In the airport it was overnight with the weight of sort of almost first light when we moved out into Basra and I think it was P.W.R. on the initial horn and our role there was to clean up the site so we were the sort of the first people on the site if you want to call it. And it was a mixture of clearing up the bodies, five bodies and the actual helicopter itself, you know, so there was nothing left on there. And, you know, getting quite up close and personal with picking up body parts and trying to work out which body it belongs to, I suppose, is, you know, we were right in the thick of it, I could meet in my nads, you know, I remember just staring at him as he tried to lift the pilot out and when he pulled out half a body, for example, and it was just a mess. I mean, as you can imagine, it was just a mess. Mate, from what I can see, you've been hitting it quite hard. You could say that, I suppose. Hi mate, I've got this idea for a challenge. Ten triathlons, ten days in ten different locations around the UK. Today's suggestion, recovery. Hello, brother. Yeah, not too bad, buddy, thank you. So, first off, I guess we should say thank you to Claire, Claire Vosper for putting us in touch. Hello, Claire. For people who are watching, that's Claire from V-Force, who we're going to go and do some driving with at some point this year. And, mate, from what I can see, you've been hitting it quite hard. You could say that, I suppose. It's been pretty full on in a pandemic, I suppose, of all of the things, you know, and just basically out there trying to make a difference and raise as much money as possible in those sort of difficult circumstances, you know. Yeah, I mean, I had a quick look at your social media and it's... Gosh, you've been pushing yourself through the pain barrier a bit. Shall we go back to the beginning? How did all this start? I suppose in a nutshell, I was in the military in the army for 15 years as a soldier and officer. I commissioned from the ranks. And then unfortunately, I was discharged in 2008, 17, sorry, with a dodgy shoulder, which has now been a partial replacement and mainly PTSD. From an incident in Iraq in 2006 when a Lynx helicopter was shot down. I mean, that didn't bother me at the time, but it was in 2015 that I was in Battis as a metric commander and it's one of the soldiers on the permanent staff right there falling into a fire and we deal with it. And what the trigger point was, in essence, was the burning flesh of that individual reminding me. And I just started to be a different person, you know, not your typical army officer, moral compass. I was being a bit of a tit, really, to be honest. And, you know, biting, angry, that type of thing. And it got sort of bad at a point where it's affected my family. So I've got a wife and two young daughters and something needed to change me. And in 2018, I was at a point of, okay, I've got to carry on this route and going and which I don't want to do. So I'll end my life or I change it and let you overnight. I changed the whole way if I operate and I get up early super early, zero, three, 30, zero, four, 30 and train and really hit it hard. And only this year, sorry, this year, 2020, the start of was like, okay, what can I do? I need objectives. I need goals. I need routine to get me into some sort of training of why and what's the need for me to train. And I started to look at these ultra, ultra events and, you know, my background sprinting and rugby seven so short, sharp faces stuff. And I was just, I was a physical training instructor in the military. So I always had that baseline fit if you want to call it. And I believe the rest is mindset. And as you know, it's once you get to that pain bar, it's just pushing through. And I'm just trying to test how far that will go. Yeah, I can see that. And so what regiment are we talking does? I was role engineers as a soldier. And then I commissioned into the med core. And yeah, that's it really. I did a couple of, you know, courses within, had had the batch of selection on 40, 2015 on it. My mum passed away. And that was for SFC. And, and yeah, so just then I think I wasn't really everything was sort of, I shouldn't have been on the course. It was one of those, you know, and physically I was there mentally not. And then with my mum passing, it was it topped it, you know. Yeah. And that's when everything started to downhill really, to be honest with it. And yeah, led to medical discharge. What year was Iraq because that's kind of, that's increasingly becoming like history now, isn't it Iraq? It is. Yeah. I mean, so that, that, that deployment was 2006. Telegate. And I don't know if you remember on the news, it was the whole the helicopter shot down links, helicopter. And it was, I think the first female killed in the Iraq war was, that's why it was so big. It was five, five people in that when the link to shot down over Basra. And there's, I think the same incident, obviously, as you can imagine that tracks a lot of SIPPOP and, and the riots, et cetera went with it. And nowhere then obviously infantry ground on the ground controlling that. And I think remember this famous scene of one of the guys on fire coming at the back of the top of the warrior. And that, that was that sort of that all the, basically the outcome that the fallout from the helicopter going down. So, and yeah, I've actually met him as well. We helped for heroes. I can't remember his name, Joey or something rings a bell, but yeah, nice lad. Yeah. Wasn't that to do with, there were a couple of incidents where the SCS were captured. The one with the guy burning on the tank, wasn't it where they drove it for, or am I, I'm probably getting my memories probably confused in two incidents. Potentially. Yeah. The SS one doesn't ring a bell with me.  I was a young sapper just being told what to do. You know, I was, yeah, didn't even know I was there.  Did you have to deal with it? Or was it just, was it a traumatic thing for everybody at the time? So our connection was we just saw my being role engineers, you know, having access to cutting tools, et cetera, and then just the general sort of movement, big cranes, et cetera. We initially tried to lift it with the crane. We couldn't, my role out there was force protection or escort multiple. So we would escort everyone from every sort of cat badge and other coalition forces around the country. And so we had quite a, quite a good sort of layer of the grind. So we'd been everywhere. And we, there's 12 of us as an escort multiple. We came back into Basra and tribal office. And then we got crashed back out then there to the A pod. We knew something that happened. We didn't really know what was going on. And in the A pod, it was overnight with the weight, the sort of almost first light, we removed that into Basra. I think it was PWR on the initial form. And our, our role there was to clean up the site. So we were the sort of the first people on the site, if you want to call it. And, and it was a mixture of clearing up the bodies, five bodies and the actual helicopter itself, you know, so there was nothing left on there. And, and, you know, getting quite up close and personal with picking up body parts and trying to work out which body it belongs to, I suppose is no, we were right, right in the thick of it. A good meeting of mine ads, you know, I remember just staring at him as he tried to lift the pilot out and only pull out half a body, for example. And it was just a mess. I mean, as you can imagine, it was just in a mess.  I felt grand. And it was this, we were on exercise now in Battis in Canada. And then you get quite a lot of fires out there. And, and one of the permanent staff who were trained to beat the fires out to stop them from spreading because they spread quite fast out there. I'm not, I'm not aware if you've been to Canada about this or not, but, and the ignited and then she'd fallen into it. And then she then got sent to us and it was actually about seven people injured of smaller burns, but she was face, arms, no dripping flesh offer. And it was my responsibility. You almost died. Her family got flown out from the UK to sort of say, goodbyes really. But luckily, thankfully it didn't. And I sort of took it a bit personally at that point, you know, you're not in the wartime environment. You're training exercise. And so it's a bit different. And then having to look after my team that took it a bit personally as well. But it was the smell.  I'll deal with everything and radio, except for this evening. And just, just chill out and sort of regenerate yourselves. And I remember sitting it inside the, the 12, the 12, 10 and the smell of this different flesh was the trigger point. But yeah, just didn't think anything of it. And then sort of came back and that's what sort of psychologist now I've sort of linked it to, you know, it was only a few times. Did you find yourself sort of resenting the military or the army? At the time. No, not at all, Chris. I think what I find myself now is resenting the discharge process. Some people go through a good one. Others don't. And you tend to find, and I've heard this across the board. I don't know any truth of it. I'm just going off here. Say of as an officer, you sort of like a slip through the net. know, you're expected to sort of have it, you're filled with it yourself, I think, in essence. So yeah, and that's it, you know, and of where you're discharged on the right tier level, etc. Should you be being discharged, so on and so forth, you know, I was only, that's three years, I was 32, you know, I still thought, and I joined as a sapper, and I was a captain at a time and looking to pick up major, so I still think I would have had a good career left in me. And especially if I'd sort of got myself in good neck and went back down the sort of SF route, which was my aspirations from a young sapper. Yeah, got you. Okay. And so when you arrived in Civvie Street, what was your state of mind then and what were your actions? A bit of both, I tried to embrace it, I suppose to start with, to try and excite myself about it. And during my last seven months of service, my OC was quite generous and he just let me crack on and sort of trying to villainise myself when I call it free work experience, so I went and worked in APMG in the city in Canary Wharf. And I'm known to me at the time, you know, it was just, it was probably the worst thing I could have done of being in busy, busy train lines getting in and into London, and my PTSD was getting worse and worse. And I thought I didn't know what was wrong with me. This was 2017 again. And and then I sort of like carried that on going for like five months, it was supposed to be a six month sort of military intern scheme, they call it, to go in and I just couldn't do it. So what I left and went into scan scan to construction, which seemed to be a bit more military of the banter, except me and managing, I on site know the odd that type of stuff and but it's, it's not, it's not me, you know, I'm still sort of scratching my head and looking every day. And I've been very successful in the role, you know, roles that I've been doing, I had a couple of promotions with the items, and quite a sort of senior role now, but just doesn't, doesn't take that box from me, doesn't get me out of bed in the morning. And so, and then I think that's where this endurance and charity feedback and pushing myself is where it's really at, you know, when there's a documentary coming