In 2022 I decided that I was going to do something different, something outrageous, make a difference and hopefully spark some conversations… I settled on some challenges, a year of challenges.
I have mentioned this in a previous blog (which is linked at the end). This blog will be in a few parts as there is a lot to cover, and as there is a lot to cover we better jump right into it!
January – Ice Bath Every Day.
As mentioned in the previous blog I was spurred on by the influential writings of The Ice Man, Wim Hoff, and to help keep me motivated I would be raising some money for charity… So, I signed up to Brave the Chill for WWF. The brief being get some cold exposure of some sort, so my promise of a cold plunge of a minimum of 2 minutes every day was potentially more extreme than what most had planned, but then that was the whole idea of the Year of Challenges, it needed to be a challenge!
So, on the 1st of January after a nice walk with friends I donned my brightest Budgy Smugglers and plunged into my outdoor bath, I wallowed in the freshly filled bath which measured at a lovely 8 degrees Celsius… Little did I know this was tropical compared to the temps I would be experiencing over the following 31 days.
The good thing about the start of the challenge was being at home a lot, it was tail end of the Christmas holidays so I could pick and choose when I would take my dip, I’d generally choose daylight hours when I’d had a coffee and it wasn’t raining, unfortunately when life went back to normal and my day job called I had to fit them in as and when I could. I had two choices…. Do it first thing in the morning, straight outta bed, into my swimming nicks and into the icy depths… or, do it after work, think about it all day, slowly work myself up about it, allow the dread to fill my system and my brain to make it seem worse than it actually was… The morning was probably the better option and I did opt for that more often than not…
The temperatures fluctuated a degree here and there and initially the sponsorship pledges were slow, until I posted a video of me breaking the ice as I climbed into the bath, this I feel demonstrated that I was serious and the World Wildlife Fund should benefit from my suffering. That weekend alone the WWF received donations of around £350, this really gave me the motivation to continue!
I posted a photo on my social media every day and where possible included the temperature of the water, which went as low as 1 degrees Celsius, this may not sound bad, but when you’re fully emersed, please believe me it is BITING!! Some days I would shiver uncontrollably until my body warmed up, or I warmed it up…. This would usually involve star jumps in the garden, or anything to increase my core temperature as fast as I could! Another thing, hot coffee never tasted so good!
31 days went by and I am so pleased to have raised a total of £770 and WWF thanked me by using my images on a huge ad campaign and sending me a thank you pack which included a cool towel with their panda logo on it. This is my favourite travel towel to date!
January was over, I chalked a 1/12 on my progress board and moved onto February.
February – No Meat
For those of you that know me and/or are frequent readers of the blog will know I am a massive carnivore, I love meat, it is everything and I must have it with every meal, so, going without it for a month, all be it the shortest month, would definitely be a challenge!
I set out with a clear idea in my mind, as I would be continuing my weight training and endurance training to prepare me for the following months challenge. Throughout this February challenge I would have to ensure I would be absorbing enough protein to ensure growth and adaptation for future challenges, easier said than done as I set the extra parameter of strictly no meat substitutes or supplements. Everything must be a whole natural food, so, I obtained some veggie recipes of bean burgers and chillis etc etc.
It soon occurred to me that I had a small problem, I don’t eat mushrooms, I hate them… I want to like them, I just don’t so please leave me alone, I don’t like the taste, the smell, the appearance, everything about them is disgusting to me! I attend a wonderful networking group on a Thursday BNSL (https://businessnetworkingleicestershire.co.uk/) where we enjoy a cooked breakfast every week and if I sit too close to the buffet the smell of the mushrooms really gets to me! As many of you reading this who are vegetarians will already know that 80-90% of the time the vegetarian option at most restaurant’s is some sort of mushroom dish, this was the thorn in my side for a month!
A few particular moments stick out in my mind, one Saturday I fancied burgers, I obtained a recipe and went about the long arduous task of blending beans, onions lentils, spices and an egg into a mush which I formed into patties and fried, I placed them into a toasted bun with a slice of cheddar and sat down to enjoy a hard earned meal, my mouth salivated at the anticipation of a lovely burger…. I bit into the mush that the website had described as a burger…. It had no texture, little flavour and simply depressed me!
Another time we were out for a meal and while my wife and friends enjoyed a lovely Sunday roast, I opted for a Buddha Bowl of Thai spiced vegetables and rice…. However, the restaurant didn’t have any, but good news…. They had Mushroom Risotto instead…. I was not impressed, I was by now 3 weeks in and had lost all motivation to eat as the joy of food had simply vanished. This, by the way, is no exaggeration… At this time I opted for a Sunday roast with extra roasties.
I really had lost all enjoyment in food, eating became simply a necessity, calories in to fuel training. Eggs were my saviour, they kept me sane for 28 days between the occasional good meal, of which there were a handful, Welsh Rarebit, Veggie Pie made by my sister-in-law and a vegetarian Paella in Fuerteventura. The end of the month was spent on the Canary Island which is renowned for it’s epic steaks! So, while my wife enjoyed steaks, (she was not all that supportive in this challenge), I ate Spanish omelettes and veggie paellas… Not ideal…
I took a moment at the end of the month to take stock of how this challenge had benefitted me, the answer was all negative unfortunately, my muscle mass decreased, my recovery time was through the floor, my mood was low, my immune system was shot and I was simply fed up.
