The Now Generation - Public Service Broadcasting

Lyrics:- 'What to wear? How about these slacks and this shirt? How do I look? You’re so attractive. Clothes pressed and mended, Shoes polished. How do we look? Good enough in that outfit' - PSB

Song Choice:- If you haven’t yet heard of the band 'Public Service Broadcasting', then it’s about time to awaken your ears to a whole new dimension in ‘Prog Rock’. Sure, it’s geeky and it takes a few listens before you are totally hooked but they are well worth a listen . 

To get their full effect though, I suggest you download the 2013 Album ‘Inform – Educate – Entertain’ and play it to death – They are simply the best band I’ve heard since I first heard Pink Floyd and Genesis back in the 70’s, and that’s really saying something.

‘The Now Generation’ is such a great track, especially if you are driving like I was yesterday, played VERY loud. The band’s mix of the latest music technology with Pathé News Reels issued by the Central Office of Information in the early post war years is just so clever. Who’d have thought that films designed to inform the public on matters in which Government action directly impinged their daily lives in this propaganda format, would ever be used as entertainment some 70 years on.

These films look so dated yet as a modern-day tribe and community, we digest even more information from a much wider plethora of formats. Sure, they’re not directed at us from our ‘Government’ (what a frightening thought that would be) but most of the information sources are completely unfounded. It’s amazing how much we’ll trust ‘Google’ to settle any debate, let alone quote the TV Show ‘Qi’ that freely admits 40% of its facts will eventually be found out to be untrue. 

You see it's the sheer volume of ‘Choice’ that's has become overbearing and buying a simple coffee at Costa has a made billion combinations possible. I wonder what the slack wearing, clothes pressed, shoes polished folk of the post-war years would think of that buying process. I sure they wouldn't mind the queuing but I wonder what they would think of the £3.12 price tag!

Make your choices wisely folks - that's YOUR choices, no-one else's eh?

Rory Coleman - 992 Marathons - 244 Ultras - 14 Marathon des Sables

9 Guinness World Records - 8,554 Days' Alcohol Free - 403 Days' post GBS

& 1 Inspirational Running Memoir - Get your copy here.

Location:- Cardiff, Wales

Breathe - Pink Floyd

'Talking the MdS Talk'

Lyrics:- 'Long you live and high you fly and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry. And all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be' - Gilmour, Waters & Wright

Song Choice:- I needed something monumentally megalithic for this Pre-Marathon des Sables Blog that encapsulates my mood. The 32nd Edition of The World's Toughest Footrace begins at 9am on Sunday 9th April, with Yours Truly in the field. You see, somehow following a period of sheer personal hell, I've managed to get well enough to get back to the start-line of the race that has been the backbone of my personal, sporting and business life since 1999.

Pink Floyd's 1973 multi-platinum selling Album 'Dark Side of the Moon' provides such a megalith. I thought the title 'Breathe' was particularly apt - something I couldn't do very well at all at last year's race when the Guillain-Barre Syndrome was first taking hold and my lungs were already succumbing to the paralysis the syndrome inflicts. I was seriously ill shortly after the race last year - by May '16 the thought of going back to the desert felt light years away, let alone the 240,000 miles to the 'Dark Side of the Moon' Floyd sang about. At that time, there was no light at the end of my recovery tunnel, I can tell you.

So, 12 months on, why am I going back? Why is there a need for me to go and do a 14th MdS? Why am I torturing myself again when I've already proven how tough and resilient I am? Why jeopardise my regained health when it would be so easy to take a year's sabbatical, or even longer? And more-so why worry Jenny and after giving her such a terrible fright? 

If you really understand me, you might know why. They're great questions of course and ones I've considered many times over the past few months. If I'm honest, all I can say is that the MdS has been a great goal to focus upon, both mentally and physically, for my rehab. 

When you've been literally out-for-the-count (Rocky 2 style), having something big to concentrate on that's familiar to you and will stretch you well past your limits is a marvellous driver. It's helped me surpass the normal post-GBS goals of simply 'Breathing, Moving and Life Self-sufficiency'. You see I've never doubted my return to the desert once as that would, of course, have been contrary to my whole life-philosophy.

As the lyrics suggest, maybe all I want to do is to 'Touch and See' the 'Old Me' and the MdS is a way of exorcising and overwhelming that feeling. It's hard to rationalise my thoughts any further, let alone write how I feel about what's in store for me whilst covering 257km of the Western Sahara.

I've completed the race 13 times now. I've experienced it as a serious competitor (2009 finishing 143rd), as a completer (chaperoning Sir Ranulph in 2015 just keeping ahead of the camels) and everything in between. I hope all this experience is going to be a trump card which bolsters my body's shortcomings.

No Drapeau this Year...

Am I scared? Well I don't believe I am. I'm certainly not as worried as those around me, yet I understand their concern as it's impossible for them to gauge my real fitness -   I don't give much away. I've been asked to 'listen to my body this time', but I was listening last time and every time, all the time. In fact this has become one of the trademarks of my Coaching business, and a spoonful of my own philosophy has helped me no-end in getting this far.

