A YOUNG Alloa woman defied her rare hip condition and completed a 140-mile race in water, on bike and on foot two weeks ago.

Two years of training paid dividends for Amanda McCaig, 27, who was one of around 2,000 competitors at the Ironman event in Bolton on July 16.

She entered despite the fact that she was diagnosed with Perthes’ Disease at the age of four.

The rare condition affects the head of the femur and in Amanda’s case it also lead to painful arthritis.

It was a gruelling challenge – a 2.4-mile swim in the choppy waters of Leigh’s Pennington Flash, a 112- mile cycle around the hills of Rivington and a full marathon finishing in Bolton town centre.

While it was certainly an opportunity to earn some bragging rights, Amanda also raced to raise cash for the Butterfly Trust.

The charity helped brave local double lung transplant patient and friend Lisa Hertwig through her cystic fibrosis and is close to her heart.

Amanda told the Advertiser: “I’m not supposed to run or do strenuous activities, like marathons. “It gets quite sore a lot of times but I just power through it.”

A few years ago, she can remember a relative talking about the challenge and she instantly got the bug for it.

But with her condition in mind, everyone advised against it.

Amanda was not discouraged, however, and explained: “I went to everybody: ‘I want to be an Ironman!’. I got told by – I don’t know how many people – that I couldn’t do it. That just encouraged it even more.”

She spent a long time preparing for the challenge, entering a number of smaller events and taking on obstacle course racing in the process.

Most importantly, she had to learn how to swim.

“It was probably the best day of my life,” Amanda said. “It was hard but it was amazing. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

The 27-year-old completed the challenge with 22 seconds to spare before the 15-hour-mark, 18th in her division and 165th female.

Coaching her along the way was local man Iain Park, her boss at Carsebridge Court-based Fitness Solutions.

While Amanda did have some additional injuries, she carried on to finish the event.

Iain added: “She trained really hard. Obviously, there was some frustration with injuries but she battled on.”

Amanda often raises cash for the Butterfly Trust through sponsorship when she enters races; to date she has donated around £900 to the charity.

Next up for her will be the Glencoe Marathon in October and she is also debating whether she could enter the Ironman event in Wales in September.