The life of an elite triathlete: Richard Murray

He trains for between 20 and 25 hours a week. This equals an impressive 200-350km of cycling, 50-90km of running, and 15-35km of swimming. Richard Murray is one of South Africa’s elite male triathletes and he represents the country in various competitions across the world, having been awarded a bronze medal at the Commonwealth games in 2014.

Now 25 years of age, Murray won the Junior ITU Duathlon World Championships in 2007 and 2008 but soon realised that he needed to start swimming to progress towards the more demanding professional sport of triathlon. “By doing three sports, things don’t get stale and you don’t get bored. You have a lot of variation during the day. I love it for that!” says Murray.

In 2012 Murray burst onto the world elite triathlon stage with exceptional cycling and running times at the London Olympics. But his next goal is, for him, the big one: “Rio is the event I’ve been working towards since I started triathlon,” says Murray, who hopes to qualify in 2015.

“Triathlon is not just a profession but also a lifestyle, as most of the day revolves around planning, training, and recovery,” says Murray. The tri-lifestyle is an important aspect of succeeding in this demanding sport, because, according to Murray, it’s as much about the mental killer instinct as it is about the physical talent.

Murray’s advice to those who are aiming to finish their first triathlon: the motivation should come first; the drive and the physical ability after. He also advises that new triathletes be extremely comfortable with doing it for themselves and spending hours going solo.

Murray will be competing at the 2015 Discovery World Triathlon Series event in Cape Town again after finishing in fifth place last year. His explosive run (10km in 30.07, and the second fastest on the day) allowed him a strong finish after having fallen behind on the swim and cycle legs. Of the race, Murray says, “It was something special to race in front of family and friends. I am looking forward to doing it again because this was something spectacular."

If you’d like to join him there, enter the triathlon here: http://capetown.triathlon.org/enter.

To find out more about Discovery, click here.