The Smile & Olive Foundation (founded in 2012) provides relief & aid to displaced persons and refugees to help them rebuild their lives. Today they operate across Lebanon, Turkey & Iraq. The empowerment of women & young girls through capacity building & developing transferable skills is a primary focus.
It’s a full 12 months since I created the 40s 4 40 blog so let’s get straight to some facts – I’ve completed 42% of the original list and 44% of the ‘new’ list. It’s also my Brother’s and my namesake’s Birthday.
If I assume completion of the challenges that remain ongoing that puts me at a 58% completion rate for the original list and a 69% completion rate for the new list.
I took some time to reflect on what I have achieved over the past 12 months and was reasonably pleased with progress. Some of the major challenges are complete and I can try to focus my attention on improving my running and cycling in advance of the 70.3 later in the year. I feel this is a better approach than trying to do everything and work more than full time, all at once.
Highlights for me have been climbing over 40,000 feet, running over 40 kilometers and freediving over 40 metres deep and long. Following the donation I make after this post I will have made 20 of the 40 donations and have had thousands of visitors from all over the world which I find humbling.
I said I’d have all the challenges done around my Birthday 2021 and I reckon I’m still in with a chance to achieve that. I’ll keep posting about progress against achievements followed by charity donations for the next few months and conduct subsequent reviews.
Thanks for taking the time to read or click any of it 🙂 feel free to reach out and ask any questions…
Humen provide anonymous and non-clinical safe spaces for men to talk, listen and connect on a regular basis across the UK. The HUMEN Space is preventative, practical and plain speaking. No lingo or prescriptive advice. Free one hour sessions where men get together to talk honestly in a confidential space without risk of judgment or ridicule. The right to talk should never be a privilege. Every Monday 6:30 PM (GMT) for any man across the UK.
Their operations have had to adapt since COVID restrictions but this has facilitated their local meetings going online and thereby becoming international.
They meet every Monday at 6:30 PM – you can register via the following link:
It was at base camp that I really gave consideration to the viability of 40s 4 40 and what sort of activities might be included – I decided better to explore my limits than be subject to a series of restrictive resolutions…
For the purposes of this retrospective blog, I am going to post my favourite of the many pictures and videos I took in an order that tells a pictorial story of my journey.
Hopefully the captions will allow the pictures to speak for themselves but if anyone has any questions, just ask!
Proper Preparation and Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance / A Man With Too Much StuffHappening!My first brush with AconcaguaIncredible to fly below the mountain you’re travelling to climb…Permit Office, MendosaGear rental, MendosaAll my baggage was delayed – MendosaReunited at last!Camp 1 – Penitentes Entrance to the park after securing permitMy permit and the bags I was issued – one for rubbish, the other for human waste (so it doesn’t remain on the mountain)
Confluencia, 3,380 metres (11,090 ft): A camp site a few hours into the national park.
New Year’s Eve 2020
Plaza de Mulas, 4,370 metres (14,340 ft): Base camp – climbers are screened by a medical team to check if they are fit enough to continue the climb.Camp Canadá, 5,050 metres (16,570 ft): A large ledge overlooking Plaza de Mulas.Nido de Cóndores, 5,570 metres (18,270 ft): A large plateau with beautiful views.
Landscapes
Summit Attempt Night Weather Report (80kmph winds and -34c!)
Summit elevation of 6,961 metres (22,838 ft).
My permit with official stamps to prove I summited and returned both bags (full)
Celebration!First bath in weeks proved transformative!
Due to an exchange rate error I missed £1.19 off my seventeenth donation so I have added it to this eighteenth donation, making the total (£40 + £1.19) £41.19. At today’s spot rate on XE.com that equates to 21.236 Bahraini Dinars.
Bahrain has a electronic cash-replacement payment system in place called Benefitpay that seems to work almost everywhere and in any situation!
Thanks to God I have a great friend who made this transaction possible and very memorable. Shukran Habibi.
The Tree of Life Social Charity Society was founded in the Kingdom of Bahrain in 2012 and offers its services to all segments of the Bahraini community with no discrimination to race, religion, colour, gender or social class.
Their services focus on social welfare, support for orphans, aid for deprived families and health care.
Bahrain and the Bahrainis have always been very good to me and this is a small token of my appreciation for their gracious hospitality.
Now I have to hold my hand up and admit that I assumed the exchange rate before I actually checked the spot rate online and I’m afraid I was one pound and nineteen pence short of £40 so I will make this up in a future donation – oops, sorry!
Some people felt hard done to when their Birthdays fell during the first lock down but it soon became apparent that nearly all of use would experience a ‘lock down Birthday’ as this terrible pandemic developed.
I had made arrangements to summit Puncak Jaya with a friend for my Birthday but Indonesia closed its borders and I found myself unable to travel internationally.
