Ironman and Adventure Racer!

The first athlete to be introduced in my "Featured Athletes" column is Mark Campbell. He is a fierce competitor with a great sense of sarcasm. Mark has the record for Ironmans by a Nova Scotian with a total of 18. A great guy who will soon be turning the big 4-0!

Your Name: Mark "the mule" Campbell

Place of Residence: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. (Born in Halifax)

What type of athlete are you: I guess multi-sport would be accurate. Better cross-country skate skier than anything, but do adventure races, mountainn bike, triathlons, and am a 6 handicap golfer.

Favorite Discipline: Post-race buffet is by far my best event.

Years Doing These Disciplines: Did my first triathlon in 1985 and then started up for real in 1992.

Favorite Meal: Pizza

Favorite Band: Green Day

Biggest Accomplishment: Finding someone as sweet as my wife to tolerate me enough to marry me was a big one, but 2nd Clydesdale at 1999 Ironman Canada would be a racing one, especially since i was presented my award by ‘the man’ himself, Dave Scott.

Most Memorable Event: Guess it would be 2 from the same trip. The Xterra World Off-road Triathlon Championships in Maui was amazing, and was just 1 week after Eco-Challenge Fiji, where I had gotten airlifted out of the jungle when I fell off a huge rock and split my head open.

Best Workout: Lunch running with Steve Irvine. He tells me "it was almost a run if I made him work at all".

Best Vacation Site: Colorado Springs.

Something We Wouldn’t Expect To Hear About You: That my favorite movie is The Princess Bride may be a bit of a shocker.

Dream Job: One that lets me take copious amounts of time off to travel and race and still get paid. Guess that would be my current one.

Worst Job You Have Had: Digging basements down to code height with jackhammers, etc during university.

Worst Day of Racing: Food poisoning Thursday before Ironman 2001. Could barely shuffle day before the race and ended up porta-pottie hopping the entire marathon. It was the first one Amy came to watch and she was worried sick the whole day.

Any Advice For Future Athletes: Not trying to duplicate what I do is a solid first step.

Thanks for this Mark!

Next week we will have another athlete who is truly making waves in multi-sport! Stay tuned!