In precisely 3 weeks’ time the 3 Peaks team will be aboard out transport and heading north to Scotland where we will begin our odyssey in the early hours of Saturday morning, aiming to reach our conclusion at the foot of Snowdon1 24 hours later.
At times I’ve really struggled with this challenge. Sometimes physically, sometimes mentally, all based on my perception of the views and abilities of others: is it really that tough if thousands of people do it each year?
Here are a few lessons I’ve learned about myself along the way:
- I have more will-power than I’ve ever thought – apart from anything else, it’s the first time in my life I’ve managed to push myself to go to the gym even on the mornings I’ve really wanted to stay curled up.
- I have a far higher pain threshold than I thought – each session in the gym I push harder and harder and when it hurts… I keep going. That’s not a phrase I’d have associated with myself before.
- It wouldn’t work without inspiration – beasting myself on a bike or treadmill (or worse now, the Stairmaster) is only possible by holding the image in my head of all those people I’ve lost and all those I’m afraid of losing. Keeping their plight in mind helps me go harder than ever.
- Transplant is a truly remarkable thing.
- I am truly blessed to be able to enjoy all that I do and can do.
- I will never let this new life go to waste.
Am I confident we’ll get round the 3 Peaks? Sure. Do I know that I’m fit enough to make it? Not really. I’m fitter than I’ve ever been, but I don’t know how that compares to the level of fitness that’s needed to scale Britain’s 3 highest mountains in 24 hours.
All I really know is that I’m going to push myself harder than I’ve ever pushed, drive myself further than I’ve ever been and, most likely, sink myself to new depths of exercise-related pain that ever before. But you know what? I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be able to do this now and however hard it is, I’ve been through worse.
- having been up and down it, obviously [↩]