‘ WITH ANYTHING I DO, I LIKE TO PUSH MYSELF AS FAR AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE’
'HAVING A SHOTGUN fired at me from pointblank range – that was pretty painful. It went a bit wrong, because some of the pellets went through the bulletproof vest and into my arm,’ says Matt Pritchard, with the silly-me nonchalance of someone remembering they left the bathroom light on.
Given the Cardiff man’s former live-fast lifestyle, it’s perhaps understandable that he’s not overly moved by that particular neardeath experience. The skateboarder-turned-tvprankster was, for almost 10 years, one quarter of Dirtysanchez, the latenight TV prank show that involved three Welshmen and one Englishman doing painful and stomachchurning stunts. Google the show and you can find a list of the most popular episodes, which include stunt names of the cryptic (‘Johnny Cash’) and Ronseal variety (‘Sandpaper arse’, ‘Naked paintball’ and ‘Barbed wire hurdles’).
The show, which aired on MTV (and, later, C4) from 2003 to 2008, reached a level of success far beyond what any of the group could have hoped for, and even led to Dirtysanchez: the Movie. However, after a decade of punishment and partying, Pritchard’s willingness to jump naked into bushes of stinging nettles, or repeatedly bash himself on the leg with a meat tenderiser, began to wane. ‘Doing 10 years of that, with the partying on top of it, took its toll,’ says the 45-year-old. ‘I’ve got no regrets at all about any of it, but it was just time to do something different and I needed something else that was going to give me a buzz.’
With his stunt days behind him, Pritchard wondered if he could do what he’d done years before. ‘ When I was 15,’ he says, ‘my mother asked if I wanted to enter the Cardiff Half Marathon. She promised to buy me some decent trainers – some Hi-tec Silver Shadows – if I completed it. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, so that was a big deal, and I said, “Yeah, definitely!” It wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s – when I wanted to get back into shape – that I thought, “I wonder if I could still run a half marathon.” So I started training for the Cardiff Half again and I haven’t looked back. There’s something about running that I really like – I think it’s the runner’s high.’
NO HALF MEASURES Given his propensity for pushing his body to its limit, it’s understandable that Pritchard turned to endurance sport. What is surprising is just how far his willingness to endure has taken him.
‘I’m currently filming a documentary for the BBC [about his journey from Dirtysanchez to endurance athlete] and as part of that I set myself a challenge,’ he says. ‘Starting in September, I swam from Cardiff to Porthcawl, which is about 50 miles. I then cycled the coast of Wales, which is 700 miles, before running 180 miles back to Cardiff in time for the Cardiff Half on October 7. I did it all in 14 days, so I was on the go constantly.’
It’s just the latest in a long list of endurance challenges that’s earned Pritchard sponsorship from HOKA One One. He has completed, among other staggering feats, a 900-mile run from John O’groats to Land’s End, a triple Ironman, the London Marathon, dressed in a mankini (naturally), 30 half Ironmans in 30 days and numerous ultramarathons.
‘ With anything I do, I like to push myself as far as is humanly possible,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why, I think that’s just in my genes. I swapped the partying for long-distance events. I love the battle between your mind and your body – it’s a constant fight to stop
yourself from giving in and giving up.’
That love of continually pushing his physical and mental boundaries is reflected by his recollection of the 30-day run from John O’groats to Land’s End, which he describes as being both ‘hard work, man, really f****** hard work’, and also ‘absolutely amazing’. He adds, ‘I think we did about 30 miles a day. A week and a half in, my body was a mess – I could hardly run. But it’s amazing what your body can handle, because after that I just kept running and pushed past that pain barrier, and then it became really easy. By the end, I was running effortlessly. When you’re in that zone and you find the flow, it’s amazing.’
Less effortless, perhaps, but equally impressive, was the triple Ironman Pritchard completed in 2016 – 54 continuous hours of gruelling exercise that included 78.6 miles of running. ‘The run was around a one-mile loop, so that was pretty tough,’ he says lightly.
Such a turnaround in life may seem extreme, but even at the peak of his partying, fitness was never an issue. ‘I’ve been skateboarding since I was 15, so I’ve always been pretty fit,’ he says. It was only when Dirtysanchez started that everything took a back seat, but I’ve always had that base level of fitness.’
PAIN AND GAIN
Pritchard also credits skateboarding with aiding his endurance in another sense: ‘I’ve spent a lot of time falling onto hard concrete, and obviously there was a lot of pain involved with Dirty
Sanchez, so I think having those experiences probably helped my endurance. In a weird kind of way, though, I quite like feeling the pain during a race – that feeling of pushing yourself as hard as you can go.’
The all-conquering sense of achievement that comes with completing these challenges is one thing, but Pritchard also credits running, specifically, with improving his general wellbeing. ‘I was at a point where my mental health was suffering,’ he says. ‘But running has helped with that massively. Any kind of exercise makes me happier in general, hence why I do so much of it, but there’s something about running, in particular, that lifts your mood big time.’
Pritchard also credits a switch to veganism and giving up booze as making him feel ‘so much healthier’, although he’s quick to add, ‘Don’t get me wrong, vegans can still eat shit, believe me.’
So what do his mates and former Dirtysanchez co-stars make of ‘Matt, the endurance athlete’?
‘ When I tell them I’m going on an 80-mile run, or whatever it may be, they just say, “There’s something wrong with you.” But they’re my mates and they can see that it makes me happy, so they’re fully supportive of it.’