WHY I TRI
Rob McArthur and Poldy Van Lynden ran, swam, biked and rowed from London to Norway. Here’s how and why
Poldy: We’re both relatively fit, but neither of us had done a triathlon before – we were complete amateurs. The longest part was working out how to train… it’s been a big journey. Rob: The North Pole wasn’t feasible as not many people have successful expeditions, so we scaled it back to Svalbard, which is the furthest north before encountering pack ice. All we had to do was learn things, like swimming!
R: We were definitely underprepared on the run, we hadn’t done enough miles. P: Two weeks before the start I picked up an ankle injury, went to physio, and they said they don’t recommend running over three marathons [the distance from London to Dover]. I was resigned to the fact I would be walking or cycling, thinking this is a bad start and what if I don’t make it across the channel… We got about a mile in, and I couldn’t continue running.
R: It was nearly over in the first 10 minutes! P: I mummified my ankle with tape, which worked. I knew I had the fitness, and as long as I didn’t get injured I could make it. P: Swimming was the main challenge, though, and to swim the channel you need good technique. We had lessons, spoke to channel swimmers and tri coaches to get some advice and it slowly paved the way to making it possible. R: The whole way through the swim, we didn’t know if we could do it. Then, I remember seeing the ground, and it was the best feeling. We spent years training, so we had to complete it.
P: The worrying thing about [the challenge] was that you don’t get a second chance. If you fail then it’s challenge over. The channel was a highlight, the best thing I’ve ever done. So much was resting on it, that it was an immense amount of relief getting to Calais. R: After the swim, it took six weeks to ride to Tromso, but there were a few bodies of water that we couldn’t cycle over. We had to kayak and paddleboard, but had to wait four days for better conditions.
“The worrying thing was that you don’t get a second chance”
P: It was exciting to finally see shore in Svalbard, even though it’s a very barren island. Just mountains, rocks and glaciers. R: In our desperation to see the shore, we went so close to it we nearly beached on some rocks!
P: The secret to our success is that we were so passionate and obsessed about what we were doing that failure wasn’t an option. If you’ve got motivation and goals like that then you can achieve a lot more than you think.
R: We’ve been joking about doing Arch2Antarctica at some point… P: In our midlife crisis, that’s when we’ll do it.