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19 January 2016Jo Brand 'isn't prepared' for her 170-mile Sport Relief walk, says Greg - who confesses she's STILL eating sausage rolls and chocolate bars
Jo Brand is gearing up to join the likes of David Walliams, Davina McCall and Eddie Izzard in undertaking an epic physical challenge in aid of Sport Relief.
The comedienne, 58, is planning to walk from Hull to Liverpool, taking 50,000 steps a day for seven days on a coast-to-coast trail that is not for the weak of knee, hip or mind.
But the London-born comic, who starts her arduous 170-mile Hell Of A Walk on Friday, is 'utterly physically naive' according to Greg who says she's had nowhere near long enough to prepare.
Jo Brand, 58, is walking 170 miles for Sport Relief. 'When I first started training for this challenge, I didn't realise I was not the national fitness icon I'd always believed myself to be,' Jo said
Jo's challenge starts in Hull on the 22nd January and finishes in Liverpool on Thursday 28th January.
'I've only been working with Jo since October,' explains trainer Greg Whyte, an Olympic bronze medal holder and sports scientist.
'I would have wanted a lot longer preparation,' said Greg, who has worked on 23 Sport and Comic relief challenges, coaching Davina through 2014's 500-mile triathlon, helping Eddie run 43 marathons in 51 days, and coaching Walliams through his 2012 swim down the Thames.
'The interesting thing about Jo is that unlike any other challenger we've had she's utterly physically naive.
'She's in her mid-fifties, she's the mother of two teenage girls, and she's never done anything like this,' he said.
Trek: Jo has been training for her challenge since October, which Olympian and serial Comic Relief coach Greg Whyte thinks is nowhere near enough for what she's about to undertake
Jo is pictured walking her first marathon in the Chilterns as part of a training session for her Sport Relief challenge. 'If there's one word that sums up ultra-endurance? Misery,' says Greg
'Even people who have proper experience of ultra-long walks wouldn't choose a coast to coast for their first big challenge.
Jo started her career as a psychiatric nurse and during her journey she will highlight the work that Sport Relief does around mental health and issues that impact women and girls across the UK and the world's poorest communities.
'When I first started training for this challenge, I didn't realise I was not the national fitness icon I'd always believed myself to be,' Jo said.
'My body is a temple …it's big and it doesn't move! The realisation is gradually dawning that I have to walk a very, very, very long way, with many days back-to- back using only my poor little legs to carry me – and that's a gruesome thought,' she added.
Jo has joked that her breasts mean she's carrying two small children with her on her 170-mile hike
Greg said: 'I find her determination extraordinary because in fitness terms she's so far away from where we need to be but she's such a tough cookie.'
Last week Greg and Jo managed her first marathon-length walk of 26 miles – which she'll have to repeat for seven consecutive days up and down a difficult coastline.
Greg reveals that the comic and author of Look Back in Hunger has been jokingly complaining that she's carrying more on her Sport Relief trip than previous competitors.
'She's been pointing at her breasts and joking that she's effectively lugging two small children with her wherever she goes,' Greg said.
She wrote and starred in satirical NHS comedy Getting On, in which she drew on her experience of nursing
'She's a very funny lady as I'm sure everybody knows. What you see on telly is what she is in real life. She's very self-deprecating and her default position is always to talk about her weight.'
But Jo, who has famously been making fat jokes since the mid-'80s, isn't undertaking the challenge to slim down according to Greg.
'She doesn't want to lose weight,' he said. 'The target is always the challenge itself. It's never self-indulgent.'
One of her best known jokes is: 'I read that book Fat is a Feminist issue, got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.'
During her walk she'll be burning around 6,000 calories a day so she'll have to consume enough to keep her going.
'We've increased her physical activity so much that it's not really a restrictive diet it's a refocused diet,' Greg said.
He says Jo can eat whatever she wants within reason because of the low-intensity, high endurance nature of the challenge which won't alter her rate of digestion.
Her favourite sugary snack is a Cadbury's Boost Bar and Greg reveals she munched on a sausage roll during last week's marathon walk.
He has incorporated foods she enjoys into a meal plan for the trek and says the timing of what you eat is more important than what you're consuming for exercise like this.
Greg, pictured above walking in the Chilterns with Jo, as 'a very tough cookie' who absolutely will not give up
He says you have to ingest complex carbohydrates before exercise, sugars and fats while you're moving and protein afterwards.
Fitness fanatic Davina McCall suffered huge emotional highs and lows during her Sport Relief challenge in 2014 which also lasted seven days.
Greg thinks keeping mentally focused for the full 84 hours she'll be walking is one of the biggest undertakings Jo faces.
'If there's one word that sums up ultra-endurance? Misery. If it was and exciting and easy everyone would be doing it,' he said.
'Jo will spend the majority of the time miserable. Sadly there is a drudgery to it. But that does make the emotionally highs really high.'
Jo will be joined by famous friends and people helped by funded Sport Relief projects along the route to spur her on.
The comedienne says she hopes the walk will raise much needed funds for people who really deserve it, which will keep her going.
She added: 'If it doesn't, I will give Greg full permission to push me off the top of a massive hill. See you at the bottom, folks!'