A Brutal obsession
Three years ago Dean Cooper dragged his body and mind to exhaustion and beyond in the wilds of Wales during an attempt at the double Brutal Triathlon. Now he is training for a return. ActiveGsy’s editor Nick Mann, who was part of his support crew, finds out how ‘Deano’ went from needing a life jacket to swim to taking on one of the toughest races in the UK.
IT IS about 2am when the lights suddenly flick on and muffled voices can be heard upstairs.
We have been staying in a house in Llanberis, up a steep lane just off from where the Brutal bike course heads through the town.
The kitchen since the race started has been a well-ordered operation, different food and drink options lined up to be sent out for various parts of the race. A course map sits on the table as do instruction lists.
Boxes of spare kit are arranged on the floor. The walls have large maps showing all the contours of the land around Snowdonia – a trip up and down the mountain is part of the race. Peace and contemplation hang in the air.
Deano has called it a day on a race that has been a year in the planning. He stepped off the bike having been in action for 16 hours.
What do you say?
But the drive that got him so far, and brought us as a four-strong support crew along for the adventure, was only ignited further in that moment.
It had slow beginnings, but triathlon has seeped into Deano’s blood and now pumps through his body. His first triathlon was in 1991 when working in Tennessee in the US on a summer camp. He was such a poor swimmer that they insisted he wear a life jacket for the 400m lake leg.
And that was it until 19 years later when he was looking for a way to mark his 40th birthday.
Among the 40 challenges for that year was the Guernsey Triathlon Club’s novice tri, which started with a pool swim at Beau Sejour. It just so happened to fall on his birthday. Something was already aligning.
Deano did not come from a sporting background, but he was active. Rock climbing and kayaking were the mainstays, but being a poor swimmer was holding him back.
He watched from the kayak providing safety cover during local triathlons and in 2015 decided that the way to gain more confidence with his swimming was to train for an open water race.
Like everything he does, it was well thought through. He got a coach, had another crack at the novice triathlon and then completed the sprint distance event at Portelet. The swim takes you straight out west from the slip to a group of fishing boats, it looks endless, before dog legging left into the beach
‘Unfortunately, I really enjoyed it,’ he said.
He decided to carry on training and doing triathlon as a way to keep fit for kayaking and climbing, but slowly got more drawn to the sport.
The next turning point was when a group of local athletes were training for Ironman Barcelona in 2016.
‘That was the first time really I had come across Ironman. I started to read about what Ironman was, really delve into the history of triathlon. I don’t mean this in any disrespect to anyone who is out there training for tris at the moment, but when I realised that Ironman was full distance, to me, until you’ve done an Ironman, you can’t truly say you’ve done a true triathlon. That was the mindset before I did my Ironman – this is what the event is, it’s not a sprint, not a super sprint, not an Olympic distance, half distance.’
He took things in stages. His first Olympic distance was in Leeds, first half Ironman in Vichy where there was a full the next day to watch.
In September 2017 he finished Ironman Copenhagen.
‘I couldn’t get the motivation to train for another Ironman and the reason quite simply was because I had done it. But I didn’t want to be a one hit wonder. I wanted to start looking for something else, something different.’
There is something of a curse to doing an Ironman. So many fall off the scene and out of love with the sport afterwards. But for others it is just a stepping stone to even more distance.
Deano learnt about Mike Ward, a largely unheralded ultra endurance triathlete living in Guernsey operating at the extreme end of the sport.
Ward competes in events that deal in multiple Ironman distances – doubles, triples, even decas – a mere 24 miles of swimming, 1,120 miles on the bike and 262 miles of running.
That opened another door – and that door led to Brutal Events.
Ultra running, 24 hour bike challenges, extreme triathlons – there was a whole different world to explore – including the Double Brutal.
Deano wishes he was 20 years younger, just starting out on the journey because there is so much to do. But age brings focus, and he has a drive.
‘For me it’s how far can I go? How far can I push myself physically, how far can I push myself mentally? I’m searching for something. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll know when I find it’.
Nobody who competes in these events can do it alone.
Triathlon, especially once you get to full distance and beyond, can be a selfish endeavour in many respects. Training for so many hours means that even when you are at home, you can be exhausted.
Deano got married to Anne-Marie soon after Copenhagen, they had been together for 25 years by that point.
He broke the idea of another Ironman while on honeymoon, sitting outside a hotel in Bangkok, but hinting that he wanted to do something a little bit different this time.
‘She sort of half expected what was coming, I explained what it’s going to mean in terms of training, how much time I was going to spend. If it wasn’t for her I couldn’t do it, you have to have the support of your family. It does mean going out for five hours on a bike on a Saturday and coming home and no, you really don’t want to go for a cliff walk even though it’s a beautiful day.’
It is not a simple love affair with the sport, he jokes that he hates swimming, hates cycling, and hates running, but loves triathlon – 15 minutes into any training session and the vibe and groove comes back.
The Brutal is based around the small town of Llanberis in north Wales.
It is a spectacular setting, imposing hills, scarred by quarrying. Snowden looms over head. A picturesque lake.
Every other year they offer up the chance to do a double, triple and quin, should the full distance not be enough.
The double consists of 4.8miles of swimming, then 224 miles on the bike, an accent and decent of Snowden before lapping the lake eight times on the run to complete 40 miles.
Writing it down like that does it no justice.
Deano was outwardly confident for the first attempt at the Double Brutal, but inside did not think he was doing enough training, doubting that the coaching team supporting him then fully understood the challenge that he was taking on, or had the belief in him to push him hard enough.
