We’ve also now got the route profiles which you can see below. Now that I’ve completed the Ironman, I’m going to get my new Inov-8 Roclite 315s dirty, as I prepare for the daddy of trail ultras!

Ain’t no mountain high enough: the rise of the challenge junkies

Super-fit amateurs are tackling ever more gruelling feats for charity. But are they aiming too high?

Carol Midgley

What do you think these people are talking about? “It gives me a high like nothing else I’ve ever felt.” “Without it I feel irritable, depressed and ill.” “As soon as I’ve finished one I am craving to start on another.” Vodka Martinis? Crack cocaine? Cadbury Creme Eggs? Wrong.

The fix they refer to is physical exercise, pushing their bodies to the limit in endurance events such as triathlons, extreme marathons and Tough Guy-type challenges, which have soared in popularity in recent years.

Physical fitness comes somewhere close to godliness in this anti-obesity, five-a-day driven age. For many, such events have supplanted the soulless, strip-lit monotony of the gym. And they raise thousands of pounds for charity.

Take Dan Martin, 28, soon to embark on an awe-inspiring 18-month global triathlon — swimming, cycling and running round the world. On May 8 he will wade into the sea off Nova Scotia, eastern Canada, and swim 3,500 miles to Brest, northwestern France. From there he will cycle by way of Siberia to Uelen, the most easterly settlement in Russia. By the end of 2011 he hopes to have completed the equivalent of a marathon a day, running from Russia to New York.

The £200,000 cost of his trip is being funded by corporate sponsorship, although any donations will go to his charity, the Dan Martin Foundation. He was apparently inspired to take on this challenge when he cycled 22,000 miles from South Korea to Cape Town, and said of his latest trip: “People think swimming the Atlantic is going to be the hardest part, but it’s probably the cycling. It can drop as low as minus 80C in the Siberian winter. Ha, ha! I don’t even like cycling.”

Now — Dan Martin is evidently a separate breed to the rest of us. Rowing the Atlantic is enough of a challenge, let alone swimming it.

So why do these people do it? For Charlotte Hughes, the desire to take on endurance tests is becoming a need. Aged 29 and in a high-powered banking job, Charlotte runs marathons, cycles, rock-climbs, does Pilates and recently completed a 30-day Bikram yoga challenge, performing 90 minutes of yoga a day. Halfway through she went to a party. “Someone said to me, ‘You look like you’re on drugs’,” she says. “I was pale, I had a cold and my nose was streaming. I love Bikram yoga and won’t have a word said against it, but I was exhausted. The thing is that once I start something I won’t stop. It irritates my husband; he thinks I’m mad. I am trying to cut down, but it does make me resentful.”

Charlotte has completed five marathons, is doing the Three Peaks Challenge in September, and in December plans to do the GRIM Challenge at Aldershot — running, wading and crawling for eight miles through muddy water and fields. She will shortly run another half-marathon and would like to tackle Kilimanjaro. She enters some events just for the satisfaction of doing them as acquaintances had become weary of her repeated requests for sponsorship.

How does she feel if she doesn’t exercise? “Grim and quite disgusting,” she says. “It’s not about losing weight and being thin — it honestly isn’t. I do most of my exercise outside and if I miss it I don’t feel fresh or invigorated.”

Are people such as Charlotte addicted to exercise — or as the experts call it exercise dependent? Instances of exercise dependence are relatively rare — about 1 per cent of regular exercisers.

Apart from stresses on bones and muscle, over-exercising over a long period can affect the immune system. Hence a third of marathon runners become ill after a race. Strain on the body also causes the release of high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which causes problems for circulation and the nervous system. Dr Peter Axt, a “reformed” marathon runner and co-author of The Joy of Laziness: How to Slow Down and Live Longer, believes that daily joggers are “measuring their own physical decline”.

Dr Jeremy Adams, a sport and exercise psychologist, says that exercise dependent people feel they must exercise every day. If prevented from doing so, they may suffer anxiety, mood swings and headaches. They may have irrational thoughts such as “If I don’t exercise today I will lose my fitness”. They may also exercise when injured. Most commonly, exercise dependence affects runners, aerobics fanatics and cyclists.

While drug dependence sets in within weeks, exercise dependence takes about two years to develop. Dr Adams says that over time, intense exercise elevates levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that the brain uses to provide pleasurable feedback. To compensate for the higher levels, the number of dopamine receptors in the brain’s pleasure pathways are reduced. Then when an exercise dependent person can’t exercise, dopamine levels fall, causing distress.

