Brunty\u2019s been pushing his physical limits in races, again, even though he knows it never ends well\u2026 <\/p>
There\u2019s an expression in the world of mountaineering called \u2018summit fever\u2019, which is used to describe those occasions when climbers become so fixated on reaching the top that they push past the point when they should really turn round and head back down. <\/strong><\/p>\n As you can imagine this can have some fairly stiff consequences, because in climbing the summit is only the halfway point, meaning they\u2019ve literally gone past the point of no return.<\/p>\n I should stress that I have zero experience of mountaineering. In fact, I\u2019m so scared of heights that I\u2019m frightened being this tall, but if my tri history is anything to go by then summit fever is a concept I completely understand, and one in which I routinely fail to behave sensibly.<\/p>\n The consequences aren\u2019t quite the same, but speaking as someone who has ended up in a finish-line medical tent five times suffering from dehydration<\/strong><\/a>, concussion, a broken bone, and exhaustion<\/strong><\/a>, I am in no position to huff and puff at tales of climbers getting into hot water.<\/p>\n I was musing on this recently having completed a trail marathon on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far. With about five miles to go and with the temperature reaching 28\u00b0C, I was starting to feel the effects of the heat.<\/p>\n As someone fair-skinned, I was just contemplating what sensible actions I should take to avoid ending up in a sweaty, twitching heap whereupon I spied another runner up ahead of me \u2013 and they were walking.<\/p>\n And what\u2019s more, I was in fourth place, and they were in third.<\/p>\n It\u2019s my solemn duty to inform you that as a triathlete, all thoughts of slowing down or stopping to soak my cap in the stream etc instantly evaporated and although I knew \u2013 I KNEW \u2013 how it would end I set off in pursuit.<\/p>\n It took me a mile to catch them, then a mile to run silently alongside him after he picked up the pace to go with me, both of us pretending we were absolutely fine while silently praying for the other to crack.<\/p>\n And then three miles to keep going at the same pace after finally getting ahead, not daring to even glance behind and thinking that every echo of my own footsteps was him about to come back past.<\/p>\n When I finally made it to the finish I made a beeline for the shadiest corner of the finish-line gazebo and slumped there like a patch of damp, until a kindly sports masseur came and draped a moist towel over my head making me look like a wet Elephant-Man.<\/p>\n It took me an hour, all my remaining salt tablets<\/strong><\/a>, several cups of tea and being told my car park ticket was about to expire to get me moving again.<\/p>\nGetting into hot water<\/strong><\/h2>\n