00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to
00:06speak to Justin and Malcolm again. We've done the before, now we're doing the after.
00:13You've done it. You've done this crazy thing. 950 miles on bike on Roman roads up and down
00:19the country in how many days? Was it 11 days? Malcolm, you must be so chuffed to have done
00:25it. Did you doubt that you could do it? It was quite an undertaking, wasn't it?
00:31No, I don't think we doubted. I think both myself and Justin really had a strong desire
00:38to achieve. And from the outset, we never really ever contemplated negative thoughts.
00:43And as we discussed earlier, you know, there were days when we had dark moments and days
00:48where we really struggled to get through it. But actually, we never had negative thoughts
00:53that we would ever get to the end. So, and that was really good that we were positive
00:57throughout and supported each other.
00:59So what, Malcolm, what's this taught you about you, do you think? What have you discovered
01:03about you?
01:05I think I've discovered that I've got this strange desire to do these challenges. And I don't
01:14think that's ever going to disappear. I think I'll always want to challenge myself in some
01:18way. I've been trying to work out why I like them. And, and I think, I think it's just to
01:26get to know yourself better to understand that you can push yourself at different times to
01:32a new limit that you maybe haven't discovered before. And I think that's kind of healthy.
01:37Are you talking yourself into your next challenge then, Malcolm?
01:40I'm not going to dismiss it. Myself and Joe, we haven't discussed it yet. Whether it involves
01:47bikes, who knows?
01:49Well, I think our wives may try and dismiss it.
01:51But there is something oddly addictive about extreme tiredness, isn't there? In a strange
01:57way.
01:58Yeah. And there is, there is something, and there are plenty of people before me that have
02:03done better things before myself and Justin, better things, harder things. But it's just
02:09that feeling of pushing yourself to limit and finding out what you can do.
02:12Absolutely. And what about you, Justin? How do you feel at the end of it? Relief?
02:16Do you feel flat at the end of it? You've built up to this for so long?
02:22It's relief, certainly. And relief is trying to get the challenge completed. And actually
02:28we weren't letting other people down because of it. At the end of it, we took about four
02:36or five days to recover. I think there was a kind of a really deep-seated weariness in
02:41there. I was pleased with my ability, my resilience, really, physical resilience to actually sort
02:49of get through the challenges.
02:50Were you surprised by that resilience? You knew you had that resilience, didn't you?
02:54I suspected, but it's also, I think once you, you know, you can do all your training you
02:59like, but if you're doing consecutive days and the first two days were over a hundred
03:04miles, you, there, there is a kind of like, um, naivety is the wrong word, but there's
03:09a kind of like, there's an innocence there that you don't actually fully appreciate the
03:13toll it's taking on your body. Um, and I think, uh, I was pleased that we would still be able
03:18to kind of get through that. So, um, and even at the backstages when we had lower mileage
03:23in the last few days, they were actually some of the hardest ones to do. Do you feel bereft
03:27in any way that it's gone now? It's over? You've done it? Um, no, I don't. That may
03:37come, that may come, but because, uh, the kind of profound weariness that we had for the
03:41few days, I'm quite relieved to get over, go over that now. Um, and, uh, uh, but maybe
03:48that there may be that sense of bereavement later on that, that sense, like maybe, maybe
03:52I'd like to try something else. No, you were doing it to push yourself, but there are other
03:56reasons as well. Fundraising. Just remind me what you were fundraising for. So, um, this
04:02was for, uh, the Chairman of the District Council's, uh, charity. So Stone Pillow, um, obviously,
04:07um, the, the local homeless charity and also helping people forge their own futures as well,
04:12not just sort of shelter. And, uh, the Pallant House, the community programme, which allows
04:16people of all kind of, uh, backgrounds and ages and abilities to find their own kind of
04:20artistic voice. Um, and it looks like we're on the raid between about six or 7,000, that
04:27hopefully we would have raised for those, will have raised for those two charities.
04:31And anyone watching you now can still donate through?
04:35Absolutely. Just giving. Um, so if you go to the Roman Roads, uh, challenge on just giving
04:39and that should, uh, lead you straight to that one. So, yeah.
04:42Fantastic. Well, what a brilliant achievement. I never doubted you for a minute. Superbably done.
04:48Thank you, Phil. Congratulations. And let me know when you decide what the next one is.
04:53I will. You may be waiting a while, but yeah, I will.
04:57Good to see you. Thank you.
04:58Thank you, Phil.
04:59Thank you, Phil.
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