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Recently my cousin’s husband had a serious scare when, whilst out with his son, he collapsed and had an SAH caused by an aneurysm and spontaneous MCA - if you aren’t sure what that is read up sometime. Anyway after being put into, then coming out of, a medically induced coma, and coming home again after 2 weeks in intensive care, it made me, and plenty of others I’m sure, realise that he’s a real life super hero.

Matt is an endurance athlete, lives life to the fullest and competes in some serious events like Iron Man that genuinely terrify me - he covers distances on foot, in the saddle and in the water that I don’t like doing in a car. I’d occasionally tease him about being Tony Stark as this is the only Iron Man I could think of.

If it wasn’t for his supreme fitness then perhaps I’d be raising money for some other reason as he likely wouldn’t be here. The thing is that he won’t even want to acknowledge he’s done anything special or want a fuss to be made. 

Anyway, when it happened it scared us all. Initially I wanted to do some sort of triathlon type event to raise awareness and some money - how and where was going to be a problem though. That combined with my aging and unfit body finding training really hard turned me off the idea. While I was feeling sorry for myself with an ice pack on my knee I realised that for me to really do something for him I really needed to do it for me too.

A one off, slow paced easy ‘sprint triathlon’ of 500m swim, 20k bike ride and a 5k run was a nice idea but Matt is hardcore - he’d probably say what a nice thing to do but inside think I was a pussy.

So, because I have been inspired by not only his story but also his way of life, I’ve set myself an even tougher challenge (for me anyway - he would probably beat me even now while he’s still recovering if Becky would let him).

In April I will run 100km - something I have probably never done in my life (I’m old now and can’t remember) - as I approach my 43rd birthday in May. I’ll pretty much be on one leg and definitely over weight but I’m determined to do this for the charity Headway; for my own health; and to follow Matt’s tremendous example to all of us.

I’m definitely going to struggle with this so would appreciate all the support I can get.

Thanks for being the inspiration that you are Matt Whittaker.

I’ve updated the date as on my first run on 1st April I damaged my hip and couldn’t run for a week - typical. So now it will be the month leading up to my 43rd birthday. If you were intending on giving me a present please donate to this instead x

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