What are your dreams

As Jenny Graham whizzes round the World in her record attempt, inspiring us all to look differently at life’s challenges and adventures, I thought it would be interesting to reflect a little on goals and challenges.

Throughout my life and particularly more recently, as a coach, I have met and worked with people with seemingly impossible challenges in mind.

Perhaps the first real big one was when I went to see Karen Darke in December 2009 and she told me that she was thinking of trying to get to the London Paralympics in hand cycling, an event she had only competed in twice and both times been a resounding last place finisher. She got a silver medal in London and Gold in Rio 4 years later, having gone ‘off piste’, as we call it, a few times to escape the grind of specific training and achieve other amazing adventures.

Lee Craigie and the Adventure Syndicate are another group of amazingly inspirational people and athletes. I was lucky enough to work with Lee, Emily Chappel, Jenny, Paula Regana and the Adventure Syndicate team on the first Adventure Syndicate training camp at Girona Cycling, where I met many inspiring people who have gone on to achieve amazing things. Many of whom I have been lucky enough to stay in touch with. The second camp, this year was a self supported camp, different but forming a springboard for many to reach their goals, inspire each other and form longstanding relationships…. even connecting with the campers of last year – small world? maybe!

It was at that first Girona camp that I met Jenny Graham, at that time Jenny’s goal was to ride the Arizona 750; as the name implies a 750 mile, self supported off road race in Arizona. Jenny had completed the Highland Trail 550 the previous year so it was clear that she wasn’t too far outside her comfort zone with her goal. In fact, snakes seemed to be her biggest conceptual challenge.

I started working with Jenny shortly after the camp and it has been an amazing journey since then as I got to know such a wonderful person. Even having got to know Jenny I was somewhat surprised when she told me she wanted to break the record for cycling round the world – clearly something a bit outside her comfort zone in so many ways but why not? Jenny told me her plan during one of our regular Skype chats and we discussed a bit of the detail and figured out how it might work. Over the following months we worked out more plans, training sessions, routes, logistics and now she is more than half way round the world.

Karen’s and Jenny’s stories are quite extreme and of course required a lot of hard work and some sacrifice but have also brought great rewards. However they are examples of people who took on seemingly impossible goals.

My philosophy is always, why not try? If you aim for something and don’t achieve, you will have had an amazing journey. You will probably be a lot fitter, have some new friends, seen new places and have learned lots of things. In most cases you will also have done something you would never have done if you didn’t try. But let’s not dwell on what might not work, let’s think about what it will be like when you succeed in your dream.

So what are your dreams? Don’t hold back – amazing things are possible – why not give it a go?

Good luck and please get in touch, comment on the blog, start or join a discussion on our Facebook Group or message me directly if you have a personal question.

This week I am off to Battle Mountain in Nevada, where I am hoping to help Karen Darke break the land speed record for a hand cycle – exciting times!