out on Sunday of the one of the bigger events last year. And this is where I really want to start going. I've now got myself an agent and I'm really pushing it into spreading the awareness of, you know, why was at this point of wanting to take my life to turn it all around overnight. And I know that can be different for everyone, but you've, you've got to find that in here that makes you want to do that. And for me, it was my kids. And, you know, I grew up without a father until I was, I was adopted at 11 by my dad. And so I didn't want them to have, didn't not have that, you know, in the life of it's very important. So it was all around what, what makes me tick and my kids made me tick and I've got to do it for them and I want them to be proud of me. And that's why you're often doing and pushing the boundary as far as it'll go, you know, in the whole mind and everything else will, will do that. And on doing so, you know, getting the coverage, like on podcasts, like this, for example, is, is about there, there is another way than, than suicide, you know, there is something else that can be done. You just got to work out what that is for you. And everybody's going to be different. And I always refer back to if, if you take two people at 90 kilograms, six foot tall, whatever, put them on the exact same fitness and diet routine, you're going to get two completely different outcomes. So you've got to find out which works for, for you. That's a good analogy, yes. It's hard when you're younger as well, because society indoctrinates us with so many like rules or aspirations and, and I think it must be hard, especially coming out the forces as well, because it's so regimented. It, it's hard to either cast that aside, or just retune it into like being your own person and doing what you want to do and, and making, you know, like I literally have made all my own rules up, just yeah, it's why I'm always content because I made a rule will don't not be content. Sorry, but the guest. Yeah. Is that your, is that your trainer? She wants you to go and do a few laps or so. My wife probably sent the kids. But yeah, I think it, because I do think about this a lot and I do wonder if a lot of people have taken their lives and I know there's a myriad of reasons and factors, we all know that, but I do think if one of them is like, when you ascribe to someone else's rules, you're going to be pissed off because they're not usually in your, your, your favorite dance, do you know what I mean? 100% and it's not a one size fits all solution.  How, how, how do we, how do we fix that? You know, is, is, is one of the questions I always ask myself, what, what can we do and more as a, as a sort of, you know, group of ex-military people as veterans and understanding it more, you know, and what is there something that can be done at that level to push up to government or does the government need to do more? There's so many Maradi said of reasons that there's never one, one solution fits all. I just know what works for me. And if someone else, if that worked for someone else, then that's brilliant, you know. Yeah, we're in the real early days of understanding trauma, not, and that's not just military, you know, related trauma as well. Because it's not, it's not just what you experience whilst you're in the military, it's a, it's a byproduct of your, your whole life, isn't it? Absolutely. And, you know, they, they reckon up and that neither sort of the 2020 onwards, we're going to feel, get more PTSD trauma from, from the Afghan war. And then probably, you could probably predict the 2030, we're going to get NHS trauma from, from COVID, you know, and PTSD similarities. Yeah. And of course, these are just, these are just the catalyst, they're not the drivers. You know. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I do think I am a, I'm a big believer in, you know, healthy body, healthy mind. I do believe that if more people trained, or I'm not just, I'm not saying thrash yourself to the level that some people do, but just getting out and walking around, etc. I've just done today, actually tried to implement something for this next lockdown within my busy, in work where I work in a day-to-day at Skanska about, you know, making sure you structure your day and daily routine, you know, and don't underestimate those, the basics, doing the basics well and getting out and walking at your lunch, etc. Grabbing yourself away from the computer. And so I, I'm a massive believer in, in that. And I feel when, when I've done one of these events and have been injured during it or whatever, and can't do what I want to do, it plays with my head.  Yeah, there is a danger there, isn't there? If you put all your eggs into fizz, by fizz for our friends at home, I mean sport or exercise. Yeah. When it gets taken away from you, which invariably it will because we all get old. Yeah. You need to have a bit of butt, you know, develop other philosophies to balance out that, that, that, that loss. Yeah, absolutely. You're right.  If it works, it's, yeah, it's better than, it's better than falling into a deep depression, isn't it? A hundred percent, you know, and I've not, I'm not really experienced that addiction to any sort of thing, drugs, alcohol, myself. And, but, but I've, I've, I've experienced it personally with that's the reason why my mum isn't here anymore, you know, and so, and, and she never recognized that she had a problem. That's why she couldn't fix it, you know, and I've actually developed a little model that's good. It's in my books, I'm writing my books, hopefully going to go out around Easterish time. And, and it's in there about a roar model. So you've got a roar, you know, like, like, sometimes a bit cheesy, but roar like a lion and then they'll have that pride about yourself. And you've, the first hour is you've got to recognize there's something wrong. You can't do anything without recognition. And then, and then the next, the, the, you always own it. So you've got to have ownership of what that is, whether that's a physical something or a mental something, you know, take my mum for example, alcoholism, or take somebody who's broken the leg, you've got to own in the fact you've got a broken leg or, or you're an alcoholic. And then act. So you've got to act on, on that. And it was one of the most important ones. And then the last hour is a sort of a double revisit or results. So you'll get results from it or you revisit back down the, back down the rest of the mnemonic and then move on from there. And then you might, you might recognize that something you have, you might recognize what you want it to be, but that might not be the underlying problem. If that makes sense, you've got to drop back down and then restart. Yeah massively. It reminds me of them. There's a model in social science called the cycle of change or the stages of change by a couple of social scientists called Prachaska and DiClemente. And they talk about it's basically just what you said, but, but it's used a lot in, in addiction work, but it's the basis for all change. All we don't really understand change world because we don't teach the right things in our schools, you know. But when you understand change, you realize everyone that changes for whatever reason it's all down on this model. It's all first, like you said, you've got to recognize it in the addiction field or the mental health field. That's called, well, this what you, what in the old days they called denial, you know, when someone's in denial that they've got a problem for whatever reason, but that, that's referred to as pre contemplative. So at the stage before you've even thought that I need to make changes and some people will die of, you know, some people will drink themselves to death in, in that phase without ever recognizing that they've got a problem. And yeah, yeah, that gets a bit close to home when you've been in the forces because you get some of these old boys, they, they just won't admit that it's, you know. Yeah, you're absolutely right.   You know, and we all did it together. Now, you know, we're all sort of guilty as it is such, but I saw it's so indoctrinated into you from the start, you know, how, how you bond, you go out drinking together, you know. And then as you said, but there's a lot of stiff upper lip approach, which I had. And that's why I went, got to where I did. I didn't want to admit there was something wrong.  And, and then, yeah, you've now got it. And that's why I like to talk about it and I, and sort of stand up there and I'd admit there was something wrong and, and still is and I manage it. Because hoping the fact that I can do it, others, others can. But let's talk about the, the endurance stuff then. What did you, you, so you've had your kind of epiphany or your reason to change? You said your children. Yeah. Did you then set out to take on a challenge or did it come along accidentally or had you sort of done a few half marathons like, like many of us have done or? No, I've never done anything like that. As I said, my background was sprinting and you know, and rugby, and then I couldn't play rugby anymore because of my shoulder. And then, but I was still into sprinting, you know, I went to the Warrior Games, which is where the Invictus Games originated from, so the American version and still sprinting there and setting a couple of raccords and enjoying the high and gold medals there. And it, but I've been sprinting as a kid from a kid. And I thought to myself, you know, I need to push this further and further. And then, and then I just Googled one night with the most, the most extreme event in the world and I'll pop the Monty and Yukon Arctic Ultra and signed up for it there. And then Lion and Bear and then that, that was this time last year. And just, I just got hooked on this, on this multi-endurance overnight jobs, you know, sleep deprivation. And I just got really hooked on it. And because I found it when I'm out on my own for hours and hours and hours on end that I had, that's, that's what I'm thinking, but I'm generally thinking not about how much pain I'm in or what I'm thinking about what's next, you know, so I'm always having that constant what's next to keep me thinking. Yeah, I was, so I'm just typing something into my computer here, mate, because I, I, I came across this ultra that you mentioned. I saw something about it on LinkedIn. Who's the chap that organizes it? A guy called Robert Paul Hammer. It's a different name, different name to the one I'm thinking. It might, it might be that there's different races, but. Oh, there's the 6633, which is very similar, which is the Longitude Line. Yeah, I just saw one where people were up, up somewhere in the Arctic Circle, and they were running for days and. Yeah, and that's it, you know, and it's basically that pulling a pulp, self-sufficient, hit your checkpoint, go. Do you have to camp on it? It's. Yeah, yeah. So, so the, the, you con artist, you've got a couple of, a couple of fields in it, so you can go out there and do your marathon. So the first checkpoints are marathon distance. You tend to get mainly locals doing it. And this year, Jordan Wiley came out with me and he did the marathon there as part of his 10 cold, this are marathons. And then the next one would be 100 miles, then there's a 300 mile, there's a 430 mile or so. Yeah, there's, so you've got to, as, as it says, pull your pulp, so everything in it, your tent.  