About me
From a very early age, I have always had a strong interest in the outdoors. Whether that was going on “survival” camps and building dens as a kid, to family walking holidays in the Lake District and Snowdonia, I think I have always been my happiest being outside. This interest has certainly been fuelled by an infatuation in the endless array of stories of people doing incredible things. The bookshelves of my childhood bedroom had perhaps one too many (slightly less than PG…) images of climbing injuries embedded within than the average 9 year old, but it was in these pages of Touching the Void and other books by the likes of Chris Bonington and Ranulph Fiennes that I guess I can owe part of my desire to pursue my own adventures (and my mum can owe her continual worries for my safety…).
I like to think that I have already begun to achieve some of my goals to get out into the world that felt so far away in the pages of those books. From being lucky enough to get the opportunity to go climbing in the Alps and Himalayas, to doing a self-supported cycle from London to Rome with a friend, to kayaking and guiding rafts down a few of Nepal’s major rivers, I guess I reunited with this love of the outside, and an affiliation for the feeling of accomplishment and resilience.
It is in this physical and mental hardship in these places that I found the main confusion in my life: the fact that I struggle to remember this resilience in life in the UK. Whether that is resilience in relationships, jobs or other tests we are all thrown our way in life. This is certainly one of the reasons for my decision to pursue this challenge, as I like to think I am not alone in this thinking and want to show a pretty normal guy do something to test this resilience to the max, and use the platform I have to give something back to two amazing charities whilst I do so. On this note, I know that is a pretty cliche idea, of “showing someone unremarkable doing the opposite”, but even if my voice in the cacophony of others like me gets through to a few people feeling the same, I’ll be happy I’ve done my part.
I have to say, I have always had a pretty unremarkable sporting career, but, thanks to an enormous growth spurt when I was 14 I kissed the semblance of hand-eye coordination I had goodbye. This slightly resigned me more to the sidelines of fixtures, which in turn led me to lose a little confidence in how I was ever going to pursue these wild ideas of adventure. It was only when I started putting myself out of my comfort zone in these various places around the world, that I re-found this confidence, and reconnected with that little kid who loved running around the Lake District and consistently terrorising my mother about my safety.
