Product Description

Not Normal Behaviour – From Novice To Ultra-Distance Triathlete is an entertaining account of the highs and lows of training to compete in the ultimate triathlon challenge – the Ironman; a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride and then a marathon.
The story starts in June 2000 when, disillusioned by the level of challenge and adventure in life, Stuart, with one novice triathlon and a London Marathon finish to his name, decided to set himself a seemingly impossible and insane goal – to race an Ironman.
He knew little about the event, other than the distances. He didn’t know anyone who had done one. He had no idea of the training schedule, nutrition or preparation required and more critically, whether he would succeed. It all seemed so far from where he was. And that simply was the appeal. He felt compelled and so set out to find out whether he had what it would take.
This is not a How to Race an Ironman training book. Instead it is a personal and often funny account of a dreamer who found out how to the hard way.
Not Normal Behaviour relives an extraordinarily rich year of setbacks, adversity and harsh lessons, as Stuart, discovers what it takes to race an Ironman. With little regard for his well being he plunges head long into murky lakes, raging rivers and unforgiving seas; he rides, buys, builds, crashes and occasionally races bikes; he slogs round marathons, busts his balls in winter races and lurches from elation to disaster as he builds to his day of reckoning. He is beset by constant challenges but always figures a way through. Against a backdrop of heavy metal concerts, Hell’s Angels parties, holding down a job, keeping his friends close and his marriage intact, Stuart lives his dream.
Not Normal Behaviour is written from the perspective of an average sportsman, rather than a world class athlete. It will appeal to anyone who keeps fit, goes to the gym, runs, cycles, swims or wonders whether they may have the metal to finish an Ironman. Even if you don’t, it’s a hugely enjoyable adventure.
This is a book for the armchair athlete, written by an armchair athlete, that may just inspire you to question your own level of challenge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #85954 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 204 pages

From the Inside Flap
Bored with his somewhat conventional lifestyle and frustrated at merely reading about the adventures of others, Stuart set himself the challenge of taking part in one of sport’s most gruelling events; an Ironman.
With little experience in the world of triathlon, the challenge was huge – to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and then run a marathon seemed a ridiculous thing to do. But then it beat weekend suburban landscape gardening projects.
Despite countless setbacks, injuries, the weather, his own naivety and downright stupidity, Stuart fought his way to the start line of his first Ironman.
Not Normal Behaviour is the personal and often funny account of his inspirational journey; the highs and lows, the lessons learned, the sheer determination required and the roller-coaster ride he took to become an ultra-distance triathlete. This book is about turning the volume up on life and single-mindedly setting out to achieve the perceived impossible.

About the Author
Stuart was born in November 1973 in Stirling, Scotland. At the age of 14, he became obsessed with sport and it has remained a passion ever since.
Many, including his wife, would say that he has an addictive personality. From a chance place in the 1999 London Marathon and a last minute entry into a short distance triathlon in the same year, an insatiable desire grew to take on the seemingly impossible – to race an Ironman triathlon.
Despite the garage of gear he has amassed and the hours dedicated to his passion, Stuart is far from the heady elite ranks. He is a reassuringly average athlete; balancing a job, a family and his obsession. He’s far from a podium finisher; he’s one of us, the cheering crowd.
His first book, Not Normal Behaviour, is a personal and often funny account of his roller coaster ride to fulfil his dream to become an Ironman triathlete.