Are you on skis or are you? No, on foot. So, yeah, you're on foot. And yeah, it's just, sometimes you come across some of the, the water flows that's come up. And the first part's on, on the Yukon River that's all frozen. And it's, yeah, so it's quite an interesting race. I mean, we dropped to, I think it was minus 40 year or minus 50. So you generally do drop like the minus 50 level. Blimey. Yeah. My gosh. The famous, you know, the Yukon dog race, it's, it's not in reverse. Some of it, a 430 mile, that is the long one. So yeah, it's a quite an interesting race. And on two, two years ago, would be three years this year, there was an Italian ultra guy on it. And he, he ended up losing amputation of both hands, both feet through hypothermia or sort of frostbite on hypothermia. And, and from there, they've been quite rigid. When you get to a checkpoint, you get frostbite text, hypothermia text, et cetera, and any sort of discoloration, like even your finger discoloration, you get pulled from the race. So it's all about your personal admin as well. And I got to the 100 mark and, which was checkpoint two. And I was actually sat in second in the race and everyone was like, who's this guy? You know, I've not come from an ultra, but I find it good. I was in good, good stead. And the only problem I had was in the November prior to coming out in the January, I had this huge scar across my back with these, I've done about seven ops on this shoulder. And they did a nerve graft. And I completely lost feeling in my, in my left arm, completely gone. And it was actually a navy medic guy, a guy who actually pulled me from the event because I was deemed unsafe to set up my, my bivvy, which he was right. I couldn't, I couldn't even unclip my pulp. Yeah. But I mean, I had full intentions to go back this night, but obviously with COVID, that's been Kai Boston, Prusa next year. So I'll go back next year and be a bit more prepared. I, there's no, I wouldn't change my routine. I wouldn't change anything. I would literally just change the fact that not going on eight weeks after a major surgery. So yeah, but yeah, it's an amazing place. You know, it's amazing people. You meet amazing people. I'm in friends with people that I met on it, you know, and it's loved it. I had the best time of my life. Yeah, I bet. What, what's the overall distance? Did you say it's around 400? So you can do the marathon 100, 300 or 430. So the 430 mile is every, every two years. So you don't clash with the dog runs on that. So I was in because the last year 430 wasn't available. I went in for the 300. So it takes, I think around five, six days. And again, it's just personal admin. So the first night, I think like 60% of the field dropped out. So you come off, off the river, the Yukon River, and you've got one of the places called Overland Trail. And there's a couple of reasons. A lot of people that know you're just getting dark. People set up a baby, you know, and then at this point, and it's your last sort of safe moment to, to get out. If you're having trouble, there's a big massive like camper van there, huge out there. And we'll take you back to the, as in a freebie, Kazevac, if you want to call it. Whereas if you go past that, then you've started got to pay your mine was a snowmobile. So I got charged for a Kazevac or helicopter. And, and that point there, I think it was minus 43 that first night. And my, my theory was everyone stopped then. And you know yourself, when you get into your dust bag at that cold, you don't want to get back out at all. You know, it's like, it's some proper morale dampener. And so I thought I'll just push on through. And that's exactly what it is. And I got to the next checkpoint around half seven, eight o'clock in the morning. So some coming up. And that's where I plan to do about four, five hours rest. No, the sun hitting the side of the tent warming up from the inside, you know, having that sort of theory. And then, and it was, yeah, and that's when I couldn't cut it up. That's when they were like, okay, you know, let's come and have a chat. I'm just trying to get an idea of the mileage here, Dan. So it sounds like you're doing about 50 miles a day. Yeah, you can. So my, my plan was to go straight to the 100. So I got 100k and there was 100 miles. It was just over 100k. I got to 100 miles was a third checkpoint. And that's where I got to my plan was to get straight to there in about 3640 hours. That was my plan. But yeah, so some people would break it down. If you break it down to sort of anywhere between, I think you've got to maintain around the 40 miles a day, because there's certain checkpoints you've got to get to, like checkpoint three and checkpoint five by a certain time, or you get pulled, you know, that's, you've got to get there. Otherwise, you should be out for days. You know, you could just do it leisurely 20 miles a day and just crack on. But so you've got to manage it. That's what I like about it. It's how you want to run the risk. It's, yeah, gleaming, but I'm 100% gone back. And the Yukon, the territory, you know, amazing. And I hallucinated in everything. It was fantastic. I thought I'd seen a manatee. I was having a conversation in the middle of the Arctic world, the Yukon Arctic, with a manatee. It turned out to be a log, but hey, oh. So that's some distance to cover. If you say you're pulling a poke as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, my pulp weighed about, I think it was about 18, 20 kilograms. But the pulp for me wasn't much. I trained with the Bergenon and Breckin Beacons, and I ran 70 miles around the Isle of Wight, around the looks of the Isle of Wight with the Bergenon. So my training, I was the whole philosophy of training hard, fight easy, you know, and trained with the same weight as I would have in a pulp on my back and up over Breckin. So for me, I didn't find much, anything really different of it. What I thought, what I would change, I say I wouldn't change much, what I've changed next time, from my, from my harness to my pulp guide ropes. So when it was up and down in parts like this, the pulp was whacking me in the back of the calves and all sorts and really, really just pissing me off, nobody would be coming in. Unless it was a big hill where I just sat in my pulp and went down it. So, yeah, so yeah, for that for me, and they said the first 40K of that was really, really challenging. They were actually, up until the race started right up between like an hour or two before, they didn't know where they were going to actually start the race from the marathon, which was the first checkpoint, because the conditions were that bad and basically walking in deeper snow and a bit of the water coming up through and stuff. It was a bit dangerous. And they said, you know, this is the hardest it's been in years on this first bit. And I got past that bit feeling fine, you know, and I thought, well, if that's all it's going to be, then I'll just keep going. Yeah. But it's, it's, I think the, the record for the 300 manors is about five and a bit days. Proper, proper going some. Yeah, well, it, yeah, it is. I mean, so it won't, this won't meet my, my thinking probably won't mean a lot to people at home in the middle of a podcast. It's just, my mind works the way, you know, that I know running and, and that I know endurance stuff and I'm not particularly good at it, but, but that's that's why I know it. I know how hard it is. Yeah. I mean, that's doing like 60 miles a day or something, isn't it? I was, I was, my, my plan that no plan survives contact globally was 50 to 55 miles a day in that sort of traveling around that sort of two miles. So at some point we were doing, well, I was doing, I met up with a Canadian guy, a long part, you know, a guy called Chad and we, we're good, good banter because he was, he was going to stop at this overland trail and I says, me, I'm going, if you want to go. And he came with me and then, yeah, I mean, we were down to like two and a half Ks an hour at some point. So I was working on mileage and he was working on case and since then I've worked on case because it's such a morale burst for me for when you're not going off the case rather than the miles. And that's all I'm doing it for. So I know working case. What sort of rations did you have? Did you have, have dried rations? Yeah. So I used, thankfully I was sponsored tonight with, with Pitt and I used firepot food. So it's, it's Van Gogh, the company Van Gogh that sort of over actually known them and I saw on the Van Gogh website, I wrote a blog on the firepot food about how good it was.  And but what was amazing with it, once you stopped melted your snow and poured it into any debate, you had to wait 15 minutes, a bit like a pot noodle. And I just whacked it down my jacket for heat. And so it was quite good.  And not at all. It's the opposite because you're working hard, you know, you've got to stop yourself from sweating. And was the main thing because soon as you stop, you instantly feel the cold.  Or can you can you just get the water from the rivers? No, so there's no there's no rivers. And it's completely frozen over there. And not really. I mean, because you use like an MSR cook thing where it's basically a blue flame, no heat on your pot. And there it takes a second, you literally just dump the snow in. And it's the snow is melting in your hand. It's that really, really fine, fresh snow. And no, it was pretty, pretty, pretty quick, actually. Yeah, you wouldn't want to get dehydrated. No, no, that's it. And it's about putting the right foods in at the right time and constantly trying to I use the camelback. Everyone told me not to use a camelback for water. And so I put warm water in at the checkpoints. I put quite warm water in. And that was enough to get me to near the next next checkpoint where then I used in a flask of like a hot chocolate type of stuff, you know, and everyone said don't use the camelback because, you know, the tubal freeze and so on and so forth. But I put my base layer on and then I put the camelback on. So it was staying warm in my body heat. And then every and when I took a drink, again, it's the admin of blowing back into this. There's no water in the tube. And so yeah, it's quite, quite good. Yeah, you can't always listen to what everyone else says. Can you? No, no, exactly. I was in, I was waiting for a chopper in Norway once and again, you do all this like you're saying you do all this training and everyone's telling you right, you would just use flasks, you know, I don't know why in the arts that you drink tea and coffee other than the fact obviously it's nice to have a cuppa in that kind of conditions. But it's the most dehydrating drink you can next to alcohol. It's the most dehydrating drink you can drink. But we would make up a flask and to be honest, like, I don't know how we did it really, but one flask would last you all day, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you all ended up a bit dehydrated towards the end of the day and then you rehydrated once you're in your, you know, in your tent. But 100%. Yeah. We're waiting for this chopper and the lad next to me just reaches in his jacket, pulls out this water bowl and I'm like, what? He's like, do you want some? Yeah. I thought that would freeze. We would stop. That would freeze. He's like, no, I always do it. Yeah, absolutely. And it's that, you know, people were giving me advice before we've never even been up there, you know, and there was a type of poor conditions.  