The boundaries of what a human being is capable of are often left up to the imagination — unless you’re hybrid athlete Fergus Crawley. On Feb. 5, 2023, the Gymshark Original “Double Brutal” was published on their YouTube channel. It covered Crawley’s latest feat of endurance in Snowdonia, Wales, including a 289-mile, non-stop triathlon.
Check out Crawley’s performance in the video below:
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26-year-old Crawley has a background in strength and ultra-endurance. For example, he ran a sub-five-minute mile and squatted 500 pounds on the same day. He scored a 1,200-pound powerlifting total directly followed by a sub-12-hour Iron Man. Six months later, he hit a 600-kilogram powerlifting total followed by a 60-kilometer ultramarathon.
I’ve run out of ideas, so here we are: double-extreme Iron-Man distance triathlon.
A standard triathlon consists of the following:
The “extreme” part of the triathlon — which Crawley performed twice — is thanks to the hilly terrain of Snowdonia, Wales, which increases the difficulty.
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Projects like this are empowering for me. It reminds me of what was and now what is.
When Crawley was 20 years old, he attempted suicide. These endurance challenges help Crawley display the “commitment and value of taking one step forward.” Continually taking those “one steps” builds momentum that sustains him.
[Who I am now] is a version of me that two, three, four, five years ago would have laughed in your face.
Crawley’s feats of endurance are his way of displaying that one is capable of greater things than one might think they are. When Crawley was younger, he would fixate on something that didn’t go to plan as a failure and internalize that as representative of his identity. Now, he can parse through why something went wrong and how he can adjust to improve it.
Recovery from this will be difficult; psychologically, physically.