Why Do You Do What You Do?

I am currently in Italy staying with my mum for a week. The weather has been really nice and its great to see my family again and return to some home comforts  which I miss back in Portsmouth!

As I write I am lying in my bed with a heat pack covered over my hamstring after covering 23 miles of mountanious terrain in the Italian Countryside. My blister is playing up and I have friction burn on my back due to the persistent contact with my backpack. This regime has been extremely testing on my body but I count myself lucky that no serious injuries have been inflicted on me yet. I recently wrote an article for a journalist who asked me a few questions about the run itself. So I thought I would share it on here.

Hey **** hope your all good and Uni is going ok. You are not the first person to ask me this many people will never understand why I choose to do what I do. And to be honest I really don’t care.  The truth is I really don’t enjoy what I do anymore. Before I started training for this event my view of the world was extremely broad now I have blinkers firmly focused on running.  Doing anything in excess results in the activity becoming boring or a chore. I am running in excess. It is extremely boring and I am constant pain. Yes there are times when I hit the circuits but I will soon be running again. Running long distances with a big bulky bag. Completely alone.

 No one likes to be alone but the truth is we are alone, we are alone on the start line, when we hit walls even when we get promoted from work.  Running has become a metaphor for my life. Ultimately I make the decisions to stop when I want to stop or continue when I feel like continuing and the same thing applies to everyone. We decide how hard we want to go, how far we want to push ourselves and what things we want to sacrifice to achieve our goals.. People will of course influence these decisions and “Pillars of support” such as family, friends and loved ones will aid you in times of need. But the buck stops at your feet.

Like I said before I would not say that anything about my training has been “fun or “enjoyable”. But I would do it again in a heartbeat. I believe greatly that the human character grows mostly through times of struggle. Even more so it a statement to the training regime I have inducted myself into that I am feeling like this. It means its working. Operation Spartan has one goal. To make a man fit enough to run a 1000 miles in under 60 days. As I write the time of departure draws nearer and nearer. I firmly believe that the man standing at the foot of Canterbury cathedral will be 10x the man who staggered home after 5 miles of running on a cold January morning.

I want to experience life in all its glory. And in my youth I am able to do that. I do not get the thrill I once did out of drinking, taking recreational drugs and chasing shallow woman. I am not suggesting that I am “partied out” or slept with so many woman that I find the whole experience boring. Nothing motivates me more then the sight of a beautifull woman whilst running, if Marika Fruscio was in a van driving infront of me with the promise that she would spend the first night in Rome with me then I would get to Rome in half the time I estimated! Its just the fact that so many men these days seem to only care about getting laid whilst being drunk whilst not developing other areas of thier lives.

When I started training MMA again in September I found myself getting bored of the routine of training. The rush I used to get was, again not as intense as it once was so I found myself searching for a goal. Something so unbelievably epic that it would force me into a lifestyle so extreme that it would consume me into a cocoon and spring me back out an improved person. And that was one of the motives behind this run.  Really I should be the person asking “why do you do what you do?” Habitually throwing away your youth to the bottle buying new clothes and new “trinkets” which grows nothing apart from your spiralling student debt.

L8N.