On July 18, 2010, the 199th day of the year, on the anniversary of the great fire of Rome, I was led to my execution on the banks of the Main Donau international shipping canal near the German town of Roth.
There, in front of a cheering horde of 150,000, I was tried and convicted as a witch and thrown into the murky green water.
I exaggerate slightly but that's what it felt like.
Of course, most of the spectators were not there because of me.
There were bigger fish in the pond that day - world ironman champion Chrissie Wellington, of Britain, being one of them - and I was a mere minnow.
Not for the first time, I questioned my sanity and will to live. Only two people would suffer terribly if I sank.
One was a defiantly skinny man who'd been putting pastries and ice cream under my nose for a week. The other was a woman who was unashamedly wearing white socks pulled up to her knees.
For just one week of our lives, we would try to behave like professionals.
The canal was already a whirlpool by the time my group of 305 swimmers started at 8.40am.
Just one final wave of similar size was to follow in five minutes' time.
It was the biggest mass swim start of my life and my nerves had not been salved by a practice two days earlier, when I got lost cycling to the canal and my unintentional 50km warmup had compromised my swimming ability.
I was to wear the bruises for two weeks. But it was consoling to think it wasn't Alistair and Victoria tearing me from limb to limb.
It seemed an age but probably 20 seconds elapsed before I re-entered the fray.
Just under 59 minutes later, I was running the final 1km to where Alistair was standing in a sea of cyclists.
I tried not to throw up while he undid the transponder on my foot.
Oh the relief! The fear had gone and the race was no longer about me.
Alistair had heard Germany's bitumen was like velvet, unlike New Zealand's boulder-pocked roads.
Prompted by the prospect of a smooth ride, he had spent time in England touring Yorkshire hills with a view to improving this advantage even further.
But he was horrified to learn his sister's steady supply of cream trifle had added 1kg to his weight and he was now a whopping 64kg.
So he ripped round the 180km course in 5hr 31min, carving 30 minutes off his previous best time at that distance.
Initially, however, his form was not clear. I waited ages at the famous Solar Berg hill climb and as time wore on, I worried Alistair had punctured. Then I suspected he'd stopped at the bakery down the road.
My anguish ended when our Roth host, Martin Schlesinger, told me Alistair had gone through about 40 minutes earlier, way ahead of schedule.
Martin's wife, Andrea, rang a bit later from another part of the course to say Alistair had nearly finished.
Victoria was then on her way to what would be her best and second-ever marathon.
Her first kilometre looked a breeze. It was all downhill.
Reality sunk in on the long, relentless track by the canal, where Martin had found us a shady spot in the forest where Victoria would pass us four times.
The temperature was in the mid to high 20s, but it was 12degC cooler than the previous day, which was a tremendous relief for her - and us.
Victoria had been to Roth before and had spent most of her day on her feet, showing Australian spectators around the course.
Despite this less-than-ideal preparation, she slashed 30 minutes off her previous marathon time.
Clearly, many runners had hit the wall, especially those doing the whole thing by themselves.
Many were walking, some chatting, others quietly existing in their zombie zones.
This section was close to an aid station and, not for the first time, I was staggered by numbers - 23,000 bananas, 5500 pieces of cake, 12,000 biscuits . . . the menu seemed endless.
With so much to observe, it did not seem long before we had to join Victoria on a 220m dash down the red carpet to the finish line.
Despite our overall place of 94th team, we were enthusiastically received by a stadium of tens of thousands as if we were first across the line.That felt kind of crazy.
We completed the race in 10hr 37min 13 sec, each having done our personal best. That felt nice.
But the challenge now - and I have hardly begun to find the words to explain this - is to pass on the love and the extraordinary hospitality I experienced.
In the end, it wasn't about the swim, the bike or the run.
It wasn't about the distances, the heat, the fear, the stress of exertion.
Sure, it was a bit about me, a bit about us, and a bit about the handful of other people we knew out there on the course that day.
But, for me anyway, it was mostly about what happens when you go right out of your way, even to the other side of the world, and find friends in the strangest of places.
And that, I think, will become a whole new story.
CHALLENGE ROTH
• What: 3.8km swim, 180km bike, 42.2km run
• Where: Roth, Germany (near Nurnberg)
• When: July 18, 2010
• Entrants: 5000 (more than 3100 individual starters and 610 teams)
