Two Aussies and a Two seater bike named "Happier".

My wife Sharon and I, are Australians in our late 40's, and are excited to finally be visiting the IOM for the Parish Walk in 2024.  This has been on our bucket list since becoming aware of the event in 2015, at, of all places, the USA centurion walk in Minneapolis.

Shaz and I were never very athletic.  But in our early 30's we realised we couldn't keep getting heavier and more unfit.  Our diet and lifestyle needed change, and the easiest way for us to do that, was to start running.

Shaz got good at that, and represented Australia 8 times at 24 Hour World Championships, Commonwealth Championships and Asian / Oceania Championships.  In 2010, she was awared the title of World Female Ultra Athlete of the Year, by the International governing body, the International Association of Ultrarunners. Sharon's best is a few metres short of 225km of running in 24 hours (near enough to 140 miles).

Of course the Parish walk isn't a run.  But the background is important.  Perhaps.

We also started walking and cycling, to supplement our running, and always seemed to enjoy the longer events more than shorter ones.  As we were getting older, we realised we could never run or walk really fast, so we just kept going further.  And further....

At one point, Shaz held 45 age and open walking and running records in Australia.  All the way up to the 48 hour record, which was 333km at the time.  I held the Australian 6 days record with 592km for some time.

In total we have completed nearly 200 ultra distance walking and running events, most of these over 100km.

Between 2014 and 2022 we completed all available international centurion events.  These are held in the UK, Netherlands (continental), USA, Australia, New Zealand, Africa (no longing being staged) and Germany (with some controversy).

This year, we will again attempt the continental and UK centurions.

We have completed the Nijmegen four day marches three times, and will be attempting that again in 2024.  But we have never had the opportunity to participate in the Parish Walk, and finally, the time to do so has come.  We are excited.

Right now, Shaz and I are cycling a tandem bicycle around the world.  We're a bit over 34,000km since 31 May, 2022.  After a couple of loops of Europe, the UK and Scotland, we headed south through France, Portugal and Spain and took a ferry to Morocco.

Cycled a loop of Morocco, flew to Cairo, and cycled to Cape town.  Yes, all the way!

Flew from Cape town to Rio Gallegos in the south of Argentina, and cycled north the across the Andes to arrive in Santiago, Chile for Christmas 2023.  And then we have cycled east and are right now in Buenos Aires.

The new few months see us cycle to Asuncion, then Sao Paolo, and finally Rio de Janiero, before we fly to Amsterdam on 11 May.  We will participate in the continental centurion shortly after arrival, then make our way to the UK and ultimately to the Isle of Mann.

Incidentally, if our motivation, stimulation, curiosity and contentment remains, we could cycle for as long as 10 years and 200,000km.  We'll see.

To follow our fuller story, I post most days on Facebook for the benefit of keeping in touch with friends and family.  We welcome anyone to join us in this virtual journey.  Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/JustinS007/ 

I will post here on this blog occasionally, to keep readers specifically informed of our walking activites and progress towards the Parish walk.  cheers.