KEY POINTS:
Jo Lawn doesn't think she's anything special.
"No. I'm just me. I'm just Jo Lawn, who does Ironman, and loves it," she said when asked if she considered herself a great athlete.
She ought to. Yesterday she joined men's winner Cameron Brown in creating history when she won Ironman New Zealand to become the first woman to win the same event six times.
Erin Baker did it four times between 1986 and 1994, although the first two were over a slightly shorter course.
For the 34-year-old Lawn, though, it was by far her toughest victory. She was caught by Kate Bevilaqua 28km into the marathon but refused to yield and surged away from the young Australian with only 6km of the race remaining to win by four minutes.
What makes Lawn even more remarkable was that she won in a new course record time of 9 hours and 16 minutes, breaking the record she set in 2003 by nearly two minutes, despite the rain and wind.
She had broken her competitors so badly, Bevilaqua and the next two finishers - Emi Shiono and Bella Comerford - needed instant medical treatment and had not recovered enough to front the media.
"The significance and the power of winning six in a row is why I was out there," Lawn admitted. "The significance of it only really hit me when I was doing the event and I thought there's no way [I wasn't going to win]. Cam did it [created history] so I had to do it. It means so much now but I wish I could have enjoyed it more during the race but there wasn't time.
"I have never run with anyone before, not like that. I didn't know what to do. When do I surge? Was that a surge I just did because it didn't work? But that is what I wanted. I wanted to be pushed on the run.
"It proves that I'm really mentally strong and that's something you can't train for. There are many great athletes but they might lack that top six inches. I could have lost it mentally because Kate is a better runner than me but she's not a tougher runner and Ironman is all about being tough."
There are few tougher than Lawn. The former Commonwealth Games cyclist emerged from the swim second behind Gina Ferguson, who dropped off the pace on the cycle, and had a five-minute lead on Bevilaqua heading into the run.
It's not known what might have happened had Bevilaqua not been slapped with a four-minute drafting penalty on the 180km cycle leg for being too close.
Take nothing away from Lawn, however.
Like Brown, she is a special athlete. Even if she doesn't think she is.
