At work James Bull plunges fearlessly into burning buildings; fighting fires and saving lives. Now the North London firefighter prepares to feel the burn in an altogether different inferno; running 250km in six days through the searing heat of the Sahara desert, to confront a 20 year battle with PTSD.
The issue is personal to James. To the untrained eye, he might seem like the archetypal alpha male. Six foot three, chiselled and tattooed. Harder than Teflon and seemingly indestructible.
But beneath the ripped torso lies a world of invisible pain. Twenty years of crippling anxiety, depression and trauma has taken its toll on his family and robbed James of the life he once knew.
For James, going to the desert is a soul-searching pilgrimage of discovery. It’s the most gruelling physical race in the world, but the hardest distance to navigate will be between his ears.
