WEEKEND WARRIOR

As an already fully paid-up member of the mad triathlete’s club, Brunty introduces two more on their endless quest for ‘bigger’!

What is it about triathletes? Why is it that, when confronted with a sport that is frankly hard enough already, we go out of our way to find different ways to make it harder?

I suppose it might be because the creation of the sport came from the idea of taking three already tough events and combining them into one, thus inventing something that attracts mainly nutcases. I’ve certainly noticed that other sportspeople don’t generally go in for constantly searching for ways to make life more difficult for themselves. Rugby, for example, is a tough game but you don’t hear anyone saying: ‘I really enjoyed that 80-minute match last Saturday so this week we’re going to make it two hours each way.’

For a while I wondered if it was just me, as my general response to completing races over the years has been to immediately look for something harder. A recent example of this was my realisation nine months ago that I had run 25 marathons purely as a result of doing them during, or as training for, Ironmans. Upon realising this, what was the first thought to enter my head? Why it was ‘Why don’t I run 100 marathons?’ of course. Why did this happen? What switch went off in my head that connected completing 25 marathons with doing 100? And more importantly, why didn’t I just dismiss this nonsense instead of accepting it as a fait accompli which has already seen me complete a total of 40 marathons and counting.

This might of course be conditioning as a result of the lunatics I’ve trained with over the years, whose reaction to your latest achievement is to instantly suggest something bigger. Done an Olympic tri? Well how about a middledistance? Done one of those? Time you did an Ironman then? Done an IM? Have you done Lanzarote, though? And on it goes, each new suggestion about as welcome as piles to a showjumper.

But it isn’t just me. It’s me, it’s you, it’s all of us. Want proof? How about a couple of random examples of other triathletes of my acquaintance whose response to doing something difficult is to embark on challenges so outrageous they make leaving the Royal Family look like a doddle.

First up, my friend Jane Scott whose response to having taken up Ironman a few years previously was to do the ‘Continuous Quin’ which is FIVE times the IM distance – 12-mile swim, 560-mile cycle and 130-mile run. When I quizzed Jane about the event she told me that she managed to finish second female behind Suzy Coates, who herself completed the final marathon despite having a stress fracture. While competing in the Quin, Jane had witnessed her friend Maria Greaves, plus Kate Jayden and Annette Burrows, become the first UK women to complete this monstrous challenge – Jane mate, I can see where this is going….

And then there’s my old friend Mike Grisenthwaite. In 1999 ‘Griz’ completed his first Ironman but just 12 months later was diagnosed with incurable blood cancer. He embarked on a six-year battle against the illnesss, which included chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, and amazingly was given the all clear in 2006. He celebrated by heading straight back into cycling and triathlon and by founding a charity called ‘Cyclists Fighting Cancer’, which gives bikes and specially adapted trikes, tandems, exercise equipment and advice to children and young adults living with and beyond cancer. As 2020 is the 20th anniversary of his cancer diagnosis, Mike decided he wanted to do 20 ‘things’ to celebrate the fact that he’s still alive and kicking. So what did he come up with? Why 20 Ironmans of course. 20! In a year! (You can find out more about his challenge at ironsurvivor.org where, as a personal favour to me, you can also sponsor him.)

The reality is Jane and Mike are just two (very good) examples of God-knows-how-many triathletes I have met who, having completed one challenge that 99% of the general population couldn’t even contemplate, have thought ‘Right! Next’. Honestly, you’re all mad.

“Their kind of challenges make leaving the Royal family look like a doddle”