The swim went well, he came out the water in fourth place well within the cut off. The water is freezing. Competitors have to get out every two laps to get checked over. The trick is to have your crew pour hot water down your wetsuit to try and keep your core warm.
But it is the easy bit.
‘I can remember pretty much every single turn and part of that bike ride. There’s probably three miles when you can coast, coming down Pennypass into Llanberis. That’s probably the only part of the course where you can relax. It’s not so much a technical course, but just relentless.’
It climbs and descends, and when it is not doing that there are speed humps, traffic or sheep.
You have to be constantly switched on. The challenge only becomes greater as darkness descends and you get more fatigued.
Near the end of the lap there is what Deano calls 10 mile hill – it includes one section at 22%.
That’s not the steepest, the gradient hits 28% on a corner three miles out of the town.
‘It drains you.’
On lap five, Deano got off his bike and walked it up.
‘That’s when I realised I was completely underprepared. It was that hill where I started to lose the mental game.’
He climbed back on and saw what he thought was the road sign that marked the start of 10 mile hill.
He was positive at this point, calculating that if he got through this bit it would be fine.
But then 15 minutes later he saw the sign that really did mark the start of the climb.
‘That is when I lost the mental game. A mile and a half later I bailed.’
‘It’s a tough experience and they are not miss-marketing it when they call themselves Brutal.’
He went back in 2019 to do the single, it was the first time he experienced the run course, which feels mostly like you are constantly climbing on trails as you lap the lake before the mountain.
‘It was a disappointment but a hell of a lesson to learn during the double, and knowing what I needed to do and what I can and could do differently.
‘I’ve done a lot of reading around the mental training, the mental side of things. Like with everything, doubles are pretty much 50% physical, 50% mental. The founder Claire Smith, aka Brutal Claire, has got some cracking one liners, one is “learn to make boredom your friend”. You do have to put the time in on the turbo, put the time in on the road on the bike, put the running in. It’s nothing special or glamourous, it’s go run two hours, two and a half hours.’
To do that requires support, not just from family during training, but from a crew when you are competing.
‘At the event, you need people who you know very well, people you trust implicitly and explicitly, you can’t do it without the crew. They also need to understand what it is you are doing. If they are not triathletes they probably won’t fully understand it, but respect what it is, the way you are going to be behave.’
In 2019 during the full distance Brutal he admits he gave his support crew hell.
‘Not that I was deliberately trying to be an arse, but you get to that point. I just wanted this particular pair of socks, I didn’t need them, just wanted them, looking back there was no reason for me to have that particular pair, but I just got focused on them. At the time my oldest and best mate Spencer, he comes out and brings me the wrong thing, and I let rip at him, just totally let rip at him. Ten minutes later I’m running and I’m thinking “what have I done”, I felt like I needed to apologise to him the next time I see him. But since I’ve discovered conversations that were being had between my wife and Spencer, who had known each other quite some time. It was like, “you need to go and see him”, “I’m not getting out the car to go and see him”.”Should we do it together?” “Why do I have to go?” “Well, you married him”.’
They have both since agreed to come back as support crew.
‘It’s race exhaustion, the fatigue, the frustration, you just have your mind set that if I don’t have that particular set of socks my race is ruined. Is it heck, but at that moment, that pair of socks is the single most important thing in your life.’
He recalls the moment he finished the full, and just thinking for the last 20 metres: ‘do I do the double, do I do the double’.
It will not leave him alone.
But there are lighter sides to all this.
Like the moment he came off Snowden on the road to the finish.
From near a traffic island he spied what he was convinced was a restaurant lit up with people eating inside.
“I thought where am I? I’ve never seen this before, that restaurant shouldn’t be there. But the island’s there, I knew I needed to go left, so I went.’
It was the marquee, with all the torches marking the finishing line.
‘I stopped, had a look around, just to make sure I was where I should have been. Even though there are no turns, it’s a straight road, I couldn’t have gone wrong’
He finished that race at about 3am. It is about as far from the red carpet glitz of a branded Ironman event as you can get. There will be a handful of people around clapping at best, the organisers and maybe some other support crew and the odd athlete. But it is a magical moment for it.
He finished that early morning off in the hot tub at the rented house.
Covid-19 has disrupted the preparations for the next attempt at the double, which was meant to happen last year.
That has meant another 12 months with one thought dominating.
In the search for success, Deano has a new coach in place, Richard Akers at RIAK, with a more structured training programme focussed on what the event will bring. There is a lot of hill work on the bike, you will find him climbing up and down Fermain Hill six times, or maybe the Buzzard 10. Plenty of low cadence work too. The cliffs come into play for run training.
‘The biggest difference is getting a coach that believes in me.’
He has turned his garage into a gym, motivational quotes on postcards line the walls.
‘One of my favourites is: “you can fail as often as you like but you are not a failure until you give up”. Yes I failed to do the double, but I’m not a failure because I’m going to go back and I will do it.’
‘That’s the motivation now. Have I found my limit? I don’t know. If I don’t succeed this year, if it happens, then I will have to have a serious think about have I found my limits with this, is this too much. From there, that’s going to be quite a void in my life and I’m going to have to look at where do I want to go?’
He runs through the possibility of ultras, 24 hour cycle challenges, but for now the focus is simple: get the double done.
This story and more like it will feature in the Autumn 2021 edition of ActiveGsy. If you’ve enjoyed our work, please consider supporting us so we can continue to help promote an active and healthy island.
