Martyn Brunt on achieving the ultimate race T-shirt

Forgive me, dear triathlete reader, if I stray into single-sport territory this month, but at the time of writing I have just completed my 100th marathon. And, because you can’t see the T-shirt I’m wearing which has ‘100 MARATHONS CLUB’ emblazoned all over it, I feel the need to brag to you virtually.

I say ‘wearing’ but that doesn’t really do it justice because I’ve basically been sleeping in my T-shirt since I received it. I have honestly never worked so hard for a T-shirt in my life because I’ve been a man on a mission – albeit an old man on a crap mission – for a long time now.

For fans of numbers, 15 of the marathons were as part of Ironmans, 20 were ultra marathons, 34 were trail marathons, and 31 were road marathons. In total I’ve run more than 2,800 miles in 10 different countries; my fastest time was 2:53 and my slowest was 12 hours, although admittedly that was a 50-mile trail death-march over the Shropshire hills.

Nine of them were coastal path races, which added the exciting prospect of running straight off a cliff to a misty death, and I got lost more than 10 times adding around 30 completely unnecessary miles to the total.

Other notable landmarks include running two marathons in one day for a bet, having three injuries (damaged knee ligament, torn foot muscle and trapped nerve in my back/arse), needing medical attention at the finish line on nine separate occasions, and running an ultra over the monster hills of Long Mynd and The Wrekin while hacking my innards up with Covid (which I didn’t know I had).

To give you some idea of how obsessed I’ve been with achieving this questionable goal, I’ve done 27 marathons this year in order to get it done, which of course means I’ve done several of them in heat waves, frequently spending 26 miles or more with a hot breeze in my face like being endlessly bellowed at by Alex Ferguson.

Several of the recent races have been in the kind of bone-softening temperatures that turn your average self-contained north European misanthrope like me into little more than a random swear generator.

40 tips for nailing the Ironman marathon

The most recent was called the Birmingham Canal Canter, which took place on an August day that topped 36°C and saw me spend six red-faced hours shuffling along endless towpaths past such glittering landmarks as Spaghetti Junction and Winson Green nick.

By the end even my drinks bottle was curry-temperature and I was so oxygen starved I had breath like a kitten’s yawn. In the couple of weeks before this I’d fought my way round two trail marathons which were merely in the low 30s, centigrade-wise.

The first was called the Shocking Shirt Shuffle, for which I donned my classic 1978 chocolate brown Coventry City away shirt, and which generated so much static electricity that I blasted the poor lady who handed me my medal into space.

The second was called School’s Out for which I wore a white short-sleeved shirt and my actual school tie, again perfect choices for running around in the kind of soupy heat that leaves your pee like battery acid.

In keeping with the theme, I even tripped over a tree root half-way round, grazing my knees and ripping a hole in my shirt, leaving me to spend the rest of the race worrying what my mum would say.

Compared to all this my 100th marathon was a fairly benign affair, which was notable only because my dog Bertie ran it with me. I wanted him there because he’s my best mate and has been my number one training partner for the past four years.

Although that didn’t stop him rubbing in how much fitter he is than me by sprinting off after a squirrel at the 25-mile mark, dragging me behind him.

And all that for a T-shirt. Was it worth it? You bet it was.

Illustration: Daniel Seex

About

Martyn Brunt is 220's resident Weekend Warrior, and has been writing the popular back-page column for the magazine since 2009 when he was chosen from hundreds of entries for the honour. He's a Nationals-level swimmer, top age-grouper and regularly competes in all manner of single- and multisporting challenges across the UK and globe. Not that he'd agree with any of this. As his self-penned mag bio reads, "Martyn is tri’s foremost average athlete and is living proof that hours of training and endless new kit are no substitute for ability."