Hertfordshire Insider wrote:
This is just Rob's way to make a living.
He was doing the same thing back in 2004.
http://archive.is/z26ng
World Champion Swims for Charity
(14th April 2004)
The World Long Course Triathlon Champion, Robert Young, took to the water at The John Warner Sports Centre in Hoddesdon on Sunday 7th March to raise money for Cancer Research UK.
Robert completed a 12km swim, or 480 lengths of the pool, which took him around four hours to complete. He has collected over £3000 so far for Cancer Research and upon completion of the event is hoping to increase this figure.
This was the first leg of a three-event charity fund-raiser for the 21 year old from Cheshunt. The next stage is the “Three Summit Challenge†which will see him climb Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Mount Snowdon. Robert has to also cycle between each mountain and is hoping to break the current world record of 40 hours 57 minutes. The final stage is a long-distance run, of which details are yet to be announced.
Robert has completed many fund-raising events, including sponsored runs and swims for cancer charities as well as raising over £1000 for Save the Children. Robert is currently a member of the Great Britain triathlon and biathlon teams and later this year he will be competing in eight international events and three national competitions.
In May, Robert hopes to retain his title at the World Long Course Championships. He is also looking forward to completing more fund-raising events in the future.
Those who would like to sponsor Robert can telephone 07919 444102. For details on the swimming programme or for further information on other activities available at The John Warner Sports Centre, residents can telephone 01992 445375.
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Compare this to his book. I quote verbatim what he describes of his thoughts while running his allegedly first marathon on April 15, 2014:
"As I ran that morning, I realised how bizarre the whole thing was. The idea of Rob Young the runner is hilarious to me. Let me explain why: when I was 17 years old I was a triathlete for Great Britain. I'm a decent swimmer, so I could hold my own in that, splash around with the best of them and finish up there with the leaders at the end of that first stage of the triathlon. Then we'd get on the bikes and I was in my element. I was born to cycle. Ever since I was a teenager, racing banged-up broken-down old bikes against men on their expensive road bikes, and beating them, I had a way on two wheels. I was fast and I had the lungs to push.
So the second stage of the triathlon was a breeze. Well, it would have been, only I couldn't afford to just be fast -- I had to be super fast. I had to bomb off and build a big lead, come in in [sic] first place (and by some way) to have a chance in the race overall, because my running was awful. I was slow: Mr Plod, Dr Dawdle. Which meant coming off the bike was the beginning of my race. It was only a matter of time before I could hear someone breathing down my neck and then, more times than not, going past me. I couldn't hold them off. So running was always associated with defeat and failure for me. And now here I was running around the park with dreams of world records and helping charities. You couldn't make it up."
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No mention that he had supposedly won a triathlon. And supposedly had done long distance runs. The run leg of that ITU World Championship was 30K. 18.6 miles is not 26.2, but did he do any long distance runs in training for those long-distance triathlons? In the book, he makes it sounds like he only occasionally ran 5K as a recreational runner. "I was just a 31-year-old office worker who hadn't run his first marathon yet." Technically, that may have been true, but it would be very misleading.
So which narrative is the real Rob Young?
(1) The champion triathlete who was also going to climb the three highest peaks in the UK and bike between them and finish with a long run of undetermined distance (as this 2004 article claims)? (Did he actually do this?)
(2) The 5K recreational runner who became an instant marathoner on a whim with no training after watching the London Marathon in 2014 and then ran his first 10 marathons in 7 days, including his first 3 progressively faster in the first 30 hours of that stretch? (as his book claims)
