So a few things have happened this month, while training I have hurt my knee. I had a bit of pain inside my knee while running and spoke to my GP. I went for an X-Ray which confirmed there is no bone or Cartilage damage. The next step is to go see the MSK specialist in Derby.

What does this mean, well it’s not good for my marathon- I have been advised to not run and with only 7 weeks till my marathon this means one thing. I am going to have to defer my entry to next year :-(. But I also have my Half Ironman at the Outlaw Holkham race in July.

Thankfully my friend Claire’s Husband is a keen runner and has stepped in to complete the run leg and do the race as a relay with me. Thanks Paul! I am so grateful for every penny and pound of donations I received to my marathon, I confirmed every penny will go to the BHF. I will however contact every donor and offer them a refund.

We recently took the keys to the new Caravan too. It is lovely and peaceful, great for holidays and staying while working. The dogs love it too being close to the beach.

So in the weeks building up to Christmas we were frantically getting ready to put our house on the market. But the past couple of days I have not slept. Something doesn’t feel right. I suppose it’s called Bipolar for a reason.

The new dog Mango has settled in well, she likes to spend her time chewing and tormenting the cat.

2024 has been a whirlwind and to be honest I’m glad to see the back of it. Time to focus on what is important.

Well it’s been a while since I have wrote a blog.  I suppose this has been because I have been very busy.  I am currently putting the finishing touches on my dissertation.  I have been doing this in my own time and and it is safe to say It has been the biggest challenge I have put myself through mentally.  To do a full shift at work and then spend several hours at home working for multiple days of the week is very hard.

But I have managed to spend some time with the family when I can.  A few weeks ago I managed to spend a day with my son in London on a photography trip.  I reckon we covered 15 miles comfortably walking from landmark to landmark!  My son loved it, he is so happy when he has his camera in his hand, he is looking forward to going to college this summer to study full time in photography. 

I have also spent some time walking on a Sunday morning in the woods with a friend.  I still maintain it is my happy place.  I should have gone today, but I was late due to forgetting to set my alarm clock to the new time.

Yesterday was the anniversary of my Grandma passing, so I went to the cafe I used to take her to with my mum for a coffee.  This was nice.  Anyhow, enough of my musings – I have a dissertation to write…

So, if you have read a few of my blogs you’ll know that I have had a few issues with swimming. To start with in 2020 I couldn’t swim front crawl and started lessons with Chris. I’d go as far as saying I really disliked swimming. It had became a mental barrier to triathlon that I had to overcome.

I can’t be certain what started this dislike and anxiety towards Swimming. But it manifests itself as a nervous energy that stops me from getting in the water. It is bad to the point that I have driven to the gym and ended up sitting for two hours in the cafe nursing a coffee while trying to psyche myself up.

It got to the point that since Septembers outlaw I have not used the pool or even attempted to once. Well Jan 2nd and Jan 8th I had the excuse to avoid swimming due to having Covid at Christmas time and being left with a tight chest.

The 18th of Jan I arranged to meet Chris in the cafe of the gym and I was going to swim. I was nervous, super anxious but didn’t know what or why it was happening. Chris saw this and said go get changed and he’d see me poolside. I got changed and made my way out to the pool. Really nervous for some reason but as soon as I got in I was swimming like I’d never been out of action. I was told my technique was still good. In that first swim I was only in for ten minutes but did 300 meters.

Then next week came by really quickly. In between swim sessions I had been keeping up with my run and bike training. Again I had a lesson, slightly less nervous this week and I managed 750m – the distance of a standard sprint tri.

I don’t know what causes the anxiety, it happens from time to time. But I do know I won’t let it beat me. This Tuesday I’m doing 1100m…..

The second week of December wasn’t great, I tested positive (again) for Covid. This time it wiped me out. I have been left rather tired and nursing a chesty cough for 4 weeks now.

Now I consciously did not set a New Year’s resolution, cause I never stick to them. But this year I had a little wager with a friend for £1 that we could both do dry January. For a real ale drinker this is tough.

We also had some movement in the pain cave – my treadmill had developed a fault that the supplier was unable to fix. So as a good will gesture they replaced the treadmill and gave me the latest version which I think is a bit better.

I’ve been following my training programme and have been on the treadmill testing it out. I’m pleased to report it is awesome! I’ve also been on the turbo several times. I have not been swimming yet as my chest is still iffy.

A few weeks of feeling ‘meh’. Undoubtedly due to the comedown of feeling so good due to my triathlon exploits. The fact is the past few weeks have been very cyclical. Last week in particular was rubbish – I had an awful start to the week and this lasted several days. By Friday though I was feeling a lot better.

Sometimes you have to experience lows to appreciate the good times. One of my seasonal highlights is a meal with some close friends. This is a regular occurrence where we meet at a restaurant of choosing. Here’s me and the best of men, Dougal.

Things have been doing well at home, re remodelled the extension and moved the room around. Linda has been feeling a lot better too.

I am going for a run today, this will help me too.

As I write this I’m sat with a Whiskey in hand (just a wee dram) thinking about the weekend I’ve just had. Saturday I was meant to go for a big run, I got changed into my running kit and had my porridge breakfast. Then a cloud descended. I felt awful, cold sweats fear of an invisible situation and panic set in. What did I do, I climbed back into bed with my running kit on and pulled the duvet over.

I thought this was the end of the self imposed challenge. I woke up 2 hours later feeling great, albeit after popping one of my emergency meds. But strange as it sounds, it isn’t the run leg of the triathlon giving me worries. It is the bike leg!

Now my friends that know me well would be surprised to hear this, I even find it odd having already completed several cycling challenges. The thing is; I need to complete 90KM bike leg before I start the run – and here’s the killer, I need to do this bike leg within 4 hours if I use the full allocation of the swim time.

Now if I do the swim at a pace I feel confident at, this would have me finishing that at about 60 min. Thus leaving 4:10hrs for the bike leg.

Tom, my training partner and fellow Outlaw’ee planned to do a long ride together and settled on the actual route of the race. We were joined by a friend, Rob, and met at Thoresby Hall at 9am on Sunday. I was already nervous at the challenge in hand, I knew we needed to finish under the cut off time to give my slight confidence a boost. this would mean averaging 22.5KPH for the full 90KM.

We agreed as it was a ‘no drafting’ race that I would take the lead for the day. We started fast, very fast at the one hour mark rob said we were 20% up on required speed which would have been 27KPH. I was feeling great, the sun was bright and the wind was low.

As we got to Gainsborough all of a sudden my right quadricep started cramping. I had gone off too fast, Damn! At this point we passed a garden centre and decided to call in to see if they had a cafe. By luck they did. I didn’t know what to do, I could barely walk across the cafe and my leg was really painful. I contacted my coach, who told me to relax, spin a easy gear and have plenty of fluid and a salty lunch. Which is exactly what I did.

I must admit with the pain I was feeling I really didn’t think I’d be able to carry on. We were having conversations about fetching a car and me waiting there. But I had trust in what I had been advised and I’m glad I did. One important point to note – my Garmin was paused at the cafe.

We set off with me still in the lead riding slowly, in an easy gear gently spinning my leg. I slowly started to feel better, a lot better!

Before soon we started to pick the pace back up and Rob and Tom were firing encouragement my way. It felt good. The last 5KM were particularly tough with a pretty much constant uphill hack. But we pushed on, grinding every last ounce of energy out.

The final time was 4HR 9MIN 25SEC – bloody hell it’s close. I’m not sure how I feel about it now. I’m going to have to slow down at the start but maintain 22.5KPH average. Considering the final ramp to the finish I’d like to see 24KPH before I hit the bottom of the ramp!

One good thing, the Hall where the start and finish is has a microbrewery 🙂 we had a very well earned refreshment (or coke in my case)

Short update today. I’ve had some great news! I went to the doctors surgery Monday and my blood tests showed my bloods all healthy and normal. If I return the same results in 6 months I’ll officially be in remission. I spoke to a friend today about it and how I feel; I summed it us as proud.

This wasn’t done on my own. I promise to get a photo of the team together.

Coming back from our little great I was fully reinvigorated and ready to continue training. This was a good feeling, but not without tough moments. For instance some nights when I got back from work I’d crash out on the sofa and couldn’t conjure up enough energy to go train. It was often 21:00 before I had started training.

