The final word: on taking on the Ironman triathlon and why extreme feats need to be a part of our lives

Justin Sanak slew his personal dragon – the Ironman triathlon - in May with a time of 13 hours and 59 minutes. Finisher Pix

We don’t have enough dragons in our lives. Yes, that’s a metaphor. I don’t wish for fire-breathing lizards to roam the streets of Abu Dhabi. It’s hot enough as it is. I’m talking about the old-school, St George-style dragons – life-altering challenges that inspire tales told for generations after we’ve slain them.

The dragons are out there, but they are content to leave us alone. It’s perfectly possible to go through our lives day to day, paying more attention to what flavour of crisps we’re going to eat in front of the television tonight than to the fearsome, epic beasts perched in the metaphorical hills outside our windows. If you don’t push yourself, the only dragon you may face in your entire life may be the statue or symbol at a Chinese restaurant.

But there are so many rewards if you go out and seek them, in whatever form they take. My personal dragon has a number: 226, in metric terms. That’s the total distance of an Ironman triathlon. It starts with a 3.8-kilometre swim, continues with a 180km bicycle race and ends with a full marathon run of 42.2km. Do it in under 17 hours, they say, and brag about it for the rest of your life.

In theory, completing the distance is simple: just move your arms and legs in circles until it’s over. In practice, it’s only a little more complicated: move your arms and legs in circles for hundreds of hours in practice over the course of months and years. Nobody starts out being able to do a full Ironman, and crossing the finish line is representative of a journey far greater than the race’s physical distance.

The human body works on principles of overload and adaptation. Exercising your muscles and wearing them out shocks them into panic mode, and afterwards they grow to become stronger and more resilient. The next time you use them, they will be able to handle just a bit more stress before they go into panic mode again. Rinse and repeat and you have the basic principle of training for any athletic activity.

I believe the human spirit works in much the same way. We need to get out of our comfort zones if we want to grow. There will be stress, there will be pain and there may even be panic, but that is part of the process. And just as our bodies get stronger as we add speed or distance or weight to our workouts, we need tougher and greater challenges the more we grow as people. Extreme feats are a way to repeatedly overload ourselves, both physically and mentally, until we are capable of handling anything life tosses our way.

To me, the “how” of an Ironman is not as important as the “why”: the bigger the race, the bigger the ideals. Taking on such a challenge puts me on a first-name basis with the sublime buzzwords of life that I previously only encountered in literature class: perseverance, determination, despair, victory, sacrifice. Even failure. I race to experience all of these to a degree that I could never find in my comfort zone. To do anything else would be to experience less of life than I could – and that idea is scarier than any race could ever be.

I slew my dragon this May with a time of just a bit more than 13 hours (if you consider 59 minutes a bit), and I do think the experience has made me a better man. It will be a while before I take on something so extreme again, but I can already hear the roars in the distance.