The seed was fertilized by Jim Lawless when I was fortunate enough to attend a talk by him about 7 or 8 months ago.
For those of you who have never heard of Jim, he is the author of the book "Taming Tigers". The book and he motivational talks that he delivers off the back of it are all about conquering the self-create psychological obstacles that ordinary people use to stop themselves from doing extraordinary things. Some years ago, Jim had been challenged by to prove that his methods worked when someone bet him 10 pounds that he couldn't ride in an official jockey club race within a year. As a 40-something overweight man who had never ridden a horse before, logic said that this would be impossible. But "Taming Tigers" chronicles how he applied his methods to achieve just that. To prove it was not a one-off, Jim then went on to become the first Brit to free-dive to a depth of 100m. It's a fantastic book, numerous, self-deprecating and inspiring, and is would highly recommend it to anyone. Better still if are lucky enough to be able to attend one of his talks.
As Jim spoke, I couldn't help thinking about my idea to run an ultra.
"Taming Tigers" is all about dealing with our internal excuses: I'm too old; I don't have the time; I am just not athletically gifted enough; people would think I was crazy. But how could I know if those were really sensible reasons for not trying, or just feeble excuses? Did I really want to run an ultra, or was it just an idle fantasy? These are the questions I am still asking myself.
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