A mother-of-three has made history by becoming the first Scot to complete a race dubbed the world’s toughest triathlon.<\/p>\n
Lyndsey Blair crossed the Paris finish line of the gruelling Enduroman Arch 2 Arc Challenge in 95 hours and 11 minutes.<\/p>\n
She is only the 65th person – and the 15th woman – to ever finish the epic challenge.<\/p>\n
Lyndsey, 44, from Troon, has so far raised more than \u00a318,000 for Ayrshire Cancer Support and Hospitality Action.<\/p>\n
The Arch 2 Arc features three punishing stages and starts with an 87 mile (140km) run from Marble Arch in London to Dover, which took Lyndsey 23 hours.<\/p>\n
She then embarked on what should have been a 21 mile (34km) swim across the English Channel.<\/p>\n
But unpredictable tides and winds of up to 17 knots turned it into a punishing 80km (50 mile) effort which lasted more than 19 hours – almost double the expected distance.<\/p>\n
At several points she was pushed back towards the English coast, before breaking through the current to reach France.<\/p>\n
The final leg involved a 181 mile (291km) cycle from Calais to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.<\/p>\n
Lyndsey, whose family operate the Buzzworks hospitality group, said: “This challenge was never just about me, but about raising money and awareness for two charities that do incredible work for people when they need it most.<\/p>\n
“The Channel was the toughest thing I have ever done. <\/p>\n
“I felt like I was swimming and getting nowhere for hours, but the thought of why I was doing it and the people supporting me kept me moving forward.”<\/p>\n
The ultra-endurance athlete said she was also driven by her family.<\/p>\n
She added: “As a mum, I also wanted to show my kids that if you set your mind to do something and work hard, even the biggest challenges can be possible.”<\/p>\n
Her support crew included husband Kenny, niece and training partner, Beth Barclay, Andy Callachan and David Watt from Callachans Health, and Enduroman official Jon Cowell.<\/p>\n
Lyndsey also revealed her fundraising helped maintain her focus throughout the race.<\/p>\n
She said: “Becoming the first Scot to finish the Arch 2 Arc is something I’ll always be proud of, but what matters most is the difference this will make for the charities.<\/p>\n
“That’s what kept me putting one foot in front of the other.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother-of-three has made history by becoming the first Scot to complete a race dubbed the world’s toughest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-135164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}