ULTRA WARRIOR
MEET MATT PRITCHARD, THE DIRTY SANCHEZ STAR WHOSE LATEST CHALLENGE IS A JOURNEY TO THE LIMITS OF HUMAN ENDURANCE: 10 IRONS IN 10 DAYS AT DECA UK
Dirty Sanchez star Matt Pritchard faces his biggest challenge to date – 10 Irons in 10 days
We should have sent a psychologist, not a journalist, to the Deca UK ultra tri. Here in York, it’s less sporting event, more extreme examination of the human condition. Since his earlier career as self-mutilating stuntman on the riot of an MTV show, Dirty Sanchez, Matt Pritchard has insisted on testing his limits. Now eight years after his multisport epiphany, and having reinvented himself as Dirty Vegan, he may just be pushing them too far, as one of 11 tri lab rats swimming in a 30°C school pool for up to 24hrs. And this is just the start – the curtain raiser to the UK’s first continuous Deca iron that’s differentiated from its evil one-a-day Deca sibling by the clock never stopping. It’ll be 38km of swimming, 1,800km of cycling and 422km on foot, and to pinch Matt’s brand slogan, you can Sleep When You’re Dead.
Younger brother, Adam, will contest the one-aday event, where he’s one of eight trying to complete an iron-distance a day for 10 days. The faster they finish, the more they can rest before the clock starts again at 6am and, over the next few days, it’ll be debated to death which event is tougher. Continuous competitor Martin Curran, everything but his wit in tatters, will encapsulate it best on lap 75 of 223 on the run. “The one-a-day Deca slowly turns the screw. The Continuous Deca is like being punched in the face by He-Man and then spending the next 10 days trying to recover without ever managing it.”
Some will manage it, some won’t, but Matt, 46, might consider his Dirty Sanchez grounding – where one stunt saw him standing atop a stepladder that was hit by a vehicle driven at 50mph – as perfect prep. This is more transcendental pilgrimage than tri. An attempt to answer the existential questions: What is life all about? How are the organisers staying awake? And if Matt does finish, does he have any space on his skin for another tattoo? Let’s take you through his race day-by-day.
SATURDAY, 20 JULY
Caravaners at Allerthorpe Lakeland Park are being told on arrival that a tri is taking place. What will register less at this point is that it won’t ever seem to end. The 5pm briefing will be taken by Deca Jim Page – the Deca prefix a sort of tri Queen’s honours that should be afforded to all finishers. Inside the marquee a queue is forming to hand over the £5
race licence fee to Brutal Events’ chief Claire Smith. It’s low key, but the sign of a slow cooker, multiple urns and a two-litre Happy Shopper cola suggests we’re here for the long haul.
It’s Continuous entrants only at this stage. For the Continous Deca that means all blokes, but three women will take part in the one-a-day equivalent that starts on Tuesday. There are subsidiary challenges, too. A continuous and onea-day quin. Ditto for a triple and double, plus a single iron-distance race and a half iron.
Matt arrives looking like an ageing rocker turning up at the wrong festival. He’s driven from Cardiff, but has come a lot further in the past few years from his masochistic alter-ego to a pulse-pushing evangelist as the BBC’s Dirty Vegan. Ironman Bolton in 2011 was a first foray into tri and he hasn’t looked back. The triple Brutal – a threetime iron-distance in Snowdonia – unsurprisingly lived up to its billing as his hardest challenge yet.
There’s already an excess of beards and thousand-yard stares, which is oddly reassuring, and then Deca Dave Clamp walks in on crutches and a pair of Hokas, tri’s version of a surgical boot. Dave is deca royalty, World Deca champion at the age of 56, and double deca (yes, 20 in 20 days) record holder. Dave’s chances at the Deca were scuppered when something heavy blew off a passing farmer’s trailer, crushed his bike helmet, knocked him out cold and left him with a fractured hip. Without Dave, the field is wide open, with Lars from Denmark, Zach from Ohio, Simon from France and Ammar from India, the latter hoping to become the first Indian to complete a deca. Jim’s briefing includes such pearls as don’t count your own laps and chlorine can make you nauseous. And don’t throw up in the pool. That’ll mean race over for everyone.
