If, you've read the bit about me on this site, you'll have a little idea: Taking on a challenge for a charity personal to my family to help beat Cancer; getting in shape as I embrace middle age, and tackling something I'm not in any shape to do (yet).
All true. The more observant among you will note that much earlier in my adulthood I was a high performing competitor at international amateur levels. I also spend my life identifying and coaching performance and talent in the business world. This means you'd be forgiven for thinking that I might do it for a yearning for my 'glory days'; or because I should practice more of what I preach.
Partly true.
What really sits behind all of the above is that I want to achieve something that most people on earth won't even attempt. I want to do something so far out of my comfort zone, and what physical makeup I was 'blessed' (or left) with, that anyone who looks at me simply won't believe that I can. Not in the time frame I have to do this in. Not with my recent injuries (that I'm still rehabilitating with).
I'm not built like an endurance runner. I'm built for power based sports such as powerlifting, rugby and fighting. All of which I've been involved with over the years (until a serious shoulder injury and reconstruction ending those days... oh and age).
There will be those of you who ran all your lives, to whom this type of challenge may come easier to. I'm not one of them. I've only ever run as far as the next smashdown tackle, the next ruck, and even once across the try line from the halfway line in a moment of epic glory (a story I still dine out on today). This means it is a huge task I'm taking on.
What I'm doing is hard enough when you're in reasonable active shape. A runner with a few half marathons or even the occasional marathon under your belt, for instance. To do this when you are overweight and need to lose a 5th of your bodyweight in 5 months is frankly insane in most minds... though, I'll add, utterly sensible in mine.:-)
Above all, I want to show that my kids could watch their overweight, old, broken, dad tackle the biggest of challenges, and overcome it with hard work, research, preparation, commitment and resilience. Against the perceived odds. A challenge bigger than where I am today, and the uncompromising belief that I will succeed in overcoming it. This, above anything else, is why I'm choosing the 'hard things'.
Do The Hard Things
For the regular 5K Saturday Park Runners, half marathoners, etc the leap is not so large. For me It's a quantum one.
The last 6 years, I've barely been able to get out of bed without pain. An old Achilles tear, ankle ligament damage and inactivity has made it hard.
2 Years ago I took on the Jurassic 100km ultra marathon as a 'walker'. Stunning, beautiful, brutal and simply the hardest fucking thing I have ever done (sorry-not-sorry, but swearing and ultra distance challenges go hand in hand). 35 hours non stop on my feet (apart from a few rest stop collapses, and two hours sat on a portaloo with what can only be described as the toilet equivalent of an exorcism), in an event where over 50% of challengers don't finish. All with 12 weeks training to prepare (yes I was underprepared given you should have 6 months walking training to really stand a chance to complete it). All I can say is that It changes you.
That's me (pic below), at the start of that challenge (From left to right: Graham, Me, Simon, Lee) with some good friends, all too stubborn to choose something easier to tackle.
I start this next challenge to run the same course 6 kg heavier, 2 years older, and a little more broken.
For me, that is what makes this special. The fact that it is a real challenge. That it requires a step by step overhaul of how I live, train, eat, sleep, etc. And I'm writing about it both as a record for my kids (before my memory wanes with age, of course), and as a roadmap for any other broken, out-of-shape, sedentary dad who is looking for tips on how someone took on something insanely difficult to accomplish, and made it possible. On this blog I will be putting up a lot of lessons I've learned, mistakes I've made, and how I'm training, eating along with my ongoing progress so please do subscribe and follow me.
Comments