With just 24 days before I leave for the Challenge of a lifetime I’m doing OK but need to just get the last few miles in on my training and the last few pounds off my belly.

Despite some minor bike repairs needed that has slowed my training a little, a bakers’ cyst on my knee, which I’m ignoring, and some other great excuses not to train I’m still feeling confident I’ll get the job done!

The drive to do so well is the fact that this is such a crucial change we need to make in the lives of boys and men that don’t know how to handle the feelings the have but never express, and all the families that are so devastated by the action of that person.

There’s no blame but we need to change our culture. We treat so many things differently in 2018; women are standing up for themselves against being treated in a way that 30 years ago they were told “that’s the way it is…”; we demand better understanding of how to treat children with needs; but men are still living with the expectation they have to be “Manly” and that means not speaking out when they feel vulnerable, scared or just low. We as men have to be strong even when we are not, we have to be tough even when we are not, we have to be men! What the f**k does that mean?  Be a man!

As men we don’t know, we get told what we can’t be, never what we can be. I’m glad I’m not a young man anymore (except the knees!) I wouldn’t have a clue how to be in this era or how to get by some days…

I’m cycling 500k in India to bring awareness to this issue and to support CALM in their battle to help prevent suicide in young men, remember it’s the biggest killer of men under 45!

If you want to support me then any donation would be gratefully received, I’m over 28% of the way to my £2500 target that I’d like to donate to CALM to support their help lines and chat services.

Please support where you can  //www.justgiving.com/fundraising/garyjohannes

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is an award-winning charity dedicated to preventing male suicide, the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the UK. In 2015, 75% of all UK suicides were male.