Who and Why?

Thought i might be time to actually expalin who and I and why I'm doing this. Well, the name's Dan, but you've probably looked at my profile already. I'm 28 (at time of writing), live and work in London as a PR consultant. I'm originally from a tiny village in Warwickshire called Tanworth-in-Arden and I guess I've always been facinated by doing challenges.

The way I look at it, 'will I regret it in 30 years time if I dont do it?' The answer is probably 'yes', and whilst I know doing this race is going to hurt like hell, it's that challenge that inspires me to do it. Last year, after many years of just thinking and not actually doing, I climbed Kilimanjaro, which was an amazing experience. However there has to be more. Ultimately I want to climb Everest. I think that is the ultimate goal of anyone in my kind of mindset, however I heard about the Marathon Des Sables whilst watching a programme on channel 4. I can't remember what it was called, but it featured a guy called Chris Moon (http://www.chrismoon.co.uk/about.htm), a minefield deposal expert, who in the early 1990's was kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge. Whilst escaping he lost a leg when walking over a mine... and towards the end of the programme he showed him completing the Marathon Des Sables, and I thought... 'I can do that'.

So here we are, I registered and got accepted today and I'm so excited. Even though it's 2 years away, I went for a little 8 mile run this evening with about 10kg on my back. It's not the first run I've done, I got a little excited last week and went for a nice 8 miler as well. But here begins the training, 2 years of torture and pushing myself.

The aim of this blog is to not only share my experiences of training and leading up to the event, but I hope that others competing in the event, be it this year, 2008 or 2009 will share their thoughts too.