Emma Tucker wasn't going to let something as trivial as a broken leg stop her from finishing the Australian 70.3 (half Ironman) triathlon race in Port Macquarie on Sunday, May 5.
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The 36-year-old from Krambach had already overcome a number of hurdles to take part in her first half Ironman. However, she entered the race, which takes in a 1.9km swim, 90km bike and 21.1km run, with a broken leg.
"I couldn't run so I walked the entire half marathon,'' she said.
"I'm on crutches now and in a moon boot.''
The MRI this week confirmed that Tucker has a fractured tibia.
Tucker suspects she sustained the injury while training a fortnight before the race.
"It was a bit of a setback,'' she said, in a nomination for the sporting understatement of the year.
"But I wasn't going to miss it, I just wanted to be part of the atmosphere.''
Tucker said she made it through the swim without too many worries but the pain started to hit towards the end of the bite. She admits to coming close to withdrawing during the run.
"If I was in absolute agony I would have pulled out. I was able to block it out until right at the end. Sunday night was really bad though,'' she said.
Her time was 7 hours 22.11 and she still beat 86 other finishers home.
She entered the race as preparation for her ambition - to compete in Ironman Australia (3.8km swim, 180km bike, 42.2km run) at Port next year.
This will be the culmination of a plan that started a touch over two years ago when Tucker weighed 148kgs. In that time since she's lost 80kgs.
"The weight sort of crept up over 10 years,'' she explained.
"I made bad choices and had a poor lifestyle - too much alcohol. I wasn't active at all and it's funny because my husband is extremely active...he is basically a bodybuilder, while I was sitting around watching Netflix.''
Initially she had Bariatric surgery to assist with the weight loss.
"That's when a passion for exercise kicked in, it became far less about dieting and more about doing things that I'd never done before,'' she said.
"I'd never run, never done anything physical, I could never understand why people would want to go for a jog. Now I can't get enough.''
All this led to a dream of tackling an ironman race and this started in November last year, soon after she ran in the Sydney Marathon. Tucker competed in her first race, the Girls Only Triathlon in sweltering heat at Forster in January, where she was third overall. She was then third in her age group at the Lake Macquarie Olympic distance event and won the 35-39 years division at the Nepean Classic.
"That sounds impressive - but I was the only one in my age group to finish,'' she said with a laugh.
The leg injury will be a setback to her plans for the 2025 ironman. Tucker's nominated for the Treble Bridge Buster, the toughest event in the Forster Running Festival in August and then the Sydney Marathon in September, but this will depend on how quickly her leg recovers. She will start in the Melbourne 70.3 regardless in November where she hopes to pick up more race smarts.
However, when she started her ironman journey she could barely swim or ride a bike. She's followed online training programs and gradually improved..
Living at Krambach means she's not too close to a public pool.
"So I head down to Forster Keys - it's 35 minutes away, suit up and swim there first thing of a morning with the mozzies,'' she said.
Despite the injury and subsequent pain and frustration, Tucker said Port Macquarie last weekend was unbelievable.
"Just to be part of it was awesome,'' she said.
"Now ironman is my goal and nothing's going to stop me. I wish I could do it right now.''
