my first ultraman took me 2 years
it seems to me the language of success and failure and then often consequrential engagement and disengagement lies in setting boundaries that are too far away, that lead the self to believe the goal is ‘outside’ of me.
I do not yet ‘belong’ inside the success of the goal and the successful acheivement of the goal does not already reside within me.
often a rewriting of our existing story can show us that a version of the success we seek is already present wihin our us although maybe in different discipline or scale of time and space.
the idea of an ironman feels far outside of my grasp today, a goal i can easily see as ‘other.’ something that in order to achieve i would need to be given an input not currently present, like time or money or coaching that is not yet mine and therefore very hard and unlikely, however…..
In august 2020 i cycled with friends 300+ miles from london to landsend over 6 days https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBhJd35txaw
In Jan 2021 I shuffled through a marathon in 6 hours on my own stopping at a few friends and family houses along the way https://www.instagram.com/p/CKegF01F4Wx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
this then led a few weeks later to doing an ultra marathon with over 300 people around the world https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLuFStOXilM&t=783s
In june 2022 andy and i, with the support of our wives in swat cars swam 11 miles through lake windermere, biggest lake in england i think with bouyancy aids and sometimes flippers — it was cold.
This means that within 2 years from august 2020 — to june 2022 i swam 11 miles, cycled 350 miles and ran 56 miles all continuously but with an average of 250 odd rest days between each part of this ultraman.
It was was two day of running, 2 days of swimming and 6 days of cycling. 10 days of action! —
An ultraman born in hawaii’s big island is tougher than a double ironman!
6.2 mile swim (we did almost double this!)
260 mile bike ride ( we chucked in an extra 100 miles)
52.4 miles running ( we topped up an accidental 3.5 extra miles)
so it seems i have already done an ultraman it is just a question of how i narrow the ‘rest day’ gap in the next one. it is within me, i have already completed it.
inspired today by hardestgeezer running all of africa! how might i rekky it before doing it so when the time comes it feels easy and normal to me to do.
i wonder what a good next goal is? is it to try to do all of that in less days? less rest days between? with more friends? in more fun places? try different modalities?
could be to do it all in one year?
could be to do it in consecutive weekends over a summer?
bang it all in 10 days? do it in 2 weeks with 2 rest days between each stage?
where is worth going to that requires all the modes of travel that makes a moment? could others relay if they dont want to do the whole thing?