SUNDAY, 21 JULY
It’s 7am and we’re at Ampleforth College pool. It’s a lovely spot next to the Benedictine monastery but, whatever way it’s dressed up, it’s still a 25m indoor pool – and there are 38km to swim. It’s arguable as to whose role is more taxing. The athletes, threeto-a-lane, or the lap counters, who are ticking off 1,520 lengths with cards in front of them like a blue rinse brigade playing a nightmare game of Bingo.
Simon Webb is Matt’s support crew for the first days, sporting the de rigeur Sleep When You’re Dead, or SWYD, branded tee. “It actually stands for Snore When You’re Dreaming,” Simon says, when asked how the first night in the camper van played out. “Komodo Dragons make less noise.” Matt has more pressing matters. There’s a 24hr cut-off for this first leg and he’s wearing a wetsuit for buoyancy, but there’s mixed opinion as to this approach. Some stick to Speedos, others to core shorts. “Let’s get this s**t sorted,” he says with a smile and they take their first strokes. By mid-morning Matt pauses at the end of the lane and Simon leans in: “I’ve got you Oreos and Monster Munch as a treat.”
This isn’t like any race we’ve ever been at. Faster swimmers don’t always complete more lengths per hour because goggles that need fiddling with, or sore shoulders that need stretching, start as minor irritations and become magnified. It’s a case of who stops least, and Matt is a master. He just keeps trucking, finishes the swim in 14:51:48hrs behind Dane Lars Jensen, and his only irritation is when Simon wakes him up on the drive back to Allerthorpe to force down a Pot Noodle.
MONDAY, 22 JULY
“I had to crawl into my sleeping bag like an inchworm,” says Graham Smedley, explaining the inability of his arms to function. The day after the swim is renowned as just about the toughest of a
“THE DAY AFTER THE SWIM IS THE TOUGHEST OF A CONTINUOUS DECA, WITH ANY JOLT ON THE BIKE LIKE A LIGHTNING BOLT CONDUCTED THROUGH THE HANDLEBARS”
continuous deca, shoulders so sore any slight jolt on the bike feels like a lightning bolt conducted through the handlebars. So, the humpback bridge that needs to be traversed 139 times on the 12.8km loop of this bike course seems like a sick joke. Now down to 10 competitors due to Ammar dropping out, most take advantage of being chauffeured back from the pool to nap ahead of 1,800km of cycling. At 6:30am Matt is fuelling himself with veg soup.
Hi-vis vests are mandatory and there’s a ‘no selfie’ policy while pedalling, with failure to comply with either resulting in a DSQ. It’s also flat apart from said bridge, but with storms looming and a heatwave to follow, competitors’ crews are meticulous in checking forecasts to decide when to push on and when to rest. Most opt for downtime during the small hours but, like all best-laid plans, it can go quickly sideways.
TUESDAY, 23 JULY
Organiser Claire Smith knows more than most about the vagaries of ultra tri. Founder of The Brutal in Snowdonia, she’s since extended it to double and triple versions, and her own palmares includes finishing a continuous deca.
“They’ll have started too fast,” she says, knowingly. “The ego takes over and with sleep deprivation they won’t think long term. Everyone will cry, and not just those racing.”
Organising is almost as punishing as taking part. “I’d rather just be concentrating on eating, drinking and moving forward,” she says. “When organising, you have to concentrate on every little thing.” This includes sweeping up broken glass. This is the world’s first open-road deca and there’s been a car crash. It has no connection to the race, but in an effort to avoid punctures, Claire and Jim have the brooms out. They do a sterling job and remarkably, with enough miles covered to travel from John O’Groats to Lands’ End almost 30 times, there are only a handful of punctures. In other news, Matt’s crew are judging his hydration and salt intake by the colour of his pee and white residue on his suit.
WEDNESDAY, 24 JULY
Zach Franklin knows he must get a shift on if he’s to make the bike cut-off. Saying the race hasn’t gone to plan would be an understatement. He landed from Ohio on Saturday, swam for 21:53hrs on Sunday, before spending several hours crashed out on Monday trying to recover from the chlorine and jetlag. When he finally clambers aboard his bike, a derailleur hanger catches in the spokes and rips away the rear mech. A mechanic patches it up, before both tube and tyre explode with the ferocity of a jet engine taking off. “And I think he’s worn the same pair of shorts the entire time,” Deca Jim adds.
