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Headcase Ironman

~ Raising funds to help find a cure for Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) brain tumours.

Headcase Ironman

Category Archives: Blog

Stand by your beds….

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Editor in Blog, Dan, David's Posts, Events, Peter's Posts, Tony

≈ Leave a comment

How many days until… 233 days
How many weeks until… 33 weeks
How many months until… 7 months
How many hours until… 5592 hours
How many minutes until… 335520 minutes
How many seconds until… 20131200 seconds

Dynamic Dan’s Dauntless Determination……

22 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by Editor in Blog, Dan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abu Dhabi, GBM Cancer, race, russell, triathlon

Dan “Ever since I took part in my first triathlon back 2010 at Blenheim, it had never crossed  my mind that I wouldn’t complete the race even in the most darkest of times during the run. That was until November last year.

It was the first ever half Ironman distance in Dubai and Dad had flown over to race even though deep down we both new he would never complete it. This was solely due to the fact he had about 6 degrees of movement in his hip before the involuntary electric shock manuovere was activated. If you spent any time with him towards the end of last year you will know what I am talking about. It’s funny now but at the time it definitely wasn’t.

With that taking up most of the conversation prior to the race, never did I once think that I could also be in danger of not completing it. To be honest, I wasn’t confident in having a great day as I hadn’t put in enough hours, but having raced in Mallorca earlier this year and leaving a bit disappointed, I was determined to leave everything I had out there and try and nick a result.

IMG_5550My wave started and we began the swim but around the 1k mark I was beginning to feel very sick. I am not sure whether it was nerves, the sea water or the jel I had just taken before the race, but it wasn’t enjoyable and cost me a bit of time without a doubt. I exited the swim around the 36min mark and relatively happy all things considered.

I really enjoyed the bike course as it was on a road I use when driving all the time. Up and back down Hessa street 3 times with a tail wind going up and a headwind back, I had a lot of fun. The only issue was that I felt the need to consume 6 – 7 gels over the 2 hours and 47 mins I was on the bike. There are millions of different articles and pieces of advice you can find on the internet about best practice and rule of thumb when it comes to nutrition, but I can tell you right now, that is way too much.

Completely oblivious of what I had done, I entered T2 in a pretty strong position with my only worry being that I may of gone too hard on the bike and if my legs would hold up for the 21kms ahead of me. “you’ll be fine’ I said to myself. “Just go off steady and build in to a rhythm – you’re way ahead of schedule”

FullSizeRenderSo off I went running at around 5.10min k pace which is slow but I was very happy to stay at for the first 5k. Its worth pointing out at this point that it was around 10.30am and the weather was around 32 degrees C. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that is bloody hot and not ideal when you’re about to embark on a half marathon. Even less ideal when you’re unaware of what is just around the corner.

The first couple of k of any run off the bike is tough while you get your legs used to the change in motion and your heart rate a steady pace. But by 3k I was still not feeling good, and by 4k I was feeling worse. Then my stomach started playing games and by the 5.25 turnaround point it had enough.

I spent the next 15.25 kms following a clockwork routine of Run, Puke, Walk, Run, Puke, Walk. To say it was rough would be a rather large understatement.

IMG_5558Even in the best conditions that is not something you want to go through, but when its beaming sunshine and every bit of energy you had stored is now plastered across the crescent of the Palm, it’s actually quite dangerous. I was unable to consume anything aside from water and even when I did that, I saw it again moments later. I still don’t know how I managed to get to the end but I stumbled across in 5hrs 43 mins and 46 seconds. 23 seconds slower than Mallorca earlier in the year and a 2:15:55 half marathon split! Ouch!

IMG_5561

It took me a good while to recover from the race and that gave me time to reflect on what happened. This sport is bloody tough and if you want to do it well there are no shortcuts at ANY level. Although the nutrition issues played a key role in my day, I was 100% guilty of showing a lack of respect to the distance and I said to myself the next day that will never happen again.

Its a bit of a cliché but how often do you hear people say that you learn more from disappointment than success? It’s thrown around all the time particularly with sport but in my case it couldn’t of been more true. I looked at what I was doing and what I wanted to achieve in the sport and decided that I needed a complete overhaul. I realised I wasn’t happy just being a middle of the pack athlete and needed to do something about it particularly with training structure and planning. My answer was simple. I needed a coach.

