Kicking the Bucket

The solitude of clocking miles out on trail and tarmac, for me, is a place where the mind has the opportunity to run around free. Problems or ideas can be thought out. You can wonder in the influence of a majestic swaying tree or dark rolling cloud. Sometimes, when its all going right, you can simply be lost, in nothing.

It's a place where reflection and resolution can be found. But it's also a place where dreams and aspirations can come in and out of consciousness, as extravagantly as you like.

As I'm quick stepping through the marshes, up canal paths and over well worn routes, my mind often wanders into what some would call a 'Bucket List'. This list is a place where ideas and dreams start. Once an idea is put on the list it becomes a part of your future. It could be in the next month or in 10 years, but it's now firmly planted itself into your life and will need to be resolved one way or another. It means research, planning and commitment. It will take hours of fantasising, dreaming and drooling, so that one day you can look it back up and put a big red tick straight through it.

I realised that my Bucket List, or what I would rather call the Tenacious Onslaught of Distensible Objectives list (TO DO for short) is growing and I need to keep an eye on it. So, it starts here and once written down will eat away at my brain until it gets realised.

TO DO List:

1) Complete The Offa's Dyke Path (177m) [I've run half in 2010 but this needs to be done in 1 trip]

2) Coast to Coast, The Dragons Back Route, Snowdonia to Gower (216m)

3) The Beacons Way (98m)

4) Hadrian's Wall (73m)

5) North Face Ultra-Trail Du Mont-Blanc (103m) [Need points!!]

6) The Wales Coast Path (850m) [Path to be completed by 2012]

7) The West Highland Way Race (95m)

8) The Highland Fling Race (53m)

9) The Lakeland 100 Race (100m)

And so it begins... run, walk or crawl.