Ironman Mark

Here are some reasons – not in any particular order:

• Because I want to.
• Because I can.
• Because I want to push my limits, and by doing so it means that I still have limits to find.
• It shows I have great willpower.
• It’s an incredible thing to do.
• It shows that I am determined to do what I want to do.
• Because it is not easy.
• You get more value for money if you finish it.
• I have entered it so I might as well finish.
• Pretty good bragging rights!
• Because success is forever.
• It is a mind boggling distance – and I want to boggle minds.
• I would be proud to tell people I have finished it.
• It’s good to see how hard I can push myself.
• I don’t have to do it again!
• It is a great stepping stone towards doing something even sillier.
• Because it beats sitting at a desk all day long.

And while I remember, I do like this encouragement:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’