Issue 2 Winter 2008 (6.3 MB) - Blundell's School

OB PROFILEIronman?WHAT ISSam Renouf (Westlake 2001-3)Ironman Triathlon dates back to 1978 and was the result ofa bet between a bunch of Hawaii based US Navy Sealsover who was the fittest - a swimmer, cyclist or runner.The crazy outcome was a race involving all three - a 3.8kmocean swim, 180km bike ride across the island andconcluding with a 42km marathon run. This became an annualevent and rapidly gained in popularity - there are now 22official Ironman events worldwide from Japan to Germanyand Arizona to Australia. The British leg of the World Seriestakes place in the rolling grounds of Sherborne Castle, veryclose to Blundell’s long time school adversary!Ironman SamI took up Triathlon just before joining Blundell’s in the sixthform. I competed recreationally throughout my time at theschool and was often to be found on my exercise bike in theWestlake locker rooms! However, I really took to the sportwhilst on a gap year in Australia where I joined ‘Team TBB’the world’s no.1 Ironman team, which included several Worldchampions and Olympians. I was then awarded a sportsscholarship to Loughborough University, which allowed me tospend much of my Uni-life on training camps in Brazil,Switzerland, Thailand and Australia. My gruelling trainingprogram soon paid off as I was selected as the youngestmember of the Great Britain Elite team for the last two yearsand placed 3rd Briton at Ironman UK in 2007.What does it take?An average training week for a professional triathlete is inthe 35-40 hour range - working out at 6.5hrs a day! Thiswould involve a mixture of the disciplines averaging around20km swimming, 500km biking and 100km running perweek. Over the last four years that is enough for me to haveswum the channel 50 times, ridden 2.5 times round theequator and run from Tiverton to Beijing - and back!32