 So the next day, 0-4-20, get up, train hard. Before that, I think we did a 933 kilometre adventure triathlon, so it was a paddleboard east of the west coast of Scotland, cycle 790 kilometres and then run a marathon. Trapped all my kit in the Solent, the burger in the Solent, swam across the Isle of Wight, got out the other end, dropped down half the weight and then ran 70 miles around the Isle of Wight. That's hardy, how are you brother? I'm good buddy, how are you? I'm absolutely firing mate. I'm in utter awe probably along with the rest of the world at your latest world record. Before we do that Dads, can you just tell our friends, just give our friends at home your military background so they know who we're talking to today? Yeah absolutely, so I spent 15 years in the British Army. I was a soldier and an officer. I was discharged medically in 2017, four years actually to date and four years ago by a shoulder injury and also PTSD. Yes you're in the thick of it, weren't you? Are you able to tell us a quick bit about the helicopter crash, wasn't it? Yeah so 2006, May 2006, Lynx carrying friendly forces was shot down and yeah it was just that we were on the cleanup party of that so it was the picking up of the bodies etc, so on and so forth for 37 hours actually, Wight's taken quite a lot of heavy incoming. So yeah it was a nasty up but that never really bothered me back then, John was a young 20 year old keen sapper you know and it was 2015 when he was an officer at this point and a girl had fallen into a fire in Canada on a training exercise and it was us that saved their life and it was that smell of the burning flesh that triggered the incident in 2006. So 2015 was a bit of a tough year, we diagnosed in 2016 with PTSD and then yeah just sort of downhill from there. And like all veterans have the power to do, we're right back up there mate, aren't we? Get back up there and that's the you know this is why I do these multi-day endurance events was the initial no reason for doing it was sort of I call it my medicine you know and it's I changed my whole life around sort of 2018 I was in a very very dark place and what I just swear like call it a day pull the pin in essence and it was having a family that stopped me from doing that but instantly overnight I changed from sitting in Tesco's car park crying to my uncle on the phone telling him probably what I was wanting the planning to do and to the next day 0420 get up train hard and that's my sort of medicine and then always have a focus of go going forward i.e these these events that I do. Routine mate so important isn't it you know daily routine mate it starts with some contact coffee as well. If that's a plug mate I want half. Never thought I'd chuck it in but you know them I like it they're you're guys anyway so yes is it a wet? Yes everyone's jumping on the coffee thing aren't they sorry sorry contact coffee I shouldn't say that but I've been approached a few times so just again so I'm putting all this on you so I can be lazy but do you want to just give us a quick rundown on on your challenges to date because you've certainly put yourself through the mill. To date the Yukon Arctic Ultra it's minus 53 up in high in the Yukon what we got next what we do next we did the oxygen chamber thing yeah we did the world's highest geathlon I like to say we want to do this because I've always got a good supportive team around me so I like to keep it as we but generally it's solo media and just just for the viewers so yeah so that was the world's highest geathlon 190 kilometers in a 12 and a half thousand feet with a with a mask on and before that it was 10 ultra distance triathlons in 10 days and 10 locations and that was pretty pretty epic before that I think we did a 933 kilometer adventure triathlon so it was a paddleboard east of west coast of Scotland cycle 790 kilometers and then run a marathon for that I think I ran 75 miles on a treadmill with 30 pounds in my back for VE day last year and and that was in complete darkness I had a little red light in front of me that was that was very very hard there was no change of you know on a treadmill you can imagine in a 12 by 12 tent as well there was no change of terrain it was just that constant fast my probably one of my biggest recoveries from that because of my legs and the swelling on that um I did a 54 mile tab with with 52 pounds in my back and chopped all my kit in the solent the burger in the solent swam across the Isle of Wight got out the other end dropped down half a weight and then ran 70 miles around the Isle of Wight it was about 36 hours of constant hell and I've done a few other things so earlier this year I ran five marathons and 50 hours over the South Downs coast and from Sandbanks just past Weymuth and back 4,000 meters of elevation I did it in 43 hours but I had to finish at the 50th hour because there was um the family that was raising the money for were coming my family were coming media was going to be there so I just got my head down for five hours that towards the end of that and then did the last sort of um okay so it was quite quite funny and then the most recent which is so this one I've actually applied for the world records and whereas the previous ones that the world's house draft on that I just couldn't be bothered you know they don't mean anything to me um if someone said to me why don't you apply for this and your your kids and grandkids won't know appreciate