But I didn’t beat myself up for this, I embraced it as part of the process. I have started eating good clean food that isn’t processed and results are starting to pay off. My weight has consistently fell (nearly) every week since January. This feels good.

Last Monday I was firing up on all cylinders and swam 1500m after work. This felt great. It wasn’t long ago I could barely swim 300m. However, as I have come to expect now; I was bought back to earth with a bump. On Tuesday I felt ‘funny’ at work, didn’t think much of it until when I got home my chest felt tight. I did a LFT and yup! Covid!! Bloody typical. Weds and Thurs were spent in bed all day. I was gutted also as I’d promised to take Isaac and his friend to the Race Retro rally show on Sat.

So I’m forced to take it slower, still testing positive with a raspy sore throat and cough. I’m hoping I’m not left fatigued like so many report. Either way I guess I’ll be taking it slower this week.

So I had a rough year in 2022, but that doesn’t define me. I’ve come away for a few days to train and relax. Ponder what to do next! 2022 was all about excess. Excess in every way.

2023 is going to be different. For a start I’ve quit drinking beer, my comfort in hard times and tough times. I’m going to never say never again, but it’s been a month now and I haven’t really missed it. The food has changed too; it is now about fresh unprocessed food. My body is starting to reap the rewards. The scales are starting to say thanks!

I have also extra motivation in that I have been told I am diabetic by the doctor. I am determined to reverse this! A by product of this is that I am getting fitter. I feel positive that I will achieve half Ironman this July!

Also, I am classified as a PTS5 Athlete due to the bone disease and operations that I have had. I’ve decided I am going to attempt the full British Para-Tri series. But first I need to fit into my wetsuits. The pressure is on as I estimate I need to lose another 3 stone before May and the first race. I’ve done it before I know I can do it again. I can’t help but have an eye on the Para-Duathlon but I know this is not realistic.

Mentally I’m in a much better place too. I feel good, it has been a while since I could honestly say that though. I’m looking at the calendar rooting for the good weather to arrive. End of March I’m hoping!

So the last post I Blogged was a bit negative and certainly gave me a lot of self reflection. I have come to Lanzarote for what was originally planned as a training camp. But it has actually served me as a period of reflection and thinking about what I want in life. Question is, do I want to look back at this moment in years to come and think I wish I’d taken road no.2. 

The first thought I had reflected upon was my appearance, I had grown an unkempt beard. That had to go.  Immediately I found a Pharmacy and bought a razor and hacked this symbol of my new laziness off my face. My small room on the farmhouse that we had rented had a big mirror, I have spent a lot of time reflecting what I did to my body. 

I have decided the diet needs fixing. I’m going back to calorie counting and will be limiting myself to 2000Kcal per day in the week and 2500kcal on a weekend. Some things are going to need to go. I’ve made a commitment that beer is going. Now, I don’t drink that much; maybe 15 units per week. But what I do drink is the cask ale that makes you put on weight. Instead my Saturday treat will be a glass of Scotland or Japans finest Whiskey in my Grandads glass. 

So it’s easy isn’t it. Eat less and move more! Well not quite, I have some serious goals. I want to enter the British Para-Tri championships that start in May. I need to fit into my wetsuit, so that is my first tangible goal. In fact – it’s the only goal I put on myself. That would be 17st for May. That’s five stone for non regular readers!

Hilary has the training plan covered. Let’s go…

Posting this latest blog has wobbled me a bit, I have not known what to share or what to withhold.  But from the very first blog post nearly 3 years ago I said I would be honest and share the truth warts and all. 

Sometimes this has been positive and sometimes not. A few weeks ago we went on a short break to North Yorkshire and it started off as a disaster and got progressively worse from there. The very first day my dad got Covid, shortly followed by my mum and Linda so we spent the week in the caravan before we gave up and came home. Somehow (or because of Jabs) I didn’t get Covid though. 

The weekend we got back I took Isaac to a Porsche car show in Telford. It was amazing, I saw a couple of 996 C4S’s in the flesh. I love these cars. One day! 

Training wise I’ve been lagging again. Not by choice though. I did start back really well for 3 weeks but working a few longer shifts and burning the candle at both ends meant I missed a few sessions. Then I caught a horrible chesty cough. I’ve had 2 rounds of medicine for it now and I just can’t shift it. I feel like I have someone sat on my chest permanently. So past 3 weeks with rest, other than dog walks. 

In this time my best friend, my little gentle Dog Paddy was very poorly and took a turn for the worse. He had a Stroke and needed to be put to sleep.

As part of my medication I take for my mental health I need regular blood tests on my Lithium levels. No problem, just little test every few weeks. Well this time there was a problem! The GP called me last week and said that my blood test showed signs of Diabetes. This is Earth shattering news for me. I know I’ve abused my body and in turn mind. But to hear this from the doc made everything all come crashing down on me. 

In March 2020 when I started this journey I did it as I had a fear of Diabetes as it was in my family. Gutted. Now I need to do another test in 4/6 weeks and that will determine the outcome. I’m quietly hoping it is what is known as ‘pre-diabetes’ which can be controlled and reversed (I believe). I’ve never heard of a diabetic Ironman. Praying this is not the end! 

The past few weeks I have been humbled by my friends showing how much they care for me.  I have had Jim give up his Saturday to take me on a ride along route 68.  We set off from my house at 8am and it was already hot.  I had opted to ride my comfy, but heavy steel bike due to the terrain we would be riding on.  I was fully loaded with water, given the heat and started to feel it as we rode along the lanes coming towards Ashbourne. 

When we got to Ashbourne we rode under the old railway tunnels towards the start of the Tissington Trail.  There was a café here and perfect opportunity for a cuppa and teacake.  Following this we rode north towards Parsley Hay.  It was a gradual up-hill ride and to be honest I was starting to feel ‘it’.  By the time we pulled off route 68 I had done about 35km, we stopped for a paddle in the stream, well Jim had a paddle, I on the other-hand took the opportunity for a rest.  From here we rode to Bradbourne and on towards Brassington and past Carsington Water.  I was absolutely spent, the realisation I had bit off more than I could chew was starting to sink in.

I have never, ever, had to do this – but several times on the approach to Carsington I had to get off my bike and push up hill.  I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Jim having to wait for me.  Fortunately there was a pub in Mickleover and I used this carrot to drag me round the remainder of the route.  The end of the ride was toasted with a pint of Ale.

Also, just recently a friend of mine (Tom) offered to support me in my Iron Man journey.  He encouraged me to enter a Half 70.3 race next year.  The question was ‘which’ one?  Well I’ve not had much look with overseas events so decided it needed to be in the UK.  The ‘branded’ events are Weymouth and Staffordshire, which while local – is quite hilly.  I suggested that I recently went to Wells-Next-The-Sea on holiday and the roads were perfect.  So that was it – we both entered the Half Iron distance race at Holkham Hall.

The plan is for me to ride with Tom at the weekend and the occasional swim.  I struggle with confidence on the road cycling, and tend to prefer indoor Turbo sessions but having tom to support will ‘drag’ me out. 

Well. What have I done. I’m stood here yet again saying ‘time to get back on it’. Well the truth is I’m not sure I can. I look back 2 years ago I was 6.5st lighter and had just finished my sprint triathlon at Etwall. I was high on feeling good. But what did I do; I had the odd beer, then the odd Kebab, bit of chocolate here and a pack of crisps there. 

What did it achieve: nothing. I look down at my body and I feel sad. Sad at what I have done. I can’t run anymore due to pains in my hip. I’m too afraid to go see my orthopaedic specialist. For fear of what they tell me. Every step I take I take with some kind of trepidation, some kind of internal battle against the hate I have built up inside. 

Why does this happen? I have a good life. I have a loving wife and family. I have a house, a job, car, good health and great friends. I think it is a self implosion mechanism, I’ve done this time and time again over the years. Next month I am meant to be racing Ironman 70.3 in Venice. I’m not even going to bother showing up. 

I look back at photos taken the past few months. I have a beer in hand for most of the occasions or some kind of food. My relationship with food is not good. 

Perhaps I need to stop and think why am I doing this? What did I originally set out to achieve. The number 1) target was to lose weight. I did this. But it wasn’t enough. 2) I suppose was to show my children that everything and anything is possible. Not to limit yourself to past failures. This is all I can cling on to. 

Well, tomorrow morning at 10am I am going to enter a half Ironman in next summer and I have a friend joining me for the journey. This time my pal Tom is signing up. I also have the support of Hilary, Chris and Yasmin. Really I cannot afford not to fail. 

