“I WAS RUNNING FROM LIFE”
Former footballer Luke Tyburski opens up about his complicated relationship with endurance sports and mental health
I played football in the lower leagues and battled with a bunch of different injuries, so my mental health started to suffer. At 28 I decided to retire. I felt lost. I had a lack of identity because I wasn’t a footballer anymore, so who was I? I had some friends doing some marathons back in Australia and one of them told me about the Marathon des Sables. I drained most of my savings and signed up. This led me into the world of endurance sports and triathlon.
For the first four years of my endurance sport career I was running away from life. I was battling with depression, insomnia and I got addicted to endurance sports. You feel invincible when you finish and want to do it again. Those highs, like a substance addict, have got to be bigger and bigger. My journey went from the Marathon des Sables to being lost again with no identity and deciding that I was going to do this for a living. I stared at the world map and came up with the Ultimate Triathlon, 2,000km, 12 days, from Morocco to Monaco.
I’d never done a triathlon before. I didn’t own a bike and I’d just started to become a runner, but I wanted something big. I gave myself four years and thought, I should actually do a swim, bike, run to see what it’s like. I Googled the world’s toughest triathlon. On the first page was the Double Brutal Extreme Triathlon. That was my introduction. To this day, it was the funnest event I’ve ever done.
I was addicted to endurance sports and the Ultimate Triathlon was my overdose. I did 2,000km in 12 days, not exactly to plan, but I did it. My mind was positive, it was willing and it was strong, but my body gave up. I spent 18 months after the Ultimate Triathlon physically recovering because my endocrine system basically shut down. I was having nervous system problems and headaches for six hours a day.
Swimming in the middle of the Gibraltar Strait with shipping tankers was a phenomenal experience. The bike was beautiful through south-east Spain. I started to tear my quad on the run. We taped it up to try and fix it but I kept passing out and started sleep running. It’s self-harm. It’s like trying to tell a drug addict in the middle of a session that this is bad and they need to stop. It’s obvious, but it’s not going to happen.
Although I do these endurance challenges, they don’t define who I am. I got caught up in being this endurance adventurer, which stemmed from retiring from football and having a loss of identity. I just gave myself a new mask. So I spent time understanding who I am and why I’m doing these challenges. It’s not to run away from life. I have a healthy relationship with endurance sports now. I don’t use them as a crutch anymore. But don’t get me wrong, I still want to do some extreme stuff. I’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline that I’m going to make happen, and they’re ridiculous.
“I was addicted to endurance sports and the Ultimate Triathlon was my overdose”