One final note on this, as I am sure you are fed up of reading my moans and groans, I had COVID this month, and it wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me in February, so credit to all you veggies out there! I’ve done it, I have experienced it and I shall never do it again! Two out of twelve – DONE
MARCH – 100 Miles in March for MIND
Following on from the success of ‘Brave the Chill for WWF’ I was pumped and wanted to do more for those in need, so I signed up for ‘100 miles in March for Mind.’ As the name describes you cover 100 miles in March and raise money for Mind UK… However, in the interest of challenges, I would be running every single mile of it. I used February as a mini trial run, (no pun intended), luckily, I was already fairly fit, but wasn’t I sure if I could handle running 5 km every day for 30 days. So, I set aside 3 evenings and ran a little under 5 km on each evening, stretched religiously afterwards and concluded that I was ready.
As mentioned, we saw out my month of misery in Fuerteventura, so would be beginning the month of running in the sun. I am not going to lie; this was very pleasant. I would run a 3 – 4 mile route along the beach and finish with a dip in the sea at the end, before returning to our apartment where a beer would be nicely chilled in the fridge if it was an evening run, or I would grab a coffee from the café and enjoy the morning sun… Sadly this wasn’t to last and we returned to good old blighty where winter still had its miserable grip on our little island. I would wake at around 5.30 – 6.00 am, climb into my gear, slip on my head torch and put one foot in front of the other until my watch informed me it was halfway and I was to turn back.
I did a few routes, but mainly up the A5 until I reached a nice lane which took me up to Legions wood, a fairly new woodland area that had a clear path, which was needed during those dark mornings, some mornings I would run along the canal in a weird attempt to mimic my seaside runs earlier in the month, for some reason I never got the same feeling.
Some days I would go out and run a bit further which would grant me an easier day the next day or if I could do 10k this would buy me a day off all together! For motivation I looked to audiobooks, mainly biographies of arctic explorers, like Shackleton, Scott and Ranulph Fiennes, the calm words of horrific tales of adventure made my challenge look like a walk in the park and I should just get on with it, I wasn’t struggling on a remote continent man hauling day after day and sleeping in an icy tent, or cutting off my own fingers after getting frost bite, so in comparison what I was doing was nothing and this helped spur me on!
As the month went on, the days grew longer, the weather got nicer and I got better. 5 km seemed like nothing, all be it at a slow pace, I could happily go out and plod the distance, one weekend we were in the Lake District and I completed an 8 km loop which finished with a hike up Loughrigg, I wish I was this fit still!
Please don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy this, but it was still a challenge, getting up to get out everyday except for two took motivation, the weather was grim, the aches and pains were real and the stiffness was a major issue, one that would cause real problems with the April challenge but all was worth it as I raised around £500 for Mind UK.
I scratched a third line into my tally…
APRIL – DO THE SPLITS
After running all those miles I can confidently say I was as stiff as Fred Elliot at a butcher’s convention! My hips and hamstrings were like rods of iron, I groaned as I bent over and got up from the sofa, you all know the noise, it’s the one old people make… So the challenge I set myself to perform the splits was probably a long shot but it would at the very least loosen up areas that needed loosening!
I lined up some YouTube videos to help me with the yoga poses I would need to achieve the desired outcome of sitting on the floor with one foot in front of me and one foot behind me, they all came with promising titles such as “perform the splits in one week” and “achieve the splits in these 3 simple movements” All of which are un surprisingly misleading, especially for a guy who couldn’t touch his toes at this point! But I followed there instruction anyway.
The feeling was not pleasant, years of sitting down and exercise without stretching had resulted in short hamstrings that were pulling on my calves and hips, the pain went from my ankle to my lower back, but I persisted, no pain no gain right??
I religiously performed my stretches, morning and night, doing what I could to get myself lower to the ground and achieve my goal.
I could write more about how much it hurt and the discomfort it caused but I will spare you, I tried my best, but I failed, I did not achieve the splits, but I did achieve a level of flexibility I hadn’t experienced since I was in my teens!
There have since been studies proving that holding stretches for a long period of time don’t actually work and we should be doing dynamic stretches, going in and out of the stretch to get better results… would I have done the splits knowing this? Probably not, I had too far to go in a month, but I am glad I did it because I was not right after the 100 miles in March challenge.
Here is my before and after.
If I can give anyone one piece of advice, remain flexible, stretch and move, most aches and pains come from tight muscles and some stretching can prevent it all together.
Four of twelve completed, a third of the way!
Anyway, I really appreciate you reading this long one… Keep you’re eye out for part 2 where I punish my body some more!!
Push yourself!!
TM
If you have enjoyed this blog, you may also enjoy the following posts. If you think others would too, please consider sharing it with friends and family.
https://timbermane.co.uk/breaking-the-ice-getting-comfortable-being-uncomfortable/
https://timbermane.co.uk/fitness-fatherhood-and-muscle-forest-this-dads-fitness-journey/
https://timbermane.co.uk/freedom-one-step-at-a-time-living-with-a-wanderers-mind/
