Martyn Brunt on how to do a DIY triathlon

I’ve done a triathlon! Not an actual one I grant you, but there’s about as much chance of finding an actual tri in Britain during the New Year as there is of me finding a pound in my bank account.

If I’d trained a bit harder in my younger days and earned elite status I could no doubt have sashayed off to Australia for the winter months and found races galore, and a whole bunch of new athletes to be beaten by.

But no, I was too much of a laggard so I’m here, up to my knees in British floodwater, trying to be inventive and cobbling together my own events to keep myself entertained. So here’s what I did…

Swim

This year the Brunty Christmas was spent in Cornwall. The long-suffering Mrs Brunty is from near Falmouth and likes us to visit a few times a year to remind me what she gave up when she married me and moved to Coventry.

Being in Cornwall at Christmas meant of course a Christmas Day swim in the sea, and so it was that I joined members of my wife’s hessian-clad family to leap into the Storm Gerrit waves of Gyllingvase beach for a freezing plunge.

Being a ‘proper swimmer’ it was expected that I would stay in longer than anyone else, which I made sure I did but at some cost to my extremities, and as a result I have learned a new word, ‘Gwenders’, which is Old Cornish for a disagreeable tingling caused by cold.

I reciprocated by uttering some words which they hadn’t heard before either, which are Old Coventry for “I am not enjoying this.”

“Remarkably, we finished fifth – although I suppose it’s not that remarkable when you consider I was basically towed round like Ben Hur by two excited Springers”

Bike

The bike leg was something I’ve never done before, namely cycling repeatedly up and down one of the steepest hills in the Cotswolds, on a Chopper, while dressed as Santa.

The event was called ‘Santa’s Chopper Challenge’, organised as a fundraiser by my friends at the wonderful ‘Cyclists Fighting Cancer’ charity, with the aim of cycling up the same height as Mount Everest on the bike least suited for the task, while wearing a costume that makes you sweat like a glassblower’s backside.

On my first rep I learned two important facts – 1. False beards make breathing difficult and you’ll be picking white synthetic hair from your teeth for some time afterwards.

And 2. Choppers are very, very front-end light, and putting the hammer down at the bottom of a climb causes you to pull an unplanned wheelie, leaving skidmarks on more than just the road. The Everest mission was accomplished with more than £1,000 raised for CFC.

Run

The run at least was an actual race, a trail marathon in picturesque Little Dawley called the ‘Pie’d Piper’, so named because you get a pie at the finish.

Christmassy dress was encouraged, which is why I took to the start line wearing a jumper with the Grinch on it in honour of my Xmas attitude, and some pawprint leggings in honour of the fact that my Spaniels Bertie and Norman did it with me.

Remarkably, we finished fifth – although I suppose it’s not that remarkable when you consider I was basically towed round like Ben Hur by two excited Springers.

In truth, we would have been a lot faster if I hadn’t kept letting them off the lead and they didn’t keep having to wait for me. But it was either that or risk getting dragged up a tree or into a canal every time they spotted a squirrel or a duck.

As confidence-boosters go there’s nothing like cruising uphill past struggling runners thanks to eight legs of assistance, and my cheery offers to rent my dogs out to them at a cost of £5 per dog per hill were met with stony silence.

I realise that my invented tri doesn’t count for much and in results-world it has all the authority of a ‘Do Not Tumbledry’ label, but it was either this or the turbo, so you can’t blame me for trying!

Top image credit: Daniel Seex