This is genuinely the last roll of the dice. I cannot take the emotional rollercoaster anymore. I will not fail. I have two boys cheering me on every step of the way.  This isn’t all glitter and unicorns. Mental health is serious and this is my journey that I am going to win. 

So, the doctor put me in touch with Livewell. First impressions are good. The organisation is funded by Derby City Council and has a team of specialists to support you on your journey. The first session talked about the programme and what we’d be committing to. The weekly group session is ran by Yasmin and Andy (see pic).

We were all given our little blue books which would act as our goal setting and tracking document. I had a clear goal in this, at this stage it is all about getting back in my wetsuit. The date I have gone for is the 6th August which is the British Para-Tri series at Swansea…. So that’s the first target. 

The second week we talked about exercise and opportunities that the programme brings to us. One big thing is 12 months Gym membership at the council ran gyms and access to a enviable selection of different classes.  In the third week we were given nutritional advice and ideas for increasing fruit and veg intake. 

One of the ideas I took and ran with was the addition of smoothies. I’ve never been one to have them before, but I decided to buy a smoothie maker and have not looked back. I’m now fitting these into my diet. 

Weight wise; 4 weeks in I have lost a few pounds and feeling confident in the future again.  I have also started training again ‘proper’ and am now getting help from team Huub’s head coach Hilary.

I am starting to think about goals again the programme encourages you to set goals here are mine;

1. Lose enough weight to enter the British Para Tri Championships in Aug 22
2. Get to 16 Stone by Nov 22
3. Get to 13 Stone by May 23

So the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about my blog. Trying to ascertain what the focus of it is. Is it my Mental Health? Ironman Journey? Or Weight-loss journey. I have concluded that it is actually a blend of all three. 

However, being self critical, I seem to be quick to share my successes and target of completing this ‘mythical’ Ironman, I am far less forthcoming in sharing my mental health ups and downs. 

The truth is the past few weeks I’ve been pretty ropey. My Lithium blood levels were low and I felt pretty poor because of this. This resulted in me having my meds adjusted and eventually getting my lithium back into the therapeutic range. Mental health – check. 

Ironman is still going to happen and is still the end goal. However, it was all getting too much for me and I have changed my goals. I feel that I spent too much time doing wrong things with food. When I successfully lost 6.5st I was in a particular mindset and I need to find that mindset again. I think I am there now, the past few weeks I have been a lot more balanced and health focussed. 

I had an appointment with the Doctor and discussed my weight. I’m feeling pretty miserable about it right now. The doctor has put me in touch with Livewell and I have my first session Wednesday. I honestly don’t know what to expect, but I haven’t got anything to lose have I! Ironman and Weight – check. 

Pardon the pun. But sometimes being mentally ill can really suck. I don’t say this for sympathy but sometimes I go to some really dark places. This week was a Doosie. So last week I had my regular check up for my Lithium levels and these were low which resulted in be feeling low in ebb should we say. 

I took a call from my GP who in turn had me see the Psychiatrist to discuss my levels and decide what to do next.  With the fact that I was going through mental angst at the chemical imbalance in my mind I was signed off for a couple of weeks. 

I really don’t like being signed off, it makes me feel like I’ve let my team down. But the truth is I really do not feel great. 

At the minute I am trying to manage a full time job, complete a Masters Degree part time, my role as a charity trustee,  planning for having work done on our house, I am trying to lose weight again, train for an Ironman, grieving for my grandad, my parents gone to Oz for 3 months, dogs constantly trying to kill each other all while trying to ‘mask’ and pretend I’m ok. It’s exhausting. 

Since last year I’ve been training with Team Huub and the head coach. All I feel is I’m letting everyone down by not doing enough. It’s dragging me down. I gave all my ‘big’ clothes away, so have nothing that actually fits to wear any more. I was looking through Photos of me taken on my phone. Gone are the photos of me training, there have all been replaced by photos of me either with a drink in hand or eating at a restaurant. This needs to change. 

Well I made a decision in a Starbucks this Monday evening. I’m pulling out of Ironman Venice I am going to still do an Ironman but I need to get the order right and lose the pressure. My ‘A’ race this year is going to be the Para Triathlon event at Eton Dorney. That is enough. End. 

The start of the year was terrible. I don’t really know where to go from there, I suppose I’ll start from the week before Christmas. 

The week before Christmas our family isolated so we could spend Christmas Day with my grandad. Little did we know it would be the last day we got to spend together. On Christmas Day we shared some whiskey and had a fab time. My cousins daughter dropped him round a Christmas dinner. 

Then the next day he was struggling to breathe so he was taken by ambulance into hospital. What we didn’t know was he had suffered from heart failure and passed peacefully on the 5th January. This was so very hard to take as we were really close. One of the last things he said to me was not to cry. I failed on this. 

The funeral was a lovely affair and it was clear that he had an impact of so many lives. I am proud to have known him. 

I also started ramping my workouts up in January and managed to lose a stone in weight. I’m starting to feel good again. I am so happy that I had the pain cave built as it means I can train at home and really enjoy it. However, today, I tested positive for Covid. 

Yesterday I was feeling very tired and didn’t think too much of it. But this morning I woke feeling a bit rougher and had a chesty cough and felt lightheaded. Unfortunately one of my sons also tested positive. 

So the next 7 days is light strength and conditioning training in the pain cave. Hoping it doesn’t get much worse. 

So the past 2 years I started my blog off with a big target. The first one in NYE2020 I said I was going to lose weight and do an Ironman. The second seeing in 2021 I was training for an Ironman 70.3 in May. Neither of these happened for various reasons. 

But that said I am a fairy step away from these goals now. I am no longer focusing on my weight, but watching how I feel. At the min I am overweight- but trusting that the training I am doing will sort this issue out. The past few weeks the training, it is fair to say is on wind-down. I had a chesty cough at beginning of December and Christmas to contend with. 

I’ve spent Christmas thinking a lot, I have decided to focus on what is really important. I have come to realise that the key word is Balance and not Transformation. So what am I going to do, 1) I am going to spend time with family 2) I am going to finally finish my dissertation for my MSc 3) training – I’m going to really focus on training, not weight. 

There are some practicalities, yes, I need to get back into my wetsuit. This is a little weight I need to shift for May. Which is when the Para-Triathlon series starts again. 

Then come September I will finally get to do Ironman Venice 70.3. This has been cancelled thus far and I’m thinking positive that I can do it. My swimming is coming on leaps and bounds. I can now comfortably swim 750m in a wetsuit. 

Have a great 2022 folk and thanks so much for everyone’s support x

Over a pint a few months ago I was invited to a Derby Mercury walking trip in the Lake District by my friend Jim. It seemed a long way off at the time and I didn’t put much thought into it. I packed literally on my lunch break 2 hours before we were to set off. We were staying at Hellvelyn youth hostel in the Lake District and had the whole place to ourselves. In total there were 33 of us from the Derby Mercury Cycling club.

Upon Arrival we quickly dumped our bags and cracked open a beer. Most of the others had already arrived and were already enjoying a jovial atmosphere.  With the beer flowing the OS maps were opened and people were talking about route options. 

The plan was to leave in 2 groups with one group opting to attempt a summit of Hellvelyn.  Being the owner of a new hip and not having an ice axe (conveniently forgetting crampons) I opted for the second group.  

As soon as we left the YH the ascent started  it was relentless. Uphill and everyone seemed to have their speedy boots on.  Soon after setting off I had to take my inhaler as my chest was so tight, this was a combination of the pace and cold air.

I was that man; the one everyone had to wait for. But I needn’t have worried, fire the group were lovely. Jim stuck back keeping me company and gave me a psychological push up the hill.  Very quickly we had gained altitude and found ourselves on a plateau with deep white snow in every direction. Here one group turned west for the big hill and I opted for the easier ascent to the east. Now it should be said here that the easier option was infact still very bloody hard!

I was very much enjoying myself though. We had snow and rain and deep snow under foot. In some points it was very slippy under foot which I get quite nervous about with my prosthetic hip. Here I had help all the way down from Angie, who stuck with me all the way of the descent. 

When we got back down beneath the snow line we stopped for our lunches and flasks of coffee, which were very welcomed. From this point I continued back down with Jim through the lunar landscape path toward the youth hostel. 

