The English Guide to...

A few days ago, at approximately half past five in the afternoon, I reached the finish line of the Outlaw Triathlon at the national watersports centre, Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham. For the uninitiated, this is a triathlon (swim, bike, run) consisting of a loop around the rowing lake (3.8km), a ride (180km) around Nottinghamshire's rolling green countryside and a marathon (42.2km) alongside the river Trent. Participants get given 17 hours to complete the race, but the winning man finished in under 9 hours and winning woman in under 10. I made it round in 11 hours 31 minutes, much to my own astonishment. I had been aiming to finish in twelve hours, but was honestly basing this on a small number of frankly optimistic assumptions. My wonderful, astonishingly determined wife, Fiona, who has only been swimming crawl since March, (and only found out her bike has more than ten gears eighteen months ago) made it round in under 14 hours. Over the past few years I've be...

I recently completed the Outlaw - an Ironman distance triathlon in the UK, and thought it would be worth listing all the kit I used for the day, what I found worthwhile and what I think is unnecessary for a first timer. This is by no means a definitive guide, and you could certainly complete the race with less than I used. For anyone who's even dabbled in triathlon, this won't be news: there is a lot of equipment involved in the sport. As the distances get longer, it becomes even more pronounced and the pressure to just buy stuff increases massively. It's really easy to waste hours pouring over reviews, reading magazines, browsing sport shops and being sucked in to buying all sorts of paraphernalia, partly out of fear that you're never going to make it. But... I don't believe that you need the latest, brand new gear to take on this epic challenge. Getting things from ebay, borrowing from friends and otherwise getting creative will certainly pay off. (I used the...