End is in sight in Matt’s year of 40 challenges
THE mid-life-crisis clock is still ticking for Warwick man Matt Boorman who declared he would complete 40 challenges before celebrating his 40th birthday on September 20.
Some were relatively simple like eating a hated Brussels sprout every day.
Others were slightly more demanding, such as running a marathon, milking a cow, spending 40 nights in different graveyards and getting in the Guinness Book of Records.
But the challenge Matt never expected was the one sprung by his long-term partner Larisa who has just presented him with a baby son.
Six-week-old Harrison is the couple’s fourth child and still too little to understand why his insurance underwriter daddy keeps rushing off to jump out of aeroplanes or chase cheeses down hillsides in Gloucestershire.
The family lives in Chase Meadow, Warwick, where Matt is now working on his final few mid-life tests of courage - or lunacy, if you listen to Larisa.
But as he grits his teeth and prepares to get a tattoo, Matt admits there is also a serious side to his endeavours.
Each individual task is sponsored in a bid to raise some £5,000 towards improving the quality of life for nine-year-old Lea Clarke, who has brain damage and is the daughter of his best friend Jon.
Matt said: “Lea lives in Essex and her parents take her regularly for specialist treatment at a centre in West Sussex which has already led to her improved vision.
“Anything I can do that will raise money towards Lea’s continuing care is well worth any challenge - and some of them are fun.”
Surprisingly, the cheese-rolling has proved the most frightening event so far as running down a wet hillside over the Jubilee weekend led to quite a few injuries for others. Fortunately Matt managed to survive with all his limbs intact.
Now he’s hoping the money will start rolling in. So far he’s banked nearly £2,000 with the most lucrative challenges still to come.
These include another 22 nights in graveyards, hot air ballooning, walking the length of Hadrian’s Wall and getting himself on television.
That shouldn’t be too difficult after the year he’s had.
Most of Matt’s challenges:
· Getting into the Guinness Book of Records (ongoing)
· Cycling from Birmingham to London (completed)
· Enduring colonic irrigation (completed)
· Reading the entire works of Shakespeare (completed)
· Catching a fish and eating it the same day
· Adopting a bearded monkey (completed)
· Eating a Brussels sprout every day (ongoing)
· Shaking hands with 40 people he admires (26 completed)
· Spending 40 nights in graveyards (18 completed)
· Completing a London Monopoly board pub crawl
· Kissing his mother (one day this month)
· Kissing 40 times under a waterfall (not mum)
· Handling a tarantula
· Riding a horse
· Snowboarding
· Jumping out of a plane (completed)
· Going to an opera
· Skinny-dipping in a sea or river
· Flying in a hot air balloon
· Keeping his head shaved for a year (ongoing)
· Getting a tattoo
· Staying outside between sunset and sunrise (completed)
· Visitng the A-Z of English villages (590 visited so far)
· Watching entire Harry Potter saga in one sitting (completed)
· Spending the summer solstice at Stonehenge (completed)
· Walking Hadrian’s Wall
· Running a marathon (completed)
· Publishing 40 poems or stories (completed)
· Winning 40 awards (seven so far)
· To find out more or make a donation for one of Matt’s challenges visit uk.virginmoneygiving.com/midlifecrisischallenge
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Sunday 19 May 2013
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