College student excels in sports challenge
Hamish James Gray runs in his first marathon. Photos submitted
By Tom Victoria
Hamish James Gray is running marathons, winning bodybuilding titles, entering powerlifting competitions and helping a surfboat rowing team secure a regional championship. The college student started all four sports just two years ago.
“It showed to me that if I decide to try something with the right mindset and enough gumption and enough willpower, you can get it done,” he said.
Hamish, 23, of Australia is working toward a journalism degree, which led to his experiment.
“Part of my journalism degree, my major work was to investigate different sports and how they affected the body,” he said. “I picked four sports being bodybuilding; surfboat rowing, which is like still water rowing you see in the Olympics, but you actually catch waves; triathlons; and powerlifting at the time.”
Hamish took little over a year to excel in sports he never tried before.
“And 14 months later, it's led me to win a national bodybuilding title, compete in a couple Half Ironmans, run a few marathons, do an ultra marathon and go to nationals for rowing, which I did not expect,” he said.
Hamish ran 160 km on June 2 going from Sydney to Newcastle, the Melbourne Ironman and the Sydney Marathon. The hybrid athlete explained how he keeps himself from quitting before finishing such lengthy distances no matter what happens.
“It's kind of turning your brain off,” he said. “When I did my 100-mile run, I got to a point where it just became flow state for about mile 20 to about 60. It was just brain was shut off and it was just ticking over and ticking over. The only hard part comes up when your body starts breaking down. At that point, I developed a fracture in one of my feet in my ankle. I slowly developed another one on my other foot and that's where the mental game starts. You make a choice mentally whether you're going to keep going or just you're going to fail. But I was that far in, I was over halfway, so I might as well pump it out and keep going because what's the point of quitting? You said you're going to do it, so you get it done.”
Hamish toughed it out when things got rough.
“There's an adage when you start something within the first few weeks, your confidence rises up and you climb Mount Stupid,” he said. “Once you reach a certain level, your confidence drops off. I never really got to a point where I left Mount Stupid, so I've always just stayed at top thinking this is possible. Once I finished the events, I then realized the way I trained or the way I prepared for that was completely idiotic. But you don't back yourself in those moments, you're not going to get it done. It was better to be at the top of Mount Stupid looking down, thinking, yeah, I've got this. You only really realize it sucks at the end when you're a bit broken down.”
Hamish also enjoyed the team aspect of rowing.
“The thing about most of these sports, it's individual,” he said. “You go for a run, you go for a bike ride, go for a swim, you go to the gym every day, and you achieve these things by yourself. That feels great, and that's fun. But if you've got a team, a crew, there's a crew of four rowers and one sweep, the guy who steers the boat in these waves. When you go out altogether, you smash through the big waves, at nationals is about six foot, punching through these waves. And then together, you can turn and try and catch the wave together.”
Hamish said the experience of surfboat rowing is unlike any other.
“That feeling of complete camaraderie and teamwork and elation when you win a race or you catch the biggest wave of the day and you don't die,” he said. “It's indescribable because you've done it together, and everyone has the same feeling. You might not be the closest with these people at the start of the season, but by the end of it, you're brothers. No one else can describe the feeling you have together other than doing it with someone else. It's just indescribable.”
Hamish said rowing is arduous despite the races being short.
“It's probably the most physical of the sports I've done because the races only last, at most, eight minutes, depending on the big swells,” he said. “I'm probably the most tired after those races because you're going all out for that time.”
Hamish said appearances can be deceiving when it comes to rowers.
“It's definitely promotes a different kind of build,” he said. “You'll see most of the guys who I've competed against, they don't look like they're that fit. But because they've rowed together for 10, 15 years, the older guys, they just know how to move the boat as one. Every single one of the rowers know their roles. It's like a machine. It looks like an industrial line, just perfectly in time. My crew, who are six months into it, we've got a lot of work to do, but we can rely on sheer brute strength and being young and strong to try and keep up with them. But it's all about experience, that sport.”
Bodybuilding was not as pleasant for Hamish.
“That's the only sport I've ever had a coach for,” he said. “I did it one year by myself in 2022 when I started this experiment on my body, and that left me pretty unhealthy and pretty directionless. Once I finished, I gained a lot of weight straight after the comp, and it was mostly just water weight, but it made me feel pretty yuck. I had about six months away from the gym, but that six months away actually led me to build up, because I was eating more. I actually grew for the first time in a while.”
