Whenever I’m given the opportunity or privilege to speak to a group of people about dentistry or the busines of dentistry or even philosophy of career futures or anything else, I try to design it around a story framework.
Firstly, I do this because it works for me and secondly, because I think I understand that people respond to storytelling as something that is deep within our human psychology.
And so, when I started to write this blog all those years ago, I decided to write a story to myself, to my future self, sat in a chair in a nursing home who’s unable to walk or enjoy adventures but could maybe sit back and read the things that I had written to myself over all those years whilst I stared out at the garden getting ready to be finished.
And so, I don’t need to apologise for the fact that I’m telling another story about a sporting adventure that someone has undertaken which inspires me because I want to read this many years from now.
The thing about stories is that the good ones have ups and downs and the protagonists in the stories have to navigate good times and bad times and overcome (sometimes terrible) difficulties.
It’s six years ago today (almost to the minute as I write this) that Louis phoned me to tell me that Tim had died that morning on the bike.
If you’re unaware of the tale, you can read a blog here that I wrote six years ago (click the coloured word here).
That year Tim had competed in the Outlaw half iron distance triathlon about 8 weeks before he passed away and I had competed and completed the Outlaw full iron distance triathlon the year before.
The Outlaw triathlon and the community around it has become a huge part of our lives because of all the experiences and adventures we’ve had and also because of the close connection that Tim had and then Louis developed following the loss of his dad and hero.
After we lost Tim, Louis decided he was going to be a professional triathlete because that would allow him the opportunity to chase dreams that he had wanted to share with his dad but now was unable to do.
Louis stood up at Tim’s funeral and said he would ride 4,900 miles on his bike as a 13/14-year-old because his dad was 49 and he did.
Through the generosity and downright disagreeability of some other people we were able to include Louis in Outlaw triathlon relay teams from the year after his dad died.
Louis ran part of a marathon in 2017 in the Outlaw triathlon that his dad would have been entered into as a competitor for his 50th birthday.
Louis started by running 1 lap of the lake or even less than that and struggled to keep up with Mike (our runner) in the relay team (my running had stopped a few weeks before Tim died because of damage to my knee).
All this time, Louis was building himself into a triathlete and between 2017-2019 he ultimately became better than me on a bike, better than I had ever been on a run and fantastic as a long-distance, open water swimmer.
During the lockdown in 2020, Louis filled a paddling pool in his back garden and tied a bungee rope to his leg so that he could continue to swim when the swimming pools were shut.
He ‘Everested’ on Zwift for charity as a 17-year-old.
All of this is impressive but I guess a story that’s been told many times before about other people who’ve had tragic events in their lives but have risen from the ashes to be inspirational to other people but the point of this blog is to give an update on this story to people who followed it for 6 years but for those who haven’t, it’s to try to pass on some of the extraordinary inspiration that I have received from one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met.
Due to regulations you’re not allowed to compete in a half distance ironman or a full ironman until you’re 18 and so in 2021 (weeks after turning 18) Louis lined up in the Outlaw half iron distance triathlon in Nottingham.
He was number 161
It was father’s day.
Louis came off the bike in the top 20, as an 18-year-old, but did not finish the run for reasons that were not quite easy to understand for many people but not really so difficult to understand for me.
I did the relay that day only to come off the bike to hear that Louis had been taken off the lake in an ambulance.
At that stage it would be easy to stop and to decide that enough was enough and to return back to the small distances 18-year-old triathletes are supposed to compete in and to enter into the normal cycle of British triathlon training and to try to make it through Loughborough university or in the Leeds group or somewhere conventional.
Instead, Louis dusted himself down (understanding that bravery is a choice) and prepared for the British championships in Aberfeldy in Scotland in September.
By the time Louis crossed the line in Aberfeldy he was the under20 British champion and won the race by 3 ½ mile!
He dusted himself down again and started to train for the winter for bigger and much more telling challenges ahead.
Louis’s ambition is clear and direct.
He wants to become the world ironman champion in Kona and nothing else will really do.
One of his hero’s is an athlete called Sam Long who had participated in an iron distance race at 19 and so, Louis needed to participate in an iron distance at 19.
In 2022, Louis turned up again at the Outlaw half to exercise the ghosts of the Father’s Day before and won his age group by more than 4 miles setting a course record for his age group.
On the 24th of July he lined up for his first iron distance race at the Outlaw full.
By some freak of chance, he’d been allocated number 161 – the number from his unsuccessful Outlaw half the year before.
What transpired on Sunday was nothing short of one of the most inspirational things that I have ever seen (and I have seen some cool sh*t).
For the first half of the run after the 2.4 miles swim and the 112-mile bike Louis was flying but an ironman is much more than 2 half ironman’s and a marathon is much more than 2 half marathons.
When he crosses the line there were loads of people at the finish line crying, understanding what Louis had gone through to get here and why he’s doing it.
Teresa Hamilton who owned the Outlaw franchise and who is at the finish line every year cried as louis broke the tape in 9hrs and 55 minutes.
Louis won his age group because he was the only one who competed in his age group because you can’t do an ironman when you’re under 20.
He set a course record for under 20 again because almost nobody ever does it and he finished 29th out of 1000 athletes.
Today, on the anniversary of the loss of Tim we rode together as is our tradition on this day.
We talked and we cried, and we schemed because Louis is quite clear that his mission is to represent his dad in the best way possible.
I watched almost all of Louis’s race and all of his run as I followed him round on a gravel bike.
He inspired and inspires hundreds and hundreds of people around that run who understand his story and understand how difficult it is to be someone like that.
We agreed today, both of us, that we never want the pain of the loss of Tim to go away, we want to walk with it every day and use it to inspire both of us to be better people and to achieve greater things.
Louis wrote a blog about his experience on Sunday and you can read it here.
Cyclists use the term ‘chapeau’ signifying maximum endearment and congratulations and appreciation of effort.
Chapeau Louis (we miss you Tim and we’re still here).
“Outlaw full completed for a Dunne, 5 years later than it should have been” – Louis Dunne 25th July 2022
Blog Post Number - 3155