, the bike ride 180km, and then to top it all off, a 42.2km run along the lakefront.
Barach will be doing the race with his daughter Polly, but said it was his wife who first got him competing.
Back in 2004, he did not even know how to swim. But after some encouragement from his wife, who had done an Ironman course, he started training.
He could not say what kept him going, "guess it's an addiction", he told Midday Report.
"My eldest daughter has done one Ironman, my youngest daughter has done 12.
"So it's sort of become a family addiction."
Barach said he used to be faster than his daughter, but over the past two or three years the tables had turned, "as they should".
He has always had thoughts of quitting after completing any Ironman, he said, "but then within a few days, you still start to think, 'well, maybe I could have improved somewhere and for some reason you went to another one'".
"The main thing is to just slowly build it up, and yes, it's definitely possible" - Brian Barach
To anyone contemplating giving the course a try, he said: "It's definitely possible to do."
It was just a matter of putting in the work, he said. Training was hard, but "keeping motivated" was the hardest part.
"If you can join up with other people that have got the same aims and do it, and just slowly build up to it.
"Probably not getting into too much heightened coaching to start with because you can be destroyed by sort of having whole expectations of times and what you might be able to do.
"The main thing is to just slowly build it up, and yes, it's definitely possible."
Christchurch triathlete Mike Phillips claimed his second Ironman New Zealand crown in 2023. He had a winning time of seven hours 56 minutes and 05 seconds.
Phillips' other title came in 2019.