Making the list, geez it's long!

So Tommy and I have been scouring the web looking for all sorts of wonderful events for us to enter. We started searching for different styles of physical events and came up with quite a few. It then dawned on us that in order to complete this challenge we need to be entering 2 challenges a month, which on face value sounds fine. When we then matched up the list of half marathons and duathalons and such we relised just how physically testing that would be, especially when we need to start, well, now!

A huge double door of opportunity was then opened to us. We never intended every single event to be about endurance, we just wanted the events to be properly organized and open to Joe public. With very little searching we found some fantastic events which we are going to take part in, including the World Stone Skimming Championships (oh yes it exists and is held in Scotland, see below), the British Pooh Sticks Championship and the Surrey Pairs Tiddlywinks Tournament.

How our minds have been broadened. We have successfully listed 30 events with a few to spare in cases of emergency. All that remains is for us to put the events into a calendar and start doing them!

The Start of the Journey

Most people would think that reaching the ripe old age of thirty would be the time to start giving your body a break and start enjoying things like crib, pipe smoking and afternoon naps. Most may even say that to attempt a challenge involving anything physical at this stage would be madness. However, like German tourists, the stupid are everywhere.

Tommy and I certainly fall under that bracket (the stupid, not the German tourists). We have decided that to mark our impending 20 tenth birthdays, we would set ourselves a challenge which we are to complete by said age. We batted around a number of ideas even gaining inspiration from a most unlikely source, a very old school friend who is do some great things over at www.52newthings.co.uk, ta Nick.

We wanted it to be something attainable, but not easy, something that raised a bit of money, but wasn't the main focus. We also wanted it to be something that would push us into new places and make us experience new things, and we wanted something that would really give us a sense of achievement.

We finally settled on was to complete 30 'events' before we are both 30 years young. We haven't fully fleshed out the rules, but the criteria for these events are simple:

1. The event must be freely available to the public.
2. No two events can be the same
3. We must both complete the event

These events will hopefully involve all sorts of disciplines, running, cycling, swimming, kayaking, sailing and sometimes a combination of the above. We also hope that friends will join us on some of the events and enjoy taking part.

So, down to deadlines. Well of the 2 of us I am the youngest and was born on 17th May 1982 so our deadline to complete the 30 events is 17th May 2012 giving us 18 months 7 days and 8 hours from this post.

We already have 2 events lined up. The Brutal run (10k cross country) on the 3rd January and the Helly Hanson Challenge on the 30th January which is a multi sport adventure event (10k assault course, 25k Mountain Bike and a 1k row) all of which is to be completed as a team of three. Our good friend Alex Kershaw is going to be joining us to make us a trio, and we will be racing another group of friends, the wager is dinner!

So that's about it for the intro, this blog will be written by both of us as a record of our training, news of events we are going to take part in, photos, thoughts, tips the lot. We are both looking forward to the challenge, it's going to be a long road.