James Evans, 41, believes that he was addicted to cycling. He used to hide how much he was doing from his wife. “If I’d cycled 30 miles I’d say I’d done ten and gone for a beer with a cycling buddy because she was getting resentful about how much I was doing,” he says. “I must be the only husband to say they’d been to the pub when they hadn’t.”

He became hooked after a friend persuaded him to take part in a charity bike ride. “I was thinking about being on the bike at home, when I was with the kids, when I was at work. If I couldn’t cycle at the weekend — as when we had to attend a wedding — I would be boiling inside. I’ve cut down a lot now, but in many ways I wish I hadn’t. Every time I drive past a cyclist I long to get on my bike.”

Like Charlotte, James works in a pressured financial job. Extreme physical exercise is becoming a feature of many high-achieving and often macho workplaces, such as trading floors. Ordinary marathons are one thing but they don’t command as much peer respect as, say, the Marathon des Sables, a six-day ultra-marathon across the Sahara desert in Morocco. “If you have to raise a minimum of £4,000 as some charities stipulate, it puts a lot of people out of the frame anyway,” says Catherine, a self-confessed challenge junkie. “It tends to be only people on big bonuses who can do it. Your friends will sponsor you at £100 a go, and if you work for a bank, it’ll usually double your money.”

The term exercise addict wouldn’t necessarily apply to most people who feel compelled to enter repeated extreme challenges. It is, say experts, more complex and likely to be rooted in achieving self-esteem and a sense of purpose. If you work gruelling hours indoors for a bank then it is easy to see why outdoor endurance challenges might be more seductive than pumping iron in a gym.

Rhonda Cohen, a sport and exercise psychologist at Middlesex University, says: “Undertaking extreme challenges often satisfies a desire or need to break free from boredom or routine. There is something exciting about managing a situation where there is stress or uncertainty and pushing yourself beyond what you thought were your limits.”

Dr Jill Owen, a sports and exercise psychologist, says that these days endurance is about working long hours, rather than finding food for survival, so some derive great satisfaction in testing their bodies.

“This is about a need for personal challenge,” agrees Dr Adams. “People have very few opportunities in life to challenge themselves in a way that they find meaningful. Three generations ago people did physical labour as a job. They didn’t use their leisure time to exercise.”

So great is the demand for a challenge that many events become booked up within hours of being announced. About 100,000 people took part in triathlons alone in the UK last year. But it’s crucial to be properly prepared and to let your body recover afterwards. Training takes months, and if it starts to affect the balance of your life, it’s time to reconsider.

“Traders are highly competitive people,” says Charlotte. “A lot of my colleagues work hard at their jobs and their sport. But it takes its toll. If you’re too immersed in a challenge you get behind with domestic chores. There doesn’t seem to be time to just sit down and watch TV.”

If you think you may be a compulsive exerciser perhaps you should flick through Dr Axt’s book. He argues that performance-orientated exercise taken to excess, could be harmful. “Endurance athletes do not appear to lengthen their lives significantly through exercise, reaching only average life expectancy, if that.”

Keep fit, but remember that it doesn’t have to be exhaustion or nothing.

Some names have been changed

Celebrity exercise junkies

Ben Fogle, the TV presenter, has rowed the Atlantic, crossed the Antarctic on foot, raced across the Sahara and cycled a rickshaw 450 miles from Edinburgh to London.

Eddie Izzard risked blisters and dislodged toenails at the very least when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief last year.

Last month, less than a year after finishing the 78-mile Namibia Ultra Marathon, the Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton completed a 2,010-mile (3,235km) solo kayak journey along the Amazon for Sport Relief, breaking two world records.

Major Phil Packer, who was left paraplegic after a rocket attack in Iraq, has walked the 2009 London Marathon, rowed the Channel and completed a climb of El Capitán in Yosemite National Park for service charities.

Fiona Wilson and Melissa van der Klugt

- which considering I had to travel 7 hours to Norwich and back, sleep and go on a long bike ride, I’m quite pleased with.

I shot it on my JVC GY-HM100, although I started playing with the shutter speed, which resulted in slight over exposure.  Lesson learned!

The Royal Norfolk Show 2010 from Tobias Mews on Vimeo.

Below are brief descriptions of some of the greatest accomplishments in endurance running. Even if you’ve never run a mile in your life you have to respect these athletes for their achievements.

