Martyn Brunt: triathlete versus Windermere (twice)

Dear reader, I won’t lie, I’m bricking myself. Long-time readers of my column will know that like many of you, every so often I like to do something which introduces a bit of risk into my life.

Sometimes this might be as simple as booking a race while I’m on holiday with my wife without telling her, or leaving my wheelie bin out all week to see which of my neighbours pointedly drags it off the lane and slams it back onto my drive. Most of the time, though, it involves entering something extremely challenging, and that is what I have done this time. Again.

Unfortunately, as triathletes, what we do as a matter of course is challenging to most ordinary mortals, so if we want to go that bit further we usually end up taking on something that falls into the category of ‘extreme’ – as we all know no matter how mad the event you’ve just done is, there’s ALWAYS something madder out there.

The madder thing that I am about to attempt came, as usual, as a result of someone mentioning it to me at the end of a race. That’s all it takes, one comment and the seed has been planted in your mind, and you’re powerless to stop it growing. Within a very short time
you’ve entered the mad thing and there’s no going back. And worst of all the sadist who first mentioned the event to you doesn’t enter it – they never do.

“Did you know there’s an event…?”

In my case, my latest brush with doom began after I’d just completed an open-water swim race along the full length of Lake Windermere. Having just done 11 miles in 4:40hrs and scooped the prize for being the fastest old man in a wetsuit in Ambleside on that particular day, I was just sitting for a moment basking in the fact that it was all over and I could now go to the pub.

But that post-race glow of achievement is when you’re at your most vulnerable, and sure enough along came another swimmer to interrupt my reverie with: “Did you know there’s an event where you can do that both ways?” And that was it. 

So that’s what I’m doing folks, the ‘Windermere Double’, 21 miles of swimming along the full length of the lake and back again. 21 bloody miles! What was I thinking?! At the end of that lot I expect I will not only be tired, hungry, dehydrated and congested but also possibly delirious having had nothing but my own thoughts for company for 12 hours.

It’s obviously going to be a very different kind of swim from any I’ve done. There’s a pilot boat to accompany me with an observer whose job it is to throw jelly babies into my open mouth whenever I breathe.

Just me, and the voices in my head

But having been schooled in the world of triathlon mass starts it’s going to be extremely weird to strike forth into the waves without being surrounded by a melée of swinging legs, people clumping me on the head, some pain in the arse tapping my toes, someone going diagonally across in front of me in the wrong direction, and some pillock who does breaststroke legs at turn buoys.

In fact, there aren’t even any turn buoys. There’s just a boat, me, and the voices in my head telling me I that I don’t have to be doing this, that I could be at home walking the dogs.

I’m taking the opportunity to use my impending watery demise to raise some money for a marvellous charity called ‘Cyclists Fighting Cancer’. Founded by my friend and fellow triathlete Mike Grisenthwaite, it provides specially adapted bikes for children who are undergoing or recovering from cancer treatment, to help with their recovery or to give them the simple joy of riding a bike like any other child.

If anyone would like to sponsor me, you’ll find a link to my fund raising page on my Facebook or Twitter profiles – it will mean having to wade through the various poor quality knob gags on there to find it, but if you do then any donation of any amount would be very gratefully received.  

• Are these the hardest triathlons in the world?
• What is a marathon swimming event?