I got asked the other day why I would do something so “bloody stupid” as attempt a triathlon, something I’ve committed to doing next year.

The truth is I didn’t really have an answer. But when I thought about it, I realised I’ve done a few “bloody stupid” things over the last few years. I ran Berlin Marathon a few months ago, and I walked 100 kilometres in just 24 hours over a range of big hills.

At the time i probably said something about the challenge, or raising money for charity. But I think the reality is simply that I’ve realised that life is just too short not to attempt extraordinary things.

Everyone’s definition of “extraordinary” will be different (having met Everest mountaineers etc in the past the things I get up to are the kind of thing they’d do before breakfast), but I’ll be attempting them for a long time yet. I’ll inevitably fail, but hopefully that won’t put me off.

I’m reticent to talk in these terms, mainly for fear of sounding pretentious and a little bit “self-help”! But I’m intrigued to find out what extraordinary things everyone else has done. Let me know in the comments…

UPDATE: On thinking about it a little more, I suppose this is quite similar to the oft-referred-to theory that life just gets a lot more interesting when you learn to say “yes” to things that your instinct tells you to avoid. How many great adventures would have been missed if people had said “No, I’d rather sit in and watch telly than cycle the length of Great Britain/walk the great wall of china/drive a 2CV down the length of Africa”? By saying yes to these crazy, extraordinary things we give ourselves targets, things to achieve, and something to dream of…


Photo credit