Excerpted from Not Normal Behaviour
Iron Man

Every adventure has a beginning and mine burst forth from the addled shell of the ‘Ground Force’ dream. One of my best mates, Neil, and I had just finished building a three brick high seating area with a neat gravel bed in my back garden. He disputes how much time I spent on the actual building per-say. I, on the other hand, am absolutely adamant he would never have laid all those bricks single-handedly if it wasn’t for my mortar mixing and tea making skills. The ungrateful swine.
Well anyway, contractor disputes aside, upon completion there I sat, smug and content, with a warm DIY self-improvement glow. A blue sky stretched above me and I was tanning on a wooden garden chair, a couple of cushions easing the hardness of the wood. I’d pulled my shorts low so I wouldn’t get an obvious tan line. With suncream on, a book, a cold drink and my shades, this was suburbia.
You could have almost panned upwards, away from the garden and looked down on the house, the neat moss ravaged lawn and the newly constructed, brick-lined seating area. Up higher still to see a neat housing estate in Milton Keynes, with lots of roundabouts, a grid system and virtually no traffic jams. Neat, and there I was sweating. It was very hot, early June 2000. I had never been further from adventure. And with that thought I actually felt a little cold, a little small and a little insignificant. Where had this come from? How could I not be happy sitting there surrounded by my greatest legacy, the world’s biggest gravel filled cat litter?
I was reading Pete Goss’s ‘Close to the Wind’. This book was part of a long series of armchair adventures about Everest, the Antarctic, the Arctic, jungles, hostile places and life endangering challenges. Goss’s account of his trip was inspiring. He was constantly facing failure, defeat, rejection, poverty and misery and most of this hardship was before he even set sail. The account on the high seas was even more inspiring. As I sat there, sweating in my neat little garden, it struck me that my level of challenge wasn’t enough. I wanted to get out of my garden chair and face a little more hardship than whether I had enough suncream on my chest and toes. My mind was set. I had never been more certain of anything. It was time to up the ante from rather safe and un-ambitious landscape gardening projects.
To describe my multi-sport CV as anything more than patchy would be flattering it. Basically, in its very simplest terms, despite my swagger, I had been dabbling with triathlon for about six months. Even dabbling seems an over-generous description. I had finished the Spelthorne Sprint triathlon (400 metre swim, 12 mile bike ride and 3 mile run) which amounted to about an hour and 10 minutes of exercise. As far as challenges went, it had been a bit longer than a game of squash. Not exactly radical. I was deluding myself. I had a race T-shirt and I thought I was the dogs’ bollocks. Compared to Goss, I was a complete sissy. Suddenly I felt I was missing out on a whole world of adventure.
It was beyond me why, but it struck me that I had to do something totally insane. I had to set out to do something I felt would be impossible. But what? Then it hit me like a bolt. Ironman. I knew very little about Ironman. I had a vague idea of the distance. It was a long way, just short of a two and a half mile swim, 112 miles on the bike and finally a marathon. Wow. Each leg on its own seemed enormous. I thought about it. 2.4 miles, 112 miles, 26.2 miles. That’s a long way from normal. I had images of epic battles of endurance between scantily clad men and women, all bronzed and muscled. I knew I wanted to pull myself out of my neat housing estate and join these lycra sporting ranks.
When Neil had asked a few months before where I was going with triathlon (yeah, with one sprint event under my belt, I had deluded myself I was going somewhere with it), I replied that I thought I’d get into Olympic distance races, (1 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride and 6 mile run) but I thought doing an Ironman would be totally nuts, only for fools and the stupid. When I said this to him I had meant it. With my minimal experience and triathlon credentials, doing an Ironman would be crazy. And that simply was the appeal. A task too massive to contemplate. It was so far from where I was then, so out of my comfort zone, such a big challenge, the simplicity made the decision easy. I would do an Ironman. I felt a tingle, a surge of excitement. I guess it was a purpose. Thanks Pete. I finished his book and miraculously didn’t burn my toes...

Customer Reviews

Running Fitness Magazine Review Aug 2005
'...excellent first person account of turning from 'normal' person to a committed triathlete...compelling and a satisfying read...If ever there is an event description that implores you to get involved, that was it...'
Read full review below
It is a title that many a runner must be familiar with. Announcing you are off for a quick half hour on Christmas morning or perhaps heading out of the door muttering something about fartlek, will often result in a non-runner sagely nodding their head, declaring you are barmy.
Well, that just about sums up Stuart Staples' excellent first person account of turning from 'normal' person to a committed (and not half bad) triathlete who enjoys nothing more than following a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 miles on a bike with a marathon!
Of course many a runner will think that really is a barmy activity, but for all of you who don't (and for all of you who do), you'll find Stuart's account compelling and a satisfying read with plenty of stories every runner will be familiar with.
Here at Running Fitness, we are strictly fair-weather triathletes who only dabble in the sport summer time, so it was particularly interesting to read of the intense thrashing that constitutes the mass start swim. If ever there was an event description that implores you to get involved, that was it, but then as we runners all understand only too well, none of us know anything about normal behaviour.

Normality not Insanity
A very easy read but one could not help having that feeling that Stuart maybe a novice Triathlete but having a background in other sports certainly will give him the advantage.So I felt slightly let down when I thought that I would be reading the escapades of someone who had never dabbled in sport before not stories about one of those annoying people who can take to any sport like a duck to water.An Ironman distance race is a huge undertaking and total kudos to anyone who attempts it.

Definitely not normal
This book makes you feel tired even reading it. Refreshingly honest and free from the jargon that can afflict sports books, Not Normal Behaviour charts the progress of the author as he realises he needs more of a chellange from 9-5 life and he embarks on a journey to becoming an Ironman.
Stuart, while a novice triathlete, was what I would consider very fit starting out and had done a lot of sports when younger. This undoubtably helped him in his Ironman quest. The singlemindedness and determiniation necessary to complete an Ironman is well captured in this book and his wife deserves a lot of the credit for supporting him in the endless training and racing.
The book would have benefitted from some more photographs and did not really capture, for me, the camaraderie between triathletes that is evident particulalry for novices.
All in all, a good read and quite inspiring.