Not Your Usual Athlete

My guy Mitch

Mitch Hutchcraft - who I met in Croatia - accepts Mission: Impossible, completing the world's longest triathlon, starting with the English Channel, biking 10,000 kilometres across Europe, the Middle East and India to Nepal, trekking/ running to Mount Everest's base camp and, finally, climbing the mountain's peak. In all, it takes nine-months and collects several hundred-thousand Instagram followers, including me, who become invested in Mitch's success.

Mitch nearly bonked on Day-One taking 17 hours to cross The Channel and, admitted by him - it was touch and go.

St Tropez

Well we have ripped thru the summer and, following this week's "bank holiday Monday", a collective groan can be heard across the UK as traffic levels return to normal, kids go back to school and the adults, work. It is already autumnal and, due to dryness, following the dryest summer on record, the trees are turning early colour under duress.

The beginning of the summer started in the South of France as Sonnet took a break from her Elsa Schiaparelli exhibition, which opens in March 2026; from there I went to Spain to meet my coach and two Croatia camp friends to swim the Straight of Gibraltar, which did not happen due to wind and sea swell. Instead, we hung out in Tarifa, which is not a bad place to hang out, with perfect sunshine and Morocco in plain sight.

Gibraltar, while an Oceans Seven swim, is only nine miles - less than 4 hours of swimming. Instead, it was to be a warm-up for the Manhattan Twenty Bridges, a 29 miler circumnavigating the Manhattan island.

Adulting 1

Madeleine celebrating with Katie in NYC

Since the last posting : Madeleine started her first full-time job last week and post uni (where she achieved an academic "first" in Psychology at Manchester) working for October Films as Research Assistant. Not only did she independently source the position via active networking, her interviews occurred while our gal at a youth hostel in El Salvador (which, in my opinion, made her all the more appealing).