Challenge Stu

Some people say you should be careful what you wish for, and it occurred to me a couple of times on Wednesday that I might've got a bit carried away with my birthday wish for "a long day's run around the hills"... I was attempting to run around the highest 29 hills in the Peak District, on my 29th birthday. The idea of running a hill for each year of your age is an old one, I think it's even how the Bob Graham Round originally came about. I decided a while ago I'd try to plan something similar in the Peaks, and found a list of the highest hills. It's an interesting list, there are a few hills on there I hadn't even heard of (nevermind been up!), and some you would imagine might be there are missing... I set about plotting them on a map (and some bits of paper where the map didn't quite reach), and to my surprise and delight did not end up with a random splattering of hills everywhere, it almost looked like a route... So that was that then! A...

The title of this post should really be  "Rosie Swale-Pope: Mad as a box of frogs and the most inspirational talk I've ever heard"... A bit long perhaps, but it pretty much sums up the talk I went to on Wednesday night. Rosie Swale-Pope has achieved many things, but the most famous is her 21,000 mile round the world run. She's written a book about it and given lots of talks to large audiences of the paying public and businesses, but last week I was one of about 25 people who had the privilege to hear Rosie talk in a tiny little room above the Masterchef cafe in Attercliffe. The talk was organised by Accelerate , after Stu and Debs met Rosie as they were the only company able to get hold of a pair of her favourite shoes! The talk was a whirlwind of humour, tragedy and inspiration. Rosie talks quickly and jumps from one story to another just when you think you're following, and could be just as engaging and entertaining without even mentioning running around...

Sometime last year I entered a competition on Facebook, the deal was you upload a video of yourself taking part in some sort of "adventure sport", and after a month or so of voting those who had the six videos with the most votes would be the winners, and would be whisked away to star in an advert for the travel insurance company Dogtag . Thanks to my amazing friends and family, and by putting my video up nice and early, I ended up in the top 6, and so begins my film star career... I spent last week in Interlaken in the Swiss Alps, essentially running around, eating cheese, drinking beer, and occasionally being filmed. It was a brilliant week and I'd like to give huge thanks to Dogtag (Mike and Richy), PR guru Lynsey, Don and Dave the film crew, my fellow stars (more on them in a minute) and to Outdoor Interlaken and our guide Stefan. Here's a quick blog about what we got up to... The (Dog)tag team Having taken planes from various parts of the UK we somehow a...