Over the years, more than a few former rugby players have attempted Ironman Wales in Tenby. There's something about the gruelling challenge of a lengthy swim, a hefty bike ride and a mere marathon to finish that appeals to the competitor.
Shane Williams, Ian Gough, Andy Moore and Colin Stephens are just a handful who have pushed themselves to the limits in Pembrokeshire. Yet only one can claim to have completed each of the 10 brutal races to date.
Paul Arnold is that man. He and his wife Jayne, the woman who first got him into doing triathlons, are in a very exclusive club. Just 10 people have completed all 10 Ironman Wales events and they account for two of that list.
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The latest on Sunday was their last. A fitting farewell after over a decade of frankly astonishing endurance.
"We've done 22 Ironmans, me and my wife," Paul, 54, says over the phone in Lanzarote, where he's currently recovering from their latest excursion. Granted, such is the itch to push themselves, they've already located where the nearest swimming pool is to their hotel.
"It was 10 and out for Wales, as we're only two of 10 people who have done all 10 and Jayne is the only woman to do all of them," he adds. "To finish on a high was quite good, even if certain points on Sunday made you feel like you wouldn't make it!
"It was great because it was on our doorstep, training-wise you could go out and do the course. We've done them all over the world, but 10 in Wales seemed a great number to finish on.
"We're not getting younger and my body took enough of a battering from rugby. We'll still race and do half-ironmans and triathlons.
"It just takes so much time and effort. You've got to swim three times a morning from 6am, work all day and then fit your running and cycling in.
"We love it though, why else would you keep coming back? Once you run down that red carpet, the pain dissipates for the 30 seconds. It soon comes back though! It's a lot harder than playing rugby."
During his rugby career, the former Swansea second-row won 16 caps for his country between 1989 and 1996. However, he'd continue to turn out in club rugby for 15 more years after he last pulled on a Welsh jersey, calling time on his career at the age of 43 in 2011 after spells at Dunvant, Carmarthen Quins and a final two years where it began at St Helen's.
"I was doing Ironmans at the time and I gave rugby up as I was worried I wouldn't be able to race if I got injured," he says. "It's bonkers, isn't it?
"When you look back, I think people thought I was off my head playing rugby and doing Ironmans. I used to play for Swansea to begin with, then Dunvant and then I went to Carmarthen Quins for nine years, which is when I started doing triathlons and stuff.
"Say we played in Bridgend, the bus would drop me off at Britton Ferry Bridge, my wife would pick me, we'd go to Neath swimming pool and swim three miles that night. Then we'd do 100 miles on the bike on the Sunday.
"I'd think nothing of it. You'd train Tuesday and Thursday with the rugby and then whenever else you could for the triathlons.
"It probably helped me to play for so long. When I left Carmarthen at 41, Richard Webster phoned me and asked if I wanted to go back to Swansea.
"I stayed there for two seasons. It was nice to finish there. My wife always said to play as long as I loved it.
"One day though, I just thought it was time. I'd had a good run, played for my country and I was still in one piece.
"I didn't tell anyone ahead of my last game until I turned up. They made me captain even though I didn't want any fuss. We played Aberavon.
"I'd always wanted to finish on a win, but they had a last-minute penalty. Everyone was shouting at the kicker to miss it. Thankfully, the guy, who had kicked penalties from all over that day, missed it. I was just thinking 'thank God for that'."
The primitive steps towards triathlons all began with his wife, Jayne. Going to watch her compete in a triathlon in Fishguard, he thought the immortal words: "I could do that".
And so he did, beginning with a triathlon of his own in Rhayader, on a bike borrowed from his father-in-law. The only issue was that Paul stands at a fairly lofty 6ft 5ins, while the original owner of the bike was only 5ft 8ins.
Despite having to raise the bicycle seat as high as it could go, and starting his first triathlon with a swim in Rhayader Leisure Centre's swimming pool, he was hooked. Soon he'd build himself up to longer events, before both he and Jayne did their first Ironman in 2005 in Austria.
Over the years, the pair have collected more stories and anecdotes than you could imagine - from throwing up on bikes in Frankfurt to barely getting through the cold on the weekend - but it has been Paul's sartorial choices in recent years that have captured the eye. For a number of years, Paul has marked each Ironman Wales with a different pair of 'budgie smugglers' - a tradition started purely by chance.
"In 2014, I went around with Jayne," explains Paul. "I'm a faster swimmer so I said I'd do the swim and meet her in transition.
"I got to where all the bags are, stripped off the wetsuit and I just had a basic pair of black budgie smugglers on. I realised I'd have to run it in those as I couldn't stick the wetsuit back on.
"People in the crowd were cheering and laughing as I ran that one kilometre to get into transition as fast as I could. The next day, we were in a cafe and some women came up to me saying I'd made her day in those budgies.
"That's how it started. The following year, everyone wanted to know what I'd be wearing - even though it wasn't planned.
"So since then, I've had a different theme on them. One year it was a Welsh flag, a multicoloured one and then, this year, I had 'Thank you Tenby' as it was the last one.
"I must have had about a thousand pictures sent to me, all from different angles! It's all part of the fun!"
While his final go around Tenby last Sunday wasn't his fastest time, that's largely immaterial as "it all depends on the day", as Paul admits. Given the punishment his body has taken over the years through rugby - Paul counts around 500 stitches, a busted shoulder, a punctured lung and some broken fingers among his injuries - it's astonishing how injury-free he's stayed doing triathlons.
Granted, there's perhaps less contact than you'd find on a rugby pitch up and down Wales on a Saturday afternoon, but all those hundreds of matches did come in handy at some points. "In the swimming, people are swimming over you and bumping into each other - it's almost dog eat dog out there," he explains.
"But it doesn't bother me. Jayne thinks it's because I'm used to being in rucks and mauls."
Maybe that's a factor to why some former rugby players seem to love the challenge of Ironman Wales, maybe it's more likely they can't resist the physical extremes they push their bodies to - just as they did in their playing careers.
Or perhaps it's because it's as close as you can get to replicating that euphoric high once you hang up the boots.
"It's funny because people have asked me before if I still get that buzz," Paul adds. "It's a different kind of feeling.
"When you run out in Cardiff with 60,000 people screaming, even now, I still get the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. But that's the feeling I get when you run down the red carpet to finish the race.
"You can't explain it until you feel it. Not everyone will be an international or play for their country, but you can get that feeling in Ironman.
"I've seen people with blood coming from their feet, but those 30 seconds down the red carpet makes all that pain go away and it feels unlike anything else."
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