The evening was more beer and a game of Cards Against Humanity between about 15 people. All in all a cracking weekend was had. Next year Linda and Luna are going to come. 

So the past few weeks I have had an enforced break from swimming, not for anything bad – but because I have been having some work an Tattoos.  Now I am very fortunate to know two amazing tattoo artists, Dougal, who I have known since I was a teenager and was also my best man.  Then Andy, who started tattooing me in 2004.  Andy had started my arm sometime last year and due to my swimming commitments had not been able to get back onto my arm, but we had 3 sessions booked in November and December all year and while having these done I decided to let my mate Dougal loose on my leg again, turning out an amazing traditional tattoo.

Tattooing is more than having needles and ink applied to my body.  When I have a session I typically book a full day session and we get as much done in that time as possible.  It is through spending time with these two people I find them a form of mutual counselling.  Boy – do we put the world to rights during my sessions.  I’ll come back to counselling later.

Also going off at the minute is my Gran is very poorly.  She has spent some time in hospital and is now in Palliative care.  She has been suffering for a while now and is being made comfortable.  I have been going to see her weekly now and love being in her company, even though it is also sad.  Last week she was singing to me and this week it was Christmas songs.  She’s always been the head of the family and it breaks my heart to see her looking so frail and poorly.  All I can do is focus on the memories.  I am consciously not taking the boys to see her.

The past few weeks have also been tough mentally.  This culminated in me having a panic attack on a night out in Derby on Friday and I needed to get picked up and taken home at 7pm.  I couldn’t handle the crowds in the pubs.  The noise, music, people talking loud etc overloaded my senses.  But once home I picked up.  I am also meant to be going out tomorrow night – I am going to pull out of it though.  Can’t face it.  I had a meeting with someone on Weds of last week which opened up a lot of old mental wounds.  This rocked me.  I have since started counselling again to get me through it as I still have some old wounds that need dealing with.

Last weekend we took the boys to the zoo, which was nice – it was snowing and half empty.  Problem was, the animals were all inside – so there were none to see other than an Elephant (Presumably artic variety) and a Zebra.  Never mind, it did get us out of the house.  I’ve not trained for the last week as I was feeling mentally not firing on all cylinders and then having the Flu Jab Sat left me wiped out.  I’m genuinely looking forward to getting back in the pain cave and doing something…

So tonight I was minding my own business my phone ‘binged’. It was an email from Ironman Italy. With deep hesitation I opened it. I knew instantly what it was as it l had received one of these before. The frustration of it all came over me as I read it. Yup! Just like that my 70.3 Ironman was being moved to September. 

So I spent the best part of an hour moving flights, accommodation and car hire. All losses that I was to absorb of course. This makes me angry. Ironman as a brand came up with a petty excuse, but they don’t think about the impact it has on people. It’s really frustrating as I’ve been training for this for weeks now already! 

Moving goals. That’s the game! But I need to remain positive for I have the British Para Triathlon Championship to get ready for! 

In other news we took the kids away for the weekend to celebrate my birthday which was lovely. We went in the caravan and spent the afternoon and evenings playing board games. Turns out Seb is a killer Monopoly player! 

Now to reassess next season and absorb extra costs… onwards and upwards 

So the past few months I’ve been bumbling along, still training, but not taking it as serious as I ought to be. This lad to some self evaluation about what I really want. Do I want to finish this? Do I REALLY have what it takes.

On the 19th Sept I volunteered to Marshall for the Etwall Triathlon. Watching our friends race gave me a burning feeling inside. I really wanted to be taking part. However I really do need to change the seriousness of which I take it. Since last September something has been missing. I don’t know what it is.

The past few months I’ve also been training with Team Huub. The feeling of ‘wanting this’ is coming back. I’ve also been developing a relationship with the head coach at Team Huub, Hilary, and have had a lot of help and support from her particularly the past few weeks.

I should have done a half Ironman at Outlaw X last weekend. It didn’t upset me seeing the results come in from my friends. It had the opposite effect. It spurred me on. In August, while having a difficult time I took the decision to pull out of the event. I’m glad I did now. For I can see what I have to do.

So December 31 is my self imposed deadline. I am going to go through to then with no alcohol and clean living. I know I can do it, I did it for 9 months last year. What I’ve been missing is the firecracker up my behind to push me on.

I hadn’t told anybody I was going to enter Venice Ironman 22’ but I have been thinking about it for a long time if truth be told. A few weeks ago I made the decision to pull out of races, I was doing it because I didn’t want the pressure. Well, guess what. I need the pressure to push me on it turns out. In the space of one hour I booked a car, plane and Airbnb. GAMETIME.

For what it’s worth I’m currently 19.5 stone. I am going to be an Ironman

So the last update I gave you I was feeling pretty low it is fair to say.  I had just had a meds tweak which has affected me positively the past couple of weeks.  I also had a bit of bad news, which turned positive in the end.  Dr Smith – who has been my PDoc for years has moved roles at the hospital.  I can honestly say he had such a positive impact on my life I am sorry to see him move on.  However, this gave me opportunity to meet my new care leader.  The new doc is Dr Ash and I had my first session with her.  I must admit I was quite nervous – it is hard to get to know someone and give them the background to make decisions upon my care pathway.

Well I needn’t have worried.  We had a great first session.  Then later in the week when I needed help she came to the rescue.  Two other things have happened, 1) I have ceased my dietary blip and lost 7lb so far.  Also, I have started training again,  Although I will say my legs have been aching a lot more and feel very tight.

But looking on the positives I am nearer my weight target again and positively training.  I also had an introduction of Fartlek running.  This is where you do intermittent sprints for a short distance between, say, two lamp posts and then let your HR return to normal again before repeating the exercise.

We also had a bit of fun this last week.  Derby Council have placed 30 Ram sculptures around the city.  One of my closest friends, Ajay, was visiting from Saudi.  We thought it would be fun to have a go at finding all 30 of them and having a photo with each of them.  It started off really well, although it was raining.

At some point it was suggested to call into the pubs – for rehydration purposes only of course.  So here we were, slightly merry in the dark 5 grown adults seeking out brightly painted ram sculptures.  We did come up with one problem though, it appeared that 2 of the sculptures were in the now closed shopping centre.  This was a job to bring out the velvet tongue.  I went up to one of the security guards stood at the side of the centre and told them my predicament.  Then while my friends stood laughing in disbelief me and Jo went to have a selfie with the inside sculptures accompanied by a slightly bemused security guard. We all went home smiling.

So today at 06:05 I stood on the scales and realised the magnitude of the task ahead of me. The, what I can only describe as abuse that I have put my body through since Christmas has become apparent. I knew I was carrying extra weight, but I had been putting off weighing in for a while. 

So, the damage was a total of 4st put back on. I knew it would be bad, but didn’t know it would be this bad. I feel gutted, I feel like it is all unraveling at the seams. It’s got so bad I don’t want to use my wetsuit tomorrow for fear of splitting it. 

How did it get so bad, well the past two weeks I have been on a binge to be honest. It was the usual pattern; feeling low, getting down and numbing this pain with bad food and drink. The usual pattern. It culminated with last Thursday me having a big anxiety attack. It was so bad I had to call my Psychiatrist at the hospital for help. The result was to up my emergency meds, which I took and helped me a lot. 

But it’s not just as simple as what I put into my body. It’s what I do with it. For the past few weeks I have been neglecting my training. I’ve simply not been training. Yeah, I’ve done a couple of time trials but only about 50% of what I had planned has been achieved. This is a double whammy as I feel low, so don’t train, then feel bad for missing training. 

Well this is a crisis point. I went for a run tonight. I felt huge, sluggish and hate this feeling. Question is what do I do? Well I do have a plan. I am going to join a friend and sign up for Isagenics I’m going to give it my all. The feeling of how I felt like today will push me on. Isagenics is a meal replacement shake system where you have two shakes a day and then. 600kcal meal at night. 

Let’s see where this goes…

So, the past 2 weeks have gone by in a blur. The past week has been very tough (mentally). I’m not sure why but I have struggled this last week. I was going to miss this latest blog post, but I thought I’d do this post just to show the nature of mental health and it’s ups and downs. 

The last week was a real shit show. I missed 4 of 5 planned training sessions. Why, well honestly I didn’t feel like it. The week before was about recovering from my two races. And this week was about getting back ‘on-it’.  I even committed to enter a cycle time trial, my first one for seven years!