Hamish decided to try a different route to the stage.
“I got a coach and I said I want to do it again, but do it properly,” he said. “He wanted to take me through a two-year prep on a massive bulk, trying to gain as much weight as possible. But I wanted to at least attempt to try and win the junior national title while I still could, because this current year would be the last year I was eligible to do it. Last year, he said, okay, let's go for it. During that time, he created a full program for me, a full eating program that I'd followed religiously and slowly. Each week, I lost about half a kilo of body fat, and it got me to the leanest I've ever been.”
Hamish exceeded his own expectations.
“Around this time last year, stepped on stage and did three competitions and won them all,” he said. “My biggest issue was I wasn't as big as the older men, but the junior levels, I was more than enough. There's different divisions now, so there's catering to different body types. I went for more of the men's physique, classic look, which goes for shape and flow rather than size.”
Hamish worked on perfecting his physique.
“It's almost like a beauty pageant for men in that sense, but at the same time, you can't have a good physique without having good proportions,” he said. “That's what my coach was aiming for, making sure everything looks perfect with what I had. We'd specifically focus on arm size or chest size and shoulders as well as legs to try and make that the perfect shape. But if I was ever to do it again, I'd have to gain 15 kilos, which I just don't think is possible. Or it could be possible, but I don't really want to because it would make my other pursuits harder.”
Hamish wasn’t bothered being scantily clad on a stage.
“My whole mindset with most of the things I approach in life is just go for it,” he said. “If I do more uncomfortable things, I'll be more comfortable within myself. So if I do step on stage in a pretty skimpy speedo and flex my muscles, yeah, that's uncomfortable. But at the end of it, I feel better and able to accept who I am and learn more about myself and what I'm capable of. Because the only people who are going to make fun of you for that aren't really relevant. The people around you who love you are going to accept you for what you want to do. And if that's get to 4 percent body fat and flex on stage, they'll accept it. At the end of the day, we have one life. We can just do as we please and try and make the best of what we have.”
Hamish wasn’t enamored with the fourth sport, power lifting.
“I did one powerlifting comp,” he said. “It was fun. However, wasn't that into the sport and found the culture and people very culty and decided it wasn't for me.”
Hamish was the U23 Classic Physique National Champion.
Hamish now has a large social media following that keeps up with his athletic endeavors.
“The semester went by and I started making videos to document it,” he said. “And then all of a sudden, I had a social media platform pop out of nowhere from just posting a video every day documenting my training.”
Hamish, who started playing rugby at 9, always was athletic.
“It taught me a lot of great lessons about who I wanted to be and a lot about adversity and a lot about getting through hard stuff with a good team,” he said. “I always wanted to be a professional rugby player growing up, but as time went on, I realized I didn't really have the build or the size. Due to my self-scrutiny and being hard on myself, I never really managed to click with a teammate. So it made rugby really hard. That's why I found individual sports to be great, because I could rely on myself rather than a team. But that's what rowing's now shown me is that if I have the right team, I can trust and have fun. But it's hard to be in a team environment where toxic masculinity and bravado is everything, especially when I'm not overly loud with other people. It's team environments. You got to find the right one for you.”
As Hamish matured, he realized rugby wasn’t fulfilling.
“I was about 18,” he said. “I moved to Scotland, go play over there a bit. I tore my MCL when I was in my final year of school. It was never really the same. I didn't have the same confidence to run as fast or make those agility moves. Confidence is everything when you play sport like that, especially when you're getting hit by 120-kilo guys or 275-pound guys, especially when you're my size. I'm tall, but I'm not very wide. I'm only 185 pounds or 80 kilos. To not have the confidence rattled me. So I decided to take a break, and I've never really gone back. I've never really had a desire to go in there again just due to head collisions. You see all the news in the media about CTE, and I'd rather push myself in different avenues rather than giving myself permanent brain damage at the moment. Maybe in a few years or months, I'll get the itch again. But until I've exhausted all my other cardio or fitness avenues, rugby is not really on my mind.”
Hamish credited having a high pain threshold for weathering multiple injuries over time.
“Pain tolerance and sheer desire to get better and rehab once I have to,” he said.
