Miller Time

One of Blake Miller’s earliest memories is of running down the chute at Ironman New Zealand in the dark, a proud-as-punch 5½ year old escorting his mum across one of the toughest to reach finishing lines in all of sport. If Kathy Miller’s memory serves her right, she ticked off the 226km of Taupo in 14 hrs 48 mins, or “something like that”.

There’s been two other IMNZ medals since that magical 2008 moment, in 2013 and 2015, but the debut remains her PB. “It was a pretty legendary for me,” Kathy says. “Everything after that got slower!”

Blake’s twin brother Liam remembers the 1st day of March, 2008, as well but his recollection is from earlier in the evening, “out at Five Mile Bay where the old Ironman run course used to go, way out in the dark cause Mum was 15 hours or something like that.” Ahem, officially 14:48:13 and not a second slower if you please, Dear boy.

“It was wet I think. I remember the time, out running in the dark in Five Mile Bay. Watching her do the turn around and then boosting into town to run down the finish line with her.”

It was an emotional moment for the entire family, husband Paul having been a training partner to get Kathy to those immortal words - “You are an IRONMAN!” – and the boys into town fed and watered and ready for the lifealtering moment too.

Blake, now 22, takes up the story. “Mum’s done two since then and Dad’s done one, so yeah kind of takes over your life a bit. We got dragged along which kind of turned into ‘well, we’re here, we might as well race’. Things like Iron Kids the day before Ironman and secondary school racing and that kind of just snowballed itself into travelling for secondary schools nationals in Queenstown and ended up at the worlds [the 2018 ITU Age Group Worlds on the Gold Coast] at the end of high school.”

If ever you wanted an advertisement for how triathlon can change lives with generational consequence, meet the Millers. Better still, pop along to any Triathlon Tauranga event – or pretty much any decent race in New Zealand for that matter - and say hello yourself.

You’ll invariably find Paul with his high-vis “Race Director” bib on, microphone at hand and calm briefing advice at the ready for nervous racers, the twins likely among them. Outside of the Mount, there’s a good chance Tri Tauranga’s 52-year-old Events & Development Manager will be plugging organisational and institutional knowledge gaps, roped in as an ever-willing volunteer.

Kathy won’t be too far away, quietly doing the hard mahi too. It’s been like this for near on two decades at Tri Tauranga. She keeps trying to palm off the Treasurers’ spreadsheet but others have found it too much like hard work. When she’s not balancing the books or keeping her three boys alive, Kathy loves her other club role as Development Programme Coordinator. Blake has been involved in the U19 production line the past two years as well, also a Tri NZ-accredited coach like Mum, helping the next gen learn their craft just as Chris Willett and Andrew Lloyd guided he and Liam.

As Paul says, it’s pretty much triathlon 24/7 in the Miller household.

“We just live and breathe the sport to be honest. If we’re not at an event or organising an event, we spend a lot of time talking about it.”

Tribe Nation Family Tris

Tauranga transformation

It’s not always been that way. Kathy swam at school and Paul, a graduate of the Birkenhead Sea Scouts, crewed on Young 88s on Wednesday nights. He was also a regular bowman on the Ross 40 Urban Cowboy when it was at the cutting-edge of Kiwi yacht design, zig-zagging up and down the Waitemata Harbour at the sharp end of the A-division fleet.

But swim, bike or run, much less all three disciplines wrapped up as triathlon, hadn’t entered the realm of the future Mr & Mrs Miller who met at a work shindig, a midwinter Christmas party.

“We basically met drinking piss to be honest,” Paul says with a laugh, recalling their Fuji Xero days in Auckland. “If you’d seen us back then mate, nah, just drinkers back then. I used to be a bowman on a yacht and drunk rum, that was my sporting prowess.”

There’s plenty more of where that come from too.

“Neither of us were involved in any kind of sport apart from touch and that was just so I could drink after touch, and Around the Bays, and that was just so I could drink too. You’ll see a pattern evolving there. Triathlon, cycling and running was way out of my head, I’d never, ever have thought I’d be doing that stuff.”

The transition to tri is down to Kathy and family pal Shane Hooks, he of Rotorua.Suffer and “9½ listeners poddie” fame. As an aside, that bloke ‘Be Lar Kay’ you’ve heard adding salient facts to the discussion is Blake, if you ever wondered.

But back to Kathy.

“Well it’s really Shane Hooks’ fault, if you know who he is,” Kathy says of her debut at the women’s only Special K Triathlon run by Hooks on Jan. 2, 2003. “I remember that date cause I couldn’t drink on New Years. Who puts on a triathlon on the 2nd of January?”

The twins were just 18 months old at the time and Kathy liked the idea of a triathlon to get back into exercise, albeit with a belated New Year’s party as reward for her first sprint.

“I did that Women’s Tri and then it kind of just went from there. I just did a lot more of those and then kind of stepped them up, a little bit longer, a little bit longer and then went and watched some people that I knew do Ironman and was inspired. The rest is history, as they say.”

History will also judge the Millers’ move to Tauranga fondly. Indeed, if it weren’t for swapping Auckland for the Tauranga tri scene, the Millers mightn’t be the institution in the sport that they now are. They certainly wouldn’t all be prepping for the World Triathlon Multisport Championship in Ibiza, Spain from April 29-May 7.