On the Sunday night before I didn’t sleep well, I kept waking up on an hourly basis. Whether that was Linda moving around, the dog moving in his bed or the toilet. This left me feeling tired on Monday. Monday I worked as normal, but as soon as I finished work (at 6) I fell asleep and missed my swim session. Then again in the middle of the night I was awake again. Tuesday evening I went to the time trial as planned and tried my best. 

Truth be told though I was tired before the start of the time trial. I finished in last place and 7.5min slower than I did in 2014. The ride home was tough again. The big downhill at the finish was to be my way home – but uphill this time. As I passed into Quarndon and past Henry Royce’s house a few friends cycled past and said hello. This gave me a second wind. When I got home I was absolutely spent. 

The rest of the week continued with a pattern of broken sleep and lethargy. But it was more than just being tired. My mood was dipping really low, so on Thursday I popped some of my emergency pills and I have been taking them over the weekend. I don’t think I will take them tomorrow though. 

That’s the thing with Bipolar. One minute life can be great and then the next minute can seem desperately helpless. You can have a room full of friends and loved ones, but still feel on your own. It doesn’t help that Linda has also been off recently. 

Also, I’ve been spending money. I’m the last week I have bought 3 pairs of shoes. I think they call it retail therapy. 1 pair of race light shoes, 1 pair cause I liked the colours and 1 pair of triathlon cycling shoes to reduce my T1 time :-). Every cloud and all. 

This past week has been far more relaxed to be fair, but I had really stiff and painful legs the beginning of the week.  Mon thru Weds was spent icing and then putting deep heat on my left calf, which was completely knotted.  To be honest it felt like a deep bruise.  On Thursday I went for a swim at Lavender Patch with Ashbourne Tri club.  This has now become a regular training plan, which I really enjoy.  During the swim I did 1.5 laps of the lake and felt really strong.  I was also practicing my bilateral breathing.

On Friday I had two appointments, the first one with a custom bike shoe fitter (more to come on this another day) to be fitted for some triathlon specific shoes.  I realised last week I was losing a lot of time putting my normal road shoes and socks on, so tri shoes are needed.  I’ve been fitted and should get a pair soon.  Then was back in with my bike fitter, Alex, who helped dial in a couple of issues I was having on my Bianchi.  I was getting pressure in my wrists and saddle issues.  A few tweaks later the problem appeared to be fixed.

How did you feel going into the event?

Going into the event I felt fairly relaxed compared to last week, I also was excited to try out my new elastic shoe laces (for quicker transitions).  I managed to get a fairly early night sleep but woke up at 4am again! I think its anxiety about missing the alarm clock and having to rush around for registration.  Getting to Locko Park was really easy and parking was straightforward.  Once I had registered and picked up my numbers and swim hat I went to scope out the swim course.  It looked further than I remembered and had to do 2 laps.  I got a bit nervous here for the first time.  

How did each leg go? (What went well? – to take with you for the next race, what could’ve you done better? – what did you learn?)

Swim.  The swim start line was in the middle of the lake and was in relatively shallow water.  The first thing I noticed was I was hitting my hands on the floor of the lake.  But after a couple of meters it got deeper.  The water was lovely and clean, but it was a lot more crowded than I was used to.  The start could be described as a washing machine.  So I look a wide line around the whole course, slightly longer – but I was not going to be kicked in the face.  Pretty soon I settled into a rhythm and started bashing the swim out.  I was quickly caught by a lot of the wave 3 swimmers who were a lot faster than me so I kept a wide berth.  I was also incredibly happy as this was the first time I had swam 750m without stopping to breaststroke.  I kept going solidly.  As I exited the water I was greeted by the sight of my swim coach, Chris and his daughter, cheering me on.  I was made up to have him there.

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The bike leg was next, we turned left out of the park and through Spondon.  At each turning there were marshals controlling the traffic, so I could focus on pushing the pedals as fast as I could.  The course was rolling hills and fast sections with good road surfaces.  I knew all of the roads well though so had no issues.  One of the things I struggle with getting used to on the bike is knowing how hard to push so I save something in my legs for the run.  Several times I backed off to save my legs and changed down my gears to spin uphill.  Pretty soon, as it seemed to me, we were back flying past Broomfield college and approaching the Kings Corner pub and back to the park.  When I got into transition 2 I had a chomp of a banana and changed my shoes rapidly.  The new laces made a big difference

The run leg was out and through the driveway following the outside of the lake.  I was really enjoying it and making a good pace.  The first Kilometer was 6:33 but then I hit the first hill.  This was energy sapping and seemed to go on for ever, my speed dropped massively and I kept going though.  One foot in front of the other I eventually hit the top of what I would call a ‘hill’ but in reality was just a moderate slope.  Last weeks run legs were showing.  Back to the water station and a turn right through the fields and up another rolling section.  My legs were shot.  I kept going though and saw Chris and his Daughter who gave me a ‘power-up’ high 5.  This was it, home stretch.  Within 5 minutes I was crossing the line where I saw another mate ‘Ash’ cheering me on.  I was so happy to finish.

Nutrition (pre, during and post-race)

Before the race I had breakfast of overnight oats and mixed berry’s with a side shake of Protein powder. 

During the race I had 1/2 Banana

Post-race I had a muffin 😊  

Hydration

What did I drink – during the bike leg I had 750ml Hydration sachet and during the run 1 sips of water from the water station. 

General feeling after the event

Feeling good generally, had a nap in the afternoon.  I have now cemented in my mind that I am going to focus on Sprint Triathlons for a couple of years.  I am going to withdraw from The Outlaw X in September.  I think this is the sensible thing to do.  It is not saying the ironman won’t happen – just putting it on the back-burner.  I’m not sure about Ironman Venice just yet.  I may still train for this.  But we’ll see.  September is all about the British Para Triathlon series.  I want to improve my T1 and T2 times and get quicker at my run and swim.  Lots to go at here.

Well, where do I start? I suppose this entry starts at the beginning of lockdown 2.  I read with interest about an athlete called Alfie Hewitt, who also had Perthes disease. He competes in wheelchair tennis. It got me thinking about my Perthes journey and whether I could classify as a Para Triathlete. It led me to contacting British Triathlon and told them my circumstances and history, which started off this journey. 

Para sport is different in that you need to be assessed as a particular classification of disability based on medical history and assessment. Only then can you enter a classified race. I didn’t have a clue whether my hip history would suffice for a Para classification, and after all Ironman was the final destination. However I was intrigued; ‘what if’! So before Christmas I applied for a para classification. This needed to go through a rigorous process, which culminated in a physical assessment at the Eton Dorney offices the day before the race. So, until Friday afternoon (the day before) I was not 100% certain I would be racing. 

The process involved my medical specialist from the hospital filling a report on my physical limitations and then providing power data taken off a bike. Fortunately during lockdown 3.0 a friend, Luke – offered to let me use his sensors. The data was downloaded and then sent to British Triathlon for interpretation and assessment.  The final stage was an assessment with the classification officers which included a run assessment with data analysis and bike with data analysis. 

When they called me into the room for the conclusion and feedback I was so nervous, because I knew here this represents a crossroads in my triathlon journey.  See, Para triathlon is in the sprint distance, ie. shorter but faster. Whereas, Iron Distance is about going long and slow.  I knew the next 5 minutes could potentially effect my next 5 years of training and goals. So, they called me in….. “you meet the criteria for PTS5 classification and as such would be eligible for the British Championship race”, the assessors said. I was beyond happy!

How did you feel going into the event?

To be honest stressed was the only word I could describe it as. I was not sure if I would receive classification, whether this would effect my Ironman journey and whether or not I could swim that far without a pull buoy. The week before was stressful too as I needed a new wetsuit – and the country is experiencing a wetsuit shortage (big thanks go to Deano and Rich at Huub) for pulling out the stops for a suit for me to wear. The swim was my main concern generally, I know I could run 5k and bike 20k but had big questions on my swim. The week before I swam open water twice and one of the time I received some 121 coaching from Hilary Johnson who is the Team Huub head coach. This really helped me out and gave me more confidence. 

The day of my classification I met up with a friend and para-triathlete Jonty who helped ease some nerves over a cuppa. We were both going to be entering our first para event. 

On the eve of the race I went to bed early, but woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. The pre-race nerves were raising their head. In fact the anxiety lasted until I lowered myself off the pontoon and into the lake. 