it and eventually and because t-shirts hats medals none of that stuff bothers me to know of have a couple of gold medals as well from from sprinting um in Colorado and they're just I don't know where they are they're tucked away somewhere none of that stuff sort of means anything the times of the stuff it's the case they do it complete it forget about it move on is my sort of attitude towards it so yeah and um can you tell us what it involved as yes so my last one um there was a couple of world records set on that one which was the furthest distance dragging a car within 24 hours now loads of people have done this but if you're going by the Guinness World Record and I say loads of people a couple of people have done it um like Ross said he told a marathon and did it so in a marathon with a marathon distance um but you know with a lighter car um he trained a lot for it and yeah I know you know it's just um so the the actual set world record was 33.93 kilometers within 24 hours and uh and you had the tour 1.5 ton car 1500 kilograms and uh some guy in Slovakia I think had that record um so yeah I absolutely um knocked that one out of the park on the first evening uh or the first day I did it in about 19 hours and then I just carried on pulling for another bit just so 37 kilometers just a nice round number um it was getting very very hot the next day and so I just decided then to have a little bit of a rest because they only had about 20 minutes kit in the first 24 hours and then I carried on pulling for another 24 hours um uh so and then bringing that up a total distance which was the second record the furthest vehicle ever pulled for 53 kilometers um again there's people out there that do things like though I know someone's towing a vehicle 100 kilometers but it's 1k per day you know for 100 days whereas yeah 47 hours my my my final timing was because I had to get in because we were not flying afterwards at Blackbush airports for the work within that flight window so yeah so 53 kilometers and um it's to date the hardest thing I have ever done in my life mate you're certainly smashing it out the pot just just imagine what you you could achieve had you been in the Marines I would have um just yeah I think I could have looked me well I'm good I'm saying nothing yeah no exactly mate and this is it you know and it's always a good bit of friendly banter um it's it's just uh I just think um funny quite a lot that quite a lot of the uh good next um have you know supported me a lot of this stuff it's absolutely fantastic you know I think I've fallen into that crowd of um of soldiers that I never wanted to fall in the crowd of you know army wannabes type as I would have called them but yeah falling that crowd but as a physical training instructor we're all sort of we're there together you know all one yes it is great um I've had multi services I think support me on some of my challenges and um it's just wonderful some boot net will turn up in a van out the middle of nowhere and then like literally attach themselves to you for two days and do everything that you ask of them to a tee with no argument um yes yeah absolutely it's um it's good it's good it's uh but yeah it was um a rewarding event I think you know and it's just sets me up for the next and the next and what what can I do next is is whereas where my head's at normally when I'm suffering in these events I'm thinking how can I make this worse what can I do next you know and that's my sort of push through so I've got a couple of things up my sleeve um which will be good um just waiting for a couple of sign-offs because I've got to go bigger you know uh bigger and better and these things um take more coordination more planning I do it all myself you know and it's that's probably the difficult part the coordination and planning of it um before like for the example the Guinness World Record I got the car from BMW so Barnes BMW sponsored the event um and then obviously the car comes with the set weight you know weight the vehicle is then you have to bring it back to the car to an independent weigh bridge you have to video getting weighed and then you have to go in and get the print out get it signed off and then you have to find it when the scales was last the weight bridge was last calibrated and and so on and so forth similar when we did the surveying of the land to do it you have to find it when everything was last calibrated you had the video the survey being done and it's just a lot of admin for for something like yeah I said I'm not really that fussed in to be honest do you find um that these things cost you a you know do you have to put your hand in your own pocket yeah quite a bit actually and um something me and my wife always talk about it but never you know they do you know when we go across the alleyway I generally pay for the support team to come across and the ferry fuel someone and so forth um yeah they do generally um I I do have a really good guy brought on so um Ali from that resilient nutrition and and he's he's extremely helpful and and he tends to like now do a lot of apart from taking the fuel of resilient nutrition the long range fuel the other bits and pieces of that we need he's generally just the generous guy and we'll go out and and pick it up and bring it in so it's not happen to you but yeah generally it does cost me um a couple hundred quid and which which I rather wouldn't be so have a corporate sponsors