Christine whyld

I love the outdoors and I do love a challenge. Wellington signed up to do a short super sprint triathlon and invited her parents to cheer her on. I was wearing a borrowed wetsuit and when I got into the water it flooded.

I couldn't lift my arms and I almost sank. I had to be rescued by a kayaker. Not a very auspicious start. Undeterred, Wellington signed up for a couple of longer races, both of which she won. But what I lacked in understanding of the sport I made up for in drive and determination.

After these wins she decided it was time to get herself a coach and joined a team headed by the controversial trainer Brett Sutton. Widely recognised as one of the best triathlon coaches in the sport, Sutton is also a convicted sex offender. In he admitted to five offences against a teenage swimmer in Australia and is banned from coaching there for life.

It was also very hard for me to trust him, and initially our relationship was volatile. It was only when I gave myself over to him and stopped thinking and followed his every order without question that I started achieving success.

It was Sutton who spotted that Wellington had astonishing aerobic capabilities and mental strength, which made her perfect for competing over enormous distances. One of the first things he did was sign her up to do a long-course triathlon in Alpe d'Huez, which takes place on some of the gruelling climbs of the Tour de France.

She got a puncture, catapulted over a crash barrier and still managed to win. Five weeks after the Alps, Sutton sent Wellington to Korea to take part in her first ironman. I had no expectations. It turned out to be a war of attrition and a fight for survival because it was so incredibly, incredibly difficult.

But I loved it, really loved it. Which is how in October , Wellington, equipped only for the first time with a proper time-trial bike, found herself on the starting line for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

She began with a distinctly average swim, three minutes slower than she was aiming for. Then at around km into the bike ride, with Sutton's words "Don't defer to anybody" ringing in her ears, she started moving up the pack. I was running scared the whole way, thinking: 'They'll catch me, they'll catch me. As Wellington ran she used a number of mental tricks to propel her towards the finishing line. There were no friends or family there to share Wellington's big moment. A few competitors she knew from the circuit supported her as she was thrust blinking into the limelight, but aside from that she was alone.

It is still widely acknowledged as the biggest shock result ever seen in the sport, and she says that from the moment she crossed the finishing line to the end of that year everything passed in a blur. To prove it wasn't a fluke, Wellington went back and won in and again in she couldn't take part in because she had pneumonia, strep throat and West Nile virus.

In she smashed the ironman world record by 12 minutes; she broke that by another 12 minutes not long after. The day after we meet she is due to receive an honorary doctorate from Birmingham University, and two days after that an MBE from the Queen.

Wellington describes herself as an obsessive compulsive, and it is this trait, she believes, which explains her late-blooming success. The reason she didn't stumble into her sport sooner was because in her youth all this drive was directed into her studies. She also cheerfully admits to really enjoying pain. Even in training, she regularly pushes herself beyond normal thresholds. Sutton, who is famous for his brutal training techniques, would regularly have his athletes doing marathons on the treadmill or running with rucksacks filled with rocks, and all the while refusing them water so their bodies learned how to deal with dehydration.

The extremes seem to amuse Wellington. She tells me of the chafing, the "nasty sores and cuts" she gets on her undercarriage after five hours on a bike, blisters the size of tea cups, and how in most races she usually crosses the line with a couple fewer toenails than she set off with. She has no sense of embarrassment either. She will regularly greet her boyfriend after a training session, her face whitened with dried-up dribble.

She thinks nothing of stopping on the roadside in the middle of a race, whipping down her shorts and going to the toilet. Her diet, too, is extraordinary. She eats a healthy, balanced diet, but has to consume around 5, calories a day, so the volume is enormous. A pre-race meal consists of an industrial-sized bowl of tuna and tomato pasta the night before and white bread, jam and full-fat cream cheese on the morning of the race. After the last ironman of this year's season in Arizona she demolished two burgers, three plates of chips and 15 donuts.

Wellington, who split with Sutton in "not acrimoniously" , now lives with her boyfriend Tom Lowe, also an ironman, in Boulder, Colorado, where they train together. She has had to make, she admits, enormous sacrifices for her sport. Not only moving away from family and friends, but giving up a promising career in development economics which took her to Nepal for nearly two years and is a subject about which she remains passionate.

As well as all of that, she has given up all spontaneity. That doesn't leave room for the other things I enjoy. It's a monotonous, regimented, monodimensional life. What she has gained, however, is a platform, which she is hugely grateful for and determined to use responsibly.

She raises large sums for charity and regularly campaigns on development issues. I'm continually surprising myself by what I can achieve. Due to the all-consuming nature of the ironman, Wellington says she probably won't go on much past Does she plan to have children? Picture date: Monday August 27, Picture date: Friday July 13, Picture date: Wednesday July 27, Picture date: Sunday March 11, Picture date: Tuesday September 28, Picture date: Saturday October 6, Picture date: Sunday, January 30, Picture date: Saturday November 19, Picture date: Monday August 1, Picture date: Friday April 29, Picture date: Tuesday May 29, Picture date: Thursday January 26, Picture date: Tuesday September 10, Picture date: Thursday June 21, Picture date: Friday May 6, Picture date: Wednesday September 26, Picture date: Sunday August 4, Picture date: Friday October 12, Picture date: Saturday December 11, Picture date: Friday June 14, Picture date: Friday March 12, Picture date: Thursday June 17, The initiative will aim to identify specific policy proposals which can improve life for children and families in a cost-effective way.

Picture date: Saturday February 18, Picture date: Monday March 30 Picture date: Friday August 31, Prince William and Prince Harry organised the Thanksgiving Service to commemorate the life of their mother on the tenth anniversary of her death. Picture date:Friday August 31, Prince William and Prince Harry organised theThanksgiving Service to commemorate the life of their mother on the tenth anniversary of her death.

Picture date: Thursday July 22,