How did each leg go? (What went well? – to take with you for the next race, what could’ve you done better? – what did you learn?)

Swim. The first part of the swim leg was to lower myself off the pontoon and into the water. The lake was clear and had a lot of pond greenery. The lake was also lovely and warm. I split the race mentally into a buoy-to-buoy race. I told myself I would allow 10 seconds of breaststroke with every buoy reached.  The rest of the PTS5 competitors went off so fast, I could not believe the pace. I always knew for me the swim was an exercise for survival. 

I have been training recently with one sided breathing as bi-lateral breathing was causing me a few issues. This was a huge help for me physically and psychologically. An opportunity for improvement would be to become confident in bi-lateral breathing in the open water. 

The bike leg was next and took us around the roads of the Dorney Lake. Traffic free and pan flat. It could only be described as thoroughly enjoyable. I averaged a respectable 27.7kph for the 20km. I know I have potential to improve here. I am losing weight again coupled with a TT bike would naturally improve my speed. 

One of the biggest problems I had though was my quadriceps were really burning and hurting through pushing myself hard. I am sure I can do some focussed training on these. 

The run leg was very hot. It tipped 29 deg C in London and I felt every degree. Fortunately I had remembered to pack a hat into my transition kit. There were 2 water stations on the run and I used the opportunity to pour water down my back each time. I completed the run in 32 minutes, though a lot slower than some of the field – I was still thoroughly proud. 

Nutrition (pre, during and post-race)

Before the race I had breakfast of overnight oats and mixed berry’s with a side shake of Protein powder. 

During the race I had 2 Bananas

Post-race I had a packet of Colin the Caterpillar sweets 🙂 

Hydration

What did I drink – during the bike leg I had 750ml Hydration sachet and during the run 2 sips of water with the rest going over my back. 

General feeling after the event

It still feels surreal. I cannot believe what I have managed to achieve in the last 18 months. However, I now have a decision to make. Do I train for Ironman or Para-Tri? I’m thinking the latter…..

So the last 6 months have taken their toll, both mentally and physically. I talked about my difficulties coping with Lockdown. The truth be told I’ve started to undo the hard work that I have been putting in for months. I’ve managed to put 3 stone in weight back on and injured myself.

A few weeks back I had to climb in the loft and as I stretched upwards I felt a pull in my hip. When I got down I was in a lot of pain. I spoke with the specialist at the hospital who reassured me it was just muscular, but I had to rest for a while. This wasn’t very palatable to me, but had to be done. It was suggested to see an osteopath who confirmed various soft tissue issues and instructed me to rest for 2 more weeks!

Well where does that leave me today. I’m sat honestly park of me thinks to jack it in. Then the other part of me thinks ‘the hard work starts here’. If you really want something then you won’t be put off by blips or obstacles thrown in your way. You dig deep and push on.

So where does that leave me now? Well yesterday I did a 20 min run. It was tough. I felt like I’d been shot out of a cannon once I’d finished. But I looked at that as ‘wow’ I have some work to do here. In 6 weeks I’m taking part in a race that I’ve only told a couple of people about as I don’t want to get too excited. But if it happens will set me on a trajectory. Also in 16 weeks I’ll be on the start line for the Outlaw X half iron distance race.

Guess it’s time to get serious…..

So, by now you have probably noticed that these blogs are becoming less frequent.  Not because I don’t have much to say, but because I am struggling with focus and staying afloat – so to speak.  In the past 7 Months I have now put on 1.5 stones (9.5kg) purely as I have not been following the ‘programme’.  In the first part of 2020 I was super focused stuck to the programme and lost a lot of weight, then came Lockdown 2.0 and Lockdown 3.0.  The fact of the matter is the weight is creeping back on, I cannot deny this – but the will to do something about it is starting to wane. 

So what do I do now, well I’m trying a balanced approach – that being; watching what I eat and making conscious decisions to opt for the healthy choice.  I am very adamant that I am not following a diet.  This needs to be a way of life for me.  Coupled with active training I have got to make this work.

With everything that had been going on in my life the past few months I needed some time away.  My friend Ben also needed some time away and at short notice we decided to go climb Ben Nevis.  A quick scout on AirBnB found us an apartment to rent and we set off up the M6.  What I was looking forward to was the drive.  The Western Highlands were stunning, simply beautiful.  At Glencoe we had to stop the car and get out to soak all the scenery in – it was stunning.

We set off for our ascent on the morning of the Sunday as the weather looked better that day, at 7am we hit the trail.  As we were on our way up I was staggered to meet some fell runners who were already on their way down!  The scenery was stunning.  I was also quite surprised that it had a well defined path all the way up to the summit.

When we got to about 900m in altitude the landscape changed.  All of a sudden it turned into what I can only describe as a moonscape.  There were no plants up here and only baron rock formations from the Eruption that carved the landscape – quite awe inspiring really.  The final 200m of altitude were incredibly tough.  It required Cranpons and poles as the rocks were buried in a 3m thick block of ice.  The clouds had descended also and it was snowing, there was near 3m visibility.  Then as we kept plowing on we reached the summit.  We decided to stop here and have our sandwiches – which was a great idea.  For, within ten minutes the clouds completely disappeared and we were treated to the most amazing views on the top of Ben Nevis.

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So one of the things I promised myself when I started this blog was that it would be a warts and all account of my journey. Throughout the lockdown(s) I tried to stay as positive as possible, lockdown 1.0 I was focussed and in the zone. During lockdown 2 things started to come unstuck and lockdown 3.0 tried to tear all the hard work apart.

There has been a recurring theme over the past few months; my emotional eating has been getting worse. In LD2.0 I couldn’t swim or see my family or friends. Now, I know it was the same for everyone it really hit me, coupled with the dark evenings and cold weather it made for bad moods. What did I do to deal with the bad mood; I ate junk. This led to me putting half a stone on. Then came LD3.0. It really hit me.

I never saw this lockdown coming if I’m honest. So much so, that the day before it was announced I placed an order for a wetsuit and winter swimming kit. I thought The gym may shut but at least I had the ability to swim outside; or so I thought. All this knowing I needed to train hard for my first IronMan 70.3 in May.

This sucked on so many different levels. I had only been swimming 5 months and was quite a way off doing the event in May. That said I bought some swim bands and looked into every option available including, but not limited to a tethered pool in the garden. I’m the end we realised I was perhaps behaving manically again.

I focussed on the training logging multiple runs, rides, strength and conditioning and swim band sessions averaging 11 hours a week. All the time knowing deep down I was wasting my time as it’d likely be a cancelled event. I cannot get across how much this crushed my spirits. So what did I do; I ate. I ate to the point I put another stone in weight back on.

My weekly weigh ins have become quite an anxiety raising affair. So much so, I trigger off a vicious circle. 1) weigh more 2) feel low 3) eat more 4) try and out-train the bad diet and so it goes.

It got so bad, the low moods were really dragging me down. I ended up calling the hospital and having my meds changed to a stronger dose. Since then I only ate junk once, but of course I had the Easter bunny to torment me! So this weekend was a weight disaster again.

That said, I have been feeling more positive. My Ironman has been cancelled, so that pressure has been taken away. The meds are starting to kick in and I feel a lot better. Oh, and I can now swim again.

The outdoor Lido in Matlock Bath is open again. So my wetsuit I bought came in. The swimming in the pool is quite tricky though. The pool is longer than the gym and the water isn’t heated, so it takes your breath away. I find the breathing difficult at the best of times, but I love it. Just need to get used to it. Also, I found out I can start swim lessons again Monday.

so what do I do now? I focus on the Outlaw X 70.3 (half Ironman) in September. But first I need to shed some weight. I think I need to get to 14 stone mark before June. Final roll of the dice I think.

So after my 2nd Femoral Osteotomy I had a great number of pain free years in my early 20’s and started running and carried on playing hockey. I even took part in the Great North Run.

But when I got to the age of 27 the pain came back and I went back to hospital to see what they were going to do next. This had become a familiar part of my life by now and I knew what to expect. However what I didn’t expect was the consultant to say it was getting to time for a total hip replacement or THR. I was gutted at the time. I told him I didn’t want that and what were my options? He said there was not much left that they could do however one option was a Open Hip Debridement.

He went on to explain that it was a big procedure and they would basically dislocate the hip and reshape the bone. It would also be painful. I opted for that option there and then. There was no chance I wanted a THR at my age. A date was set for 3 weeks time and it was going to be done at the private Nuffield Hospital.

