WHY I’m Running 250km…

WHY I am taking on my biggest endurance event yet, and why it might be for reasons you won’t expect…

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I’m currently training to run 250 km from right here our office in Edinburgh all the way to the top of Ben Nevis the highest mountain in the UK and the question on your mind and ultimately mine is why just so you know what to expect from the rest of the video I’m

Doing this to discover a better version of myself and I know that that’s going to be the case whatever the outcome because I’ve been through enough iterations of big hairy scary intimidating challenges in the past this just so happens to be the biggest one yet this channel in essence is about

Challenging myself across a variety of disciplines in the hope that you might be inspired to do the same and the reason why that is so important to me requires us to rewind a little bit from 2014 to 2016 I was at University and throughout that period I have been retrospectively diagnosed as depressed

And I say retrospectively because when I arrived at University I had a very clear sense of success and masculinity and who I was as a person and all of those things Miss aligned with the concept of mental health or depression if you’d asked me up until 2016 was mental health or depression

Even a real thing I would have laughed you out of the room I would have said it was an excuse for people to avoid responsibility it’s pathetic it’s weak it’s a way of avoiding things and then it became overwhelmingly real for me to the point where in May of 2016 I attempted

Suicide and what scares me to this day is that I didn’t leave a note I didn’t leave a message I came around and the first feeling was one of anger at the fact that the one initiative I’d taken to change my situation had failed and the perception of failure

That I’d had for myself for the past 18 months for feeling the way that I did and keeping it all to myself out fear of being judged was just turned up to 100 because the one action that I’d taken practically speaking in a in a in a morbid sort of way had fallen

Short and the fact that I found myself in that situation through stubbornness and a warp sense of success masculinity and who I was and what I was capable of as a person is a huge driving factor for everything that I do from that point onwards I have a second chance at

Life I am horrified that I didn’t leave behind any Communications for friends or family that I was fortunate to have access to and at the core of all of this throughout the period of 2014 to 2016 was a sense of guilt that I was fortunate enough to

Have a roof over my head I was fortunate enough to have friends and family that cared about me but I chose to push away because I didn’t want them to know that I was suffering and struggling and feeling the way that I was and I almost just like

That would never have experienced any of the things that I’ve experienced since then and that’s horrifying to me because I I can’t now with a rational mind comprehend how I found myself in that situation and I found myself slipping back towards it in 2018 in London and

There was a part of me whether through societal conditioning you know just that that warped sense of success and masculinity that I had in my sort of earlier years coming back to haunt me I kind of just told myself to man up and get on with

It but I actually took a second closed my laptop and decided that while sat in this coffee shop here in London that I was going to make a change and that’s where I committed to my first November fundraising campaign where I attempted to squat half a

Million kilos in 24 hours and have made the rest of it up as I go along having since raised over £100,000 from movember Having learned an awful lot about myself along the way Having learned an awful lot about some other people along the way having had some incredible conversations and genuinely

Feel like I’ve had a positive impact on the narrative so a huge reason as to why I take on big intimidating challenges and steps out into the unknown in terms of what I’m capable of like this event is because I can and I almost through Choice through stubbornness through a

Lack of awareness and through a war perception of a few things couldn’t and what I’ve learned over the years through continually stepping out into the unknown and leaning into the fear of big events and sticking my neck out a little bit in terms of oh do I think I’m capable of

This is a level of value and self-development that I would never have even believed existed I am much better off for it I will be much better off for it after this 250 km whatever the outcome the process alone has made me better and it’s important to give that context as

To why I am staring down the barrel of a 250 km single stage ultramarathon so against that context it’s important to highlight that I’m in no way dependent on these big crazy challenges for my own mental health it’s more a self-development tool that I’m very in

Tune with as to where I see the value where I see the drawbacks and and how I apply these things but ultimately this this event scares me but it’s not just the event that scares me it’s the training and the processes that go into it and that’s where I see the exposure

To the fear and the challenge of this event on a day-by-day week by- week basis and then culminating in the event itself is micro exposures to all of the things that will help improve me as an individual so what does training and these events actually give give me well

First of all it gives me exposure to fear and to challenge on my own terms and that is just a way of building my ability to tolerate fear and challenge when it rolls around because it inevitably will life has a habit of doing that and if I reflect on 2014 to

2016 I let the fear and the challenge win me over I I got knocked back and allowed it to keep knocking me back when in reality I did have more control initially than I believe that I did and that came from a sense of stubbornness a war perception of success and masculinity

