In this week’s FridayFocus we spoke to Jamie McDonald, a best selling author and adventurer from Gloucester!
- Who are you, and where do you come from?
I am an adventurer, speaker, published author and charity founder from Gloucestershire.
2. Who’s your fitness inspiration?
My fitness inspiration has to be Arnie, one of my goals for this year is to be as big as him, although I’m not sure that’s going to happen! Being honest, what I do – long distance adventures – doesn’t lend itself to size, and I have chicken legs anyway!
3. What’s your favourite form of exercise?
Running. I love running through forests and open areas where I can just run and let go of any stresses that are on my mind. Running really frees my mind and almost opens it up into a dreamland. When I’m out in a forest somewhere I tend to think about my future and where my journey’s taking me.
4. When you’re on adventures what do you eat?
When I ran across Canada I was eating tinned fish and butter to make sure I got all of the protein and fat I needed.
5. What was your experience in Canada like?
To be honest it was a bit like Forrest Gump! I started on one side of Canada running on my own with a pram, and then I just started to build up steam until eventually, on the final day, as I ran through Vancouver towards the western-most point, I had hundreds of runners with me. The Canadian people were just amazing, they helped carry me through it!
We managed to raise half a million pounds for Pied Piper and Great Ormond Street, as well as for one charity in each province I ran through in Canada – so it was a huge success. Although, annoyingly I lost a little bit of my nose in the – 40 temperatures!
6. Any fitness/life goals for 2017?
This year I’m focusing on getting stronger for my next big endurance adventure. People underestimate the amount of strength and flexibility you need for cardio-focused challenges, but thanks to some great advice from people around me including a friend that specialises in strength and conditioning, these chicken legs can go for miles!
7. Best piece of fitness advice?
Make fitness enjoyable, whether that’s through playing sport or cycling to work with a purpose at the end of it. Otherwise, if it’s not enjoyable, it will ever last.
Another piece of advice for anyone really, in all aspects of life, is to break through that fear of failure. If things go wrong it’s not the end of the world!
8. Favourite people to follow online?
I love following my adventure partner in crime Anna McNuff – she has run across new Zealand recently cycled all of the Andi Mountains! She’s very active on Instagram.
9. What would you be doing if you weren’t an adventurer?
I actually wanted to be a tennis player when I was younger, but I realised pretty quickly that adventuring was what I enjoyed most.
10. Have you always been into your sport and fitness?
The reason that I love movement is that when I was a kid I was really sick and couldn’t even move my legs. So, when I got my health back at 9 years old and started to get more active I just fell in love with movement and constantly moving around.
Jamie’s best-selling book, ‘Adventureman: Anyone Can Be a Superhero’, can be bought on paperback or as an eBook here
Jamie’s Charity ‘The Superhero Foundation’ can be found here.
Jamie’s Facebook page can be found here.