For my first outing as Men's Health's Adventurist, I was tasked with tackling an ultra-distance duathlon. The country was in the grip of its first pandemic lockdown at the time, so I had to rack up the obscene kilometre count using a stationary bike coupled with 200m laps around the house. I'm not waxing lyrical when I say it was dizzying.
In my own spare time, I've also completed ultramarathons, DIY triathlons and a 10K walk holding the equivalent weight of my own body in each hand. I've climbed 10 mountains in a weekend and have carried a squat rack to the top of the highest point in England and, more wearily, down again.
My life is a story of movement; even my work has seen me travel around the country, rarely spending more than a few nights in the same bed. At this point, another physical challenge scarcely seems like an adventure. My comfort zone is physical discomfort.
What does make me uncomfortable, however, is stopping. And so I signed up for one of the most daunting adventures of my life: sitting in silence for 10 days, devoid of the distractions of the outside world, and simply being. In our culture of constant stimuli, instant gratification and dopamine on tap, I
