By Charlie Reading
The wind slammed into me like a freight train. The rain blurred my head torch into a halo of useless light. Beneath the cliffs, the Atlantic roared against the rocks in rhythmic, thunderous applause, or perhaps a warning. I was 16 hours into the Arc of Attrition. 58 miles deep. My right knee was in open rebellion. Every descent felt like someone was stabbing the joint with a screwdriver. My pole had stopped being a tool. It was now a crutch.
And right there, clinging to the Cornish coastline in the dead of night, I found clarity:
I wasn’t going to finish.
But that wasn’t the real story.
The real story is why I was out there in the first place.
Set a Goal That Scares You
When I designed this triathlon challenge (swim, bike, run) it wasn’t about crossing a finish line. It was about not knowing if I could. The swim? Three times further than I’d ever gone. The bike? Nine consecutive 100+ mile days. And the run? The Arc of Attrition. One hundred miles of exposed cliff path, technical terrain, brutal cut-offs, and no pacers. It was double the furthest I’d ever run.
This wasn’t about ego. This was about growth.
Because the truth is, goals that are safe rarely change us.
But goals that scare us?
They pull us into becoming someone new.
The Edge Isn’t the Enemy - It’s the Teacher
From the very start, the Arc tested me. Storm Ingrid hurled 50mph winds into our faces. Trails were so boggy, I renamed it ‘Stomp in the Swamp’! Every footstep was a negotiation with gravity and grit. By mile 30, my knee gave up on running, so I leaned into power hiking. Strong. Focused. Gaining time. I scraped through Lizard Point with 10 minutes to spare. Turned west. Found rhythm. Found light in the darkness.
And I started to believe.
Even with the pain, even with the conditions—I thought maybe, just maybe, I could still beat this thing.
But pain has a way of catching up. By Mousehole, the terrain turned savage. Huge boulders. Cliff-edge scrambles. Stream crossings in total darkness. By Minack Theatre, I was descending like an OAP just to manage the pain. The paracetamol helped; until it didn’t.
Then came the choice: risk permanent damage for another 42 miles I knew I wouldn’t finish… or make the call to stop while I still could.
I chose to stop.
58 miles in.
My first DNF.
Failure Isn’t the Opposite of Success
There’s this idea that not finishing means not succeeding.
But I don’t buy that. Not anymore.
Failure isn’t the opposite of success. It’s part of it.
In fact, if your goals never lead to failure, chances are they weren’t stretching you enough in the first place.
Would I rather have finished? Of course.
But am I proud of where I got to? Absolutely.
Because the goal didn’t just take me to mile 58.
It pulled me into the best version of myself—mentally, physically, emotionally.
The goal gave me the growth.
The journey gave me the wisdom.
And the failure?
It gave me something even more valuable: perspective.
What I Learned at the Limit
- My knee has a limit—and it’s worth listening to.
- Brutal weather doesn’t scare me. Not anymore.
- Caryl is an incredible crew—calm, strategic, unshakable.
- Kerry Sutton’s coaching gave me the resilience to think clearly in the storm.
- Over 60% didn’t finish. Hundreds never even started. I wasn’t alone.
- I am more capable—and more vulnerable—than I realised.
These are the gifts you get only when the challenge is big enough to beat you.
Goals Should Be Worth Failing At
This race didn’t make me feel like a failure. It made me feel alive.
And more than that, it confirmed something I’ve come to believe deeply: The purpose of a goal isn’t to hit it. It’s to become the kind of person who could.
The Arc pulled the best out of me. It exposed weaknesses I need to work on. And it gave me clarity on what matters next.
Will I return to the Arc? Maybe. Maybe not.
But I will keep setting goals that might break me.
Because they’re the only ones that truly build us.
One Life to Live
I took on this challenge to raise money for MNDA, and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who supported me along the way. If you’ve already donated—thank you. If you’d still like to, the link is below.
Sponsor link: https://www.justgiving.com/page/longest-triathlon?newPage=true
If you’re on the fence about taking on something big—something you’re not sure you can complete—here’s my advice:
Do it.
Not because you’ll definitely succeed.
But because, succeed or fail, you’ll grow. You’ll learn. You’ll transform.
And as I reminded myself with the Ezra Collective playing through my headphones in recovery:
“You’ve got one life to live, so give it all that you can give.”
