Why my leg has become public enemy No1
Superman had kryptonite, Batman, The Joker. For Brunt? His left leg. Here he explains how one of his limbs has become enemy No.1
“Do you know what nemesis means?” asks the character Bricktop in the cult British gangster film Snatch. He goes on to explain that it is: “A righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent…” and we’ll leave the rest of the quote there!
Everyone has a nemesis. For Superman it was kryptonite, for Batman it was The Joker, and for my friend Anthony, it’s cheese. But for me, it’s a bit more awkward than that, because mine is my own leg.
It may sound harsh to be listing parts of your own body as instruments of divine retribution, but it certainly feels like it’s working against me in a highly malevolent fashion, frequently causing me to gnash my teeth more than during a Cliff Richard centre court singalong.
The leg in question is my left one. My right leg behaves itself beautifully and sets the standard for how I expect my limbs to behave. It’s flexible, muscular, it bears the kind of adventurous-looking scar which draws admiring glances from other triathletes, and, most importantly of all, it gives me no pain.
My left leg, however, gives me nothing but aggro. Its list of shortcomings include a hamstring so tight you could slice bacon with it, a knee riddled with tendonitis, a calf so solid you could crack walnuts on it, and an Achilles tendon which throbs with pain so often that during those rare moments when it isn’t hurting, I feel like I’m ascending to Valhalla on a beam of light.
Worse though, my leg gets cramp. And not just the sort of cramp that makes you squeak ‘Ow!’ and slows you down a bit, but the stops you dead/crippling/doubled over/can’t actually move cramp that leaves you standing rigidly in some contorted position like one of those town centre living statues.
It always hits me in exactly the same spot – on my left inner thigh – and it has dogged me for years. The first time I remember it coming on was 17 miles into the run at Ironman Canada in 2006. Canadians have honoured the spot with a blue plaque because I broke the Guinness World record for the most number of swear words uttered inside 10 seconds.
It got me again at Ironman Lake Placid, and Austria, and Lanzarote (although to be fair it wasn’t in the top 10 of problems I was having that day). It then cunningly left me alone for a while until it snuck up on me in a Birmingham League XC race, before disappearing again and then sideswiping me halfway round a coastal ultramarathon, leaving me tottering dangerously close to a cliff edge, giving me the distinct impression that it was almost certainly trying to kill me.
It’s on my mind at the moment because it’s now hit me in four races in a row, and nothing I do seems to make any difference (please don’t write in with suggestions, I’ve tried every salt tablet, rehydration drink and energy gel in the history of expensive supplements).
I can only conclude, therefore, that this is a deliberate campaign to thwart my attempts to qualify for Kona, which I would definitely have done by now if it weren’t for this (plus my apathy and incompetence).
The only thing that seems to keep my leg in check is hurling abuse at it, most of which involves threatening it with amputation. This can backfire, though, as I discovered during a recent race in Suffolk when I could feel the cramp about to bite and shouted ‘Oh p*ss off!’ – just as another athlete overtook me.
He looked at me curiously, so I hastily explained, which caused him to chuckle heartily and confess that he sometimes did the same – it was like a limb-haters support group.
At the time of writing, I have five races in the next five weeks, which raises all sorts of exciting possibilities for my leg to harm me, so I’m seriously considering racing with a hacksaw in my hand.
I know what most of you’re thinking by now – just rest it, it’s clearly injured. But you don’t understand, it’s gone too far for that, it’s a fight to the death now, me versus my leg. And only one of us shall emerge victorious. Legend – there can be only one.
Top illustration credit: Daniel Seex/220 Triathlon
Martyn Brunt
220's back-page columnist 