Yeah, it's the same when I scuba dived in Antarctica, one of the guys in a local dive shop here was like, right, you've got to wear this and you've got to have this thumb under and you've got to have this. So I called the guy from my wetsuit company in Sweden, had a really good dry suit. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just a thin layer underneath. I'm like, yeah, but it is the Antarctic. He says, I've just been in the Arctic, teaching the Swedish army how to dive. So believe me, just a thin layer underneath. You'll be fine. And lo and behold, yeah, you are. You're fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So was this the first project you took on when you decided, you know, things needed to change? Absolutely. And from there, it was a complete hook, you know. I've actually, I'm referring to my computer here because I've done a few this year. So prior to that there, I thought I need to train. And you know, in the military, you don't do that, among the distance, do you? You don't really do anything over sort of 50K, even in the military. So I thought about some training. The very first thing they did actually was the 4th of January last year, and it was run the perimeter of the Isle of Wight into sort of one hit. It was 113K. It was around 17 hours. And that's what I was saying. I was carrying some kit on that just to just get around there. Then I wanted to get a sort of an idea of a sleep deprivation. So I did the old army fitness test, know the 2.4K run, 50 press, that's 50 sit ups. And I did that on the R, every R for 20, 24 hours, just to get a bit of sleep deprivation. And that was 58K total. So it was quite good. And then I did the Yukon. And then coming back from the Yukon, I was a bit, so that was February was back and sort of just getting back into normality and everything. And then I wanted to do something for a VE day, which was 75 miles for 75th anniversary. So I did that on a treadmill. I ran and it was locked down to happen. So I ran 75 miles actually 76 and on a treadmill in a 12 by 12 military tents in complete darkness. And on a roadway blog on mindset and isolation on that, about how we push through. And up until my pre stuff towards end last year, that was my hardest. I was not, I don't think it was, it was physically hard or sorry, mentally hard, but the physical element of no incline decline, same terrain, you know, my feet, the swelling on my feet was horrendous and on my legs on that one. And I remember at 51 miles, it was it was brutal and my body was shut and dying completely on this.  And my body was in the proper shaking mode. That is so weird. You say that because when I did my 200 miler at Christmas, the first 100 miles of which was on the track, I was, I'll be honest, I knew it would be a bit boring, which I didn't, I didn't mind that I'm boring enough, right? So I'm used to it. But, but I didn't mind the boredom, but I genuinely figured it was going to be easy because it was a running track, right? And I figured I'd just tick off to, you know, four laps is a mile. And I just honestly, but within the first marathon, I realized something wasn't right. It wasn't something wasn't right. Like you said, I could barely go a lap sometimes without having to go for a pee. Yeah. My left ankle just started to give me problems before I'd even done a marathon, right? And I've done 38 marathons one after the other with, okay, I had a very bad shin splint, but as far as joints went, it wasn't a problem. And I don't know if that was because I was going left all the time. Maybe it was a, maybe I should have turned around and gone the other way. Yeah. But, but just the boredom factor, and the reason I know it was different is when the track shot on Christmas Eve, I then just went onto the road and I ran around dark Plymouth and Dartmoor. Yeah. So much easier. Yeah. Even though I've running up some of the steepest hills in probably in the country. Yeah. Because I could look around and see different scenery and have stuff distracting my senses. Well, I mean, I'm guessing it was just a lot. I think so, because when you're saying you're on a track on a treadmill and you can only think about what's happening. You know, there's nothing else is up to your imagination to keep going. And that's why I enjoyed it. You know, it pushed me in that mindset way. And yeah, I mean, it was a difficult one. I must flick you over the, the, it was in Pathfinder magazine in the military. I must flick over or find it and then send it over to you afterwards. The piece that was written up on it. But yeah. And then, and then so that was May, looking in July. So I had 203 kilometers in July. And again, so I was trying to start being creative here with lockdown and everything and over it. And so I left my house and I had 54 pound on my back. I did 84 kilometers to Fort Gilkicker down in Gosport. And I put my Bergen, which was an Osprey Bergen in the water and swam. It ended up being four miles, six K over to the Isle of Wight. Got the other end. And then, and then I did a 70 miles, 113 K around the Isle of Wight. And I think that took me 36, 37 hours to do that. So 203 K in that. And never swam in open water like that before in my life. And yeah, from my garment, it's just this big curve. It was, I think it was a mile and a half point to point. And I thought that's all right. And so my laugh and yeah, the push in the Bergen, it was difficult. You swam out to the Isle of Wight. Yeah, yeah. Pushing a Bergen or pulling a Bergen? Pushing it. Yeah, I had it here. It's actually, yeah, I had it here and it was sort of acting as a wave breaker. And then, and then yeah, just as you do a river crossing, does that like it? I'd rather not do river crossings, mate, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. I thought I'd do a sea storm. I got the idea. So a good mate of mine who was my safety on Tim Barnes, I don't know if you're wearing a mechs, but he was 53, 53 years old. And he was in a kayak as my immediate support. And I had a rib as a, because I had to feel like risk assessments go through the portmaster and everything to warn all these shippers and everything because it's quite a busy shipping as I found out. And those things when you're when you're in the water, a couple of hundred meters away from them, massive. So yeah, so that and then go out the other side and I had a 20 minute hit and then and then ran around the Isle of Wight. And that was that was that was an interesting one. No reason for that. Did you swim back again? No, got in a ferry, mate. And what what wetsuit did you wear for the swim? Some cheap one that Jordan, while he lent me. Yeah. The palm in your off of his second hand gear, is he? Well, he says I've got this and I'm like Roger, mate. I've never not experienced in it. I've not swam swim. You know, I was breastrugging across the belly, so then. So the reason I'm asking these questions does it.  Yeah, I mean that that's that's coming up definitely more this year, which we can touch on in a minute if you like. Yeah. Yeah. I bought. So quick story. I did a triathlon, right, an Olympic triathlon two summers ago or last summer. It was just before I was 50. And I came last, right? Yeah. I was third out the swim. And by the time I finished yapping to my family, everyone had got on their bike. So I was actually last. The cycle was so much more difficult than I ever thought. Mind you, I have got a proper bike now, so it's a completely massive gain changer. Yeah. Coming last and they even tried to stop me finishing because I took so long, right? Yeah. So so I went from coming last in my first ever triathlon to doing a quadruple Ironman eight weeks later. Yeah, good. A quadruple Ironman distance triathlon, I should say. Yeah. Yeah. And I bought this really Gucci wetsuit. It's one of the most expensive you can get. I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but it's the one it's got orange sleeves. It's got special pads here that yeah do the supposed to add to your sensitivity in the water. Is it zone three? Yes, it is zone three. Of course it is. An Aspire zone three one, I think. Yeah, it's the it's the very it was the most newest one, right? Yeah. Not the red one. They moved to graphite and orange sort of colours. Yeah. Anyway, when I did the triathlon in the summer, it was fine because it was in Torquay and it was the water was as warm as swimming it almost in the tropics really it wasn't an issue. When I came to do the quadruple distance Ironman and I got in the water, it was September, it would have been about September the 20th because it's my 50th birthday or the next day was and within a mile, mate, I realised I was going down. Yeah, yeah. I was going down, I was shivering uncontrollably which is why I always say to people have a plan B that doesn't screw up your plan A. So my plan B is I went to the indoor swimming pool. Yeah. And I swam 10, well, I think I had six miles left to swim, so I just swam six miles up and down. Yeah. Which was just luxury to be honest, it wasn't even difficult. Yeah. And that's it. And I suppose you've seen all my profile with the 10 Ironman which is so yeah. So I finished that little video and then the next one I thought I'd do and this comes on to the 10 Ironman of I paddled boarded the Caledonian Canal east of west coast of Scotland, cycled 800km, 790km it was. And then ran a marathon down and finished at Tedworth House in Tedworth. So I started in Inverness and finished at Tedworth over seven days, I think it was. I've never paddled boarded. I didn't even own a bike, I borrowed one from UpHeroes, a metal thing. It was in the middle of that storm Ellen and it was horrendous. And during the first, so three days paddled board and four days bike one day running during the paddled board phase. I'm sorry the first day of the bike outside Glasgow I fell off and broke my rib and I just carried on.  So I just, but I just carried on I suppose. And then eight weeks after that, so 17th of October was the start day. I was having a conversation with myself just prior to it. I was like, what's next? And because everyone tells me do something that's relatable to what people know. And I thought, okay, could I do an Ironman? Yeah, yeah, I probably do one. Not going to be a good time, but yeah, I could do it. Not a strong swimmer. Can't really swim front crawl because of my shoulders a bit dodgy. And could I do 10? That's a challenge. Let's do it. So I publicized I'll do 10, 10 Ironmen across. So I've got some good kit on board. I've got a sponsor off Ribble Bike and sponsored from zone three. There's why I know the Wetsuit and Solomon. So I've got three big brands for each one of them on board and also resilient nutrition to fuel me during it. And that's right into it. I thought, God, I can't swim. I know I need to get out of this water. I didn't realize it was going to be that cold. As you said, I've never done a triathlon in my life, not even a sprint. I just went straight into attempt and 10. And that was over 10 days down. So it's consecutive days. Yeah. So there's not, because they do a deck of man normally like in the same place. So I wanted to do it a bit more meaningful to me. So we did meaningful military establishments for the first five days. Then I did the next five days. I did in icons on top of the shard in the London. I finished on, you know, around Richmond Park and stuff around war. So one of the runs was around iconic war symbols around London, you know. Is there a swimming pool on the shard? Is that what we're saying? No. So the five London ones, I swam in the serpent tank. Okay. Lake and yeah. So day four hypothermia is smashed to me real and truly. I almost get dragged out of the water. And yeah, just my body wasn't able to create heat, generate heat that wasn't burning enough calories, burning nine to 10,000 calories a day and only in taking about three to four because I just could not get any more food in my body. And then, yeah, and I just couldn't really do anything. And I just then grizzed it every day. And I didn't manage to do 10. Something happened every day. And it was the middle of a pandemic. So I did 1,545 kilometers, which was the equivalent of 6.8 Ironman distance over the 10 days. Which, you know what, I'm a bit disappointed and do it, but, you know, with middle pandemic, things were ever forever changing.  