"I have (mental health) battles. I'm not nice to
myself. I do these things to prove to myself I'm worthy."
Down in Cronulla, the hard-core surf town right there on
Sydney’s southern rim, they call him Forest Gump.
Peel back the curtain at four am and you’ll see this blond cat
with the wild beard, former WQS pro Blake Johnston, pounding out
the clicks, finishing off his pre-dawn spin with an ocean swim
before rolling up to the beach to teach kids how to shred.
After nailing a bank of insane long distance runs, Johnston, who
is forty, is now set to stomp the Guinness world record for longest
sesh, forty hours and 500 waves.
Johnston was gonna do an easy six-hundred mile run to Queensland
to raise awareness for mental health but, after a little Googling,
discovered the world record for longest surf sesh, set by South
African Josh Elsin, was only thirty hours, eleven minutes, with 455
waves eaten up.
“I reckoned I could smash it. I can run for forty hours,” says
Johnston. “And, this way, I can surf with people I like and make a
difference.”
He wants to make a diff ‘cause suicide is something real close
to Johnston. His daddy took his own life and when he was a kid
riding for Quiksilver, one of that company’s most popular employees
Andrew Murphy, died at the hands of the black dog.
“It affected me a lot. I have my own battles, too,” says
Johnston. “I’m not nice to myself. I tell myself, ‘You’re hopeless
at what you’re doing’. I’m pretty mean. I do these things to prove
myself I’m worthy and that’s what my battle is. In those dark
moments, I have to tell myself, well, how good is this? My boys
(he’s got two of ’em, one with a spectacular mullet) deserve a
strong dad.”
Next March, Johnston is gonna hit a joint called The Alley, a
wave next to a breakwall right in town, and charge corporates money
for the thrill of surfing during a world record attempt and to
challenge ‘emselves with a night surf.
Red Bull picking up the considerable tab for lights, judges,
probs a bit of water safety to keep the Great Whites
out.
The money peeled off the corporates is going into raising mental
awareness ie, helping to address the plague of suicides,
particularly among young men.
I asked Johnston how he deals with the blackest moments during
his endurance runs, when there ain’t a soul around in the middle of
the night, ain’t nothing but your head, the voices.
“Man, you go to places… I’m thinking about making myself
proud, my family proud. I put it on myself not to make it a big
deal, that people can run further and for longer than I do. But
it’s hard to explain. One minute you feel invincible, the next
you’re in tears. It’s like you’ve got short-term bi-polar. It’s so
up and down. One minute you think you’re killing it, then the next
forty k’s feels like it’s going to take four years.”
Johnston apologises for being inarticulate, which he ain’t, and
says, “You don’t have to be a superstar to live a full life. You
just gotta make an effort. You gotta go after it.”