I found my guy and met him 2 days later. 3 days later I had my first assessment session and by the end of the week I had started my personalised training plan all structured towards my next race which was 4 months away – Challenge Dubai. We looked at my weaknesses and technique and worked out how I could get the most ‘bang for my buck’. Like most age groupers I have a pretty unpredictable job which means I have to be flexibile and plan my sessions in order to get the most out of them. Before I would just rock up to the gym with no plan or just head out on a 10k run at one pace not knowing if it was really helping me improve. Having a weekly plan allowed me to plan around my work and social life and gave me the confidence that what I was doing was working. This proved to be pivotal in my improvement as it relieved the mental stress I was putting on myself regarding training – one of the biggest issues age groupers come up against in this sport.

Aside from the Christmas period I pretty much trained everyday in one shape or form but averaged around 6 hours a week in the 4 months – almost half the average when I was training for Ironman. Obviously its worth noting that I was only training for a half so that would make sense but I knew deep down that this was the fittest i’d been for a long time and was only really lacking the endurance needed for a longer event which you can only get from hours and hours in a low heart rate state, or what’s otherwise know as f***ing mind numbing training!

Training Peaks

February came and I got my usual chest cold 3 weeks out from the race. This was another bonus of having a coach as he helped me understand that it wasn’t going to effect my fitness level enough to make a difference and that all the bulk of the work was already done. The stress I put myself through before Ironman France when I thought i’d lost all my fitness in the 2 weeks leading into the race was actually probably more detrimental to my performance than the illness that I caught. Stress is literally the number one evil and the more you can limit it the better you will become.

We put my plan together which included my nutrition and HR zones and I was ready to go which was something I had never done before, particularly with nutrition. I removed gels altogether from my plan and stick with solid food and high calorie chews.My relationship with jels has now come to an eternal end.

Feeling excited, I woke up on the morning of the race and the weather was like nothing id seen before in dubai. The wind was blowing at speeds up to 50kmph and the sea was like something you’d expect to see on the coast of Australia, not in Dubai. As such the swim course was moved inside the bay and became 2 loops. I was actually really relaxed for some odd reason, perhaps it was that I knew I had done the work and stress levels were low I don’t know. The pro’s went off first and were thrown around like rag dolls in the 3ft waves. I was still very relaxed.

The swim was as rough as it looked. So much so that I came out in over 40mins and way off my target time. While I was annoyed I knew there wasn’t anything I could do apart from bike hard and run harder. So that’s what I did.

By the time I had reached 45km split averaged around 39kmph. Granted there was a pretty big tail wind for about 30km of that but the other 15km was made up of horrific side wind that actually blew people off the bike. I knew that was fast as it was way beyond what I planned but I was well within my HR zones that I set out with my coach before the race. Happy days!

The way back wasn’t so enjoyable into huge headwinds but I managed to hold on and get to t2 with a 2:37 bike split and an average of 34.2kmph, whilst also nailing my nutrition. Buzzing!

It was at this point where I told myself to just stick to the plan on the run. Stay in my zones planned and if I have anything left at the end use it. And that’s exactly what I did. Looking back at my data my HR pretty much stayed between 3 beats of each other the whole way (155 – 158 between zone 3 &4). That might not mean much to you but to me and my coach that was amazing as it allowed me to stay just below threshold and at the same pace for the whole 21k. I had executed my plan perfectly and as a result ran my fastest ever half marathon off the bike (1:42:32) and was over the line in 5:06:34 (9th in AG).

IMG_5557As always, when you look back at a race, you ask yourself could I have done more here and what if I did that there, its inevitable and this was no different. But for me, this was my first real breakthrough race i’d had and it really showed me what I could acheive. In all honesty, I hadn’t really changed much in terms of hours trained or types of exercises over the 4 months, in fact, I probably did less and kept it simpler than before. The real difference was that I highlighted what was the real factor in the way of me improving and resolved it. I worked out I needed a structure to suit my life and eliminated the mental stress I was putting on myself. The result speaks for itself.

I’m now planning the rest of my year and working out what races to do. Last weekend I did a sprint where I managed to get 8th place (out of 71) which was really fun – 1 hour 20mins of full on pedal to the metal. Sadly though that was the last triathlon here until October but in truth there is a lot I need to work on before I race again later in the year.

The race in Dubai managed to raise another 90 quid for Headcase which was brilliant but we need CAN and MUST do more. We’ve all put so much into this over the last few years achieved great things. Now is the time to evaluate where we are going and and what we need to do in order to take this to the next level, we can’t stop!

The triathlon bar has been raised and new targets have been set. Let’s all analyse what we can do to raise the fundraising bar and make 2016 the year of breakthroughs.

