It is exactly four weeks to my first Ironman and I’m starting to get really REALLY nervous. 3.8km swim. 180km cycle. 42km run. An Ironman. Just writing that scares me. What an epic journey it’s been. Less than two years ago I was seriously obese (probably bordering on morbidly obese) clocking in at a whopping165kgs. Today I’m sitting looking at my watch thinking “this time in four weeks I’ll be zipping up my wetsuit/getting out of the water/on lap two of the bike/getting off the bike/finishing my first lap of the run/an ironman!”. If you had told me two years ago I would be writing this about what I’ll be doing in four weeks I would have told you to lay off the happy pills.

I can remember my first run like it was yesterday and I use the term run very lightly. It was about an 800m walk. Three times around a hockey field. It was uncomfortable, strenuous and a million miles away from even thinking I could take on an Ironman, never mind finish it. Ironman was never a goal. It never crossed my mind until 8 months ago. The goal was not to die before I hit 40. I wanted to run Comrades but I never even gave triathlons a thought. But as we stand right now it’s four weeks to go to the biggest race of my life. If I have to be honest I’m tired of training. The two sessions a day for the last 6 months have taken its toll and I’m mentally and physically tired. I have one more hard week of training left and then it time to taper and make sure I’m fresh on race day. The best bit of advice I’ve been given is to go out and enjoy race day, take in the atmosphere. Race day is a reward for all the hours of hard work that I’ve put in over the last 6 months. I am really looking forward to race day. I have no doubt it is going to hurt but I am looking forward to the reward. I’ve visualized those final few meters on the red carpet over and over and over again. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. Music pumping, crowd cheering and the announcer saying “Brad…….YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!!!!”. Four weeks from now I’ll be somewhere on the road working towards that one moment.

I love simple but innovative ideas that make a difference in other people’s lives. You may or may not know about my involvement with the PinkDrive and my passion for raising money for their education and early detection programs through endurance events that I am taking part in like Ironman and the Comrades Marathon but I often feel like I am always begging my mates to open their wallets and support the next wacky event that I am taking part in. I came across an initiative this morning that I absolutely love and hence this post.

Roxy Burger

I follow Roxy Burger (Currently of Survivor Maldives fame) on Twitter and saw a couple of her tweets this morning with a hash tag that read #40daysofzams and it kind of aligned itself into the way I was thinking the last or two any way. Not being that religious I have never been one to get give up things for lent. Although at my dik former self it might have been said that I had given up my neck for a long long time. Listening to the radio yesterday afternoon in the car with my 8 year old son Ethan there was a conversation about lent and what people were going to give up. Ethan was asking a few questions about it and asked if he could give something up. I told him it had to be something he really liked, he thought about it for a while and then asked if he could give up school for 40 days. I nearly crashed my car. He definitely takes after his dad. I said to him we would find something we could do. Then I saw Roxy’s tweet this morning.

Ham & Cheese Zarmie

Forty days of zarmies. What a cool idea. The basic idea is this: Make a sandwich every day for 40 days, find someone who needs it and give it to them. It doesn’t have to be a gourmet zarmie, it can be as simple as a jam sandwich. It’s as easy as that! Honestly, such a simple concept but if we can get a thousand people to do it, we’ll be able to feed a thousand people a day. That is 40 000 sandwiches handed out in just over a month! Small idea, massive results! There are thousands of people roaming the streets of this beautiful country of ours that are hungry and I love that an idea this small can make such a big difference. By taking part you don’t need to fork out hundreds of bucks, you don’t need to spend hours of your time all you need to do is make one sarmie a day for forty days.

It is so easy to do. You might make yourself a lunch every day for work, just make an extra sandwich, whack it in a sandwich bag and on your way to work give it to the mother who is begging at the traffic light just around the corner from home. If you’re a mom who makes school lunches, make an extra one and get the kids involved. This is my challenge to you. Get involved. For forty days let’s see how many people we can feed. Post a comment at the end of this post to let me know if you’re in. If you’re on Twitter you can also drop Roxy or myself a tweet to let us know you’re in and how the #40daysofzams is going (don’t forget to use the hashtag in your tweets!). Share this post and challenge your mates to do the same!