It all sounds very dramatic and a bit 'life and death' doesn't it? It isn't and I'm not that daft to put myself in any adverse danger. I'm just looking for a 'Breathe Reprise'. A chance to take a 'Time-out' from 'Rehab' and some time off redefining the 'New me' and revel in 'good times past'. Being someone that's only ever looked forward, I've found revisiting previous life-chapters very therapeutic this past year and part of my reincarnation has been realigning some of that history.

Anyway, for this Phoenix it's time to go and 'Run Rabbit Run' as I believe my life's work isn't yet done. I hope I'll fly, it won't be at high altitude it'll be just enough to clear the ground and my only expectation is to get that 14th MdS Gong.

If you are interested, you can follow my progress on Marathon des Sables LIVE and my race number is #0714 - please use the website as messages of encouragement are most welcome when it's getting tough out there in the sand. 

A kind word from home goes a long way when you are out for the count and on your chin-strap.

Thinking about it, having GBS has been ten-times harder than the MdS and even to get to the start-line hasn't been easy, so what have I got to lose...

'Absolutley nothing!' - So I'm going to have a 'Relaxing Break' in the sand and recharge my 'Mental batteries' and 'Breathe'.

'Breathe in that Desert Air'...

Rory Coleman - 987 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables

9 Guinness World Records - 8,490 Days' Alcohol Free

& 1 Inspirational Running Memoir - Get your copy here.

Location: Caerdydd, Cymru

Entangled - Genesis

Classic Genesis...

Lyrics:- 'Sometimes entangled in your own dreams' - Banks, Hackett & Rutherford

Song Choice:- Well it's time to explore the full 6.28 minutes of 'Entangled', track two of 'A Trick of the Tail', Genesis' 1976 album that reached #3 in the UK Charts and the one I've chosen to use as blog themes for the next week or so. Phil Collins was just 24 when this was recorded, he already seemed old at the time (maybe it was because I was just 13) but like so many recording artists and bands of the time, Genesis probably did all their best work in their mid to late 20's – unlike other Rock-stars that clocked out in their prime by joining the 27 Club by mistake. You see, creativity seems to leave folk in their thirties as by then it’s all been used up and I have it on good authority that by the time we are 33 we've cemented our tastes and choices for life.

The song featured in the film ‘Genesis in Concert’ which accompanied the dreadful ‘White Rock’ Winter Olympics film with a 'Rick Wakeman' soundtrack, which I went to see at the Stratford-upon-Avon Picture House – those were the days eh? See here what you missed way back then… I saw it twice too (not the White Rock one though.

Stratford-upon-Avon Cinema - Rocking - Pic David Mills

Anyway, my thought today is about how ‘Entangled’ we get in our own ‘Life Spaghetti’ as we get older? Isn’t it amazing how we manage to make such a mess of our own creation. It’s not surprising though as stuff changes – ‘The Picture House’ has long gone and so has the Supermarket that replaced it – Everything changes, but very slowly. Slower than a slow thing on a slow day when things are particularly slow. Yes that slow… yet before you know it – you’re ‘Entangled in your own Dreams’ or in some cases ‘your own Nightmares’…

How 'Entangled' are you?

Rory Coleman - 986 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables

9 Guinness World Records - 8,471 Days' Alcohol Free

& 1 Inspirational Running Memoir - Get your copy here.

Location: Cardiff, Wales

Dance on a Volcano - Genesis

Cool Magnolias

Lyrics:- 'Out of the night and out of the dark' - Banks, Collins, Hackett & Rutherford

Song Choice:- Well I think it's time for another 'Classic Album' series of blogs and after listening to 'A Trick of the Tail' in it's entirety at the weekend, (during my track marathon), I thought I'd share it with you - It's one of my favourite Genesis albums, and ridiculously now 41 years old! Yikes, 1976 seems only like yesterday too...

Anyway, if your world is turned upside down, through no fault of your own, just like it was for Genesis back in 1975 with the 'Gabriel Departure', then you must come back stronger and hit harder right from the start if you want to regain some of your previous successes or even supersede them - sound familiar? `For Genesis, it certainly paid off...

I'm not saying that the same will happen of me and I don't think I superseded anything at the weekend myself, I just regained some self-control and saw some daylight at the end of my tunnel and came 'Out of the night and out of the dark', as the song goes.

The line I really like however is, 'The lava's the lover who licks your boots away' as that's how it's been feeling for me for so many months now after having my feet feeling like they were on fire with the GBS but not with normal flames but with molten-super-white-hot-lava. Some lover eh?

But do you know what? It would be dead easy to become a victim of all of that pain and just give into life and the cards that you're dealt but sometimes you have to put your cards on the table and be able to read your own future in them. A place where there's light at the end of the tunnel and it's safe to walk on the cracks in the pavement, because at the end of the day life's far too short and it's better to have fought than not to have fought at all.

How bright is your future? Is it Lava-ly?

Rory Coleman - 986 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables

9 Guinness World Records - 8,470 Days' Alcohol Free

& 1 Inspirational Running Memoir - Get your copy here.

Location: Cardiff, Wales