As Joshua Antcliffe, the Fundraising and Events Co-ordinator at the Benjamin Foundation starts to work on the fund-raising campaign and my part in it, I have had my first Teams meeting with the my new crew mates.
I guess it should have come as no surprise that with few exceptions, they are all either ex-military or retired Police Officers. The boat is going to be shipshape and disciplined if nothing else!
From the brief mentions of previous adventures, there is also a wealth of experience in there and I find myself confronted by the reality that this challenge is certainly going to be a lot more than just dealing with physical and mental hardship. I am already wondering if I would match up and be able to hold my own. But then that is exactly why I wanted to take this on, right?
Knowing in advance that your crew partners are going to be fit and strong, is a great motivation for driving your own training and I have embarked on a weekly combination of cycling, rowing, swimming and weight training. For interest and by way of a log, I will record each session here as I do them. Sometimes they may appear simply as a diary entry, but if anything accompanies it to make it worthy of a blog, I'll be sure to expand on it.
In early December I determined to join two of my colleagues from the surgery that I work at as a Paramedic Practitioner in Mulbarton, Norwich, who were due to run the Blickling half marathon on the 17th March. A few months earlier we had suffered the devastating loss of our friend and manager, Hilary Taylor. Her husband, Mark, was doing the half as a warm up to the London marathon that he takes on in her memory in two weeks time and Sarah, (for whom Hilary was both mentor and confidante), agreed to train with him and do the Blickling run as her ultimate goal.
Within a month of this terrible loss, my cycling training partner Dave, someone I flatter myself to know as friend, also passed away. They were both attended by the East of England Air Ambulance to whom we are indebted and for whom Sarah, Mark and I have fund-raising pages still open if you too have been helped by them and wish to help with their life-saving work.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/hilary-taylor-wife-to-mark-mother-friend
https://www.gofundme.com/f/dave-collier-a-huge-heart-and-familiar-back-wheel
I used to run often. In truth as a child, I probably ran everywhere and ran x-country at school and endlessly for fun thereafter, but it is easy to forget that age can be unkind to your memory and your knees. So when I went from nothing to two half-marathon distance runs, two weekends in a row in the space of 6 weeks, it should not have surprised me when my left knee blew up and reminded me why I had stopped running 10 years ago. It was a reminder, however, that these things are largely mental and that like any other endurance challenge, once you are determined to finish, if your head says you will, then you will even if your body's not that keen.
Nov 28 Indoor Rowing 1 hour 9 mins
Nov 29 Indoor Rowing 32 mins
Dec 3 Indoor Rowing 44 mins
Dec 3 Indoor Rowing 1 Hour 10 mins
Dec 4 Running 56 mins
Dec 9 Indoor Rowing 2 Hours 10 mins
Dec 11 Running 44 mins
Dec 13 Indoor Rowing 1 hour 8 mins
Dec 14 Indoor Cycle 20 mins
Dec 14 Cycle 1 Hour 37
Dec 17 Indoor Rowing 33 mins
Dec 23 Indoor Rowing 33 mins
Dec 23 Indoor Rowing 35 mins
Dec 25 Indoor Rowing 30 mins
Dec 25 Running 53 mins
Dec 26 Cycling 1 hour 58 mins
Dec 31 Running 1 Hour 38 mins
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