Being disconnected from emotional awareness and adapting the plan I set out a plan that I was so rigid on that any deviation from that plan I would immediately label a failure but plans don’t Sur first Contact and what training and events like this give me is lots of really good exposure to that

Concept so by willingly taking on things that scare the [ __ ] out of me the process of training for them and the event itself will expose me to things that I otherwise would not be exposed to which will make me better as a human being training gives me that events give

Me that and that’s a huge reason why I take on events like this next thing is curiosity the example I always use is when I was suffering with my mental health I used to not play golf with my friends because I didn’t want to have

10,000 steps or so in my legs ahead of heavy squats on a Monday at the time I wasn’t really enjoying powerlifting that much anymore I was socially deprived and I enjoyed playing golf but because my identity was tied into that of a powerlifter I would willingly not spend

Time with my friends doing something that I enjoyed to fit the identity that I had created for myself therefore not acting on curiosity and enjoyment as a driving Principle as to why I do the things that I do from a training point of view because at the end of the day I

Am a recreational athlete you might well be a recreational athlete the main driving factor for us should all be enjoyment and self-development and if you allow your identity to get in the way of that then it might be worth doing a bit of a recalibration on your

Identity within that space so for me the guiding principle with all of the training decisions that I make is curiosity if I wake up in the morning excited and curious to explore how I’m going to get on working towards it and doing this thing then I will do it it’s

The reason I haven’t done a hro because I don’t wake up in the morning feeling excited and curious about it that might change but for the time being I’m much more drawn to the stupid stuff I’ve done over the years that’s available for you to view here on the channel most of

Which ends up with me in a lot of pain so you can go and watch some of that the next thing to consider and this is probably the biggest one is practicing control over my emotions which I guess is in simple terms building resilience if I don’t controllably expose my

Emotions to demands then when I’m uncontrollably exposed to them I will flap and lose control a little bit more easily so by choosing difficult things and by increasing the scale of those difficult things relative to my ability over the years I am always forcing myself to become more resilient and

Become more aware of my emotions as I get older as my priorities change we will never ever complete it as far as I’m aware I don’t think you can complete life I don’t think you can understand everything there is to know about yourself in your immediate circumstances so by repeatedly exposing yourself to

Demands and giving yourself the opportunity to build resilience you are going to have better emotional control in every aspect of your life which can only be a good thing next is pride and actually a little bit of disbelief that whenever I get to the start line of

These events I look back at the training process amidst running the businesses I mean we’ve been building this place out and there’s been so much going on behind closed doors with omn and the modern mind we’ve got highes we’ve got loads of stuff happening so when I get

To the start line which is a week tomorrow I’m going to look back and be [ __ ] proud of myself that I got there and whatever happens next is going to be an exciting Journey that I get to go on I get to go on I’m lucky to go on

Because in 2016 I almost decided to not be here anymore and looking at it through like that lens is a freedom that I’m very fortunate to have in many ways and it means that the ego that’s attached to what time I do it in or whether I do this this this and

This becomes less important because I’m ultimately just there to go on my own journey and yes I’m documenting that for you guys to see as well but what I want to do is kind of bring you along on that Journey that I’m having so that perhaps you might go on your own Journey

Whatever that might look like to you a phrase and a poem in fact that I love is climb your own Mountain the the poem’s called the mountain by Laura ding Edwards and it’s all about the relative demand of an individual’s mountain in their lives and my 250k might be running

To the lampost at the end of the road for you neither is harder than the other but the value in both is the same for the individual and that is willingly stepping out into the unknown to ask yourself the question can I do this and then reaping the rewards at the other

End when you find out the answer is yes I can so the sheer disbelief that I felt when I get to the start line of events and then the even higher disbelief that I experience when I get to the Finish Line is something that makes me feel

Very very grateful to be here in simple terms I’m not competitive with anyone else I do a lot of these things sort of off off my own back with the team and that’s that’s that’s all I really need is that sense of self-achievement that comes through input to to output and the

Challenge that come along the way so the pride in the person that I have become versus the person that I was is a huge part of why I do what I do and then the big one which I think is applicable universally to all is accelerated self-discovery and accelerated growth

Because by taking on things that scare the [ __ ] out of you you are going to expose yourself to more demands that you otherwise would not have been exposed to at a quicker rate than life might throw them at you which means that you can reach a high level of self-awareness a

Higher level of experience a higher level of understanding of your priorities amidst the day-to-day chaos of life and that’s why Ultra endurance that’s why trying to pull 300 kilos off the floor that’s why committing to the process of working your ass off for a black and white metric is so incredible

