Once in a lifetime is a saying that gets easily used. When my wife and I travelled America we lauded how it was once in a lifetime. In reality we will no doubt repeat that trip in a decades time. We often use the saying when the task in actuality is easily repeated.

For once though I believe I have a once in a lifetime opportunity. I have been giving a condition place to be a London 2012 Olympic Torchbearer. The condition being I pass the security and background checks, pretty sure I will pass this easy enough!

So I am truly honoured to have been chosen. It is without a doubt the greatest reward for the past year of hard training and running. I would even rank it higher than my TV commercial!

Like most things in life there was a long string of interwoven events that led to me being nominated.

Disregarding all the training for a while, the timeline went a little like this:

I wrote a blog post about my experiences with RunKeeper and how it enabled me to train solo outdoors. This was quickly picked up by the RunKeeper team and appeared on their blog.

The Daily in New York found the story and ran an article on me.

This was quickly followed by Wired and CNN. Resulting in me filming a short for CNN that aired earlier this year. The Wired featured blog ran for a number of months and brought in lots more attention.

During the time I was writing for Wired I lost my pacing team. So I began a search for a new pacing team and perhaps the most instrumental people in the timeline were introduced.

I contacted UP & Running in the hopes they could help me piece together a pacing team. They went above and beyond and ran a small in store campaign and mentioned it on Twitter. This brought in the initial point of contact James Clay, along with James came Matt Puddy and Charlie Baxter.

Matt and Charlie took up the reigns and began to put together a team. Matt ran all the logistics, planning and organising. He was incredibly instrumental in allowing me to run my first ultra run.

With the run complete the next event was the ASICS call. They wanted a blind runner for a TV commercial and I didn’t really fit the bill. I had a quick chat and mentioned what I was doing alone and with my pacers was a better story than the one they were on the look out for. They agreed and the TV commercial was created.

These interwoven events created my running journey of the past year and were the basis of my nomination. I was kindle nominated by Charlie and Matt and was chosen. But without all those other people my story wouldn’t have got out there and the opportunity would never have presented itself.

So to all those people Thank you.

There is however one last mention. For my wife, she was there through all the difficulties of training, the time I was passed out on the bathroom floor, when my legs failed during training, when my water was stolen and most importantly she had the faith that when I said I could run alone she believed it.

2012 is looking to be a great year for projects, university and family life.

2012 will see my first year of university complete and hopefully coming out with a great grade. It has been tough going this past couple of months so I hope to have it all on track and get that all important first.

As for projects for 2012 where to start! I hope to launch a number of blogs focussing on running and fitness within the disabled community. I often forgot how lucky I am to have access to equipment and knowledge when it comes to exercise. So I plan to start a blog dedicated to making fitness accessible, from reviewing home equipment, creating audio instructions and simply workouts I hope to make fitness at home (and the gym) that little bit more accessible.

I will also be running the “Marathon Sandwich” blog that will detail the training for running the combined 52.6 miles needed to complete the sandwich (all in one go of course!). I am running this event to raise money for the SRSB which offers fabulous services to the blind. I will detail this more as time progresses.

I also have a few projects which will remain undisclosed until plans are firmed up!

As for family life, well that is always exciting. 2012 will see Graysons 2nd birthday and his first words! That is set to be a great occasion. Pretty sure there will be lots more trips to astrobound too!

I recorded a mini documentary and a TV commercial about myself for ASICS a few months ago. Recently I received an email asking me to pop to a recording studio to record some audio. I imagined I had messed up some of what I had spoke about and needed it re recorded.

Today I received my “script”, not I say script. It was more a transcription of what I had said during conversations I had with the film crew (I had a mic on all day). Reading through my script I thought to myself; I really can’t remember saying this? It sounds way to scripted? Would I have been able to come up with these lines in conversation?

When I arrived at the studio and was escorted into my little booth all my questions were answers. I had indeed said all those lines as they played an audio track of me saying them! The next 90 minutes consisted of 70+ takes of me repeating the lines of conversation I had delivered on the day.

Its a funny thing when you have to repeat lines again and again. The word level slowly turned into the word eleven, I kept dropping words and adding words. I don’t think I have a career as a voice over artist thats for sure!

The process in the end turned out to be really fun, chatting to the agency recording the audio and hearing which versions of my lines sounded the best. I must say hear that I hate the sound of my own voice, I refuse to listen to any interviews or recordings I create. I just can’t do it! But after a while today even I thought the audio track was beginning to sound good.

I can’t wait for the finished article, it has been a great privilege to shoot a TV commercial it really is something to tick of the life achievements list.

Even though university is keeping me incredibly busy I have began to think about a new running challenge. The Championship next year is a definite but I now feel the need to find something else.