1. Three men ran 4,000 miles across the Sahara desert in 111 days. Charlie Engle, Ray Zahab, and Kevin Lin ran the equivalent of two marathons a day for 100 days to become the first modern runners to cross the Sahara Desert’s grueling 4,000 miles. They were stricken with tendinitis, severe diarrhea, and knee injuries all while running through the intense heat and wind, often without a paved road in sight. Temperatures varied from over 100°F during the day to below freezing at night. Typical day: up at 4:00am, run until lunch, eat, run until 9:30pm. Then get up and do it again… for 111 days.
2. Xu Zhenjun ran a 3:43 marathon — backwards. In a world where 99% of people never finish a marathon in their lifetimes and of those who do, 90% don’t run under 4 hours, Xu Zhenjun of China managed both, in reverse. I thought Zhenjun was a rare person who ran backwards for fun, but it turns out there are a bunch of people who prefer to run backwards. Timothy “Bud” Badyna, the father of backwards running (pictured right), has also completed a sub-4 marathon backwards and a 10K in 45:37.
3. Mark Covert has run at least one mile every day since July 23, 1968. In the decades since he started the streak, Covert has covered more than 136,000 miles. At his competitive peak, he ran more than 150 miles a week and was one of the top road racers in the country, finishing seventh in the 1972 Olympic trials marathon. He still averages eight miles a day. Sure, on some days his running may only consist of 9 or 10 minutes, but did you read how long? Since 1968. Covert has said:
   

   “I’ve trained through illness and injury, run plenty of times when I shouldn’t have. I ran on the days my parents passed away and I’ve run when every one of my four kids was born. I still look forward to running every day, although the trees go by more slowly now.”

   Covert is now the Cross Country Coach for Antelope Valley College (he knows a little about running). I guarantee his runners have trouble finding excuses to miss practice.

4. 7 Days, 7 Continents, 7 Marathons. Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr. Michael Stroud went seven for seven during a grueling week of marathon running and transcontinental travel. The pair ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents from October 26 — November 2, 2003. The men ran in Chile, the Falkland Islands, Sydney, Singapore, London, and Cairo before completing their marathon of marathons by running the New York City Marathon. Besides battling the exhaustion that any marathon runner faces, Fiennes and Stround also had to battle jet lag and dramatic changes in temperature and humidity during each race. The feat was especially impressive for Fiennes, who suffered a heart attack just four months earlier.
5. Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie’s marathon world record. Haile Gebrselassie ran a marathon in 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 36 seconds in 2007, crushing the old world record by nearly 30 seconds. These days marathon winners are consistently throwing down times like 2 hours and 6 minutes. It’s so common, I think we have forgotten exactly how fast it is. That is keeping a 4 minute, 48 second-per-mile pace for 26.2 straight miles! For a non-runner, it may be difficult to comprehend just how remarkable this feat is. Very few people in the world can even keep that pace for 1 mile.
6. Finishing Badwater (anyone). Plain and simple, Badwater is the toughest endurance run in the word. Each year, approximately 70 people attempt to run 135 miles from Bad Water, Death Valley to the portals of Mt. Whitney. In case you’re not familiar with Badwater or Mt. Whitney, Badwater is the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere and Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous United States. Basically you’re running from the lowest place in the U.S. to the highest. In addition to the 13,000 feet worth of ascent, there are the 130°F (55°C) temperatures to deal with. Participants are forced to run on the white lines on the side of the road to keep the soles of their shoes from melting and a heat suit to keep them from frying in the sun. The winner from the last two years has finished in the 24–25 hour range but the average finish time is in the 35 hour range. My first question was “How in the world does someone train for this type of event?” Luckily for me they have a training guide on the Badwater homepage. Here are a few examples of training recommendations I picked off the site:
   

   (1) — HEAT is the main nemesis, acclimate your body NOW!! Start using a sauna on your EXPOSED body. Do not wear any protective clothing.

   (2) — ENDURANCE is very slow to develop. Set a target of being able to WALK, ONLY, at 20–30 minute per mile pace, NON STOP (NO SLEEP) for 24–30 hours. Do not exceed this pace, nor train in this way more than once a week.

   Pass.

Dean Karnaze ran 350 miles non-stop. “The Relay” is a 200-mile, 12 person relay race. Not only did Dean Karnaze run this race by himself, he ran an extra 150 miles from his home to the starting point. Karnaze ran 80 hours straight and burned an estimated 40,000 Calories to cover the 350 miles. I couldn’t even stay away that long, yet he kept a good pace the whole way. Karnaze has also has finished the Western 100 ten times, the Badwater four times, and most recently he ran 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days in all 50 United States.