then I can put that maybe the couple hundred quid into the charity myself you know or something on those lines and I'll mention it because when I ran the length of the country that cop that that if you took into account I wasn't work obviously couldn't work for 36 days yeah it the the the cost to to me my girlfriend was thousands really you know it is it is absolutely and I've I've worked out now that these little two three-day ones are quite good and you know especially because on Friday my work are generally quite generous because I'm doing it for a charity they'll give me the Friday off you know and then I'm straight back into work on the Monday like for example that one started on Thursday at midday I finished Saturday midday and I stayed up that night to have two in the morning we saw the video evidence yeah I know I know I thought I was going to go proper man time but something just kept me carrying on um so yeah that was good and then and then this week to be honest now I've been tired like most most evenings so um yeah and generally I said I get up at 20 past four I've knocked that back to five o'clock this week because I'm but I still Monday morning straight back into routine getting up early and training it's just that that's my setup that's my bit in the morning ready for the day you know yeah it's funny 420 is it it's the 420 is the code for stoners isn't it I heard that yeah actually before and on it but I'm just uh let's say uh as jockel will it would say up before the enemy you know yes he actually picked that time because he gets up at 0 432 every day up before the enemy and I thought we can't have the Americans beating us at this side of the pond so um I just went 420 you know I I heard that he used to put it on his um Instagram like his what in photo of his quite a lot yeah generally and I I generally do that on my story yeah um followed by a by a video of some sort of dance tune from the 90s bang and I um at about quarter to five in the morning the way to the gym let's talk about um the charity angle who who who who are we raising yeah so um this this year has been um dedicated and I'll continue to get dedicate my time to this charity until the money's raised because we're on a timeline this one and is so habc which is um foundation and it's uh basically children with the world's rarest brain disease and there's only a couple of kids in the UK that have it um a couple of hundred in the world and unfortunately because of it's so rare there's zero funding in the UK so it all has to be done um you know via fundraising and that's when I got involved early in this year you know today at night I've raised in the past sort of 12 18 months I've raised 57,000 pounds for for charity but for this and out of that 57 I've done 30 37 has gone to this one so um and that's just been two events this year so it's again it's frustrating because um I know the month there's money out there and you just gotta gotta find it somehow and and with like Instagram you know you constantly asking people I don't want to keep asking people every day for it um I do find that a little bit cringing in myself but I've just have to be a bit bold about it you know we um as I put in my sort of last post you might have seen it with me hugging Aggie over the line a little girl the 12 year old Aggie you know um I'll recover um and I've got time but she won't recover and she doesn't have time and and that's that's just a harsh reality of it so um that's why I always ask people to sort of dig deep on it and and and the the the condition sort of affects the white matter of the brain the stuff that tells us to to eat and sleep and walk and talk and and Aggie used to be able to do that um as as the other kids and they're all different stages of this um of this journey for them and um she I can't do any of that you know um she's completely wheelchair bind she um yeah she she can't talk she communicates literally with a thumb up thumb down um but she she's mentally there she understands that like a normal 12 year old girl she knows what's happening and that's the that's the sort of one of the the sad things about it now so it's um yeah it's just what what can I do and this is where these crazy events come from and now you know it's what can I do that will make people think holy shit um and raise an eyebrow and and get the media on board and then um then they'll see the charity and that that's I'm using these events and putting myself through the mill as a platform to raise raise the awareness yeah so let's just take a moment um to say a massive thank you to everyone that sponsors both me and Daz um it it's just a sad fact you know not a sad it it's an issue that we can't get around to literally thank you all but I see all the names when they come up on the just giving or whatever and I recognize so many of them and and um it's so kind that you support us guys as well because we you know we've come through challenges and we we have to maintain our mental health and the fact that you buy into us and support us is just um it's it's an equal thing to the fact that you're supporting in this case you know a young girl um funny enough Daz my we we talked about this on the phone but I ran a hundred miles of the coastal path last weekend to raise Christina Thomas who was who's recovering from a brain tumor that's the first extreme challenge I've done that hasn't been for a for a veterans charity and when I was running along