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Nobody Claps on Tuesday

Anna Bednarczyk

Sunday they clap. Monday they remember. Tuesday you start again.

A race finishes on Sunday. By Tuesday everyone has gone home and stopped thinking about it - and that's the day the athlete goes again, nobody watching.

I'm Anna Bednarczyk, ultra triathlete and Vice-President of IUTA. I ask people who race for days what they do once the applause stops. You don't need to know the sport. Here's what I think they can teach anyone. Nothing is built in the flashes - it's built invisibly, on a Tuesday.

Consistency, discipline, resilience and endurance, and what it's worth in an ordinary week.

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  • 3 episodes
  • Avg 56 min
  • English

Episodes 3

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  • October 6 · 1 hr 13 min

    Guillaume Briguet: It's Okay to Not Reach Your Goal

    At 26, Guillaume Briguet was the "fit guy" with a six-pack who couldn't run without getting injured. Three years later, with no coach and no swim lessons, he holds two world records in ultra triathlon and has finished a Deca: ten full-distance triathlons, non-stop, in 183 hours, on less than three hours of sleep a day. We talk about the plan that fell apart mid-race, why he never swam 38 km (only 2.5 km, again and again), the crew who tells him "you paid for this", and his mum, who has never missed a race. Because the watch doesn't lie. And it's okay to not reach your goal. Just remember to smile.

  • September 22 · 48 min

    Koen van Meeuwen - I only wanted to have done it

    Just past midnight, on the second lap of a 126-kilometre night run, Koen van Meeuwen felt great, and decided to end the goal he'd spent six and a half years chasing. He'd stopped wanting to do it. He only wanted to have done it. Koen has finished a quintuple ultra-triathlon, five Ironman distances back to back, without stopping, plus a triple, four doubles, and more than a hundred marathons and ultras. He learned to swim as an adult. This conversation isn't about the distances. It's about the first time he had a panic attack during a race. About getting off the bike after 300 kilometres and deciding that stopping was the smarter choice. About rupturing his ankle ligaments two weeks before a race he'd trained a year for, and the 268 days it took to come back. And about what the people who do this are actually like, because they're not who you think.

  • September 3 · 48 min

    "Maybe I'm not so useless after all" - Jacky Camos Wiewel

    Jacky Camos Wiewel is 55, teaches English at a primary school near Girona, and had barely exercised until she was 45. This summer she became one of roughly ten people ever to finish a 6 Split - three Ironman-distance triathlons on three consecutive days, then another three continuously, inside 61 hours. Mostly without a support crew. We talked about the word "useless", the son who crews for her, and what she did on the Tuesday after.

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