I raised 16. And I got out of the mess out there. So it was a success. Yes, it was in my eyes. And then that the document was out on Sunday, actually. So talk about zone three there. There's a big giveaway prize on that as well with a bite. The zone three wetsuit that we talked about and a month's supply of nutrition. So it's on Sunday's office. I'll share the link when it comes out. But in the advertising tonight. So quite, quite interesting that. And then just finishing off and that four weeks later, I just didn't do any training. I grizzed the world's highest duathlon. So I did a 10K run, 150K bike, 30K run, so treadmill, turbo treadmill in the altitude center in London and 12,000 feet. And that was horrendous. That just took my, the oxygen away was, was brutal, which is based then led into this year and what's up and coming next. And the Arctic is back on track, not for the economic culture, but for the world's most northern triathlon, and it'll be taking place in April. So yeah, the name of that triathlon, it's my own. It's, they don't, no one does it. So it's, you put this together? Yeah, going to Slav bars. And someone's done one in Slav bar, but I'm going more northern. So yeah.  And I'm going to, I'm going to set three records up there. So yeah. And just to clarify, that's going to be the world's most northern triathlon. Yeah. So there's a bit of a, there's a bit of a, a bit of a thing with it. So it's going to be, yeah, the world's most northern triathlon, which is going to be a half Ironman distance. And then I'm going to see how that goes. I'm going to attempt the full Ironman distance. Yeah. You want to get them to make you a really warm wetsuit because all you've got to be able to do to swim for anyone listening to swim triathlon and people probably hate me for saying this, but you've just got to be able to move your arms.  Yeah. You can, you could do it without kicking your legs. You could, you know, I'm not, I'm not suggesting people do and I'm not trying to diminish the ones. Some people don't kick their legs. Don't need some, some people use that as a tactic and save the legs for the bike and run. So again, it's going to be, I think minus 16 to 20, then we've got to have a guide with this because the polar bears are all year round, orcas, et cetera. So see what happens, I suppose. And hopefully in April, we come back and make that happen. Yeah. Because the wetsuit thing does is it's all well and good having it thin under here so you can move your arms. But of course, what I found is the wetsuit's only as good as the thinnest part. Absolutely. And what the problem I had on the, on the 10 days is I lost six kilograms. So the wetsuit I started with became ineffective as I went along.  And yeah. How did you deal with, well, I'm interested in how did you overcome that because I literally was going down. I wish my teeth were shaking so much. Yeah. I mean, I was, I did go down. I went down to hypothermia states two and day four. So then I just, so what, what saved the things to change? And I realised I wasn't able to do the full distance every day. So I basically went until cold every day, which was getting about two kms. So I ended up doing a lot of halfs in there. And then because my Achilles went, I ran till I couldn't run anymore. I cycled till I couldn't cycle anymore. And that's where I tied up the difference of 6.8. So, which I mean, it's still from doing, you know, nothing, never done a triathlons of 1500 kilometers in 10 days. It's not bad effort, I think, and raising 16k. So it was chuffed at the end of it in a way. Yeah. Well, it's that thing, isn't it? If you don't crack on and have a go at these things, you're never going to surprise yourself. And Exactly. And the documentary is called Perseverance. So it's a bit high. So we do a lot of talk on mindset and higher managed to do it every day, get up and do what I didn't want to do every day. Yeah, my gosh. So what do you think of Pritchard then? Because The funny I was chatting to him before I asked him to come and join me on one of them. But he was busy tied up with all this stuff. And yeah, I mean, yeah, pretty cool. What he does. I mean, this year, I am going to go and do 10 Ironman in 10 days and the unorganized decade in the summer and in the same location. I think I don't want to I don't use the word easy because it won't be easy, but it will be so much more than two hours of travel from A to B taking that out of consideration, you know, and only setting yourself that 12 to 14 hours a day, you know, is is so much more doable. And then when all your admin sets up, I think it'll be a bit of a breeze. So yeah, I mean, going back to Pritch, you know, I've taken a lot of inspiration from that guy. Yeah, you know, we can't think we come from, let's just say our paths are probably crossed in the, you know, been on the same path in the past due to our our partying habits. Yeah. But both have become quite sort of spiritual and and health, health conscious, mind conscious in our older years. Yeah. So for people watching who wonder who were talking about Matthew Pritchard, who was one of the stars of the dirty Stan Sanchez, extreme bodily fluid stunt shows. That's a team weapon as well. Yeah. And yeah, I had massive respect to them for doing that as well. It was some of the stuff they did was so brave. Yeah, brave bordering on just insanity. But when I heard that he suddenly started to do these just extreme events, cycling, swimming. Yeah. You know, he once went to the swimming pool and swam something utterly ridiculous every day for a month. And then I heard that he's doing this or I think it was on London Realists when talking about doing the decker that the I a man a day for 10 days with brutal events with Claire who Claire owns that and they they yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, it's it's a thing it. Yeah, I I'm struggling to. I mean, I don't want to say it's a breeze and it's a breeze that'll be easy to do. The one sort of the breeze piece of it is everything set up admin wise. All I have to do is worry about swim, bike, run. Whereas in that last one, I had to worry about, no, one of the lakes, a body was pulled from us with to do one in a swimming pool, you know, because the lake was shot. And then, because of COVID, I was only like 45 minutes in the swimming pool. So that's had to swim as far as I couldn't have 45 minutes. So, and I had two days before getting in London, I had to get a public liability insurance, which they just from the last minute, the treadmill people canceled to start with. And I had to get in. So I was organizing and worrying about all that and getting from A to B and where we were staying, et cetera, rather than worrying about swim, bike, run. So I and there's two ways of doing the deck as well. You can do a decker, which is you do all the swimming, all the bike and all the running. And you've got 14.6 days to do that. Or you can do a deck a day, which is a decker on Ironman every day for 10 days. Yeah. Yes. I mean, I'm not going to write, I completely get what you mean in some respects. It's going to be it will be a luxury for you. Yeah, you'll have to come along and maybe we'll do it together. Yeah. Well, I certainly consider it. The thing is, what me does is I'm not like a fitness guy. I just I'm injured in front of the pieces. I just rock up and do it and raise a bit of money for charity. And I generally I put myself through so much pain in the process that I don't actually know if it's worth it to be honest. Because yeah, then that's the thing. And I'm exactly the same to know from not being able to even swim to and I think the way I realize I started need to maybe train, especially for this Arctic one. Yeah. To give you an idea and for people listening watching, I get way more satisfaction from completing a half marathon than I did from running a length for the country, doing for for Ironman quadruple Ironman distance triathlon and running 200 miles. Those events, I end up quite depressed at the end of them because there's almost, there's always so much that's gone wrong.  Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. On the on the Ironman one, the 10 10 10, I got quite depressed even during as well because I set out a task of 10 Ironman and get the old keyboard warriors that sit and comment on everything that you do. But no, from the comfort of the home home, no, it's the whole Roosevelt distance, not the critical points, you know, who's in the ring in the arena doing it with you, when then you can comment, you know, and and social media actually. So I tried to talk about it a bit in the documentary of them, I'm quite toxic, you know, you know, the area of, oh, what, what does this person that's never met me before and don't think about me, I'm worrying about that. And to what my, what my best friend thinks of me, I'm comparing them on the exact same level. You know, so it's a bit weird, that one, but I think I've managed to get over that. But then there's a bit of a come down. Now you do all this fizz and your body releases all these good endurance and dolphins, etc. And then as I said, I've never, never, never touched the drug really, to be honest, and say really never.  And I always get that after an event. But only after the World's Highest Duathlon, I've sort of managed to overcome that and work out, feel it coming on and really, so this year has been a very good learning, learning so for me and, and defining what success is, you know, for my, for myself versus, versus failure and is failure actually a thing, or is it not just a step that's done to success. So yeah, but I do get what you say with a come downy piece. It's silly things. And again, to give people an idea of what the things I mean is, you know, it's no good coming up to me and going, oh, because you give it your best that that means nothing to me.  It, you know, did I finish what I set out to do, which is why I put myself through so much, you know, is like I, I don't want to live as a failure. I'm not saying failure isn't good. I've done, I've done it my whole life, right? But I've now got to the point where I only try and do things I'm going to succeed at, right? Yeah. And lots of things like when I ran the length of the country on the last day, everyone was trying to take my backpack. And I'm like, I've carried it for 37. I actually carried it 35, 34 days because two very good marine friends of mine, Steve and Buster, hello guys, both got their own chapter in my, in my state of mind book. There we are. There's a plug if ever there was one. It'll actually be up there in the podcast. But one of those books there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they very conny, they're bootnecked. So they had to take my bergum for me. That was just, I couldn't tell them that they couldn't do that.   