when it got well it was all hard yeah but I did keep saying this isn't about me this is you know this was about Christina I I don't know how much easier that made the challenge but it certainly made it firm in my mind that I'm I'm gonna get this hundred miles in the bag exactly that you know and on the five and fifty and this one when I was struggling both times I first time the mum that had to speak to Aggie and see her and that was just all I needed and it was just like so I'm gonna put my PTI vest on me just thought the strength and away I went you know it was just um all right let's go you know it's one of those situations and you realize you're saying it is for there's me moaning yes and I'm dragging this big um vehicle heavy piece of metal behind me but I like to see that you know that's the burden these these people live with every single day you know dragging this weight around and there's me moaning about us one step after the next yes it hurt but you know Aggie can't take a step and and I was like basically probably a bit of over-military fashion way get a grip of yourself Darren stop moaning put your foot in from the other and it's amazing what the human body can do it is just in those two days the adaptation of the body to to people to do that was just phenomenal um yes okay I've got a bit of a stress fracture going on and sore legs but that will cover but it's phenomenal what what it does and how it stays awake and you know it's just amazes me I learn every single time I do these things as you saw probably yes when you look at some of the challenges that people have in their lives it makes you you know it we need to be reminded don't we those of us that are kind of say able-bodied and able-minded and and not not not not treading carefully I was speaking obviously but what I mean is those of us that can get out stay happy and just achieve a few things in our life it's it's a massive difference to know when you've got a terminal illness isn't it yeah 100 yeah yes so and again just that there focuses my energy into doing the next and the next and the next so what was your stretch of the coastal path like because the bit that I chose up it was just so ninja yeah it was like the Royal Marine's endurance course run like up and down would be common like that but for a hundred miles yeah yeah exactly that you know it was the from sandbanks across in and then right through to to Weymouth you know it is you hit all the roller coaster you hit the seven sister you hit the lot you know through loveworth cove up and down and the devil steps war barrel hill the worst hill in the world and you know every single time you've got that big the big one you you you come down steps and that the other side to the where the Royal Marines Memorial is and vice versa and I think that the moralizing thing for me I was going that way and I knew it was having to come back it's like oh my god so yeah it's like 4000 meters or whatever that is a feet and of elevation in no in such a short pit 43 hours because the last bit was flat along the along the sandbanks did you sleep sleep at all in that I know you did at the end but did you sleep in the 43 hours and no I had about I had maybe two 10 minute shut my eyes yeah just I just kept going and kept going so the first night luckily I had loads of people like sort of supporting and walking with me and because I was doing it said self-sufficient so it was carrying the stuff and had a few water breaks along the way but I had like the whole like last marathon distance or marathon and a half I had some guy Ryan's up and with me and and he met me up to that point but the first night I didn't have anyone with me and this guy Ali I mentioned was an nutrition he did some walking him back and with me back and forth just it was like probably the first night the weather came in and it was just like oh this is just rubbish you know it's like what am I doing and having to layer up no after putting so much intensity in my body heating up I was still having like no waterproofs on and I was just because my because my body was shutting down it was so cold and I just no energy to heat myself up I was I was layering up the first night so it was mental but yeah Angel as a good and good descriptor does listen I could talk all day about this I'd love to talk more about kit and and and and it sounds funny to people for people listening if you're not familiar with these kind of events you know hypothermia for me is a real big problem yeah I can be hot and running along fine but second a bit of water comes out the sky in a wick there's a bit of a breeze and then the tiredness just takes over you and maybe you're a bit famished and I can just start shivering uncontrollably and then it's then it's like can I get my bivvy out and it really becomes an issue and I'd love to chat chat more but I'm conscious you've got another appointment yes mate yeah no worries and appreciate having me on and saying if if there's anyone listening and and hopefully there's people listening to this and uh if you want to support you know head on over to just giving us angel link mate yeah I've been Darren Hardy and I pop up there first one good if you can um what's that me all your links mate and I'll just put put them below sounds good buddy yes and that's um let's chat soon brother yes mate take it easy mate keep being an absolute inspiration like we all love it mate thank you here's buddy take it easy