The appeal of the wild for me is its unpredictability. You have to develop an awareness, react fast, be resourceful and come up with a plan and act on it.
Americans are cool, if you show just a chink of vulnerability, they respond so much. They’ll pat you on the arm and say, ‘Hey kid, you’re all right’. Brits will respond but they are much more cynical.
Textbook survival tells you to stay put. Stop. Wait for rescue. Don’t take any risks. But there’d been a whole host of survival shows like that and I didn’t really want to do that.
I train five days a week hard – but it is short and sharp – 30 to 40 minutes of functional and pretty dynamic body-strength circuits, then I do a good yoga session on the sixth day, then I rest.
Our fate is determined by how far we are prepared to push ourselves to stay alive – the decisions we make to survive. We must do whatever it takes to endure and make it through alive.
Above all, I feel a quiet pride that for the rest of my days I can look at myself in the mirror and know that once upon a time I was good enough. Good enough to call myself a member of the SAS. Some things don’t have a price tag.
Adventure should be 80 percent ‘I think this is manageable,’ but it’s good to have that last 20 percent where you’re right outside your comfort zone. Still safe, but outside your comfort zone.