So, on the 3rd of September 2010, I’m flying out with my good friend Freddy Keeling.  We were at Sandhurst together, went through our Young Officer training at the Royal School of Artillery and have raced the KIMM back in 2005.  However, Freddy was a lot fitter than me back then, and due to lack of training on my side, we had to pull out of the race half way through.  I’m planning on not letting him down this time!

The race conjures some impressive statistics, so here are a few facts that I’ve gleaned from Adventure World Magazine:

• Distance: 295 km in eight days means an average of almost 37 km a day, the longest stage of the race is the equivalent of a full marathon. Runners will take about 275,000 steps during the course of the race.
• Elevation gain: 17,700 m of elevation gain, two stages featuring elevation gains of over 3,000 m – more than ever before on one day!
• Race profile: The steepest climb is on the 6th day. An ascent of 1,320 m over a distance of only 5.3 km. The steepest descent is on the 3rd day. A descent of 1,240 m over a distance of 9 km
• Physical exertion: The force exerted on the joints, muscles and cartilage in your knees when you run down hill represents 7 or 8 times your own body weight
• Terrain: 58% of the course (167 km) is along hiking routes and narrow mountain trails, so runners have to be sure-footed
• Energy expenditure (male, 69 kg, 180 cm): 4,000 to 4,500 calories per stage. The equivalent of 4 kg potatoes plus 10 eggs plus three quarters of a packet of butter. The fluid loss per stage is between 5 and 6 litres.

Gore-Tex Transalpine Run 2010 route

Quite a few well known runners have also competed in this race.  Here is a link to ultra marathon runner Sharon Gayter’s race report.

One of the big challenges I have at the moment is training for an Ironman whilst also training for an event that requires a huge amount of hill training.  I think I’m just going to have to wing it!!

The trailer for the 2010 event is below.  As a videojournalist, I’d like to think I could do a better job of filming this!  Not sure if I’m going to be able to film it as well as run it!!  We shall see!

Due to some anterior knee pain, I had not done any serious training for the marathon, however, that didn’t prevent me from taking the attitude that I was going to give it my best shot!

Guy McLaren and Ed Kirk-Wilson from the Clapham Chasers were also running in the Good for Age category, so we all got a taxi to London Bridge to take the train to the start in Blackheath.  Despite arriving several hours early Blackheath Common was packed full of runners and supporters.

After the obligatory loo stop, we found the Good For Age pen situated at the start of the Red Route.  Typically, it had just started to rain, so the small marquee that was meant for changing, became packed full of athletes sheltering from the downpour.  It was at this point that I regretted not bringing some form of bin liner to put over me to keep me warm.

We were quickly ushered into the start pen at the front of the Red Route.  It was quite surreal to think that there were thousands of people queuing behind me and I was only several meters from the start line.  Race nerves always get the better of me and despite having just gone to the loo, I started to feel the urge again.  One of the runners next to me obviously felt the same and just took a piss where he stood.  I decided that I would wait until I had finished the race!!

Once the starter gun had been fired, I was across the line within seconds, running quite fast to establish a bubble around me.  It’s always easy to go too fast at the start of a race and as I was wearing my Garmin 310XT I could see that I was running a 5.45 min mile pace.  I kept on saying to Guy — “we’ve got to slow down and stick to our target pace of 6.15″.  Easyier said than done.

Img: Andy Barnham Photography

The race passed in a bit of a blur.  I took on water whenever I could to keep hydrated as it was quite muggy.  I had these strange moments when I felt the need to thank the crowd by applauding them.  Quite a strange site it must have been to watch a runner clapping, smiling and nodding with appreciation whilst doing a 6 min mile.

I did start to slack a bit at the 21 mile point.  No matter how fit you might be, if you haven’t done any long distance runs, you’re going to find a moment when your body rebels.

I stuck with Guy until about the 24 mile point, but sped off when I realised there was a danger of not finishing under 2.50.  I only just made it.

My first marathon was London 2005 and I ran it in 3hrs 27mins. Five years later, and now my fourth road marathon, I completed the 2010 London Marathon in 2hrs 49mins and 58 seconds, beating my previous personal best by 5 minutes.  To say I’m pleased is an understatement!!  I still remember my cross country coach at Sandhurst telling me that I wasn’t a natural runner.

I wore my new Garmin 310XT watch, which was extremely useful at guiding me to the correct pace.  Well, at least I thought it was.  After uploading the data to Garmin Connect, I noticed that I was running significantly faster than I had meant to.  For a full breakdown, look at this link.  Moreover, what was also quite perturbing was that according to the watch I had run 27.04 miles.  I can accept a couple of hundred feet in discrepancy, but almost a full mile is too much!