Yes, it's the bigger, the bigger the event, the more scope there is for something that's really going to like do your heading. Absolutely. And it goes back to that silly, but real saying no plans for my contact, doesn't it? Yeah, that's, and that's why I say to people, have a plan B that doesn't screw up your plan A, you know, yeah, yeah, you don't have to finish your thing. Like I could have given up that quadruple distance. I am man, after getting hypothermia, right? But I'm like, no, I'll just swap to the indoor swimming pool. Okay, it's maybe not so heroic. Well, that's it. And likewise, you know, we adapted some of the cycling because it was deemed unsafe for me almost to go on the road from the hypothermia in the lake in the morning to on a turbo, which I would argue is probably harder on a turbo trainer.   I mean, I've done it myself, but that's, it's really laziness that if I want to get a quick mile in just to top up my workout, just hop on the machine and do that quick mile, listen, listen to a podcast, get in the car and go home. But I'd never go to the gym to run. No, no, it's exactly the same. And going to the gym, you lift or you train whatever sort of strength conditions that you do. And then you, and then you send us a quick top up at the end of anything. So going to a restaurant and eating outside. Yeah, which is the new world. Yeah.  It's, it's, it's great that I can chat to people like you, because I don't get anyone to talk to this. I don't, I'm going to be honest. I know there are podcasts for endurance athletes out there. And I've listened to a few and they're great. You get some like Sean Conway on and Matthew Pritchard. And it's for me, I'm in my element. Yeah. I don't think though, that people appreciate this sort of thing as much as for the value that they should do. No, you're right. Yeah. You know, I'll get some SAS guy on everyone goes crazy. It's like, yeah, but you've heard their story a million times before they just joined the army. That's it. This guy's to 10, 10, I, you know, well, even better, you know, and next year or this year you're going to go, you're going to smash it again. Yeah. There's so much to learn from this mindset. Yeah. You're absolutely right me. And in my book coming out, you know, it's more of a biography, but at the end of it, it's a more of the lessons learned. Yeah, mindset.   You know, I've run a marathon. I've thrown myself out of the plane. I've done, and I'm cooked, you know, I've done something in my life, right? And I think the great danger is, is getting to the end of your life and going, well, I watched 36 podcasts about the SBS, Play Corner Duty 967,000 times, yeah, slagged off everyone on my keyboard who I didn't even know and they didn't even know me. I've been a bit facetious friends, but you get my point. But learn, does his mindset, this right, I've never done it before, but let's, let's get stuck in. Let's give it my best. If it doesn't go the way who cares, I've still achieved way more than A I expected to, or, you know, would have done if I had not done it, be more than, more than most other people. It's a wonderful thing. Basically, I was, I had a couple of texts the other day with the Iron Cowboy. You know, the guy did 50 Iron Men, 50 Days, 50 States, at least, have you? I haven't spoken to him. Can you put this in touch? Do you know him? Yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll drop my message, mate, yeah. Yeah, because his new challenge in 54 days time, he's doing 100 Iron Men in 100 days. Gosh, and where's he doing them? Over in the States, yeah, yeah. Any, any particular locations or? Well, that is 50 Iron Men, 50 Days was in 50 States, so brutal. So yeah, I'll message him on, on Instagram where, where I sent him my release to the documentary of the 10, 10, 10. So, yeah, we'll just tell him, I will get him through this. I've got a few tips for him. Yeah, indeed. Yes, it's the run, telling to buy a big bottle of rum. Yeah, 100%. Mine's Guinnessy Sea at the end of my events, have a Guinness. Yes. Oh, well, well, does listen. It's been absolutely wonderful. I'll be honest, mate, I'd love to chat to you for another five hours now. Yeah, mate, well, we'll stay and stay in touch. And I'll share the links of the documentary and stuff. And I'll drop you a trailer in nine a minute. I'll message you and I'll WhatsApp it over to you. If there's anything that we can use in the podcast that's not copyright, because anything copyright just gets flagged on YouTube, by YouTube software, it's all like registered at some office, you know.  Yeah, I'll get over it. Yeah, no problem. I've got them all. We'll put all your links below the video. Is there anything just off the bat? You know, where are you an Instagram person? Yeah, Instagram. Yeah, I'll send you my handles. Yeah, if you do that, more below the video, save going through them all now. We must say another massive thank you to Claire Vosper for putting us in touch. Thanks, Claire, indeed. I certainly will think about the Decathon, if that's its name. Yeah. Like I said, mate, I'm not really like a fitness guy. I run for mental health downs, you know. Yeah. And that's why I sort of started it, you know, and it's, yeah. I'm a mile around the block in the morning. I don't even run a mile. It's 0.9 of a mile is my morning run. Yeah.  And this is what I tell everyone, get up on half four, going for a run. Dead silent. It's just you this morning, you know, minus two crystal, please. See the crystals in the air. That's amazing. Love it. Especially, I mean, I'm living in the city at the moment. So to be honest, it's not, it's the changing of the seasons makes the run, you know, it's that going out. There's a beautiful sky or there's a bit of snow on the ground. That makes the run. But if you live in a countryside, you really need to get on it, you know. Get on the trails, run through the woods. Yeah, 100 percent, mate. Going around the reservoirs, it's just incredible. That's it. Or walk, you know. Run, walk, ultra running. All about walking, running anyway, isn't it? So 100 percent. And that's it, you know, nine trying to break your day up and get nine for a walk. Because I've got a work call coming up and I'm just going to go out and walk. Why is it on it? That's the great. I've never even thought about that. People laugh at me. I walk around for a notebook and one on the pen. Another of my things in and do a complete work call. Well, if I stick this map on my shoulders somehow. I admit, yeah. On a burger or something. You're right. Go round. I can do my podcasts out in the nature. Yeah. Daz, I wish you all the best of luck. I can't wait to chat again. Keep in touch. Massive respect you for getting on top of the mental health and putting this wonderful message out and making the money for charity. And yeah, just doing what you do. And amazing. Thanks for having me on, buddy. Yeah, really good to meet you. No worries. Just stay on the line, mate. Well, let's say goodbye to everyone at home. Everybody at home. Massive thank you as always for tuning in. I really hope you got something from this chat because if I did, and I'm 51 now, I didn't think I got room to get more from chats, but I do every time I speak to someone like Daz. People like this make my life brilliant. If you can make sense of that, you'll know why I get so much out of this. Much love to you all. Please like and subscribe. Ciao.


Thank you. Hi. My name is C. Z. Mathis Butzine. I'm a South African based in Ghana. I'm an educationist, education activist, and inclusive education enthusiast. I also consider myself a pen-Africanist. And in my opinion, I strongly and firmly believe that there's a dire need for a revolution in the field of education, particularly in Africa. I mean, I have taught in South Africa after 14, Kingdom of Bahrain, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and currently teaching in Ghana. And I came to a realization that in Africa, our curricula is not designed or written for us. So if I may give an example, when I was in high school, I had to learn about the French Revolution. I mean, I could not comprehend, I could not relate. I did not know who the French are or what is located geographically. And then I was very fortunate or unfortunate that, you know, I studied teaching and I specialized in history. And, you know, I actually thought of having a different approach to make sure that my students understand the whole concept of French revolution. So when I started teaching, I first contextualized, so I explained to my students what a revolution is and make some practical example from our communities.  So, and that made me realize that, you know, we are not doing justice to African children. And to this day, you know, we are still teaching the curriculum, which is not for us or by us, which is not relevant. So I strongly firmly believe that as African states, we need to come together and design and write a curriculum which speaks for us, which is what myself and other education activists we are doing. We have brought teachers last, actually this year, we had our first international teacher training where we brought teachers from, you know, Ghana, South Africa, Botswana to come together and discuss, you know, issues around, you know, around education and how we can best, I mean, okay, we can share our best practices. So, yeah, and then, and then this is also scar-folded. I believe that if we teach children from like an Afrocentric perspective, it will help them, you know, to innovatively and creatively solve the problems or the challenges that are in Africa. And that is scar-folded by what Dr. Kwame Kuma said that it's only Africans that can solve African problems. Wow. Fantastic. Sizi, you know, every time you talk about education, it just really gets me thinking. That's, I mean, amazing perspective. I agree with you a thousand percent, you know. Very often I question myself, you know, I question, so usually when I go to my children's school, you know, maybe they have an open day, I don't look at the books, you know, because I'm not really interested in the books. I'm not interested in character development, you know, leadership, social, social skills, social communication, because these are things that people need in the real world.  Right. So that's say something about the educational system, right? Right. If you look at it, so the truth is we're almost educating ourselves for the West. Well, as you said, by the West and for the West, you know, we're not educating for Africa's problems. Africa's problems are not American problems. And we're not educating for, you know, problem solving, because if we were, and we understood that the problems we're solving are African problems, then our solutions or the solutions that we prefer, you know, would generally be different. So I think we should decolonize just our education, but we should decolonize Africa, you know, holistically, you know, generally. He was talking about the history of Guamankruma, Patrice Lomuba, we again did you mention them? Yeah, yeah. Tomosankara. Tomosankara, very important, very, very important. Tomosankara. You know, I mean, you know, we're not learning about your Lenin and Steli and, you know, the Cold War and World War, but I mean, we have really the beautiful history in Africa.  