Canadian James Lawrence has a number of world record endurance performances on his resume. In 2010, he set a record by completing 22 half-distance races in 33 weeks. Two years later he set another mark by completing 30 full-distance races in one year. Then, in 2015, he took on another monstrous challenge, completing 50 full-distance races in 50 days in 50 different states. That effort inspired a book called Iron Cowboy – Redefine the Impossible, and a documentary called Iron Cowboy – the story of the 50-50-50.
This year Lawrence is looking to double that last effort by completing 100 full-distance races in 100 days around his home in Utah. He started this latest challenge on March 1, and is set to continue until June 8. Earlier this week, despite having to deal with shin issues that required wearing a brace and forced him to walk the marathon for many of the efforts, on April 20 he completed his 51st full-distance triathlon, surpassing the record he set in 2015.
Each day Lawrence begins with a pool swim starting at 5:30 AM, often with other swimmers accompanying him through the 3.8 km swim. Each day Lawrence posts the routes for his 180 km bike and 42.2 km run efforts so other athletes can join him for those legs, too. The day wraps up into the evening and Lawrence is typically asleep by 10 or 10:30 in order to get up in time to start the next day’s effort.
Yesterday was day 53 of Lawrence’s journey, which he completed in 15:10:11 after a 1:25:49 swim, 6:12:53 bike and a 6:09:08 run.
You can follow along with the Iron Cowboy’s Conquer 100 challenge here, and you can also make donations to the non-profit organization he supports, Operation Underground Railroad, which is a foundation that assists people who are victims of human trafficking here.
