Why not just sit in a bath of custard or shave my hair off?

People do all sorts of things to raise money for charity. I’ve heard of one guy who cycled up Mont Ventoux, a Tour de France stage, on a Raleigh Chopper. You can see it on YouTube and it’s pretty impressive to watch, especially when he’s overtaking hardore lycra clad cyclists on normal road bikes! The son of my mate is going the full Monty by cycling from Cambridge to Hong Kong to raise money for Prostate Cancer UK (google Journey to the East).

So what possessed me to do a long distance walk instead of sitting in a bath of custard whilst having my head shaved? To a degree I’m being self-indulgent. I enjoy walking and when I”m outside I’m generally happy. But it had to be a walk that was going to push me and take me well outside my comfort zone. And whilst it’s nothing like cycling to Hong Kong whilst pouring buckets of cold water on your head I still wanted to do something difficult enough to perhaps capture the attention of people. Once I’d decided that it had to be a ‘test’ for me then the next thing was walk from where to where? Well, what could be more natural than walking home – back to the town where I spent my formative years, the town where my mum still lives and the town where my dad is buried. It made perfect sense.

So why A Walk to Remember? Sometimes when you’re trying to come up with something catchy you sit there for hours with smoke coming out of your ears and nothing to show for it. Calling my journey A Walk to Remember just came to me out of the blue without any effort and it makes such sense. I’m walking to remember my dad but perhaps more importantly is the idea of memory and the loss of memory which is one of the worst bits of Alzheimer’s.

So now you know. The scary bit is this though. My first effort to raise money for The Alzheimer’s Society was a half-marathon. The second will be a 400(ish) mile walk. Which makes me wonder, if I do succeed in this walk (and I will, believe me) then would I want to do something else afterwards? If I did would be it be rowing around the world with one hand tied behind my back whilst sat in a bath of custard having my head shaved?