Spencer Matthews’s wife Vogue Williams thinks he’s “mad” for attempting to break a marathon world record.
Spencer Matthews's wife Vogue Williams thinks he’s ‘mad’ for attempting marathon world record
The former ‘Made In Chelsea’ star, 35 - who has kids Theodore, five, Gigi, three, and two-year-old Otto with his model wife, 38 - will try to run 30 marathons across the Jordanian desert in 30 days in an effort to raise money for charity.
While failure is simply “not an option” for him, Spencer - who is aiming to break the Guinness World Record for the most consecutive marathons to ever have been run on sand - revealed Vogue was not impressed when he first told her of his plans.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror newspaper, he said: “My wife initially thought I was mad and found the whole thing to sound extremely dangerous.
“But Vogue understands my desire to push myself. If I said I was going to go off for 30 days every year she might be a bit peeved. If we succeed and raise a lot of money for great causes she'd obviously support that effort.”
While his wife isn't overly thrilled about the dangers of his ‘Great Desert Challenge’, the podcaster insisted his children thought he was “cool” for attempting to overcome the herculean task, even if they were “too young to understand the dangers of it”.
He said: “My children are slightly too young to understand the dangers of it - they just think it's cool Daddy's going running in the desert for a while.”
Spencer chose to embark on this challenge and attempt to make it into the Guinness Book of Records, because his elder brother Michael died in 1999 aged 22, after becoming the youngest Brit to summit Mount Everest.
The TV star - who was 10 years old at the time of Michael’s death - said he was “quite keen to make [his] brother proud” with his ‘Great Desert Challenge’.
He reflected: “I looked up to Michael enormously. I grew up appreciating his adventurous spirit, it kind of lived on through me and I feel quite close to him when I put myself in sporting situations.”
Spencer has used the memory of his brother - who was presumed dead following a snowstorm on Everest, and his body was never found - to spur him on during previous marathon attempts.
He said: “In every ultra marathon I've ever done, when times have got tough and I'm on the verge of giving up, I think of him and even talk to him. It’s a nice feeling for me.”
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