I felt very lucky, as the NHS had a backlog of hip operations then some patients were selected to go to the Private Hospital. When I went for surgery I did not expect the pain to be as bad as it was. I have never felt pain like it. I was on Morphine on a button and I quickly used it all! It was incredible. When I eventually was allowed home I really struggled and after a couple of days I was back in hospital as the pain was too much.

if anybody reading this is considering an Open Hip Debridement; don’t! It sucks. But that said after the pain I did get 5 years pain free on my own hip.

Then in 2015 I started struggling again with pain. A regular occurrence by now. I knew what was coming. I was back walking using Crutches and taking strong pain killers daily. Infact; I had bottles of Morphine I used to take and still function at work! Amazing really.

Anyhow it was now 2016 and time for the inevitable. It was the day England got beat by Wales in the Euros. I again found myself in the private wards somehow. Perhaps a bonus of being a repeat customer.

2 days later I was home and begun a 6 month recovery programme. I was pain free after I woke up. Literally nothing from my bones, the pain I had been living with on and off since childhood had gone. It had been cut out. Within 4 months I were walking with no sticks and able to walk the dog. It was a great feeling.

Then in 2018 I had the idea to do an Ironman, which brings me back to the task in hand…

In this second part of my journey with Perthes Disease I talk about healing from my first Femoral Osteotomy and recovery.

The first thing that springs to mind about having a ¾ body cast removed is the stiffness in the joints.  For a long while after the cast was removed I remember refusing to straighten my legs due to the pain in the joints particularly my knees.  I had Hydrotherapy and Physiotherapy but still couldn’t (or wouldn’t) straighten my leg.  I remember quite vividly being held down while they forced my leg straight – I remember the screaming now.  But once I had done it, I could do it by myself.  

Around this time I was allowed back to school, but was not allowed on the playground in-case I got knocked.  My mum and grandparents alternated picking me up.  I used to love going with my grandparents as I always got corned beef sandwiches from the Sainsburys café.  It seemed so posh 😊.  My mum would treat me to a woods road chippy.  

I don’t remember having many restrictions shortly after that period.  I am sure my mum would remember more, but it was around this time I started going to Rollerworld and later playing Roller Hockey and then Ice hockey.  Hockey is what became my passion growing up – I loved it.  My dad tells a story where he was taken into a room and asked to explain to the doctors about the bruising I had, hockey was a tough sport.  But I carried on playing it through my life right until the age of 27.

The good thing I am trying to show here is I was resilient, I was not beaten by Perthes!  I was a tough kid.  But that did not stop the bullying in primary school.  Some of the kids were rotten, but I was taught from a young age to stand up for myself by my dad.  But this was the early 90’s so there was only one way to do this.  This affected me so much that I cannot stomach confrontation now – 30 years later.

I then had 10 years with only a small handful of minor procedures being done.  When I was 19 I was really struggling again and required another femoral osteotomy which was the same operation I had when I was 9.  The pain I can remember now, it was awful.  But it was a good option – at the time they were hopeful it would give me another 10 years of activity before the inevitable total hip replacement would be needed.  

The surgery was tough, but despite living on my own at this point 20 miles from home, my mum and grandparents still come and helped me everyday.  The healing process was longer this time, I was now an adult and it seemed to take for ever before I would be able to start my physio.

Next time I’ll talk about my Open Hip Debridement

12 months ago I started writing this blog and I have had an amazing adventure so far. One subject i skirted on is my diagnosis of Perthes Disease as a child and the impact it has had on me growing up.

My story with Perthes starts in 1992. I was always an active boy and certainly enjoyed sports, football was my passion. The first time I remember complaining about pain in my leg was in the Easter time of ‘92. I remember I had hurt my leg falling off a round about on the park and the pain I reported was attributed to that. I remember vividly being sat in the doctors office with my mum. Being given gel to rub on my leg.

A few months later I remember on holiday in Newquay and jumping off a small rock and screaming in agony. My dad said it was this point that he realised there was something seriously wrong. When we got back home I remember being taken to see the doctor. It’s funny how your remember things, I can see Dr Wrigglesworth’s office now. He examined me and the next thing I can remember was I was taken straight to hospital for X-ray and tests. It was confirmed that I had been diagnosed with Legg-Calve Perthes Disease it was the 11th August 1992.

There were a number of different options regarding treatment and my parents were not sure what to do. You see Perthes Disease is really rare. It took me until I was 32 before I actually met someone else who had suffered with it. This was through the Perthes Association.

I suppose I best explain quickly what Perthes disease is. It is also known as Avascular Necrosis. Simply put it is where the head of the femur has a lack of blood supply and dies leading to softening on the femoral head. This in turn leads to the bone becoming deformed and causes lots of issues.

Here in this first X-ray you can see the Diseased Bone and deformity. This is when I was an adult. I don’t have any photos from when I was younger, people saved camera films for special occasions. The choices my parents faced were 1) leave it, which would result in a wheelchair for rest of life 2) operate, you had the choice of major surgery or 3) traction, which is what they did for decades in medicine.

I cannot remember specifically being asked for my input, but mum and dad opted for the safest option; traction. So began my first stint in traction. This meant I was in the Children’s hospital for weeks at a time. I’m not entirely sure how long I spent in that bed on the ward, but it must have been a while as I remember fireworks party and my bed being wheeled outside.

When I did get out I had to use a wheelchair as the bone was weak. In the spring my folks took us to Florida, which was a big deal. I’d never been on a plane before. Also, disabled didn’t have to queue so I remember going on all the rides. So have some mega memories that I am so grateful to my folks for.

I think it was somewhere around this time I had a femoral osteotomy, well my first! I’m not sure of the specifics but my consultant (I was lucky to have Mr Howard who looked after me for 27 years) said it was time to operate. A femoral osteotomy is where your femur is cut and rotated so that a smooth(er) surface of bone can join the hip. It is then held in place with pins and you are placed in a cast from chest to ankles on both legs, with an opening so you can go toilet.

This X-ray is from one of my ops I had as an adult, but is basically the same op but with bigger pins. I missed a lot of school and when in hospital I went to the hospital school and when at home I had a private tutor. I missed playing with my friends more than anything. And this was all in the days before cable TV, Netflix and PlayStation. I immersed myself in the beano and watched VHS’s like no tomorrow.

Once the osteotomy had healed I remember the scariest thing ever. A nurse with a power saw cutting off the plaster, it still haunts me to this day. I remember my dad really hurt his back holding me. Another thing I remember was spending lots of time with my Nana and Grandad, they were coming to see me nearly every day and always bought sweets :-).

Next time I’ll talk about my recovery from the childhood trauma and the later surgeries I had.

This past couple of weeks have mostly been good, although Linda has been working nights and 70 hour weeks. As such a lot of time has been on my own or with the kids on my own. The training plan has now completed week 3. This culminated with a 1:45hr turbo session on Zwift and a 20 min run on Saturday followed by a 1:30hr run on Sunday.

The Zwift session was good and I passed the time watching tv. Now I never watch TV other than Sport. But I have a Netflix account that the kids and Linda use. I spent about 30 minutes trying to decide what to watch. I eventually settled on Ozark. I can’t say I’m ‘getting into it’ I found it pretty rubbish. But I’ve been assured it gets better. So I’ll give it another chance next week.

I woke up today not feeling the love. I set my alarm for 7 and it took me until 12 before I dragged my sorry ass out of bed. Motivation was zero. I half watched some football on TV but I wasn’t really into that to be fair. I just didn’t want to go run. But it was my long run today. I got my running kit on and still it took until nearly 6 before I went.

Sometimes I am less than enthusiastic about the training. But never to this degree. Usually after a few minutes I get into the run and forget about any issues and enjoy myself, but nope not today.

I zoned out and did what needed to be done and got my run done. Eventually and slowly got to the 90 minutes. I don’t think the cold and darkness helped. Next time I feel like this I’m not sure what I have to do. But I suppose on a journey to Ironman I am going to get days like this.

http://www.bipolarironman.com

Please visit my new blog site above. Thanks Carl

So, it’s New Year’s Eve again. The night we traditionally party and enjoy the time with our loved ones. I’m going to be really brief here, but it’s important to understand what life with Bi-Polar is really like. I’ve been sat on my ass bursting into tears over nothing. I have spent the last week feeling sorry for myself and focusing on the negative aspects of my life.

