A week ago, I was fortunate enough to go on holiday to the Alps, walking. We did 6 days of the Tour de Mont Blanc, which is a 10 or 11 day walk around the Mont Blanc massif, passing through France, Switzerland and Italy.
Along the walk, we stayed overnight in a couple of mountain huts and since there isn’t much by way of after-dinner entertainment in the huts, I took a few books with me. One of them was “Record Breaker” by Paddy Doyle (affiliate links: UK
He’s a record breaker
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OK, so why did you pick this book?
Well, I’ve been wanting to read Paddy’s book for a while for a couple of reasons.
- He’s a local to me, growing up and living in Birmingham, in the UK, which is the main rival to Nottingham for the biggest and most commercial city in the Midlands.
- He’s a record breaker. On the most basic level, he has broken about 130 world records (as defined by the Guiness Book of Records) for various feats of endurance. I can just about comprehend the energy and will-power that it takes to break a single world record after many years of hard work. I cannot comprehend the strength of mind that is involved in 130 records.
- He is the record breaker, when it comes to endurance records. As Doyle puts it himself, he has collected his records from a diverse range of endurance activities, including marathons carrying weight, mile runs carrying weight, maximum press ups over a few hours and maximum press ups in a year. While someone talented might be able to work towards beating one of his records, it is unlikely that they will ever be able to find the motivation to go out and beat them all.
- He has been on Record Breakers. Paddy was fortunate enough to be asked to go on that great British institution of television, Record Breakers, and recreate his half-mile run with weighted backpack for the programme. If you never saw Record Breakers, then you missed out. It was the highlight of children’s television in the UK in the 1980′s and it’s presenter, Roy Castle was a legend in his own airtime. The show’s tagline and theme tune was “dedication’s what you need” and Paddy certainly has plenty of that.
- He is the World Fitness Endurance Champion, according to the Guiness Book of Records, 2009. For many people, that makes him the worlds’ fittest man. Quite an accolade.
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OK, seems a good enough reason. What sort of book is it?
Well, reading it reminded me a bit of my last book review, Karate-Do: My Way of Life, by Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan karate, in that it’s easier to say what sort of book it is not. It’s not:
- An autobiography.
- A description of all of Paddy’s 130 record attempts.
- A reasoned argument for why everyone should learn self-defence.
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OK, very witty tie-in. What is it about?
Well, it ranges through all of these areas and more besides. Paddy starts by describing his childhood and his experiences at school and in the army. Along the way, we start to perceive just what drives him, what kind of energy he has. We learn that he:
- Started to get into fights at school because he was bored
- Started running regularly and doing calisthenics every day
- Joined the army
- Got into fights when training was quiet or nothing was going on
- Left the army
- Worked in a supermarket
- Got into fights around the supermarket because he was bored
- Went back into the army
- Got into fights when training was quiet or nothing was going on
- Left the army
- Worked as a security consultant
- Got into a few fights
- Worked as a self-defence teacher
- Broke a few endurance records
- Got into the odd fight
So you start to notice a trend, right? It’s the energy, you see. All along, his energy is bubbling up and it needs an outlet. Without an outlet, he explodes. Eventually, he realises that by forming his own challenges, by breaking records, he can find an outlet that won’t disappear and leave him without recourse.
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So what is it like to read?
I think the most important thing is that Paddy chose to write the book rather than have someone else write a biography. You don’t read about the things he has done. You experience them.
By writing it down as he speaks, his experience hurtles off the page at you in a Joycean tirade of prose that reflects the energy that is contained within him. It’s the energy that drove him to fight everyone, that drove him to break so many world records.
Because of the conversational tone, it’s not an organised memoir. You read about events thematically rather than on a linear timeline. And because it’s a conversation with the man at a point in his life, it’s not a story about how his life has changed.
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Wrap it up
This is an amazing bird’s eye view into the mind of someone who has the energy to drive through 130 world records. Much as I loved Record Breakers, Paddy’s ability seems to go beyond dedication and into driven. His energy is not created, it’s unleashed.
Sometimes I think I could use a little less thought and a little more energy. I suspect he probably feels the opposite about himself…
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More information
You can find Paddy’s site here.
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