Who is John Hallis?

My first ocean swim was in February 2010 when I was encouraged to swim to raise money for a mate's wife who had breast cancer. At the time I was over 120kg, extremely unfit and wasn’t confident swimming a lap in the pool let alone a kilometre from Shelley Beach to Manly. My 14yo daughter was so worried I would drown that she swam alongside me.

My wife says I came out of the water a changed man. I signed up for every ocean swim that summer and then started running to work via the local pool. That September I got my first road bike.

In 2012 I was diagnosed with adult ADHD. It was a relief to finally understand what was going on in my head and how it was impacting every aspect of my life. Regular exercise became a lifeline in bringing structure and calm to an otherwise disordered existence.

My first triathlon in 2011 was a sprint. Not far into the 5k run, I swore I would never ever do anything longer!   But I had caught the triathlon bug and in 2012 took on an Olympic distance event. My first IM70.3 at Busso in May 2015 took 5 hours 52 minutes. After getting a coach I returned to Busso the following year and crossed the line in 4:53. It no doubt helped that I was in training for the Cairns Ironman six weeks later but the feeling of knocking an hour off my time was no less euphoric. I completed Cairns in a time of 11:38.57. It was the furthest I had ever swam, cycled or run and to this day I have never run a solo Marathon.

I qualified for the IM70.3 World Championships in 2016 at Mooloolaba and again in 2017 at Tennessee. Then I set my sights on Kona.

Determined to leave nothing behind in my preparation, I gave up alcohol on 1 January 2018. Travelling through the red wine countryside of Bordeaux in July without tasting a drop took some steely resolve, but I bought a couple of nice reds to take home ready to enjoy after the race was done.

It was worth it – In December 2018 I qualified for Kona and in October 2019 competed in the Ironman World Championships. It was the culmination of a ten-year, life changing journey.

Most recently, in 2021 I completed a solo Rottnest Channel Swim, which is a 19.7k ocean crossing from Cottesloe Beach to Rottnest Island.