Hamish divides his time between Newcastle, where he attends classes, and Sydney, where he works now and resided until he was 19.
“Depending on what day of the week it is,” he said. “I work for different media companies in Sydney, but I also study up here.”
Hamish also is studying another field.
“I'm going to school actually for law,” he said. “I'm in my final year and I have my other degree in journalism and media. I completed my bachelor’s in journalism last year. That's why I do that job while I'm in Sydney throughout the week, but two days a week up here studying full-time. I do writing and also marketing, which is most of their videos. I've organized their social medias for the supplement companies I work for.”
Hamish has not yet decided where his career path will end.
“When I was 17, I got told to pick a degree,” he said. “In Australia, it's a bit different. In America, you do your undergraduate and then you get into law school, but in Australia you can go straight into law school and get your undergraduate in law. It's a bit of a different track. When you're 17, you finish high school, so I've been doing it for the last five years.”
Hamish enjoys learning about unique cases detailed in the textbooks.
“As a result of studying, I found a lot of interest and joy out of it just finding fun cases to read and finding out little loopholes in our systems,” he said.
However, Hamish prefers his media work overall.
“I'm not sure if I'll do it now because I've found success in other avenues,” he said. “I find that very interesting to go for and it's always unpredictable with what I'm doing. I find it much more exciting than just sitting down reading cases all day, but it's good to have a backup plan just in case everything fails.”
Hamish hasn’t set an end date for his experiment.
“I don't know,” he said. “When I find the limit. I got close to finding the limit in that run the other day, but managed to get it done at about 1 percent battery. But I just want to keep seeing what's possible for myself. At that point when I realize I'm not capable of more, then I'll feel like, awesome, let's go start something else.”
The end of Hamish’s analysis also spells the end to his grueling regimen.
“I definitely had times where I was addicted to the bodybuilding side,” he said. “Seeing yourself get leaner and leaner and look in the mirror and become some action figure looking person was very cool. It did create some body dysmorphia and negative connotations to how my physique came with how I saw myself. But at the same time, that addiction was no more as fun as doing big runs or big rides or big swims, because the feeling I got after that was a great sense of accomplishment. I could go out and do it whenever I wanted rather than just waiting eight months, not eating anything and then stepping on stage. It was a different kind of gratification.”
As a result, Hamish plans to continue some of the sports.
“I definitely see myself probably going down the rabbit hole of going for a couple more Ironmans, because they're probably the most fun,” he said. “And definitely rowing as well. Rowing is just awesome.”
Hamish said bodybuilding had too much of an adverse affect on his body.
“It was an unhealthy addiction at times,” he said. “It put me in a hospital a few times. You shut down your natural body's testosterone. I wasn't using any drugs and my immune system was completely compromised. I developed abscesses on my legs, and they just got super infected because they couldn't fight them. But that's what happens sometimes when you put yourself at a compromised state, being that lean. It's not healthy. It's much better to have healthier addictions like going for runs or big bike rides or swims.”
Hamish savors running.
“A big thing that I've always been trying to advocate is mental health awareness,” he said. “These runs were a good way to leave my demons and fight them in a different way, whether that be just turning my brain off and going for a run or deciding to go a little bit quicker than normal and pushing myself to make myself at the end of the run feel better to relieve that stress. Running to me just was an outlet that I could use much like any other sport, to become better, feel better about myself, when sometimes it was hard to accept some of the things in my life. I've always found that exercise has been the greatest way to deal with my emotions.”
Hamish explained why he excelled beyond his expectations.
“It's just backing myself,” he said. “I never really did. When I was a kid, especially playing rugby, especially at school, I was very anxious, very socially awkward, was never really able to talk to anyone.”
Hamish’s mindset wasn’t helped by a violent encounter.
“I broke my jaw in a drunken street fight where I tried to break some fight up between two girls,” he said. “I got caught in the mix, caught in the middle of it without knowing I was even in a fight and got hit four times by this random guy. The beauty of living where I live. That completely caused me to have a reconstruction of my face. As a result of that, it put me in my lowest mindset ever, self-loathing, just being upset.”
But Hamish used that incident to improve his outlook on life.
