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…
I previously referred to the 40s 4 40 challenges as ‘stretch targets’ and to appreciate why, I have attempted to record my current performance in this post. This will help me to understand how big a task I’ve got ahead of me. I’ve listed some of the challenges below with various reference points; my plan to completion will be the subject of a future post…
40 Press ups / push ups in a minute: the easiest thing to do is watch the video; I reckon I’ve already nailed it and with a bit of work I’ll have this one sorted by the end of 2020…
In early 2022 Thounaojam Niranjoy Singh from Manipur broke the Guinness Book of World Records for most push-ups (finger tips) in one minute. Niranjoy, who is a two-time Guinness World Record holder, broke the old record of 105 push-ups by achieving 109 push-ups in one minute during a Guinness Book of World Records attempt organised by Aztecs Sports Manipur at Aztecs fight studio in Imphal.
The previous record holder in most push-ups (finger tips) in one minute is Graham Maly from the United Kingdom who set the record in 2009. These incredible records really put my achievement into perspective!
Run 10k in 40 minutes: My Personal Best (PB) for 10 kilometres is 45 minutes 11 seconds and currently I feel comfortable running at 5 minutes per kilometre so really I’m probably running 50 minute 10ks. I therefore need to improve by between 12% and 20%. Not insignificant.
Ironman 70.3 in 4 hours and 40 minutes: My PB is 5 hours 7 minutes, split as follows:
Bahrain
To achieve a 4:40 means I need to take just under half an hour off my best ever time and I’ll be looking to the run to achieve most of that…
Marathon in under 4 hours and 40 minutes: No baseline as despite all the running I have done in my life, I have not yet run a marathon – hence the challenge! My PB for a half is 1:43.
Free dive to 40 meters: I am AIDA Level 2 qualified (20m depth in constant weight class) but I once touched 22.4 meters, according to my dive watch. 40m is practically double my current depth and so quite a challenge. As a sub-category of this, I will attempt a 3 minutes 40 seconds breath-hold (my current personal best is 3 minutes 20 seconds). This is a mere 10% improvement and ideally I’d like to get over 4 minutes.
40,000 feet of climbing: The highest I’ve ever climbed is the summit of Aconcagua at 22,837 feet (6,962 meters) in January 2020 and until now, I’ve only ever climbed one high-altitude mountain per calendar year.
The most I’ve ever climbed in a calendar year before now is 19,341 feet (5,895 meters) when I did Kilimanjaro in 2018. In a rolling year I’ve climbed a total of 56,370 feet (EBC & Kala Patthar in 2017 plus Kilimanjaro and Elbrus in 2018).
I need to climb more than twice as high in one calendar year than I’ve ever done before but actually less than I have done before in a rolling year to reach a cumulative 40,000 feet (or more).
Climb my 4th of the World’s 7 highest summits: I have climbed 3 of the World’s highest summits (Elbrus, Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua) so the next will be my 4th. This goes hand-in-hand with climbing 40,000+ feet.
Cycle 40km in an hour: I completed a 25 mile time trial in October 2019 and was I’m 8 minutes over 1 hour so I need to improve by 12%.
Drink a ’40’: I’ve seen them on American films but I’m yet to see one in the flesh and of course, drink it!
Giving £40 to 40 charities: I think is better described as a privilege than a challenge….
