And so it begins.....

A famous inspirational quote is thus: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

Well, this seems more than apt, for several reasons.

1) This is my first foray into the world of blogging.
2) This is the blog of Endurance for Charity.
3) The first endurance event is a record attempt on the (almost) 1000km Bibbulmun Track.

Now, I may have left the start of this blog a little late to generate any real interest for the upcoming record attempt, but Endurance for Charity may very well become my life-long legacy, and so starting this blog just a week shy of my 33rd birthday doesn't seem like it's too late.....

So what has brought me to this point? Why start my own not-for-profit organisation, when there are so many out there? Why endurance events? Isn't the (now defunct) lamington drive an easier way to raise money?

Well, first of all, I always wondered why the lamington drive disappeared..... Who remembers, as kids, getting in the kitchen with a bunch of mums, actually MAKING the lamingtons, carefully placing them in white cardboard boxes, then going door-to-door, trying to sell them without actually eating any of them? If the mums were smart, they made just enough extra that the kids were already sick of lamingtons by the time it came to sell them.

Anyway, I digress.

Why I registered Endurance for Charity

Well, I want to give something back to the community. With all the current tragedy in this country and overseas, I want to DO something. Now, without getting too political, lets just say that me putting my hand up as a Navy Reserve medic, (someone with, I would think, highly-regarded skills in light of recent events), received not so much as an acknowledgement.

So, frustrated, I wondered what else I could do.....

I figured I could combine two passions - helping others and long-distance running. This could simply have been a stand-alone event, but I realised I had the opportunity to form an all-encompassing organisation that could cover a multitude of feats of endurance by me - and hopefully others - in the future.

And so Endurance for Charity was born.

Ok. So I've introduced my new-found organisation. Let me tell you a bit about me.

My full name is Kreig Danyon Owen Leitchze. DOB 22/03/78.

On 27th Feb, 2010, I discharged after 10 year's full-time service in the Navy. Why? Because I felt I was stagnating. Just the year before, I underwent a transformation in my life - I lost 20kg, and I began to run!

I went from being worried about whether or not I would pass my fitness test (a 2.4km run), to running marathons, and even greater distances than that, within a matter of months.

(As a side note, a marathon is always 42.195km - anything greater than that is technically an ultra marathon).

Last year I went traveling, and throughout the course of the year, I sustained a torn calf muscle (twice), torn hamstring, and fractured wrist. Needless to say, I didn't compete in any distance events.

This year is a different story. And that's where my next post will pick up......