25.204849 55.270783

No Apologies….

08 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Editor in Blog, Colin's Blog, Editor's Posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cancer, Colin Smith, GBM, Helen, ironman, triathlon

We are off! The first donations for chapter 2 has arrived, thank you, and perhaps it is time to remind ourselves why. I thought or rewriting the story and then I just thought of Helens post days after her husband died and there is not better way to remind each of the team why they are training and every follower who reads this blog why… over to you Helen….

Colin & HelenWell, my Colin has gained his wings. What a hard road that man travelled! It’s kinda funny because at the beginning I promised him that he would never ever die anywhere but home. I meant every word, but, as time passed, it soon became evident that despite all the skills I had acquired, I could not cope with his total needs and I will always carry an element of guilt.

From a strong independent man who had the full respect and trust of his family, he was stripped by this horrible disease of every element and aspect of his personality. A personality that was so strong that everybody in the family (even though they had all formed separate units) trusted him to make financial decisions and hold all their important documents. We had faith in his every word. From almost the beginning though, it became evident that the kids would have to control their own paperwork and finances as Colin was increasingly confused and forgetful. The kids had to handle the financial decisions themselves and it was a very sad day when it became obvious that this was the only course of action.

The months I have recently spent with Colin have been very hard at times but I have also had some very good times as, despite that bitch of a tumour “Camilla”, his sense of humour always seemed to shine through and this made everything much more bearable..

All treatment for Colin was stopped in February and Colin was fine for a while except for his immobility and increasing confusion. At the end of May Colin started to have horrendous hallucinations which went on for several days and I had to call upon both our boys to help calm him down and reassure him that what he was seeing was indeed was indeed not reality – just illusions. Colin was admitted then to the hospice for the second time so that they could help alleviate the visions and reduce his constant state of agitation.

I have never been so grateful for anything in my whole life as I was for the offer of help from Garden House Hospice in Letchworth. They controlled his medication (it took 8 or 9 days to get the combination right) and then his health began a sharp decline – Camilla the tumour was on the march. We all realised that now his time was short but I was able to be Colin’s wife again and not just a carer. We spent quality family time and often cried together but, we also laughed – boy did we all do that! We still continued to take the mick big time. Tommy played the answer phone message from Colin requesting Tom’s immediate presence and then apologising because he (Colin) couldn’t find his phone! He had not realised he was using it!!! We all know that if the situation was reversed, Colin’s banter would be relentless

Colin started to lose his ability to swallow as well as many other abilities. About 2 weeks ago the food that he was offered was refused and when he opened his mouth to eat he was unable to chew and swallow he became weaker and weaker until he eventually became unconscious on Sunday.

On Monday he was put on the Liverpool care pathway, the most heart wrenching time imaginable. He had no nourishment or fluids and eventually fell into an unresponsive state of unconsciousness.

We as a family stayed with him constantly, he was never once alone day or night, it really strengthened our family unit beyond all of our expectations. This mortal man, Colin Smith, could not have had a more genuine love and adulation from his children than if he had been a god. We all love the man that was, not the shell of a man that Colin had become and I think that is why this type of cancer is so very cruel. When the end came for us as a family it was a release from a life robbing illness that had taken every aspect of Colin’s personality and dignity. We love and miss him more than any words can convey. He was always larger than life and always reducing me to side splitting laughter in every situation.

The Final Word

03 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by Editor in Blog, Colin's Blog

≈ Leave a comment

Colin Video

Colin provided the entertainment at his send off on Thursday to 400 people in the form of a videoed eulogy. The church was so full the floor gave way and the congregation flick-flacked from tears of sorrow to those of  laughter.  A top bloke who did it in style not just to the end but beyond it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJVhMiam4uc&feature=youtu.be

 

We did it his way!

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Editor in Blog, Tony

≈ Leave a comment

So in just over 6 months our aspirations became reality….the £30k target was breached ! In fact with gift aid we are now standing at £35,253.91…AMAZING.

Colin’s legacy is assured and as Faye put it ‘this bastard form of Cancer’ better watch out cos we are going to get you.

Its been a journey, one which was inspired by a true gent and a mate, who I know will be chuffed to bits at the achievement. He will even now be egging us on to beat this thing as that is just the kind of guy he was.

We still have applications for company charity donations out there and we will be making one to Lloyd’s in the next few weeks, so its not too late, in fact its only just begun.

Thanks to the successful three peaks team who conquered their challenge at the weekend, if you haven’t looked at their blog do so, its great as well as seeing a message to Colin flying high on the top of the mountains.

