Against the odds: Real life Ironman ready to tackle Taupō event

For Gareth McCash, this weekend's Ironman event in Taupō represents more than just a triathlon, it's a celebration of life itself.

To say that the 40-year-old from Tawa is lucky to be alive is an understatement.

In November 2020, while training for Ironman 2021, McCash was knocked off his bike along Western Hutt Rd, north of Wellington.

"I'm looking up at the back of this vehicle just thinking what on earth has happened," McCash said.

"Why can't I move my wrist, why is my hip so sore, why is there all this white noise around, why is there all this liquid... what's happened.

"I tried to get up and see my surroundings but I couldn't."

That's because McCash had suffered a serious accident, breaking his wrist, ribs, neck of his femur and most worryingly, the C1 vertebrae in his neck.

Bystanders tried to help and move the injured cyclist as he lay on the road, unable to move.

"One person I'm very grateful for, was an off-duty ambulance paramedic who stopped people from moving Gareth, because if they had moved him it would have definitely led to paralysis," Gareth's dad John McCash said.

To this day, the McCash family still don't know who the paramedic is, but are eternally grateful for their actions.

Despite that, he still wasn't out of the woods medically, with a metal plate put into his hip and serious damage to his neck.

Proposed with an invasive spinal fusion, which would have limited his mobility, or an medical halo brace, McCash chose the latter, still desperate to compete in Ironman.

That's despite no guarantees his neck would be what it was before the accident.

"The plan was to get back to where I was, for me it was unfinished business, after the first bout of surgery I knew I'd get back, I just didn't know how big a job it would be!"

After nearly five weeks in and out of hospital and two months in the medical halo brace, McCash literally and figuratively got back on the bike in January 2021, two months after his accident.

Understandably, he doesn't cycle on the open road anymore, too scarred by the accident.

His trauma so great, he doesn't remember how or where exactly the crash happened, but McCash is at peace with that — he just wants to move on with his life.

"Sometimes I look at myself and say 'is that the same person?' I go, 'wow, look how far I have come'."

"As part of the recovery I was always going to do another Ironman, because there would always be that part of me that said 'what if?'"

"Your recovery will never be fully complete until you run down that red carpet at Ironman, only then will you know that your recovery is done and dusted and send that part of yourself back to the bookshelf of your life and close the chapter," he said.

It was a chapter that was meant to be finished last year but was scuppered by Covid restrictions, now there's no denying McCash his comeback moment.

And joining him in that moment will be part of his past. McCash has used parts of his bike from his accident on the bike he'll use in Taupō.

"I'm glad the bike doesn't exist in it's previous form but the spirit of it and myself are still there."