The Bolton ironman got me, I had the ironman bug. This time though I wanted to research what other ironman races were out there. There was a double ironman distance race called the double brutal (4.8 mile swim, 224 mile bike, 52 mile run) called the double brutal up in Snowdon national park.

The swim started in Llyn Padarn in Llanberis and then the bike was made up of 33 mile loops (with crazy elevation due to the mountainous area we were in) until you completed the whole 224 miles then the 52 mile run started with climbing Snowdon first then making up the rest of the miles looping the 5 miles circumference of Llyn Padarn.

I signed up and started training. This time I got myself a coach Mark Whittle from Whittlefit and he wrote me up a training plan for the event. After months of training I was good to go. The 4.8 mile swim in the lake was brutal to say the least, even with a wetsuit on it was really cold and the more tired I got the colder it got but you get your head down and keep trucking.

I finished the swim then got ready for the 224 mile bike with something like 20,000 plus of climbing elevation. My aim was to do the whole event without sleeping but as the night wore in all I wanted to do was sleep. From 2am until at least 6am my head was scrambled and so was my body but I refused to go to sleep and keep my legs moving which I did apart from my feed stops that is.

Once the sun comes up that makes a massive difference to your moral and gives you a huge boost. I was so glad to finish the bike section but knew I still had Snowdon to climb and then the lake loops before I finished. I was in bits and wasn’t in the mood to eat but had to feed myself or I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Thanks once again to my support team who kept me going the whole time. You have to remember these multi day endurance challenges are not possible without the help of your support team, they play a massive roll in your success and getting over that line. You also have to remember that as much as it’s a race its also an eating competition. without food you won’t have the energy to move just like a car without fuel. It was half way up Snowdon that I realised just that.