I think they were the one that was, you know, meant to take Africa forward and unite, you know, dismantle, you know, what, what colonialism has brought, the division in Africa. Well, I agree with you, but I'm going to come from this angle. I still want to seek for a balance. For me, I'm a globalist. I have a globalist ideology, also a pan-African. I believe in Africa and also believe in globalization. I think people should be well educated enough to appreciate their background and also have global views. So you need to understand what happens in, or happened in other climes and also what happened in your own area. Now, we are talking of Nigeria here, where this government was saying they want to scrap out history from the education curriculum. I don't know whether you're aware because of some so called... I think they have already... Because of so called controversies, they think it's a way of ensuring peace. How can you have lasting peace and unity and national cohesion when you don't even understand your history? So I think as much as possible, it's true we need to understand our culture as Africans. We need to be educated in African sense. At the same time, too, it's not a wrong thing to learn what happens in other climes. It should be a balance between both. That's my opinion. I still go back to the system, systemic. Reason why a minister of education will decide to scrap history from education is because he's probably not supposed to have been there in the first place. It was just a political appointment. So this man is not thinking straight. And then the reason why we have the problem, CZ, the reason why we have the problem we're having with education is basically the development of Africa like that rap group was arrested. So it's arrested development. Something happened. We were progressing in a certain way and somebody just stopped it and brought in something new. So the concept of education we have is not progressive. It is... It's not necessarily aggressive, but it is static. So what they brought, this is what they say is education. So we took it and we put it in a box and then we stayed within the limitations of that box, which is why, for instance, if you're studying literature, you're going to see that contemporary poets, what if they're teaching you contemporary poets in literature in university today, you're going to see poets that are not alive. Yeah. And I'm wondering, but you're teaching literature and you're saying contemporary and you show me people who wrote poetry. How is that contemporary? This is all poetry. This is not contemporary. So that's the problem. We took the thing and then we put it in the box and we're unable to open the box or erase the lines and expand the lines we'll fail to do. That's the thing to me, that's the problem. So I agree with you. There's need for a revolution, need for a change, need for things to move forward. Absolutely, absolutely agree. And just to... So I always crack this joke. So if you go to the universities in Nigeria, lecturers have taught there for 20 or 30 years, they've used the same curriculum, they've used the same scheme. And they're very proud about it. They said, I've had this thing before you were born. That's the exact reason why you should throw it in the bin or get it born. But that's what we brag about. Or add to it. Or add to it. Expand it, evolve it, reinvent it. And that's the whole point about education. That's the whole point of education. But these guys, anyway, that is where I'm going to present this PNKK and all these other men, this physics. The world was in secondary school. We did physics, we have M Neocon, M Neocon and Parker. This we are British writers. Okay, British writers, they wrote physics textbook. But they are low KK and M Neocon. They came, they wrote it, but they use it much more applicable to our localities. So if you are studying physics with M Neocon, it's not as easy as studying with PNKK. That's right. If you want to explain the concept of viscosity. We had both. We had, you know, we had, we had something that a foreigner wrote and we had something that, you know, so it was like, I just didn't. So I mean, so it's nice when it's balanced, right? That's the whole point of education. It must be balanced. But you must ask yourself, does a 14-year-old child in America, does they care about African culture? But what I learned is the American guy, does he even care about what's happening in the next county? He's just really, he's just some of them anyway, to some extent. But if you are groomed from leadership, if you are groomed for leadership in the US or this country, you must be a globalist. Let me tell you what I mean. I remember I've been involved in some conferences. You must have a global agenda. Yes, what I mean, global idea, global perspective. Yes, global perspective. I have been opportune to meet with some of these young persons from mostly the western world in conferences. When I see them, they know a lot about your country. Yeah, they know. Most times because they come in and do some research. Yeah, they do research. They want to learn. So when they are talking about Nigeria, Africa, they will meet me and we'll start talking about it. But you know, so it's not wrong to have the answer. If you go to OCD and you call any boy, he might be able to recite to me the names of all the American states. In many cases, yes. So those are the only those who are supposed to be leaders. I'm talking about normal everyday people. It's interesting that all the conversation today is going around education. I think it's very, if we can get education right, you know, I mean, children have been at home for 10 months or something like that or nine months or something like that. It just shows eight months plus. It just shows, you know, the posture and the position of this government and the attitude towards education. Don't value education, right? So anything that, say it again. You don't value education or anything else or anything else. You know, so if you can even get education right, if that's the only thing that we can get right, I think that we can start to make some progress. Education is not only building Red Bruce, Red Bruce, Classroom, all things in the university. We are talking about quality things, infrastructure and other things. The material that you are putting is policies are not as simple as allowing university students to work in firms and learn from them. Not when you want to apply for IT as an engineering student. So I completely will not accept you. No, we don't accept IT students. That's what they would say. Clearly, I mean, if we start talking about this education, we will not exhaust the topic. All right. Thanks, gentlemen. Elijah Felix is next after the break. Please stay with us.


Personal finance practice problem using Excel. Tax equivalent yield. Prepare to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. Here we are in our Excel worksheet. If you don't have access to it, that's okay because we'll basically build this from a blank sheet. If you do have access, three tabs down below example, practice blank, example tab, and essence being an answer key. Let's take a look at it now. Information on the left calculations on the right we're calculating the tax equivalent yield useful because taxes complicate things all the time. And if we're comparing investments, for example, bonds, which have a tax benefit on the one hand versus bonds that do not have a tax benefit, we would like to be calculating the tax equivalent yield so we can be comparing like to like apples to apples as they say. The second tab is gonna have some pre-formatted cells on the right so you can focus in on the tax equivalent yield calculation and less on the formatting in Excel. The third tab, we're basically gonna build from a blank sheet only having the data on the left hand side. If you don't have the data on the left hand side, you can open a blank sheet and just add it. I would first select the entire worksheet if it were a blank sheet, right click on it, for lay down my baseline formatting, which would go down to format cells. I usually start with the currency, bracketed numbers, the symbol, a none for the dollar sign and no decimals. I'm not gonna hit okay here because I already have this. I'm gonna X out up top, then add your data, convert to percents as needed for this cell and this cell with the percent item here, make a skinny C column and then you're ready to roll. And that's where we will roll here, we're rolling now. So we've got the marginal tax rate. Now, when we talk about the tax rate and investments, taxes are confusing in terms of the US taxes, United States taxes and our income tax is what we're focusing in on here because we have a progressive tax system, meaning we don't have the same rate for all levels of our income. It goes higher and so later dollars we can assume has a higher tax rate. So we have two tax rates you can kind of consider for estimates, an average tax rate and a marginal tax rate. The marginal tax rate is our highest tax bracket. The average tax rate is kind of the average of what we're paying on average. The reason we use the marginal tax rate is because the next decision we make from an economic standpoint, when we make a decision on the margin from this point forward, it's gonna have an impact on our last tax dollars at the margin, the marginal rate. So we're gonna use our highest rate in essence. And of course, you can imagine that the highest rate will be higher for higher earners and therefore you would imagine that people that are more well off, have bigger earnings or more earnings would get more benefit from investing for example in investments that have tax benefits in that case. So we have the municipal bond. So we're gonna assume we have a bond here that has a 5% yield on the bond. Now that's gonna be a municipal bond. So we're gonna assume that it's not gonna be subject to tax.  Calculation formula will be down here. We got the tax equivalent yield. The tax free bond yield divided by one minus the tax rate. So once we do the tax equivalent yield, you can also solve for the tax free bond yield going basically the other way if you so choose by basically solving for the tax free bond yield if you so choose using your algebra. And you can also of course figure that out. And the easiest way to kind of figure that out, figure that formula is to use an example. Assume the bond is $1,000 and then you can kind of make some scenarios which we will also do shortly. Okay, so I'm gonna start with the title. It's gonna be the taxable equivalent yield. Now you can do this in terms of a formula just write down the formula and write it out. I'm gonna make the formula into a table. I think this is a useful tool to do to visualize things in a table format. It's also useful to take a formula and be able to put it into a table so that you can make basically worksheets for yourself and possibly for others to simplify the process. So I'm gonna widen the cell out a bit. I'm gonna widen it from D all the way over here.   