Because it’s you versus you it’s you versus physics in many ways moving weight from A to B or moving yourself from A to B and there are so many variables at play that you navigating those variables over the training process that is where the value lies and that will accelerate self-development

And growth faster than a lot of things that are available to us in the modern world otherwise could in my opinion so I’m not going to do the cliche thing and say that Fitness is the gateway drug to success but I’m going to do the cliche

Thing and say that Fitness is very much the gateway drug to success but the important caveat being it is entirely relative to your ab ability my 250k is your whatever it may be whatever came into your head right then as I said it that’s what I suggest you commit to and

Scare yourself with because the value on the other side is enormous so what does this project actually represent well for me it’s two things and that’s all I have left to say on this really before I stare down the barrel of what’s to come first of all it’s the next Frontier in

Some ways the last big thing like this that I did that truly terrified me at the scale of it was the double brutal which is the main video on the channel currently it’s where some of you might have found the channel from and that was a double Iron Man distance Triathlon in

The extreme setting of snowdonia in North Wales and the amount of exposure to variables and demand that I had along the way and the person I was at the start of the training process versus the end of the event itself was it just you can’t pay for

That I don’t believe you can pay for that anyway there might be some business accelerator courses out there tough time never lasts only tough people lasts development accelerat courses out there that might say otherwise on their landing page but I genuinely don’t think I could have learned the lessons

Individually in terms of my relationships in terms of my businesses in terms of my athletic ability in terms of my priorities in terms of what I want want my future to look like without having committed to that training process and figured out as I went along and then enjoyed the Journey of the

Start line onwards a lot went wrong on the day and for that I am ultimately grateful but that feeling of dread and Terror that goes with how the hell am I going to get through this is something I’m familiar with but this time it’s just a little

Bit higher cuz 250k on my feet in one go I’m going to go out at this point and say it’s worse than 4 73k as a triathlon perhaps so this is the next Frontier for me I hope this isn’t an ever increasing scale because

Only so far this can go but what I know will happen is I will enjoy focusing on some speedier heavier stronger stuff over the next 12 months cuz I tend to be in the cycle of focusing on speed and strength and enjoying that and then pivoting all the way back to ultra endurance

So you get to see what happens next on the channel so we can all enjoy and ultimately what I really want this video to be about and what I want this project to represent is the unknown I don’t have a clue what is going to happen when I

Set off from here at 9:00 a.m. on Friday the 29th of March I have a lot of thoughts and logical things that I can expect but the weather might change there might be a blockage on the canal there might be a storm I might get hit

By a boss things might change along the way I might decide halfway through that you know what this isn’t what I want to do I’m going to delete my YouTube channel and move to Puerto Rico anything can happen and that’s the beauty of the unnown because in the unknown you can

Discover the questions that you didn’t know needd asked and you can find the answers that you never thought you could find and that’s where Ultra endurance specifically for me has given me the opportunity to meet myself and shake hands with myself along the way so many times where I’ve been forced to improve

There and then as an individual because I have exposed myself to the unknown we have access to so much information we have access to so much stuff in the modern world that we often have to do a lot of sorting of the information at the front

Of our brains to be able to sort of really sit and think about the stuff at the back and that’s not my best analogy but by that I mean that we need to kind of Wade through the woods a little bit which is the chaos and the stimulation

Of the modern world to be able to sort of come out into the opening and think right okay what am I going to do with this opportunity who do I want to be what do I want to achieve to have that Clarity I think we need to step into the

Unknown and you might think what the [ __ ] he talking about he’s 10 years younger than me he’s just running bloody marathons over and over again or he’s just lifting on a regular basis what a dick but I genuinely believe that training this way without ego over the

Years and doing everything for the sake of self-discipline and self-improvement has changed my life for the better and I’m obviously biased so therefore I think that there’s probably some things that you might be able to take away from that maybe potentially I don’t know but the unknown is relative as is Fitness as

Is intimidation as our goals and that’s what I really want today to be about is that what is scary to you might not be scary to me what is scary to me won’t be scary to somebody else but leaning into what’s scary within our control is a

Positive thing to do because it presents us with the opportunity to become better and in becoming better we can achieve more and in achieving more we can squeeze more blood out of the stone that is life and I’m very fortunately still here and that’s a context on which I reflect on everything from

Within so in many ways thank you for allowing me the platform to continually do stupid [ __ ] and tell you about it but I do get asked the question an awful lot why do I do the things that I do or why haven’t I done this thing or that thing

Hopefully I’ve explained that today let’s see what happens tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. I set off if you’re watching this past that point it’s anyone’s game hopefully see you at the top of b n