I think this comes down to now realising the 100 mile run is definitely possible. With my limited training this year I was able to make it 83 miles, so how hard can that next 17 be? With another 8 months of training I am hoping not to hard.

So I have begun to think about a multi day event. I don’t really want to announce my plans yet as they are far from confirmed. I am going to email a few people and see if I can even afford to do a multi day event.

But the sheer thought of planning for my next big challenge is beginning to excite.

University looms just around the corner; I am still a little anxious about starting university there are just so many unknowns. One of the biggest for me is the commute.

Historically I would adjust the commute so it was absolutely minimal. In the early days when I worked retail, I would catch the bus just after or at its terminal so the bus was empty. This would make it very easy to find a seat and negate a lot of the issues with transport. Fast forward a few years and jobs and I lived literally next door to where I worked, totally removing the commute.

My commute now consists of, being dropped off at the train station, a train then a tram. The journey to university is relatively simple, my wife points out the right train and I board it. Finding a seat is still an issue but I can stand if I must, The tram journey is also very easy, I board the tram and the terminal and there are only two trams, one takes me to the right destination, the other relatively close. So if I go wrong here no big problem.

The issues arise on the way home, I can’t see the name on the tram so I have no idea if I board the right one, the same goes for the train. So I am forced to rely on asking any bystanders if they know where the next train or tram goes. Not the most ideal situation but needs must.

I am also conscious of moving around the campus and the studying itself. Having never studied at this level before I am unsure of the adaptations I will have to make to succeed along the way. All seems a little ad-hoc at the minute, I am confident I will be settled in and know what I am doing within a few weeks. After all everyone at university is in the same boat, its somewhere new and scary!

I also have an ultra coming up in a few weeks, so best start upping the miles. Nothing like adding to the pressure!

I wrote up a small race report for Wired about my ultra so instead of repeating myself go check it out!

I do plan on talking about the race more in depth in the future and the aftermath in terms of did the race change me? So if anyone has any questions for me to answer let me know!

When I initially came up with the idea of running 100 miles I never gave a thought to running for charity.  As the day of the run drew closer I began to wonder if running for a charity would be a good idea.

Around the same time Radio 1 were doing a hike for SightSavers, listening to the difference £5 could make to someones life I knew this would be a great charity to support.  For only £5 one persons vision can be restored, for such a small amount of money that is a huge impact.

I am hopeful I will be able to raise more than enough money to save at least one persons vision per mile (or if people are generous maybe 10?).  So please donate over at Just Giving. You can make a huge difference for a tiny amount!

I have also produced a number of prints, each sale will raise enough to save one persons vision so check them out!

So please be generous and spread the word!

For the past 2 weeks we have been having a number of car troubles. It just keeps breaking down!

This introduces a number of problems like getting to college, doing the shopping and running. To go for a run my wife usually drives me to the airport and drops me off. Without a car it means I cant really run.

It is a 2 hour walk for my wife to drop me off and pick me up, so not really feasible and I can’t safely walk the route on my own. Far to many busy roads and I don’t know the route very well.

In an effort to keep up my training I decided to take a walk to my parents house. When I lived there I used to have a pretty impressive home gym and some of the equipment still remains. So the plan was to do 20 miles on an exercise bike.

I jumped on the bike and attempted to operate the machine. I was unable to read the screen and it made no audio notifications. After a few minutes this irritated me far to much and I had to stop.

The control I have using RunKeeper simply wasn’t translating to a stationary bike. It was to frustrating having no control and no feedback so I just called it a day.

Frustrated I called it quits and we headed home. So unfortunately I have missed a couple of runs this week. I have put a plan in place to do the big miles as I cannot miss the long runs this close to the race.

But the car remains broken.

Last night despite still feeling a little rough from the pesky cold I decided to do a little run. I have been trying to practice running at night, its something I have never done so I am trying to build my confidence.

It was a short 4 miles run but I was struggling at the 2 mile mark. This should of been a sign, despite this I thought I could run a 28 miler today; in an effort to catch up on missed miles.

Turns out that was a little ambitious. I was struggling at mile 6 and coughing up large amount of phlegm. I convinced myself Gu could solve all and swallowed more than I usually would.

This took me to mile 12, a quick nuun; again convincing myself it was hydration and I was fine for a few more miles. I lasted to mile 15 before it was just time to quit. I was fatigued, down on pace and decided to make the shame call.

Asking my wife to collect me 3 hours early, even worse I didn’t even make it to the agreed collection point, she had to come find me.

So the excuses:

I was ill
Dehydrated
Fatigued from running 10 hours previous
It was unseasonably warm, 20+ in April!

I do worry this close to the race about not hitting weekly mileage, but its a new start next week. I will be over my cold and ready to put in some big runs.

In an effort to keep this blog updated whenever I write articles for elsewhere, here is the latest Wired Playbook Post

Progress so far