MAKING A STAND

Resting up on a grassy bank in John O’Groats, my bike beside me, I stared out to the endless blue of the North Sea. It was autumn 2017 and I had just completed an epic, 1,200-mile bike ride up the west coast of Britain from Land’s End. In spring of that year, I’d spent 57 days walking the well-trodden route solo, enduring trench food and acute tendonitis along the way. As I looked over the windswept coast, I began to wonder. Could I repeat the challenge by sea and become the first women ever to complete a ‘length of Britain’ triathlon?

Aged 31, I had developed a taste for adventure–doing long walks, bike rides and triathlons. Taking the well-known Land’s End to John O’Groats challenge by foot and then by bicycle,