Awesome

That was the description use by the guy standing next to me. And he was right.

I spent yesterday afternoon at Sherborne, watching a chunk of Ironman UK. 2.4mile swim, then 112mile bike ride. Topped off with a full marathon. And nearly 1200 people finished it within the 17 hours from the 6 o’clock in the morning swim to the cutoff point.



Anyone uninspired or unmoved by just how long people keep going and their effort on the day and the knowledge of how much training must have gone in just to get people there has got a hole where their heart should be. And they’d have also missed the humour of it – like the guy who arrived at a feeding station and asked if there was any cheese on toast to be had.


By the time I took this photo, the competitors are running by floodlight. And that’s not the odd straggler. Of the 1196 that finished, nearly 500 people finished in more than 13hrs 30. In other words in the dark.

A number of people have asked me if I went along because I was planning to attempt it. Well, when I once asked my great friend John Tomnay whether he’d ever do anything longer than an Olympic distance, he said “No…I like to be able to hold my beer steady at the end!” I reckon that, not only would I be unable to hold my beer steady. I’d be unable to see it.