10:46am Friday 1st January 2010
Arthur Puckrin – new Quad Ironman world champion at the remarkable age of 71 – puts his heroics down to regular workouts at the gym. The Middlesbrough barrister talks to Eric Jackson about his fitness regime.
ASK Arthur Puckrin if he subscribes to a specially formulated carbohydrate or macro-biotic diet drawn up by a sports nutritionist or recommended by a high profile chef, and all you’ll get is a laugh and a quick answer.
“No way. I eat what I want. I don’t believe all that stuff – it’s mostly advertising rubbish,” he says.
And you’ve got to take Arthur very, very seriously indeed. Because as well as having the sharp mind required of a practising barrister, he competes in Ironman events, or super-triathlons.
He’s also 71 years of age.
So instead of pasta and organic fish marinated in virgin olive all with a side helping of wholemeal bread, Arthur says that the secret of his success is... Kit Kats.
“When I competed in Quebec I was asked by my support team if I needed any special food during the race, but I just handed them a box with half a dozen Kit Kats and said to them if I shout out just hand me one of these.”
But while Arthur, from Brookfield, Middlesbrough, may eschew fancy diet plans, he’s very clear about what does contribute to his amazing physical prowess.
“I’ve had a daily training routine since I was 16 and I’ve never been a drinker,” says Arthur, who was a policeman for nine years before he retrained as a lawyer.
And as he is now divorced, does he believe his single status helps him stay fit? “Oh. I couldn’t possibly speculate on that,” he laughs.
THE absence of marital responsibilities does mean, though, that father-of-two Arthur can go to his local Total Fitness gym in Stockton three or four times a week and do the kind of workout that would leave most Premiership footballers gibbering wrecks.
“I swim for about three and a half hours and then run for about one and a half hours. If the weather’s good, I do my cycle work on the roads, but in the depths of winter, I do that in the gym too,” says Arthur, who has been a member at the club for three years.
The septuagenarian wonder has been followed going through his paces by the BBC, who were doing a documentary on him featuring his last big event – a quadruple Ironman in Mexico in November.
For that Arthur completed, one after the other, a 12-mile swim in nine hours 58 minutes, a 448-mile bike ride in 48 hours and a 131-mile run and “five marathons” in 74 hours 11 minutes.
It totals about five-and-a-half days. Even more remarkable, at the age of 71, he came first, picking up the title of Quad Ironman champion of the world.
“In 2002 I did the Decca Ironman, which involved cycling for 1,120 miles and running for 262 miles – basically ten marathons in one go. Mind you, that was a biathlon, with no swimming included,” he states, as though he somehow had it easy.
Yet although he was 63 at the time, and competing against much younger men, Arthur even managed to win. “It wasn’t about speed on that occasion, but just keeping going through the day and night,” he adds modestly.
So how did Arthur end up doing such gruelling competitions when most men’s idea of exercise is walking to the car?
“Well I’d always been a runner from an early age,” he says. “I enjoyed doing distance running, especially on the fells, and won lots of races. I won the Lyke Wake Walk, which is actually a race, five times and I held the record for ten years.”
But a chronic Achilles’ tendon injury meant that Arthur couldn’t run properly for nine years and he didn’t compete competitively for 30 years until at 50 he got into swimming at the baths.
“I was never any good at swimming, but I started getting better, and I bought my first bike for 30-odd years and I was doing daily triathlons on my own. Then I did an organised duathlon of cycling and running before joining Cleveland Triathlon Club,” says Arthur, who has also competed in the World Bridge Championships and finished second in the World Coal Carrying Championships.
His first Ironman event came in 1996, when he was 58, in Wolverhampton, which he describes as ‘nice’ as it was only a ‘short’ race.
“Afterwards someone told me about a double Ironman in Quebec and thought I could do that, but didn’t do anything about it, until someone sent me an entry form in the post and off I went.”
The experience could have ended in tragedy for Arthur, though, before the event had even started.
"THE swimming was in the St Lawrence river, which is pretty choppy with lots of currents, and beforehand we went on the water in a canoe to go through the course.
“It proved to be a bit of a hairy adventure as the boat, blown by the wind, became trapped next to a huge oil tanker. So I dived over the side and pushed the canoe away from the hull with my legs, and a rescue boat came and helped us.”
Not that the scare seemed to affect Arthur much as he finished fourth, which he followed with a ninth in the Double Ironman World Championships in 2001 in Mexico and that amazing victory in the Decca Ironman.
So where does Arthur go from here?
Has he got any plans to swap his running shoes for cosy slippers?
“Not just yet,” he smiles, “and although I still work, mostly in the evenings, I’m doing less so I can fit in more training and Ironman stuff. Age is no barrier, really. In the Scottish Masters last year there was an 82-year-old chap and he beat me easily in the 100m swimming.”
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/trade_directory/