On some personal fronts 2013 was a difficult year for my family and I. It will not go into the hall of fame for ‘years to remember’. Of course there were some great and good bits but overall it was a tough old slog.
Funny then that on July 22nd 2013 for reasons I have still yet to fathom, I came up with a crazy endurance challenge for myself. #7Days7Irons was born. I had first given it the nickname of The Great Britathlon© but I now have something else in mind for that.
I had experienced a large amount of failure in a professional sense in early 2013 and, even though I can look back and logically see that much of it was out of my control it still left a bruise as I am a very hardworking individual with a positive, confident approach. Perhaps I needed something to succeed at, something I could be solely responsible for so that the chances of it going wrong or not happening we’re slim?
Whatever the reason, I am now en route to the biggest physical and mental challenge of my life and, coincidentally I will be turning 40 in 2015, the challenge year, and so is significant for that reason too.
I am so lucky to have a supportive family at home. My lovely wife Laura wasn’t exactly jumping for joy when I announced the basics of my plan, she was rightly concerned about the amount of time I would be taking out to train and how it may affect me physically. Perhaps quietly she also fears for my health!! She is on board though, she knows that I will get on with it anyway and I have vowed to engage in most training either early morning or late night. The kids don’t know what going on yet, they just think their dad is a bit crackers. Thankfully Laura and the little ones continue to be my biggest fans and a major source of strength. I Love you x (Laura might be reading this)
So, I started training, mostly running as it is my weakest discipline but also a lot of sea swimming…great fun. Towards the end of last year I was getting up to 17 miles non stop running, progress that I am more than happy with.
2014 will be a massive year and I will write about this in a separate post soon. Plenty of training, a fair few events and ‘mock events’ with some already booked and paid for.
What big decisions did you make in 2013?
#7days7irons 