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 been running regularly and started out in triathlon about two years ago- a natural progression perhaps, since I spend much of my time travelling from A to B on a bike and have always felt quite happy in water. From there I tried a few local triathlon events and then headed to the age group race at the UK leg of the World Triathlon Series in Leeds. I'd spoken a few times about one day trying the long distance, but not really taken the idea very seriously. This somehow got through to my lovely in-laws, who, for my birthday decided to buy my entry to the Outlaw Triathlon (although I'm still not convinced they were fully aware of what it entailed at the time). Now that certainly laid down the gauntlet! Even more so, when I found out my ever-enthusiastic wife, +Fiona English aka @englishruns would be doing it too. Her account of the race is here.
Now let me rephrase that title: any physical challenge depends on mental strength more than anything else.
As soon as that starting gun goes off, chaos ensues as people jostle to find some space and get their head down. It feels a bit like being caught in a shark feeding frenzy on a David Attenborough documentary. This is all the effect of over one thousand people's adrenaline suddenly spiking - kick starting that famous "fight or flight" reaction. As in a busy London rush hour, nobody is deliberately making contact, but you can tell who's gone into "fight" mode. Best to try and stay out the way but realistically it's impossible to avoid the melee and besides, even when people make contact its not as powerful as it would be on land. Keeping focussed on your next goal- the next buoy, next turn, next stroke -is absolutely key. Don't be distracted, don't start a fight, keep moving on. If absolutely necessary, channel that blue fish from Finding Nemo and "just keep swimming" until you feel invincible again.
Over the past few years I've been running regularly and started out in triathlon about two years ago- a natural progression perhaps, since I spend much of my time travelling from A to B on a bike and have always felt quite happy in water. From there I tried a few local triathlon events and then headed to the age group race at the UK leg of the World Triathlon Series in Leeds. I'd spoken a few times about one day trying the long distance, but not really taken the idea very seriously. This somehow got through to my lovely in-laws, who, for my birthday decided to buy my entry to the Outlaw Triathlon (although I'm still not convinced they were fully aware of what it entailed at the time). Now that certainly laid down the gauntlet! Even more so, when I found out my ever-enthusiastic wife, +Fiona English aka @englishruns would be doing it too. Her account of the race is here.
Here are some of the things I learned from taking on the long distance:
You don't need all that fancy kit. No really, you don't.
I've made a list of the kit I used for the race here. When you arrive on the day, there will be hundreds of thousands of pounds of kit on show and it will be intimidating. There is basically no correlation between how flamboyant someone's kit is, and how fast they are going to be. The video below probably says it all:
Long distance triathlon depends on both mental and physical strength.
You've probably spent months preparing your body for the onslaught of over an hour in the open water, sitting all day in the saddle and dragging your feet around every one of those 42,195 metres, but are you mentally prepared for how that is going to feel? I was aware that it would take a steely focus to make it through the race, but not how much it would affect me. When you're exhausted every little thing becomes more vivid and emotional, more intense and less measured. The moment I dropped a fresh water bottle five hundred metres after a feed station instantly felt like a disaster, but reminding myself that without that bottle I was nearly 1kg lighter lifted my spirits. When sudden pain started shooting up my ankle in the last ten kilometres of the run, I was reminded to slow down, reassess my situation and break down that 10k into a series of mini goals- get to that next feed station - get to the end of the lake.Now let me rephrase that title: any physical challenge depends on mental strength more than anything else.
You will imagine you've forgotten how to swim/bike/run, or all three.
In the days leading up to the race, you'll probably be worrying about your chances of completing the race, or at least getting a time that you're happy with. It really is important to trust your training and remember how much time you put into preparing. Do a few short runs to prove it to yourself if necessary. Talk to your training buddies about it, they're bound to remind you of how much you've put into training and generally put you at ease.
You will probably be hit by a flailing arm/leg/head/buoy during the swim
Finally... a good support team will make the journey
I feel incredibly privileged to have had an amazing support team (#teamEnglish) on the day, who somehow managed to place themselves all around the course to cheer Fiona and I on. Admittedly, more than a few of them think we're completely bonkers for wanting to do this, but came along for the journey anyway. Of course, this support team is made up of more people who couldn't make it on the day, who've encouraged, given tips, trained with us and endured endless triathlon based conversations.
If you've ever been in a race of any kind, you'll know the feeling of hearing someone rooting for you from behind the barrier. You can find more strength from nowhere and find speed you thought you'd lost along the way and even forget about the pain that arises from pushing your body further than you've ever been before.
This point is not just important for endurance sports, but for literally everything in life. Find a good support team, invest in them, share with them, struggle with them, laugh with them and you'll all be able to do more than you ever thought possible.
This is one of the things that I need to keep reminding myself and others. None of us need to be an island. We can achieve things we thought were impossible when we cheer each other on. More than anything, life is so much more fun when we do it together as a team.
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