Nonetheless, I was lucky to be able to celebrate over the course of a week by travelling to the coast to freedive and driving off-road into the desert to camp overnight. I even got a cake to mark the occasion and am very grateful 🙂
I feel so lucky to have the amazing friends that I do, they made my time so special and memorable.
The alternative Birthday allowed me to spend a lot of time reflecting, catching up with friends old and new on small memories and life events and of course speaking to my Family to let them know how much I love and missed being with them.
It was great to still be able go through old pictures that my Mum had kept – thanks to God for modern methods of communication!
Pictures of me when I was much younger than I am today…
Masha’Allah
Zakaria Diving Instructor Freedive Master Instructor & scuba كبير مدربين غوص حر و سكوبا 00966503645482📱 Instagram:@zak_dive
For all the running I have done in my life, I hadn’t ever run 40 kilometres in one go. My original intention was to achieve a 40 kilometre run by completing the Manchester Marathon but it was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I still intend to take part this October but whilst in the UK recently a friend suggested I take part in the Anglezarke Amble, a 24 mile / 38.4 kilometre route over the Pennines. You can read more about it on the following link:
The Anglezarke Amble usually takes place on Valentine’s Day February 14th from Anglezarke to Entwistle reservoir and back in a loop. Unfortunately, the 2021 example of this event has also been cancelled due to the pandemic and I wasn’t going to be around for that long so instead it provided the inspiration and foundation for a 40 kilometre trail / fell run that would also take in the remote crash site where Herbert Noga crashed his RAF Mustang just after the end of World War Two.
With over 1,000 metres of elevation gain and the temperature below zero throughout this was going to be a memorable run!
The route map was as follows:
I planned the route out on Garmin connect in advance and then uploaded it to my Garmin 245. I know most of these roads and trails but haven’t ever tied them together into one run. The Garmin navigation system was brilliant, enabling me to stay on track and if I drifted off, it was easy to use to guide myself back. Really impressed with that and given the conditions it was practically essential!
I also took my new GoPro Hero 9 Black out for a thorough test and it’s a massive step up from my previous Hero 4 Black. Super smooth, easy to operate and the battery life seemed to be much longer, certainly in below zero temperature conditions.
I made a video summary of the whole run:
I predicted completing the 40km in 6 hours and the Garmin data tells me I passed that point in 6 hours and 9 minutes – not a bad estimate given the conditions. However, due to human error and distraction I had completed 41.3km at the finish point so decided I should simply carry on to 42.6km to complete a marathon – another first for me!
Other notable Garmin data is as follows:
Some nice pictures:
Rivington PikeThe Wader at Entwistle ReservoirThe crash site of Herbert Noga – may he rest in peaceHeapey Waterman’s Cottage on Anglezarke Reservoir
In the video I refer to a ‘Tragedy on the Moor’ and that I would read about it. This is a good link to what is a truly sad story, may those lads also rest in peace:
The fourteenth of my 40 donations went to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration via Nancy’s Girls and their Hot Shot Challenge.
This fundraising team was founded by the daughters of Nancy Hessey, who has been sadly missed since passing two years ago due to Frontotemporal Degeneration.
The Girl’s were raising money and awareness so other families can get more of the help they were so grateful to have had themselves.
I’ve been neglecting this blog. There are many excuses but only one solution – to reintroduce balance back into my life. The last half of 2020 was difficult for everyone and in my case, the increasing work demands with associated laptop ultra-marathons became all-consuming. Like a lot of people, I wasn’t able to take a break all year but finally been able to spend some time with my Family over the Christmas and New Year holiday period allowed me to decompress and reassess.
My fingers and back have become extremely sore for a while now (I will write about this in a future blog now I know a little more about it) and it has prevented me from wanting to spend more hours on a laptop once I have logged off from working. The neglect of this blog is frankly an electronic symptom of how my personal life has become overshadowed by and secondary to work.
I’d like to apologise to anyone who feels they have been on the wrong side of Craig’s see-saw.
I have been keeping up with the challenges as best as possible and my achievements and experiences will for the subject of imminent 40s440 blogs as I catch back up.
I’ve been trying to follow something of a process with social media. For example, I might post a single 1×1 picture update on Instagram and this would be followed by a similar but often more detailed post with widescreen pictures on Facebook. However, following up on both of these with a much more detailed blog is where I have allowed neglect to creep in. It has helped me to appreciate the effort that some bloggers must put in.
Ordinarily, I’d berate myself and sign off with ‘must try harder’ or suchlike but at age 40, I have managed to find some of my limits and should resect them.
I didn’t set any New Year’s resolutions for 2020, instead I began the 40s440 challenges. This year I resolve to complete the challenges and address imbalance.