That's what we do with our headers. So we're gonna say, okay, we start off with our formula. The tax-free bond yield. So I'm gonna pick up the tax-free bond yield. I'll call it the tax-free bond yield. And I'm gonna put this in the outer column because I'm gonna have a subcategory of this numerator. And so I'm gonna put this in the outer column and I'm gonna say this is gonna be equal to the 5%. That's for the tax-free bond and the municipal bonds that we don't have to pay taxes on. We're talking about the interest that we don't have to pay the interest. The interest is earnings. So we're gonna then say, which would be taxable typically for income taxes because it's income, but we might get a tax break because it's a municipal bond. So we go to the numbers. I'm gonna make that a percent, percentifying it so we can recognize it. And then I'm gonna say now we're gonna do the bottom which is gonna be one minus the marginal rate. So I'm gonna say this is gonna be one. I'm just gonna type in what I'm gonna do minus the marginal tax rate. I'm gonna put a colon because I'm gonna put this in the inner column. I'm just gonna take one as the numerator. I'm just gonna type in one. And then the marginal, which I can just pull this from my data. This equals the marginal tax rate, our highest tax bracket that we're paying for income taxes, 30%. You might be considering whether or not you get the tax benefit for the Fed and the state possibly depending on your state circumstances and whether or not it be taxable there. So take that into consideration. Home tab, number group, percentifying it, font group, gonna underline it. And so that's gonna be then, I'm gonna copy my thing up top here. I'm gonna put it down here. I'm gonna double click on it and delete the colon. And then I'm gonna indent it. So this is me doing this indentation to show this inner column calculation. I'm gonna go up top, home tab, alignment indent. I'm gonna indent it one more time. So that's the sub calculation for the denominator, which I'm now gonna pull to the outside, which is gonna be equal to one or 100% minus the top tax rate, 30% equals, we gotta put percentify it to recognize it. Home tab, you wanna recognize number, then percentify. And then I'm gonna go to the font group and underline it. And so that's gonna give us then what we're looking for. We're gonna find the exact thing that we set out to look for, which is good. So then we're gonna have this. So now this is gonna be equal to, and this is the numerator up top, the 5% divided by the denominator according to our formula. And again, I can't recognize it. Why? Because you've got to percentify home tab, number, percentify. I'm gonna add some decibels to get it a little bit more precise. Two decibels out, it could go more out, but I'm gonna take it two decibels out. That's all the specificity that I need. We don't need to be more specific than that, but notice that number does represent a longer decibel because it's Excel, and that's how Excel works. Let's make this blue in brackets.  Let's hit the drop down on the bucket here. I'm gonna make it that blue. If you don't have it, you can go to the more colors. Standard tab, that blue right there, that's the one we're using. We're gonna say okay, doke. You could just say okay if you want. I added a doke just to add a little more spice to it. So just okay, I put a doke on it. And then I'm gonna select these two and let's make this a little skinnier. Let's skinerize those, thin them up, thin them up. Okay, so now we could check that. Let's put a check on that. Let's just assume that we had a $1,000 investment and see if this makes sense. A little abstract when we're just looking at percentages. We're gonna say okay, what does that mean? Well that means if I had a tax free bond yield of 5%, I would need an equivalent taxable yield for like corporate bonds of 7.15 to get the same benefit from the bonds because the one has a tax advantage and the other doesn't. Well what does that mean? Let's do it. Let's try to think about it this way. Let's put a skinny column to G. I'm gonna go to the home tab. Let's put a paint brushy to make a skinny G column like the C column. We're gonna copy with the paint brush. This is gonna be our check figure.  And this is gonna be, let's kinda check this. We'll start with our earnings before taxes and put a colon there. And so let's assume we have an investment in the standard investment in bonds. I'm gonna make this sell a little wider. It is $1,000. So we'll just say like $1,000 investment that we put in place. And then we're gonna say tax equivalent yield. So the tax equivalent yield, we just calculated here, I'm gonna pull it in. I'm gonna say equals and notice if you just type 7.14% then it won't be exact because this one's actually using the actual number. So just be aware of that. It's not really, even though it says 7.14, we saw that it's actually longer than that. In other words, you can't see it now a bit, but it's more than any case. You know what I'm talking about, I hope. So we're gonna go to the home tab, a number group and percentify that. Let's add a couple of decimals. This is what I mean. If I go more than two decimals out, it's really looking like that number, but we round it to two decimals there in appearance only because it's actually the big number or the one with more than two decimals. Okay, earnings before taxes then. I'm gonna put two, or a space, so it's not a colon. Outer column now, multiplying this out. That means we would have the 1,000 times the 7.14. Now we're gonna assume this one is taxable, so there's gonna be a tax consequence here, right? I'm gonna, this one I'm gonna add some decimals. So it's 71.43%. So if I had a $1,000 investment, then I'd earn the 71.43, but then I'd have to pay the government on it because they want some of that money because I didn't invest in their bonds. So then they'll say, well, we want some of that money. And so now we're gonna multiply that, I'm just gonna say equals times our tax rate, which is the highest tax rate, not the average tax rate, the marginal tax rate, because this is all happening at the margin, as economists say, at the next step, the next thing that's happening from this point forward. I need to recognize it, so let's go, it's a percent, so we gotta percentify if we wanna recognize. And then this is gonna be the tax then. So we're gonna have tax consequences, 71.43 times the 30, so we're gonna have to pay 21. Let's add some decimals, like 21.43 in taxes. So what am I earning then after taxes? Earnings after taxes means it's gonna be equal to what I earned before, 71.43, but then I gotta pay the government 30% of it. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Let's add some decimal, I think that's even. And so there we go, it's just absurd, 30%. What is going on around here? And then I'm gonna say, if I compare that to the original investment of the thousand, let's put an underline here, home tab font group and underline, that's gonna give us our municipal bonds yield, which is our, basically let's say it's gonna be our tax-free bonds yield, which is gonna be equal to the 50 over the thousand, making that a percent, percentifying it, and there's our 5%, five even. So there's our 5% here. So if you actually use an investment typical number, make up a number of 100, but a thousand is often the case when you're thinking about units of bonds, then that's a way that you can play with these numbers and make these abstract percents make more sense and kind of prove to yourself that what is going on here. So hopefully that does that. So let's go, let's do some indentation. So I'm gonna select these. I'm gonna go to the home tab, alignment, let's indent, and let's indent this one again, home tab, alignment, indent. Okay, so now, and let's make it blue and bordered. Let's make it blue and bordered while we're at it. Don't stop now, because we're at it. And while we're at stuff, let's finish, let's do some other stuff while we're at it. I'm gonna make this blue and then bordered. Let's make it a little skinnier from INJ. They can be a little skinnier. Okay, that's enough. I don't care if we're at it. We gotta be at something new now. I'm at something new. So now let's make another one. Let's say, well, now I can solve for the tax bond yield. So we can say, well, what if I go the other way and I'm saying, I know the tax-free bonds yield and I wanna get to the tax, and I wanna get to, I'm sorry, I wanna know the tax-free bonds yield because I have the tax-equivalent yield. So let's go back up top and say, imagine that's our situation. I need to make a skinny K. Let's make a skinny K, home tab and paintbrushy. And then we just put that there and it makes it skinny automatically. It's magic. This paintbrush is like a magic paintbrush. So this is gonna be tax-free bond yield calculation. I'll make this a little bit wider over here and it's gonna be three columns again.  And so this is, I'm gonna start with our tax-equivalent. Let's just say this is gonna be equal to the tax-equivalent yield, which is this one we calculated. So I'm gonna start with the tax-equivalent, saying we know that. We know what the tax-equivalent yield is on like the corporate bonds, the ones that are subject to tax. And then I'm comparing it to the municipal bonds or the ones that don't have the tax. I can't recognize, I can't recognize. That's okay. You've just got a percent ties, number, group, percent. And then let's add some decimals. Okay, then we're gonna do our, I'm just gonna copy the same one minus, the same thing right here. One minus the tax rate. So I'm just gonna equals, equals, I'm gonna copy that down two more cells and it'll just copy that down, put my cursor on the format or the fill handle and just copy that down like right there. So there it is. And then I'm gonna say this is gonna be one, the marginal rate is equal to, that's our highest tax bracket rate again, this 30%. We need to recognize, so we're gonna percent ties, home tab, font, group, percent ties, underline it while we're at it. Don't get into that again while we're at it. You just do all this crazy stuff. You don't have all day while we're at it. One minus the 30% is gonna be home tab and then number, group, percentifies that one. So 70%, let's put an underline here and that's gonna give us our tax free bond yield. And so this is gonna be equal to, this is gonna be this times this and let's make that a percent and then add some decibels. So now we get to that 5%, right? So now we started here and we got to the 5% and you could basically use your algebra to re-algebraic whichever one you're looking for. Whether you have the tax three bond yield or the tax equivalent bond yield to kind of figure that, but still either way it's a little bit abstract when you're just looking at the percents and either way it's useful to assume that you have a $1,000 bond and kind of prove it to yourself by taking into consideration what you're gonna earn on it in either situation as well as any tax consequences if there are any. Let's make this blue and bordered. Let's make it blue and bordered while we're at it. Oh, here we go again. While we're at it. You just tack things on all day. It's like job creep. I started with one task and now you've got me working here like into the wee hours of the morning. I'm gonna make this one a little bit skinnier. Make that one a little bit skinnier and then let's go to the, let's check our spelling. Spell check, perfect. Check the spelling, yield, yield. I know how to spell the yield. I just, my fingers just got mixed up. That was, it's not my spelling. It wasn't my spelling's fault. And then I'm gonna indent here. We're gonna go to the alignment and indent and let's indent this one again to make it look nice while we're at it. Oh my gosh. Okay. I think that looks good.