“It gave me a reality check that life is what you make of it,” he said. “If you're going to spend your time with these people, getting drunk every night and going out and doing things that you won't really want to do when you're older, you're not going to get anywhere. You might as well just send it and do all the things you always wanted to do because you're the only person who can achieve it. That's why I think I've had all this. I've been able to do all these things is because of that mindset of just go for it.”
Hamish’s exploits being posted on social media isn’t the typical practice for Australians.
“The main mindset in Australia is a thing called tall poppy syndrome,” he said. “Where in America, you will idolize the great heroes of your sport, of your community doing great things. In Australia, it's more of a punch you down, keep you humble because no one wants to see a show-off. When I do things like I do and talk about it on my social medias, it can go both ways. Most of my following comes from America. In Australia, it's seen as a negative thing to talk about the stuff that you do, but that's just due to culture.”
Hamish stressed improving one’s fitness yields a positive outcome.
“Having some fitness goal is essential for good life,” he said. “But having an unhealthy addiction with sport or fitness isn't the answer. I've only coached a handful of people, but whenever I do, I like them to have a goal in mind, a sport or a certain thing. Because when we have goals, we have purpose, and purpose is everything. Without purpose, we have no direction. If you're coming at fitness for the first time and never done anything and you don't have a purpose, you won't achieve your goal. Set small, achievable things and eventually you might keep growing and growing and growing.”
Hamish experienced that process with running.
“That's representable with my running journey,” he said. “This time last year, I could barely run 5 kilometer without being gassed. But that slowly moved up to 7 kilometers. Seven kilometer got easier, went to 10. Each time I finished those runs, I set a new goal and I'd aim to achieve it within the next couple weeks. And slowly that number keeps getting higher and higher. As long as we set small, achievable and attainable goals, our lives can be improved. There's no point being unhealthy in life.”
While training for a marathon the first time, Hamish ran a few times a week.
“I was running three to four times a week, but I had no real direction,” he said. “I just knew I had to get to the ability where I could run 42 kilometer or 26 miles. About two weeks out from that particular race, I tore my LCL (lateral collateral ligament) and my meniscus, which wasn't ideal because I was delusional in the training that I needed to do. I started running three half-marathons a week, thinking that would get me to across the line. Training for these things requires some high volume, but also some low volume and more intensity. It's very nuanced and you have to be smart about it. But at the time, I didn't know that. I thought hammer the pavement every day. Eventually, my body gave out.”
However, that didn’t stop Hamish from running the marathon.
“I rocked up to the first marathon with a torn LCL and meniscus and just pumped about 20 different tabs of ibuprofen just to get through it,” he said. “It wasn't a good idea, but that's why you need to have achievable and manageable goals, rather than creating those big, grand goals that aren't achievable. Because at the time, that marathon wasn't achievable for me. The only reason I was able to get through it was due to my mentality that I've said I'm going to get it. I'm said I'm going to do it, I have to get it done.”
Hamish has a new training regimen now.
“I've got a much different plan,” he said. “I've done my research and I know what works with my body, and it's much slower progression, rather than just spiking the kilometers in week one. It's creating that slow progression where eventually I'll be fit enough to get it done in the time I want.”
Hamish advised prospective hybrid athletes to nail each sport one at a time.
“Get decent at one first and then move into another,” he said. “Because if you have a foundation for one and a knowledge on how to be good at one thing, it will then translate into learning something else. It's like learning a language for the first time. The first language that you learn other than your native language is going to be hard. But once you've learned those basic skills, you can use it to get good at something else. So you learn French. I've learned that now I can use the same techniques to learn Spanish.”
Hamish applies the same method to sport.
“That's how I approach my running in my triathlons,” he said. “I was like, okay, so I know how to get lean, and I know how to become a good performer in bodybuilding. I'm now going to use those techniques and methodologies in a different specificity to get good at this. I'm not winning national titles for running or triathlons, but I can get to at least a decent enough level where I can be proud of my accomplishments. Overall, just get decent at one thing, learn basic techniques and find out what you're good at.”
Hamish stressed the importance of not overtraining.
“That's the advice that I need to tell myself every day,” he said. “Every day I wake up, I want to go do this. Oh, I want to do that. But patience is necessary. It's like what Marcus Aurelius says in that gladiator movie: Rome wasn't built in a day.”
Hamish’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamish_james141/