Why I chose to stop my 21 SAS application
By Deepak Shukla · Historical account and source-led commentary · Updated
In June 2016 I wrote to the unit and told them I didn't want to continue towards selection. By then I'd completed Alpha and Bravo, spent a year of Wednesday evenings preparing alongside other applicants, and been through a 21 SAS assessment weekend. I decided, at that time, that selection wasn't right for me. This page is an attempt to explain that decision honestly.
The decision itself
By early June I was discussing the next stage and arranging equipment. On 9 June 2016 I wrote to the unit saying I'd thought about it and didn't believe selection was for me at that point. I thanked the people who had invested their time in my training. The reply explained that pausing the application wasn't available under the rules as they applied to me then, so we proceeded with the administration of leaving. That was the whole of it: no drama, no failure story, no triumph. A decision, made and acted on.
Wanting the challenge versus wanting the commitment
I'd been attracted to the idea of doing something very difficult. I'd already chased ambitious endurance goals and wanted to test myself in a different arena. But military service isn't a race entry or a personal expedition. It carries ongoing responsibilities, it reaches into your civilian life, and it asks for far more than enthusiasm for a hard physical test. Understanding that difference clearly is, I think, what the two years were actually for.
What I'd done by then
I'd been through the application and recruitment stages, completed Alpha and Bravo, and spent time in the holding-troop environment. The Wednesday sessions and the unit assessment weekend were genuine, evaluated preparation. They were also not a completed SAS selection course — and I've always been careful to keep those two facts side by side, because each is true.
What I won't claim
I'm not a special-forces veteran and I've never presented myself as one. I trained seriously towards something and chose to stop before the formal selection course. Readers deserve both halves of that sentence: the preparation was real, and so was the stopping.
What I'd say to someone in the same position
Before you build your life around a single event, understand the commitment behind it. Speak directly to the recruiting team about the process as it exists today. Work out honestly what sustained preparation would mean for your work, your relationships and your health. And ask yourself whether you want the role itself — not merely the satisfaction of having attempted something with a fearsome reputation.
Preparation without bravado
My later ultramarathon years taught me a great deal about consistency, pacing and recovery, and those lessons transfer to general fitness. But no private training plan guarantees military readiness, and hard training for its own sake can be counterproductive. Any serious programme should be built with qualified people who know your health and injury history.
The original diaries stay as they were
This page sits alongside the articles I wrote at the time about applying and about the Pirbright weekend; it doesn't replace them. I've kept those pieces untouched so you can see what I wrote then against what I think now. For current entry requirements, the Army's own website is the only source worth trusting.
Get my 21 SAS reserve selection prep guide
What the stages are, what I was training to before I applied, and how I'd build the twelve weeks before a selection weekend. Written from my own application, free, no pitch.