And finally a huge thanks to all of you who have donated or organised an event which added funds its been a great team effort, one which I’m sure the Headcase charity appreciate and one which I know will make a difference, but hey, that’s what Colin did !

We did it.

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by Editor in Blog, Three Peaks

≈ 1 Comment

Apologies to everyone following the blog. Internet connection ceases to exist in the mountains.

I’ll be uploading all video blogs when I get home but until then, I guess you probably want to know how we did…

Start time: 4:00pm

Ben Nevis: 3hrs 54mins

Scafell Pike: 3hrs 30mins

Snowdon: 2hrs 57mins

Finish time: 1:57pm

Challenge completed in 21hrs 57mins

A huge thank you to Mr Roger Baxter for driving us and to everyone who has sponsored us. Video blogs to follow of Scafell Pike and Snowdon.

1 down 3 to go…

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by Editor in Blog, Three Peaks

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cancer, GBM Tumour, headcase, Three Peaks

Scafell PikeSo we’re now on our way to Scafell Pike, having just kicked Ben Nevis’s butt! We started at 4pm as scheduled and completed the highest of the 3 peaks in 3hrs 54mins. I don’t think any of our legs have felt quite so painful but it’s a great feeling to already be a hour ahead of schedule. We met a guy up on the mountain who sponsored us there and then after telling him about Headcase Cancer Trust and Colin’s story. Thank you to all your support and to those who have sponsored us. If you still want to give to this great cause then its not too late. Go to http://www.justgiving.com/tonyanddanironman

Check out the video below too…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qtQJX3BqJdk

Support the Three Peaks Challenge

27 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Editor in Blog, Three Peaks

≈ Leave a comment

They are well underway, three posts so far on:  http://headcase3peaks.blogspot.co.uk/

s_223

 

Just chillin in the back of the van. Nick has already got a nose bleed…. as you can probably see. Scotland here we come!

 

 

 

s_1217

After about 5 hours of driving, we’ve crossed the boarder into Scotland. Traffic hasn’t been too bad and it’s safe to say that the scenery up here is much better than down south! Glasgow here we come!

 

 

 

 

So it’s the morning of the challenge. We’ve just enjoyed a hearty breakfast at the premier inn and are now on the road to Ben Nevis. If you haven’t yet seen the weather forecast, it could be an interesting climb up scafell pike early tomorrow morning with thunderstorms a strong possibility. We’re still aiming to start climbing Nevis at 4pm today. We’ll keep you posted 🙂

Watch video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SbfSDxS-8oQ

We need less than 427 quid to reach the target.

Follow our video blog

25 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by Editor in Blog, Three Peaks

≈ Leave a comment

I think I’ve worked out a way to blog some videos for people to see while we do the challenge. The link will be:

http://headcase3peaks.blogspot.co.uk/

And we should hopefully start blogging tomorrow 🙂

 

 

3 Peaks challenge commences.

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by Editor in Blog, Three Peaks

≈ 2 Comments

So here it is then, tomorrow we’ll be setting off for Scotland… man this has come along quickly. Tomorrow morning we’ll be driving up to Glasgow to stay over night prior to starting the Three Peaks Challenge. Hopefully we’ll be able to get a decent nights sleep before setting off for Ben Nevis Saturday morning. We hope to start the challenge at about 4pm Saturday afternoon with the weather not looking too bad at the moment.

Training has been tough the last couple of weeks especially with this ridiculous heat and humidity. Fortunately myself and Nick were able to get out for a long walk one evening just outside of Hatfield. Neither of us realised that you don’t have to walk far before you hit some pretty amazing countryside.

Last blog

Unfortunately Nick has suffered a slight groin strain from training but we’re hoping and praying that this will resolve just in time…

Last week I also took the time to buy myself some new walking boots. When I had a look at my poor excuse for some walking boots, I knew this was a good excuse to get a new pair. Hopefully they should keep my feet and ankles fairly comfortable… although I don’t think any amount of specialist equipment is going to prepare our bodies for the challenge that stares us in the face. The morning after the challenge could be an interesting one.

We would all like to thank the people who have already sponsored us, both on the justgiving page and sponsorship forms. It’s going towards a great cause and any donation no matter how big or small is hugely appreciated. Not far from that £30,000 target now. Things like this really do draw people together and it’s been amazing to see the love and support of so many towards Colin and the work that the Headcase Cancer Trust is doing. Rest in peace mate, we hope we can do you proud this weekend.

Paul

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