I have been back from the desert now about a month and after the 2 years of planning and preparation that milestone has now come to an extremely good but abrupt end. It was also about a year ago when myself and many other students at school and university reached a similar point in their lives, and the big questions gets thrown up by friends and family "What next?".
Now this thought has been going round my head since before I even crossed the desert and since then has only increased. This hasnt been helped by the fact that over the last year I have met various people who have taken on incredibly inspiring challenges. This was compounded this week having met the Mr Motivator who came to my work place to inspire people to exercise and also asked, having never met me, the same big question.
The problem comes having tasted the feeling of success by testing myself, my desire to push the boundaries of my physical and mental performance has only increased. Now there are many events out there that claim to be tougher, harder more challenging than anything else but as the expression goes the devil is in the detail. It took a while to decide on the Marathon des Sables and so I will be deciding on my next big challenge in the coming weeks and months. Whether it is in the desert, moutains, jungles or sea it ill certainly be a challenge of a lifetime.
In the meantime next weekend I have another challenge to complete 4 marathons in 24 hours with a group of 5 others including Ed Stafford the man who waked the length of the Amazon.