How Hard Can it Be!?: June 2013

Sunday, 30 June 2013

June's Events, Fund Raising and Training Update...

Abersoch 10km finish line

After spending the last week of May in Abersoch on holiday with family and friends I discovered the Abersoch 10km run was scheduled for Sat 1st June whilst we were still down there. I haven't done much running so far this year but decided to give it a go as I'm considering doing the inaugural Abersoch Half Marathon later this year in October. The 10km is a great course with a comfortable enough number of runners for it to feel like an event without feeling hemmed in. A lovely day for it too! Finished on the beach in a fairly respectable time of 53mins 35seconds which I was quite pleased with!

The RNLI Triathlon Relay Teams

This was followed up the following weekend by the Findel Triathlon Team Relay challenge I organised as this year's RNLI fundraiser on Sunday 9th June. Helped by eleven friends and colleagues from work we managed to put together four relay teams to compete at the Capesthorne Triathlon. Due to a last minute illness, I ended up covering the cycle leg for the Findel Education team as well as the planned swim leg for the EGL team.

The Swimmers!

The swim was pretty awful! A 750m swim ended up for some reason being just over 1,000m!? Consequently the time of 23mins 54secs a bit disappointing (I've been swimming 750m in about 17 to 18 mins).

The cycle leg though was excellent, probably my best ever performance in an event. It's not been unusual for most folk to pass me on the bike but this time I powered past a lot of folk including a couple of guys on serious looking time trial bikes! I completed the 26km course in 51mins 10secs averaging 18.8mph! :-)

Congratulations to the Findel Group team who took the honours on the day and a huge thanks to everyone who supported us with a donation! £955 raised for Abersoch RNLI so far!  The donation page will remain open until 9th September for any late donations! ~ http://www.justgiving.com/Findel-RNLI-TriTeam-Challenge

The remainder of the month was spent with the sobering thought that I've got the Prudential Ride London 100 cycle sportif in just over a months time. I say sobering as
       a) it's a 100 mile cycle ride and the largest single ride I've managed so far has been
          45miles (even on last years Coast to Coast the longest day's cycling was 68
          miles with an hour stop for lunch), and...
       b) I now need to start fundraising for the very worthy Isaiah Trust only a few weeks
           after doing so for the RNLI...

Training and event log for June was as follows, with the back end of the month focusing on getting cycle fit...

01/06/13 ~ Abersoch 10km run ~ 53mins 35secs
06/06/13 ~ 1500m Open Water Swim at Boundary Water Park in 42mins
09/06/13 ~ Capesthorne RNLI Tri Swim stage ~ '750m' swim in 23mins 54secs
               ~ Capesthorne RNLI Tri Bike Stage ~ 26km Cycle in 51mins 10secs
                  averaging 18.8mph
13/06/13 ~ 750m Open Water Swim at Boundary Water Park in 18mins 01sec
16/06/13 ~ 43mile bike ride around Rode Heath, Winterley, Crewe, Nantwich,
                   Middlewich, Holmes Chapel back to Sandbach in 2hours 32mins averaging
                   16.6mph
19/06/13 ~ 8mile early morning weekday cycle around Hassall and Winterley in 29mins
                  23secs averaging 16.5mph

Bike ride to Harlech Castle

21/06/13 ~ 8mile bike ride to Brereton and back in 29mins
                  48secs averaging 16.4mph
24/06/13 ~ 8mile bike ride to Brereton and back in 27mins
                  09secs averaging 17.9mph
26/06/13 ~ 7.5mile bike ride around Sandbach in 26mins 18secs
                  averaging 17.1mph
29/06/13 ~ 65.5mile training ride for Ride London from Abersoch
                  to Harlech Castle in 4hours 8mins averaging
                  15.8mph

Why am I doing this?!

I got drawn in to running in 2007 to raise funds for charity and discovered it's a great way to keep in shape! I expanded the fundraising to open water swimming in 2010 and loved that too which lead to taking up cycling and Triathlon's in 2011! I've kept a training blog for the past few years and found it a huge motivator to get out and do something to report on so here I am again! I'll be keeping a record here of all my training and event ups and downs as well as a few deviations on my hobbies. I'm planning a few events this year for my own benefit and a couple of major events to raise funds again for two charities that mean a lot to me:

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution ~ http://www.rnli.org/

In September 2007 I had an accident whilst sailing my Laser Pico dinghy out at sea off Abersoch, North Wales. The Abersoch crew came to my aid and I'll be eternally grateful ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk6edftmHtg

I spend a lot of time out at sea with family and friends and it made me realise just how dependent we are on this life saving volunteer emergency service funded entirely by charity. I ran the Great North Run Half Marathon to raise funds for the Abersoch RNLI station in 2008 & 2009. In 2010 I taught myself front crawl and swam a mile in open water at The Great Salford Swim and in 2011 rolled it all up taking on the Tatton Triathlon Olympic Distance. 2012 saw me raising funds by competing in a Triathlon team challenge at Capesthorne early in the year and then cycling 180miles Coast to Coast from Morcambe to Bridlington over the August Bank Holiday along the 'Way of the Roses' route ~ http://www.wayoftheroses.co.uk/.
This year I've decided to rope in a few helpers and build on the team Triathlon fund raising of last year which was really good fun... Capesthorne Triathlon on Sun 9th June has been targeted... Watch this space!

The Isaiah Trust ~ http://www.isaiahtrust.org/

A registered charity started in 2001 by two good friends with big hearts, Nicky and Tim. The charity helps kids in Kenya orphaned by aids and surviving on their own on the streets in some of the most apalling conditions imaginable. The lives that these kids endured prior to the charity beggars’ belief. The Trust has and continues to do some amazing things for these kids... Providing outreach and rehabilitation centres to give safe havens and remedial education, setting up orphanages and foster parent programmes. Helping children get back in to the state educaion system and providing 'resource centres' for older child who have missed too much schooling to teach them a skill or trade to earn a living. The Trust is now working hard setting up farms to establish sustainable food programs as well as teaching children farming skills. The trust has helped change the lives of so many kids but there are so many more yet to help...

After a four years of running the Great Manchester 10km Run from 2007 through to 2010, to raise awareness and funds for the trust I ran the Edinburgh Marathon in 2011 which was awesome! 2012 saw me completing the Liverpool Triathlon Olympic Disatance event (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) and finally breaking the previously elusive 3 hour mark whilst raising further funds.

This year I've entered the Prudential 'Ride London 100' cycling sportif to raise much needed funds. It's a 100mile bike ride covering much of the 2012 Olympic Road race circuit heading out from the Olympic Park, around the Surrey hills and back in to London to finish on Pall Mall... How hard can it be?! :-)