You recall the banter between Jenson Button, David Coulthard and Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone last year when Jenson challenged Lewis to join him in a Triathlon and Lewis accepted the bet only for his Dad to withdraw him later.
Well Jenson will be participating in this year’s London Triathlon on August 1st and is going to be raising money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The race covers a 1500m swim, 40km bike ride and a 10km run, which Jenson is challenging himself to complete: “I’m aiming to finish in the top 10%, so no pressure!”
I think it’s great he’s doing this. So I am happy to plug it here on my blog and urge anyone who feels like giving some money to back him.
To sponsor Jenson in the London Triathlon visit
http://www.justgiving.com/jensonbutton
allenonf1.wordpress.com 
JB is the man!
I wish more athletes would do things like this. Full support for Jenson but when you think you have a guy with his legs blown up walking the London Marathon, we need more Celeb support for things like the Poppy Appeal and Help for Heroes!
Go JB! Good man!
I’m not going to sponsor Jenson… but I’d happily sponsor you to participate, James. You’ve got quite a large following on this blog alone so I bet you could raise a whole heap of money for charity.
Go on, Big Man. Take the plunge!
Good on Jenson for doing this, F1 drivers are meant to be pretty fit and healthy so it should be good to see how he gets on. Even better is he’s doing it for Charity, good show I say.
“Lewis accepted the bet only for his Dad to withdraw him later.” One of the most amusing things to happen in F1 for a long time. “No Jenson I can’t come out to play, my dad says so”.
In relation to this I would just like to publicise the achievement of a young kart driver name Will Dendy who completed the London Marathon in his RACE SUIT and CRASH Helmet to raise money for The Children’s Trust. Anyone would agree that is an incredible achievement – http://www.justgiving.com/willdendy
The race covers a 1500m swim, 40km bike ride and a 10km run
I had a look at the results for the 2008 event. Make sure you look at the “Olympic” results, not the “Sprint” results because if you think the Sprint results are for the distances listed above you are wrong (no one can swim 1500m in 7 minutes).
The results are listed by age group.
Jenson is 29. He wants to be in the top 10%. Here are last years results for his age group. 441 entrants. Top 10% is 44 competitors.
http://www.triathlonresults.co.uk/lt08/ResultMale2529.html
44th competitor had a total time of 02:20:03
I had a look at my age group and find to my surprise that my swimming (which isn’t sprint as it consists of breast and front crawl) is in the bracket for the top of the field (they’ll all be doing crawl given what I’ve seen of triathlons).
Then I look at the cycling and think, hmm, thats fast, the top guys are doing 40km/h for an hour (ok, its not Tour de France speeds, but not far off and still well over the wind resistance threshold for a bike (12mph) and a good 10 or more years in age). Well out of my comfort zone.
Then I look at the running and think thats almost ballpark.
But you’ve got to add them all together. Thats a tough one. You may be good at one or two and average or poor at the other, but you rarely do them back to back.
Biggest time gain is on the bike and biggest energy sink is swimming. I’ve met a few people this year who have been asking me about swimming and what to change. I keep telling them concentrate on technique and keep it smooth and flowing. Once you’ve got that sorted then concentrate on power.
I see so many people get in a pool and immediately go hell for leather for a few lengths then they are exhausted. Thats the wrong approach. A personal trainer I knew years ago (and an awesome swimmer) told me that some of the top athletes will swim 1km just to warm up prior to a competition. I found that amazing.
If you blow it on the swimming you’ve wrecked the rest of your race.
Part of me thinks it would be good to have a go, but no idea how I’d fit the cycling/running training into my life.
All the best to Jenson.
Be nice if Lewis was allowed to compete in it this year.
Let’s hope his championship charge is not derailed by him doing “a Webber” on the 1st of August.
“Where did that [bleep!]in’ car come from?”
Mind you, he might be so far ahead by then, that it doesn’t matter if he did injure himself. However, with Ferrari making a big-step and Red Bull still threatening, I very much doubt that it’ll be all over by then.
Stevie P “on a charge” [thanks Ben ;-)], “pressing on” and “pushing on”… even Brundle’s started to say it. Grrr!!!!
Great post James – I’ll sponsor him
two of my colleagues are going to run the Bupa 10k on Bank Holiday Monday – both for excellent causes. You can sponsor them too if you like…
http://www.justgiving.com/celinaribeiro
http://www.justgiving.com/lucyharveyontherun
Will you be joining him James? 😉
I could probably stay vaguely in touch on the bikes, on my Colnago Master, but swimming and running, forget it!
I think it’s push bikes James not motor. 😉
Fair play JB!
I done one years back when i was an avid cyclist and i honestly thought i was going to die.
Bloody horrible, but i thoroughly doubt i was as fit then as JB is now
Give it hell man!
I’m sponsoring £1 for every race I think he’ll win this year.
So how many is that, Rich?
£500 pledged by a Mr M Brundle.
If that’s not a cue for you to donate £501 James… 😉