Earlier this year, one of my oldest friends fell into a diabetic coma from which she, unfortunately, never recovered. Ceri ‘the Zebra’ passed away in April at the age of 39. Having been friends for almost three-quarters of our lifetimes, I saw how much she struggled with her diabetes and just how much it impacted on her life.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to do something as crazy as Ceri herself in order to raise awareness and hopefully a few funds for Diabetes UK.

On the weekend of June 19-21, I’ll be organising and taking part in the first-ever Zebraman: a totally self-supported Ultraman that I’ll be doing in and around Amsterdam.

What is an Ultraman?

An Ultraman triathlon is essentially a double Ironman triathlon (515km total) completed over the course of three days. The standard distances that I’ll be following will be:

• Day 1: 10k swim; 145km bike
• Day 2: 276km bike
• Day 3: 84km double marathon

So, fair to say, I'm pretty scared of this challenge.

Of course, I’ll be observing all the rules of social distancing throughout. I’ll post my Garmin files after each segment to serve as proof of having completed each stage.

Why do this?

Three reasons:

1. While there’s currently so much attention on COVID-19, and rightly so, let’s remember that the world keeps turning and people who suffer from other conditions still have to continue - maybe even with less medical support than they’ve received in the past. Diabetes affects the lives of millions of people. I’d like to highlight that further.
2. Honestly and selfishly, I’m a bit emotionally-stunted and find the grieving process a difficult one to traverse. This is my way of remembering my friend in a positive way.
3. If we can raise a few quid in Ceri’s memory to help in the fight against diabetes, then that would be wonderful. 515 euros for 515km is the goal.

Team Zebra will be posting more details about the routes, as well as pics and videos during the days themselves on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matt.warnock.52/ and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattalfie if you’re interested in following.