THURSDAY, 25 JULY
“We all know the tortoise and the hare. Well, in this race, the hare never wins,” Deca Jim says. But the hare is Lars and Lars has a secret weapon – he’s being coached by Deca Dave. Dave’s key sessions include 6hr training swims, back-to-back 9hr rides, and 9hr runs broken down into a 9min/1min walk/ run strategy, but it’s apparent that the mental test outweighs any physical one. “It’s the nearest you’ll come to a spiritual experience,” Dave says. “I’d be so exhausted, I’d be hugging everyone. I’ve completed laps walking arm-in-arm with fellow competitors.”
FRIDAY, 26 JULY
For the first three days of the one-a-day deca, Matt’s brother Adam has posted the fastest time of the eight contestants by finishing each in under 15hrs, allowing him time to rest up. But he’s not turned up for the 6am swim start after spending the night vomiting and suffering from diarrhoea, and is confined to his campervan bed. He’ll be diagnosed with gastroenteritis. “I gave him a hug and could see his head had gone,” Matt says.
SATURDAY, 27 JULY
The run must be started by 7am Sunday and they’re all going to achieve it, including Zach, who finishes the bike in 133hrs. Matt is also showing resilience. His regular 12am-3am nap is relaxed for a lie-down of more than 12hrs in T2. If nothing else, it gives perspective for the next time you’re chastising yourself for taking too long with elastic laces.
“It’s just relentless,” says Deca Jim. “The race only starts now.” Jim has also lent his trainers to Martin, whose feet have swollen too much for his own. “He can keep them,” Jim adds, charitably.
The run route is just over a mile and on mixed terrain. Regular checks are made to ensure no-one has fallen asleep and the last victory lap will be run in the opposite direction to celebrate and high-five anyone left on the course.
SUNDAY, 28 JULY
Every triathlete has highs and lows. Some walk together discussing bowel movements or the state of the economy. Others jog slowly in solitude. Some races are starting to unravel, but when it comes
to pulling people out, how does Deca Claire manage the task? “You can see it happening from a long way off,” she says. “They might relent, but deep down each one of us knows when we’re done.” Yet some people, like Mark Dodgson, currently powerwalking into the lead with two poles, are picking up the pace. There’s, as Claire says, an adaptation process as your body finally acquiesces to the new normal.
MONDAY, 29 JULY
Matt is happy for 220 to tag along for a couple of laps. “At times, I go right into my mind and just want to be on my own,” he concedes. “But when I put the headphones on for the first time yesterday, it was like Earphone EPO. They seemed to turn off the pain receptors. For 20km I was loving life, then I stopped for lunch and afterwards I couldn’t walk. I was in a dark place. I couldn’t wait to get out of the saddle on the bike, though. That humpback bridge was like Snowdon. My poor gooch [consult Urban Dictionary]. Now I can feel everything. My feet are in ribbons. My hands feel swollen. It’s a shock to the system. My routine is 20hrs a day. Then rest. The alarm goes and like a robot I’m up again.”
TUESDAY, 30 JULY
It’s becoming clear that not everyone will make the cut-off. Graham and Martin will fight another day, as will the valiant Zach, whose race is run after 222km. Graham’s heartbreaking tale is of rising dozily at 3am to try and make up some laps, and forgetting to reattach his timing chip. The end is also nigh for Mark, but in much happier scenes. How many triathletes could munch a plate of chips, sausages and beans on the run and hand back the empty crockery on the next lap? It’s the sort of technique that earns your deca stripes. He’ll cross the line first at 1am in a total time of 235:20:12.
WEDNESDAY, 31 JULY
The rest of the continuous deca triathletes start to complete. Lars is 10hrs after Mark, followed by Matthew Dales and just two hours later in 248:42:30 comes Matt. His initial question of: “What kind of looney would do this?” has been answered. “We’re like a family, meeting for group therapy,” he says. “It’s not corporate. We’re not just a number. We’re more than that here.”
The last of seven finishers, Maartin de Jong crosses the line in 272:25:43, almost 16hrs ahead of the final cut-off and just after him will be the onea-day Deca stars, including Maria Greaves, Kate Jayden and Annette Burrows, becoming the third, fourth and fifth women ever to complete the event. In following the continuous deca, we haven’t done these remarkable women justice (look out for a future 220 piece), but then there are so many narratives that spin from an event like this we’d need another 10 days to recount them all. And for now, it’s time for a long nap.
“MY FEET ARE IN RIBBONS. MY HANDS FEEL SWOLLEN. I CAN FEEL EVERYTHING. IT’S A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM”