first of all, please try and imagine running a 42 kilometre marathon…

months of preparation, getting out of bed at 6am to go running before work, changing your diet to accomodate the challenge, battling mentally and physically to reach the goal. all just to run 26 miles in a few hours.

just thinking about it makes me sweat, how about you?

now imagine attempting a ‘full distance triathlon’, which consists of the following, all in the same day, one after the other…

- a full marathon (42km)

- a lenghty swim (3.8km)

- a punishing bicycle ride (180km)

fucking insane. where do you get the willpower to even consider the 2nd and 3rd parts after running a full marathon? never mind the energy.

well it seems that even the ‘ironman triathlon’ isn’t a big enough challenge for some gluttons for punishment.

oh yes, please bow down to the ‘double deca triathlon’.

a double deca triathlon consists of the following…

- 20x full marathons (844km)

- a very lengthy swim (76km)

- an arse clenchingly huge bicycle ride (3600km)

holy fucking shit.

the only double deca triathlon that’s ever officially taken place, as far as i can see, happened in 1998 in mexico. and there was more than one competitor. the winner was…

vidmantas urbonas

this human/robot above finshed the mammoth challenge in a mere 437 hours, 21 minutes and 40 seconds (that’s just over 18 days) and is surprisingly still alive. if i were head of world sports i’d have a gold statue of vidmantas in every city: the guy’s a fucking legend.

the video below is of 2006 double triathlon winner jeff landauer after his 84km ultra-marathon (please remember, a double deca triathlon competitor would’ve covered 844km - 10x that amount)..

extras:

- there’s an international ultra-triathlon association here.

- the ultraman world championships (2x ironman triathlon) website can be found here.

- the ultra-triathlon hall of fame can be stared at here, from double through to quintuple through to double deca.

best ever acting debut

ed norton: primal fear

ed norton is generally fucking great but even if i didn’t think that i’d still believe his performance as aaron stampler to be the best ever debut in cinema. absolutely faultless. the film was released in 1996 and even before production had finished there was talk in hollwood that norton was one of the biggest talents in years.

the clip below contains a spoiler.

runner up..

brad davis: midnight express

best ever directorial debut

spike jonze: being john malkovich

creating a film this complicated could trouble the most experienced of directors so the fact that music video supremo jonze managed to perfectly convert kaufman’s twisted idea onto the screen as a debut is all the more impressive. the script was originally given to francis ford coppola who then passed it on to jonze, his daughter’s husband, to look at. the rest is history.

runner-up..

sam mendes: american beauty

best ever debut album

interpol: turn on the bright lights

i could never tire of this album. ever. it has the sound of a band at the very top of their game, a band with at least a couple of albums’ experience, and a band that were born as humans in order to make music for my ears.

if you haven’t listened to it already, i beg you to.

runner-up..

oasis: definitely maybe

best ever sporting debut

boris becker - wimbledon

17 years old and unseeded, becker went to wimbledon and beat every fucking opponent in his path to become champion. absolutely unheard of. just to prove it wasn’t a fluke he came back the next year and defeated world no.1 ivan lendl to retain the title.

incredible.

runner-up..

mike tyson - first 22 fights: 18 knock-outs, 14 in the first round