College student excels in sports challenge

Hamish James Gray runs in his first marathon. Photos submitted

Hamish James Gray is running marathons, winning bodybuilding titles, entering powerlifting competitions and helping a surfboat rowing team secure a regional championship. The college student started all four sports just two years ago.

“It showed to me that if I decide to try something with the right mindset and enough gumption and enough willpower, you can get it done,” he said.

Hamish, 23, of Australia is working toward a journalism degree, which led to his experiment.

“Part of my journalism degree, my major work was to investigate different sports and how they affected the body,” he said. “I picked four sports being bodybuilding; surfboat rowing, which is like still water rowing you see in the Olympics, but you actually catch waves; triathlons; and powerlifting at the time.”

Hamish took little over a year to excel in sports he never tried before.

“And 14 months later, it’s led me to win a national bodybuilding title, compete in a couple Half Ironmans, run a few marathons, do an ultra marathon and go to nationals for rowing, which I did not expect,” he said.

Hamish ran 160 km on June 2 going from Sydney to Newcastle, the Melbourne Ironman and the Sydney Marathon. The hybrid athlete explained how he keeps himself from quitting before finishing such lengthy distances no matter what happens.

“It’s kind of turning your brain off,” he said. “When I did my 100-mile run, I got to a point where it just became flow state for about mile 20 to about 60. It was just brain was shut off and it was just ticking over and ticking over. The only hard part comes up when your body starts breaking down. At that point, I developed a fracture in one of my feet in my ankle. I slowly developed another one on my other foot and that’s where the mental game starts. You make a choice mentally whether you’re going to keep going or just you’re going to fail. But I was that far in, I was over halfway, so I might as well pump it out and keep going because what’s the point of quitting? You said you’re going to do it, so you get it done.”

Hamish toughed it out when things got rough.

“There’s an adage when you start something within the first few weeks, your confidence rises up and you climb Mount Stupid,” he said. “Once you reach a certain level, your confidence drops off. I never really got to a point where I left Mount Stupid, so I’ve always just stayed at top thinking this is possible. Once I finished the events, I then realized the way I trained or the way I prepared for that was completely idiotic. But you don’t back yourself in those moments, you’re not going to get it done. It was better to be at the top of Mount Stupid looking down, thinking, yeah, I’ve got this. You only really realize it sucks at the end when you’re a bit broken down.”

Hamish also enjoyed the team aspect of rowing.

“The thing about most of these sports, it’s individual,” he said. “You go for a run, you go for a bike ride, go for a swim, you go to the gym every day, and you achieve these things by yourself. That feels great, and that’s fun. But if you’ve got a team, a crew, there’s a crew of four rowers and one sweep, the guy who steers the boat in these waves. When you go out altogether, you smash through the big waves, at nationals is about six foot, punching through these waves. And then together, you can turn and try and catch the wave together.”

Hamish said the experience of surfboat rowing is unlike any other.

“That feeling of complete camaraderie and teamwork and elation when you win a race or you catch the biggest wave of the day and you don’t die,” he said. “It’s indescribable because you’ve done it together, and everyone has the same feeling. You might not be the closest with these people at the start of the season, but by the end of it, you’re brothers. No one else can describe the feeling you have together other than doing it with someone else. It’s just indescribable.”

Hamish said rowing is arduous despite the races being short.

“It’s probably the most physical of the sports I’ve done because the races only last, at most, eight minutes, depending on the big swells,” he said. “I’m probably the most tired after those races because you’re going all out for that time.

For more about Hamish, check out gridnews.net: https://www.gridnews.net/profiles/college-student-excels-in-sports-as-nbspexperiment

Hamish’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamish_james141/