Wessex Water Challenge: Charles Jardine's training blog – Week three – The Beast from the East beast

Charles Jardine, the founder and director of the Fishing for Schools initiative, undertakes his greatest challenge yet, on 7th/8th April – the #WessexWaterChallenge. This 24-hour event will see 65-year-old Charles fish at three Wessex Water Reservoirs and run the 60 miles between them, all in the space of a day. You can sponsor him here

The arrival of the "Beast from the East" put things into perspective – there was no way I was going to be able to do the Wessex Water Challenge on 10/11 March! So I've changed the date.

If you remember, my fundraising challenge involves me catching fish at three Wessex Water fisheries and running the 60-odd miles between them – all in 24hrs. However, there was a great chance that I would not be able to move on from the first fishery – Clatworthy – at all, as the weather is too cold and no-one is catching!

And secondly by moving the challenge back a month I buy myself nearly two hours more daylight – a simple win-win situation. So, the Wessex Water Challenge will now happen on 7 and 8 April.

I'm trying the build up to the date mentally as well as physically – I think mental strength is going to be the big incentive and that's all due to my reason for taking on this challenge. It's my pal Geoffrey, who uses a wheelchair and cannot speak but we have a great understanding and he loves his fishing, or the number of young men who I meet through F4S who have so little going for them. You fix them in your mind when times get tough and remember why you are doing it and they pull you through.

Psychology is so important. I remember when I was preparing for my first marathon somebody told me that I was bound to hit the wall and not finish. When I got to around mile 17 and things were getting really difficult his smug face popped into my mind and it really catapulted me on and I found reserves of energy I had no idea I had!

The weather also affected my choices last Sunday when I was due to run 27 miles to rattle my collection tins at Badbury Rings near Poole for the Savills Countryside Alliance Point-to-point. It would have taken me about four hours, setting off in the dark but it was freezing cold and the roads were treacherous, so I decided to drive. I can't afford a long-term injury.

I went for a three-mile trot around to Kingston Lacey when I got there however and it was stunningly beautiful. I put up a roebuck, there were skylarks overhead and meadow pippets – it was breath-taking, like running with the ancients!

Training for the rest of the week has involved runs around the Downton area and out in the New Forest and then this weekend I'm off to see my daughter Annabel in Dorset, so I plan some runs along the seashore at Saunton Sands.

Have a great week and if you haven't given my fundraising page a visit would you please? https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/wessexwaterchallenge So many young lives can be touched by Fishing for Schools – we just need the funding!

Yours aye, Charles