“We’ve come to a new city, we didn’t know anyone and you’re meeting like-minded people. People that are like you. People that are crazy. They want to be in bed by nine o’clock on a Saturday night because they’ve got a long ride to do on Sunday,” Kathy says of the family’s 2001 move to Tauranga.

“Yeah, that was Paul. It was like ‘I’m sick of living in this Auckland crap, yeah get out, not bringing my kids up here’ and it was the best move for us I think. We would never have probably done anything like this if we’ve stayed up there, you know we were very much into socialising, weekend drinking, not really doing anything much.”

How times changed.

“It was easy really to get into it and the triathlon club here has always been amazing. You know, people have come and gone but there’s always been an awesome crew of people so even though you may not be the most experienced or accomplished or fast athlete, you’ve never felt like you’re not part of the club.”

Both Mum and Dad love how the healthy lifestyle has rubbed off on the boys too.

Taupo 2008 triggered the “whole Weetbix TRYathlon thing” and by the time Paul had knocked off the 2011 IMNZ in 11:42:11 - “I just wanted to finish before dark”Blake and Liam were completely hooked.

“We had a really cool youth group going at that point which the boys joined into and with Chris Willett, who was obviously very, very instrumental in them becoming the young men they are…,” Kathy continued. “Yeah, the boys just seem to love it even more and they pretty much live and breathe triathlon. That’s all they do. That’s all they think about, all they talk about. Yeah, they kind of got really obsessed.”

Brotherly Love

Blake, like Paul, will race the sprint distance duathlon in Ibiza after qualifying at August’s Suzuki NZ Duathlon Championships in Pukekohe. He loves the cut and thrust of short course racing and has a goal of testing himself at World Cup level one day soon.

“At the moment it’s race the World Cup but that’s by no means where I’m happy to stop. I want to see how far I can take it before I kind of make the change,” Blake told TQ

Liam, meanwhile, has already made the transition to the longer distances. He’s qualified twice over for the long distance aquabike in Ibiza, at the Tauranga Half and Challenge Wanaka, and won the Suzuki NZ Standard Distance Aquabike title at February’s Kinloch Triathlon Festival, punching a return ticket to Spain for September’s World Triathlon Age Group Championship in Pontevedra. Kathy, for the record, qualified for Ibiza via Kinloch too.

Liam has the 2024 Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Taupo to look forward to as well as his Spanish double take. His slot has been held over since 2019 courtesy of the pandemic which twice forced the postponement of Taupo’s global moment.

“I’m a bit hesitant to put a position or anything on it, but my goal is to get there in 2024 and do as well as possible, kind of see where, whatever result I get there, where it takes me,” Liam said. “If it’s good enough to keep progressing and potentially take me pro and see where I go, cool, and if it’s not, I’ll just keep having fun.”

Liam, my his own admission, has never been the fastest swimmer, thus the lure of the non-drafting long distances. As much as it can be a lonely pursuit, it’s the camaraderie afterwards that keeps drawing him back for more.

“Oh, the people are a massive thing. I’m at the sort of age where I just want to go and go and go. I’m not too fussed on being overly social at Wednesday night touch or anything at the moment so it’s kind of rewarding to know that when you turn up everyone else is there because they’ve put in the same amount of effort as you and when you finish, you’re all mates cause you will know exactly what you’ve been through.”

Blake likes being the owner of his own destiny too.

“I’ve never been a great team member. I guess I’m quite easily frustrated by other people’s mistakes impacting my performance which gravitates me towards individual sport. And then it’s just the control you’ve got over it, the feeling of all of my outcome is fully on my shoulders. I can change the result by doing it properly and it takes me places. I’ve seen the whole country as a result of doing this.” And now the world, another illustration of the potential rewards of the Tri NZ to World Triathlon age group eco-system.

Liam is likewise grateful for where the sport has and is taking him. Like Blake, it makes him grateful for Mum and Dad’s early 2000s life choices.

“Yeah, well, Mum has done three Ironmans and Dad’s done one, so there’s been massive idols in terms of work ethic and dedication and all that sort of stuff,” Liam said. “And in terms of performance, they’ve never been too fussed on performing but definitely fussed on getting the best out of themselves.

“I mean as soon as we kind of jumped on the ship, they’ve always been a massive support, whether we were any good or not. I think now that we’re older and really trying to push our boundaries, they’re sort of behind us every step of the way.”

Enough of all the warm family fuzzies, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Who is the fastest twin of Otumoetai College fame?

“Oh, I’m the better swimmer. That is a categorical fact,” Blake says.

Liam? “Well, I will tell you, he’s got a running tally on his phone of every single race he thinks he’s been able to find that we’ve raced each other and I believe on that tally he is winning. But in my defense, he’s never raced me over my preferred distance. I always race him over his. Yeah, he needs to step up to some half Ironman with some half marathons at some point to give us a real race.”

Triathlon. A never-ending source of dinner table debate and poddie banter. With that, the final word to Paul who is happy to chat tri with the best of them.

“It doesn’t matter what shape, size, past history, whatever it is, you just get on the start line of a triathlon and you’re all just in it for the same reason really. And there is good camaraderie, yeah.”

We can see a pattern evolving here too. Good family folk. Tri people.

Cheers to that.