I’m making good time on my loops now, about 10kph average, every time though I still have that little internal discussion about crapping out and taking short cuts, but the belligerent side of me hasn’t lost yet. Especially thinking about people like Major Phil Packer (rtd) the ex RMP officer who lost the use of his legs, and through sheer bloody mindedness after being told he’d never walk again, went onto walk the London marathon, row across the the channel with a friend, and climb El Capitan with a team in the 1st year after that pronouncement, then do the three peaks climb in 72 hours and walk the marathon about 13 days quicker than he did the year before.

Kinda shows you what we are all capable of when we set our minds and hearts on something we truly want.

Well, I’m pulling my running shoes on and going for another 12k’s, and then….the joys of more revision! Till next time, take care.

Since then, I have been managing 10k every day so far, and have finally managed my route without stopping, or walking so a few more days of this, then I’m going to try to up the distance again.

I’ve also been keeping track of things on the livestrong.com website which is getting increasingly useful! Hope you are all doing well!

Plus I’m making progress to getting access to a military assault course to practice for the tough guy Oh how I have missed the kind words, nurturing encouragement and gentle demeanour of RN PTI’s!

All that aside, since my last post, I have been making about 10k/6miles a day in my runs, but I’m going to stick at this distance till I can do it comfortably at 7mph (the speed I’ll need to do a sub 4hr time in the marathon) plus the route is actually quite a pleasant on. Right I’m going to revise some more then head out for my run.

I mean if I can run the tough guy in January, in the freezing cold over energy sapping obstacles, then I can run 26 miles on the London roads in late spring!

So now it looks like I am signing myself up for that too. My belligerent side wins again! As with the tough guy though, I will be running this to raise money for Help for Heroes, and I have a feeling I’m going to be entering a few half marathons and 10k’s between now and then, all for the cause.

Plus, my cousin Phillip ran if for the asthma charity 3 years ago, so I even have a time to beat I just have to find out what that time was!

Anyway, this week, I managed to mix training, recreation and revision quite well, I even managed to learn how to windsurf (I’ve been sailing since I was 8, but never tried windsurfing!) I managed to out run a land train (yeah it was doing 7-8 mph at most, but it was uphill and it was the principal of the matter!) and I managed to fit 30 pringles in my gob at once! that’s 6 more than Racing Car driver Anthony Davidson managed
now then, back to training in Barry and the Vale!

It’s getting to the point now where I’m feeling less sore after the runs, but I had a monster of a stitch about 2/3′s of the way through that I had to walk off.

I might need to change my running shoes though, these ones are giving me a bitch of a blister on the arch of my right foot, roll on the student loan and a sparkly new pair of asics running shoes

Anyway I’m going to relax now and try a more planned route tomorrow, maybe try to up the distance too. good night everyone

Brychan

One thing I am having trouble with is the aching in my legs and lower back, it feels like the strain won’t go away, regardless of all the stretching I do before and after, but I am hoping as I get more and more used to the exercise  it will die down, although if anyone knows some good stretches or cool downs that I’m not already doing feel free to share

That said there are a few things that are keeping me going aside from the scenery and my music. The fact that I am doing all this for charity is a big one, I have always said there is nothing I wont do to raise a quid or to for charity, and this is about as big a test of that sentiment as I can imagine. The cause is a good one though, Help for Heroes do fantastic work for men and women who do a damn hard job and who have given a lot, sometimes everything they have in service to Great Britain. The enduring thought that it could have been me me over there, and that a lot of my friends and family are currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq (My American cousin Drew) in situations riskier than a run around a particularly dangerous obstacle course, on a regular basis reminds me of their sacrifices, and that if they are willing to do this job for us, we should be willing to do something for them.

So that is one of my reasons, and a big one at that, but there are others, I need to lose a little weight, and I really do want to get myself back into shape (the moment I decided to do this is very like the moment in How I met your mother where Marshall decides he is going to run the New York Marathon after his wife mocks him for getting pudgy!), and I suppose the ability to escape from the hoards of zombies that will one day try and overwhelm humanity will come in useful. But the true biggie as reasons go, is is the adventure of it.

I’ve bored my friends with the stories of my old adventures and I realised, I’ve not done anything like those things in a long long time now, and it felt like I had forgotten a part of me that I actually really liked! It feels good to be starting another slightly crazy adventure though.

Anyway, I’m taking the weekend off now, its the wedding of two of my very good friends, I might try and go for a run on Sunday, but the hangover may preclude me from doing that! We’ll see.

This is how the creators describe it…..

“Tough Guy is the nightmare of being chased by a herd of stallions.

Your only escape route is a mighty and revered obstacle course. Built from trees, 15 metres high with Tarzan ropes swinging.

No hats and no hook ups. Just pure, organic grip strength from your cold and wet hands.

Belly flop beneath razor wire, the stallions still snorting at your heels, matching your every step. Look deep into the flames before diving through them straight into shoe sucking mud. Then something wakes you, or does it? Were the stallions just a nightmare?

No time to look back, the narrow tunnels beckon. You bravely enter to discover they’re filled with murky water. You can’t see. You can’t breathe. What chance of survival? Grope around and grab that rope. Pull yourself lungs bursting, into the light! You see the sun, or is it just another cruel mirage?

You are faced with a wall climb, as high as a mountain. No visibility again. Is that smoke, mist or cloud? How do you get down? Take the netting or dive into the freezing lake. You suddenly realise that the sound of stallions behind is fading. You must go on. The only route is through the Arctic water.

A monkey rope, a barbed wire crawl, a rubber snake, a skin ripping snake, you can smell the finish. It’s familiar…..you recognise…..it smells like…..cocoa! You know you’ve earned it!

You wake.

You are alive.

Bloodied, battered but never beaten.

You are a Tough Guy!”

I’m not going to lie to you, when I read that description (about a week after I committed myself to this) I had a pretty mixed set of feelings about it. Abject fear at the sheer scale of what this course entails and my likelihood of getting injured (any of you who know me know my propensity towards injury) mixed with excitement and adrenaline at the thought of being able to complete it.

Then the slightly daft side of me remembered the blog of a young lady named Sarah called From Zombies (who due to an as yet undiagnosed problem with her feet, has sadly had to give up running for now). I thought, well, I keep on going on about how the zombie apocalypse is clearly coming (when has Hollywood ever been wrong after all!) its won’t just be running that’s going to save you.

I know, now I probably sound like a real kook, but it isn’t like I’m building a fallout bunker under my house. Yet. **shifty eyes**

So, over the next few months I’ll be cataloguing my training and life in the run up (see what I did there) to my 1st ever tough guy challenge.