Ok, I’m going to put it right out there. Jamie McDonald is insane.
Not in the mental health way, but in the ‘runnning across Canada is something that normal people can do’ kind of insane. He didn’t just do it unsupported pushing all his possessions in a baby buggy. He went and did it in the middle of winter with temperatures dropping as low as -40C. I told you. Insane.
The tagline of the book is Anyone can be a Superhero. I’m all for positive thinking, Jamie, but there’s no chance you’d find me doing what you did.
Even the first section proves how mental Jamie is. In detail it describes how he broke the World Record Static Cycle time by pedalling non-stop (apart from a daily 2 hour break) for 268 hours. The mentality of the man is incredible that he could put up with the monotony, the sleep deprivation and the arse sores. Think about that for a moment. Cycling for 11 days solid with only a daily hour and half kip to recharge the batteries.
I doth my hat to him. He’s one amazing dude!
The rest of the book chronicles the journey that Jamie made as he ran across Canada dressed as The Flash superhero. He raised a shed load of cash (£250,000) for various hospitals in Canada and in the UK which is absolutely admirable. The book details the kindness of strangers and the crowd of mums who came to his assistance, his Momma Bears. It attempts to describe the feelings of isolation in the middle of the wilderness but somehow I feel that there would be no way to put into words the vast emptiness of most of Canada. It touches on the techniques he used and his passion to drum up support for his chosen charities.
Oh, didn’t I mention that he had a debilitating disease, syringomyelia, as a kid. Even the royalties from the book sales are all going to his charity, the Superhero Foundation.
Somehow though, I think the whole challenge is of such epic proportions that no one will truly know what Jamie went through apart from him. How can you distil 11 months and over 200 marathons into averagely sized book? He’s written an inspiring and moving tome but even the writing process was a feat in itself.
Oh, did I forget to mention that he is dyslexic. Jamie’s the sort of driven person who would return to school at 23 to retake his GCSE English.
Maybe ‘insane’ is the wrong adjective for Jamie. Maybe ‘driven’ is a better word.
I think Jamie’s partly right. Anyone can be a Superhero, but it takes someone with superhuman drive to accomplish the things that he has achieved.