Our Home Grown British 'People's Champion'

We’d love to draw your attention to one Bruce ‘Ironsmith’ Smith, a great friend and someone who has been around the SUP racing scene for a good few years. 

We met Bruce at the Naish One Design race series in 2018; he was there with his partner Karen Greener and part of the Northern SUP Race Club.  What drew us to him was not just the love and warmth between him and Karen but the steadfast way he dealt with the racing. Solid, dependable, fun – we knew we needed to be in Bruce’s camp! 

So why did he get involved in SUP racing – Bruce was an elite Ironman and Ultra Distance Runner competing in events like the Marathon des Sables, but a serious ankle injury ended his ability to run and had a profound effect on his mental health. He was spiraling back to a dark place that he had been at already in his life. A chance meeting with biomechanics coach and stand-up paddle enthusiast Anna Little got him on the water, and he at once realised the benefits it could give him. Like many of us, he fell in love with it straight away. 

Bruce is from County Durham and regularly paddles on the River Tyne, Derwent Reservoir and the stunning coastline by Bamburgh Castle. It was here that he first started training and realising the huge benefits it had to keeping focused and motivated. It was a truly healing process for Bruce.  (ed: The power of BlueSpace)

He was very soon competing, first in the UKN1sco One Design series, where everyone competes on the same board over one or two days, including sprints, tech and distance. It was not long before he was on the podium. Next up came one of the toughest races in the country, The Battle of the Thames, a ten-miler in Surbiton, Surrey. He was immediately starting to make an impression both on and off the water! 

Bruce has been a regular competitor in the National Series, where he has become a firm favourite and serious contender. His love and support for those around him have made a huge difference to everyone in the SUP community. 

He has since competed in endurance races such as the Norfolk Ultra, Paddle Skedaddle, The Eliminator, Trent 100 and winning SUP Twelve in 2023. Running is such a solitary sport, and Bruce has really embraced his time with others through SUP, team events and being part of the Northern SUP Race Team. He is a huge part of that team, devising training programmes but more importantly encouraging and motivating club members, new or old. 

But Bruce had other things on his mind. Once an endurance athlete, always an endurance athlete!  

The call to Last Paddler Standing was strong. A serious SUP endurance race held in Florida for the past four years had caught his attention, and he decided to compete in 2023. Now, for all of those who do not race or just enjoy the community fun of AquaPaddle, let me give you a brief idea of how LPS works.

Paddlers start at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, must paddle a 3.33-mile loop within that hour and then get off the water. On the next hour, they go again. If they miss the start, they are out of the race. If they do not finish within the hour, they are out of the race. Once paddlers have done this for 48 laps (yes, 48 hours!), the length of the lap goes up to 4.9 miles, and the same rules apply. This is called Super Lap. During their time off the water, the paddlers usually have a support team who feed, water, massage, and make sure they wake from a nap. It takes dedication and organisation to make this work! Bruce’s team were Karen, Ryan Gillikin and Randi Evan’s, mother and daughter, who travelled 10 hours to support him. Another was Julie Mitravitch , who was racing but came to assist once she was finished. In Karen’s words, “he had a harem of women”.  

The whole event is covered by live commentary, throughout the day and night. It is a thrilling race to watch, not because of speed but because of consistency. Towards the latter end of the race, the odds stack up, which creates more excitement. Many paddlers never get to this stage, and lap counts for paddlers range across the board so from completing 1 lap to anything above! 

At the 2023 Last Paddler Standing (LPS) event, Bruce was a top contender, paddling an incredible 49 laps (over 49 hours non-stop), showcasing immense endurance but ultimately being overcome by the demanding 8km “Super Lap” before the final winner was decided. He was among the final few paddlers standing after two days and nights of paddling, impressing everyone with his performance. 

Last weekend was the 2025 edition and having missed 2024 due to “too much stuff going on”, Bruce was back. We were lucky enough to be on the media team so were there to witness first-hand his incredible paddling. 

Karen was there too; she always is and had decided to enter the race and complete just one lap having recently had knee replacement surgery. To give you a flavour of the kind of man he is, Bruce make sure that he paddled alongside Karen during that first lap – he would not have dreamt of leaving her behind. 

We saw him steadfastly paddle, consistently keeping his pace with everything superbly organised when off the water. He had a great team behind him and all he had to do was walk to the camp and they would do the rest.  

This year, we had a thunderstorm with lightning, so everyone was off the water for 2 laps. So, after 46 laps, Bruce was still there, regularly cooling himself by diving into the shallow waters from the beach directly after getting off the board and before going to his camp. 

We were now into Super Lap time! Bruce had been one of 7 paddlers who had been paddling together for many hours, the rest having dropped out one by one. You can choose at any time to leave the race, but the Super Seven all decided to test themselves over the longer course. This is a real test of mental ability, and we know Bruce has that in abundance. 

Super Lap 1 – Tick! And now there are 3 paddlers left. Super Lap 2 – Tick! And still there were 3 paddlers. Super Lap 3 – this is where Bruce left absolutely everything out on the water – he had given his all and did not want to “let anyone down” and we saw a lone figure paddling back to the beach and knew he was done. Bruce Smith completed 46 laps + 2 Super Laps! He was speechless and exhausted when he was back on the beach, but the hugs that kept coming his way were incredible. He saved the biggest and longest for last – Karen. Always there, always calm (or appeared to be!) and always smiling. What a team!  

Bruce has certainly written himself into the history books of not only SUP racing but SUP endurance racing – there are very few paddlers anywhere in the world who could do this, and we applaud every ounce of you, Bruce. Small in stature, humble, but mighty in strength and resilience. From those first moments of stepping on a board to this? It’s a truly remarkable story of how you can bounce back from PTSD and a life-changing injury by finding your sport and your tribe. 

Thank you, Bruce, for being such a big part of our lives and personally, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such a supportive friend. 

We cannot wait to see what you achieve next! 

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