STEVE Fox is on his way to Canada next month for the World Obstacle Course Races Championships.

After finishing ninth at a qualifying event, Chippenham’s Fox admitted the biggest obstacle was persuading his wife Coreen to let him go.

Thankfully, she was understanding and the 50-year-old is now preparing for his transatlantic trip to Canada where he will compete for an official world ranking.

“I wanted to do something for my 50th year, I saw there was this world championships and a very understanding wife agreed to let me disappear to Canada for five days,” he said.

“It wasn’t a given I would qualify, but once I did the biggest obstacle was to say I want to go to Canada for five days without you, but she was pretty understanding.

“The obstacles are bigger, harder and scarier than I’ve done before, it’s not about the time it is about completing every obstacle.’’ The sport can see competitors climb over walls, carry heavy objects, traverse water, crawl under barbed wire and jump through fire and the world championships are due to take place at Blue Mountain, Ontario on October 14-15.

Fox began doing obstacles when he began to pick up injuries whilst road running and hasn’t looked back since he took up the sport.

“I started doing it about two and a half years ago, I’ve always been active I was doing road running but started picking up a few injuries,” he added.

“I was told to run on some grass so I went running round Hardenhuish School fields and discovered they had an activity trail around the side, which I started to play on after I did a short 5km race, loved it and I’ve been doing it ever since.”