A VICAR from Cirencester is set to compete in an Ironman Triathlon this summer, which will see him swim, cycle and run more than 140 miles non-stop.

The Reverend Howard Gilbert, associate vicar of Cirencester Holy Trinity Church, is taking a sabbatical to train and compete in the competition, which takes place in August in Kalmar, Sweden.

“I go round to school assemblies and I'm telling kids you need to face your fears, you need to take on big challenges and you feel most alive and all of that,” said Rev Gilbert. “So I'm now kind of living it out.”

Having taken part in the London Triathlon several years ago, Rev Gilbert is no stranger to this type of competition, and will again be raising funds for charity Mercy Ships.

“Since moving from London to Cirencester seven years ago I wanted the opportunity to do something similar and when the opportunity for a sabbatical came up I thought there's a great opportunity to do something, a big challenge and raise lots of money,” he said.

However, Ironman is five times the distance of the London Triathlon, with the 43-year-old vicar, who suffers from Bathophobia – a fear of depths – admitting the challenge is about “overcoming my demons”.

When first stepping into open water to train for the previous triathlon, Rev Gilbert said he started hyperventilating and “was in pieces”.

Since then, he has been able to overcome his phobia to a large degree through breathing exercises and experience.

“I just wasn’t ready, whereas now I am,” he said. “A lot of it is in the mind, now I know what my body will feel like and it will pass.”

Though the prospect of “100s of people in the sea at the same time” is still the “scary and difficult” part of the event for the vicar.

“You have to try not to get clouted because it's quite physical,” he said. “If you're in the thick of it, which I intend not to be, you get punched round the back of the head just because you're swimming on top of each other.”

He said a further problem once the competitors are leaving the water after “exercising horizontally for an hour or two – suddenly you stand up and you’ve got no blood in your head.

“There are people there as you come out of the water to catch you if you fall.”

Rev Gilbert’s gruelling training regime means he is averaging an hour and 20 minutes a day, though this will progress to 20 hours a week as the event, on August 19, draws nearer.

And while he admits “psychologically the swimming will be the toughest for me” the marathon – a 26-mile run – “will be physically the toughest”.

“I did a marathon last year just for practice,” he said. “I needed to have experienced a marathon to understand what the challenges would be.

“I've naturally got a bouncy style because I'm a bit more of a sprinter by nature.

“I discovered I really wrecked my joints, so I've developed a much smoother running style, so there’s less impact on my body,” he said.

While Rev Gilbert was never particularly sporty as a child, he said he “rode his bike everywhere” and the biggest challenge of the cycling portion of the event is “eating regularly because I’ll be on the bike for seven hours”.

“There are food stations as you go around,” he said, while the majority of his food will be in the form of energy gels every 20 minutes.

“They're pretty horrid things, like fruity snot, but it's something your body can digest very easily.”

As well as the personal challenge, Rev Gilbert said part of his goal is to help engage people with the church in the same way that sports clubs do.

He said sports clubs “are really good at reaching out to all classes, all genders, all generations. Church is less good at that.”

“We're really good at looking after people who think that sitting in a beautiful building for an hour or two and being intellectually stimulated is what they want out of life. People who want something else out of life, we're less good at reaching out to.

“Clearly, Jesus was about reaching out to all people, not just one particular class. So I think that's a real challenge we need to respond to,” he added.