However, putting my watch aside, it was a fabulous day.  I ran 95% of the race with my fellow Clapham Chaser Guy McLaren, who has run London the past 6 consequtive years.  It makes such a difference having someone to run with.

Interestingly, I used my new Skins compression tites after the race — and they worked a treat.  A good investment!

The Central Office of Information, where I currently work, featured me on their intranet page, as you can see below.

It will adopt a new branding: BMyHero but still work under the old premise.  See below for the full details:

We are delighted to announce that Help for Heroes (H4H) has agreed to join forces with Bmycharity to form BmyHero.  The name and branding will change in the next few weeks but for now all fundraising pages and accounts remain live at www.bmycharity.com.  We will ensure that our commission free service continues for every charity.

Help for Heroes, the strictly non political charity that supports wounded Servicemen and women, prides itself on a no nonsense approach to giving with minimal administrative costs. Together, Bmycharity and Help for Heroes can offer a service that allows fundraisers to donate their sponsorship directly to their charity of choice with no extra costs so everything you raise goes to your charity and that’s it.

What do I need to do? Nothing, please just stay with us and we will do the rest. Our service will continue as before and the new partnership will offer the service to all its existing customers.  We will not be withdrawing the service as previously announced and all pages and accounts remain live at www.bmycharity.com.

What do I do if I have already signed up with another charity giving organisation? Its up to you, it’s your choice but we would love it if you came back to Bmycharity to ensure that every penny you raise goes to the cause you support!  Your page and account are where you left them and ready for use right now!

What about the data, are my details safe and will H4H be hitting me with special offers and begging letters? No, H4H will not. The data that the new partnership has will be respected as before.

What about other charities, will the service continue or is this just for H4H? The service will continue with all charities who are existing  Bmycharity clients in exactly the same way as before.  Bmycharity and H4H will honour the terms of existing Bmycharity contracts.

I am a charity and would like to be registered with Bmycharity. That’s fine, we would like to sign you up but ask that you give us a few days to let the dust settle so we can handle all the enquires from existing customers first. If you register your interest through the Bmycharity website we can get back to you.

Are you committed to 0% commission? Yes, we share the belief that charity fundraising should be commission-free but we are not criticising others who charge — in fact we hope they’ll follow our example.

How can you finance and invest in the service when Bmycharity recently failed to raise investment? By coupling Bmycharity’s lean, low cost business with H4H’s technical resources and relationships with banks and corporate partners, we’re able to cover the costs of providing the service to the charity sector commission-free.  H4H’s trading company and technology partners will invest in developing the service to remain at the cutting edge of online fundraising innovation.

Is a charity allowed to run a service like this? BmyHero will be owned by Help for Heroes Trading Co Ltd, a wholly owned trading subsidiary of Help for Heroes. The profits from Help for Heroes Trading are used to cover all the administrative costs of both the charity and the trading company.

Chief Executive of Bmycharity, Ben Brabyn says “Over the last 10 years Bmycharity has helped more than 60,000 people raise over £28 million for UK charities.  To widespread acclaim, we announced that we were dropping all commission charges last October and donation totals and average values have soared since.  However, with a team of only two staff and no external financial backers we were unable to meet demand and reluctantly announced the withdrawal of our service last week.  As former Royal Marines, Matt Cooper and I were delighted when Help for Heroes invited us to join forces with them to keep online fundraising commission-free for charities.”

Help for Heroes Chief Executive Bryn Parry says “At H4H, we do everything we can to ensure that every penny we receive goes to the cause and so we want to be sure that Bmycharity can continue to offer their free service to the charity sector. We felt that our supporters should continue to have a choice and are delighted to be able to partner Bmycharity in their fund raising efforts. We admire the ethos of Bmycharity and feel that we are natural partners. We are delighted and hope that our supporters will be as well.”

Thank you all for you continued support and we very much hope that you will come back to our commission free service.

For more information or updates, please keep in touch via our blog, twitter and Facebook.  You can also see the latest news from Help for Heroes here.

With best wishes

Bryn Parry and Ben Brabyn
CEO H4H and CEO Bmycharity

Eddie Izzard

When I read that Eddie Izzard — the funny chap that ran 43 consecutive marathons over a 51 days in aid of Sport Relief — had signed up for the 2010 Ironman in Bolton, I knew why.  He’s got the bug!  Anyone who does something out of the ordinary, such as running 43 consecutive marathons would find it hard to give up that level of fitness!

I’m looking forward to racing against him, as I have also signed up for the 2010 Ironman UK!

Good luck Eddie!!

Balham on a Saturday morning from Tobias Mews on Vimeo.