Yesterday started off nicely enough, I dropped Linda off at work then went to the gym and smashed out 1500m of swimming (not bad for saying I couldn’t swim a length a few month ago). I then went home and picked up the dog (Paddy) and drove to Chatsworth house for a walk around the grounds and nearby village of Edensor.

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When I got there they said I needed to pre-book the car park, which I didn’t think about. But as they were not fully booked the kind lady saw the look of disappointment on my face and let me in. I took off on a route I knew and listened to my headphones. In no time I was on my own and enjoying it. Being in the outdoors is really good for the mind. I completed the walk and was a bit hungry as I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I was going to wait till home. But as I was driving I got the news that we had been put into tier 4. I thought ‘fuck it!’ and pulled into a station with a Subway.

Now, I’m fully aware of this being first world problems. But really all I have been aiming for and been keeping me going (at times) is the booking of my first Ironman 70.3 event in May 21. With my swimming coach we had worked out a plan and to be honest to get me there it is going to be tough, but assuming I trained hard for the next 4 months it is just about doable. With one swipe Boris had just pulled the proverbial rug from under me.

Oh, I also forgot to say I can’t run or cycle either at the minute as I injured my hip to compound the issue. Last weekend climbing out of the pool (I think) I pulled my hip flexor. I have been resting my hip and training with a Pull Buoy.

So, while it may not seem like a big deal – it is to me. I was gutted. Alas though. Not all is failed. I received news that Spring Lakes and Matlock outdoor pool is to remain open. I sent a message to Deano at Huub to see if he does thermal wetsuits – which he does! All of a sudden it looks more positive again.

Fingers crossed that they have a suitable wetsuit in my size in stock. So, there we go. After the drama there is a positive light to hold on to.

I also want to reflect on some of the positive things going on in my life.

1. My grandad has an appointment for his vaccine
2. My dad and grandmother will hopefully get their jab soon
3. I can continue training (injury barring)
4. I have family and friends around me
5. I still have a job
6. Paddy is always up for a walk

In 2020 it’s been a rough year, but despite all this I have changed my life, with the help and support of Linda, Zoe, Chris and training mate Sam! I owe a lot to these guys. I have lost a lot of weight, I have lost over 6 Stone – but put a bit back on over Xmas! This time last year I got out of breath going upstairs and now I’m running half marathons for fun before breakfast. I was XXXL clothes size and 300lbs. Now I’m not and look forward to zwift sessions. I’ve exchanged Craft Beer for Protein Shakes. All this in 12 months. I know I’m going to Smash and Ironman 70.3 in 2021. What else is in the plan???

Thanks go to everyone on my journey who has helped and continues to help. Carl.

I’m no longer crying. This is just the beginning!

Well I don’t want to start this blog off with a negative, but sigh.  Its been a tough week.  I still don’t know what has happened to make me do this.  I have carried on training like a ‘proper’ athlete, but have been backing this up with repeated over eating.  This crescendo’d with a huge binge this weekend.  Now it is fair to say that my coach Zoe wasn’t happy – I had the feeling of a kid who had let down his parent.  But if I am going to break this cycle then something has to give.

Lets look at what I have going off;

1. I have a family who needs me
2. I have a demanding job
3. I am training for a big event and have the pressure that that brings
4. I am learning to swim in preparation for a sea swim event
5. I have started back at University and have an assignment deadline next week
6. I am a trustee of a charity and have demands from that
7. I do a Bi-weekly internet TV show on Mental Health issues
8. I have 3 more stone to lose
9. Oh yeah, Covid-19!

Looking at all this, is it any wonder I keep having a wobble. But something needs to change. I don’t know what yet – but I owe it to myself to figure this out. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet but acknowledging there is a problem is the first step in the process. I need to figure out what is ‘REALLY’ important to mine and the lives of those that I care about. Or is this all part of the wobble I’ve been experiencing.

So what does emotional eating mean to me.  It a self-destructive mode that I go into where I just eat anything I fancy in short periods of time.  Take last weekend, I had chocolate, Chinese, a few gins and a beer all in one evening.  This isn’t the prescribed diet of an Iron Man!  I feel so angry with myself and feel like I’m letting others, including Linda down.  I’ve really gone ‘all-in’ on this and risk throwing away the good work I’ve put in, for what – some sugar?  Is it really worth it.  Do I not remember what it felt like to be 22 stone and getting out of breath tying my shoelaces!

The biggest shock to me, and possibly what I think has brought it all home to me was my coach saying that if this carries on I will not be able to train for the Venice 70.3 Ironman! That really made me think. What do you really want Carl – and how hard are you REALLY prepared to work for your goals? Well, are you??………

Well the past few weeks have been ticking past nicely.  I am now over my ‘down’ phase good and proper and fully back on board with the programme.  Let me explain a little what the down phase looked like – it was pretty self destructive.  I have throughout maintained my physical training, my problem relates to my relation to food.  I would go a whole day sticking to the plan and eat really healthily, then in the evening I would binge eat on junk.

Zoe must have been pulling her hair out with me, I suppose I was too down to admit to anybody what was happening.  It would always follow the same pattern; one biscuit or sweet, then once the seal was broken I would eat the remainder of the kids supplies!  I was told I couldn’t out-train a bad diet, well that was exactly what I was trying to do.  I have now realised that I need to follow the programme 100%.  

Its no lie, but the past couple of months of restrictions and lockdown certainly corroborated these unhealthy feelings.  But alas – I’m past this wobble, time to evaluate the damage.  The harsh reality is my weight has stayed the same the past 8 weeks give or take a few pounds op and down.  I haven’t lost the weight that I had been getting used to.  This is a shame and I have come to realise I am not going to meet my end of year targets.  For that I am sad.  But also proud as I am not going to give up! I will use this set-back as extra motivation to push me forward.

My project to build a gym in the garden that started back in April is now complete, just in time for these colder months. It has also become a haven for the kids, we put a sofa and TV in there and they love it. In-fact we don’t see much of them now! I may have to disconnect the Wifi so I can see them more 😊.

Next weekend is a big deal for me too. I have got my rescheduled Half Marathon on the Saturday morning – hopefully my mate Sam will be able to join me.

Zwift, I cannot do this post without mentioning Zwift. Wow! I am honestly blown away by it! About 2013 I bought my first Turbo, where it probably got used a handful of times before being relegated to the shed. At the time of buying it some new turbos were coming out that interacted with a device to change resistance as you rode. Now me being me, instantly dismissed this as a fad and waste of time. Now for the past 12 months I have watched on Strava as friends have been posting their rides on a new platform called Zwift. I naturally ignored it and thought of it as being quite sad if I’m perfectly honest.

Now several of my friends have been rattling on about it for some time and I finally bowed to the pressure and bought a 21^st century Turbo. I was still not completely excited, I thought it would be interesting and add a new dimension to my indoor training. I was not fully prepared for what was to happen next. I set my bike on the direct drive turbo I had purchased and configured it with Sebs laptop. It invited me to go for a cycle round the streets of Bologna. I was blown away by the feel of the system, the resistance changed with every incline and even rumbled to simulate uneven road surfaces! I was knackered, had had a full workout and didn’t realise how long I had been riding. Perfect, this is something worth exploring more.

Queue the weekend following, Seb wanted to have a go. Problem was he didn’t have a bike and mine was too big for him. I did however have a bike gathering dust in the garage. My old Bianchi – I handed it to Seb and told him he can have it. He now is using my old turbo hooked up with a cadence sensor so he can do the basic functions in Zwift. Isaac has also been getting involved, he has been training using the free weights.

This week things are going really good and I am feeling positive again. I have been deeply immersed in training and back following the diet plan again! I also wanted to talk about a recent Bike Fit I had. Alex, a friend of mine set up his own business called the Bike Fit Scientist in Sutton-in-Ashfield. Alex, invited me for a fit in his new studio and to be honest I was a bit nervous.

When you get there, there are monitors on the wall and a plinth on which your bike is placed on a Turbo.  We started sitting down and talking about any kind of relevant history and discomforts on the bike.  The first thing that he set up was the cleats, you have to ensure these are set up correctly.  We then got moving on the Turbo, as expected the first thing that sprung to mind was the fact that my saddle was very uncomfortable.  It was a Fizik one and I have experienced trouble with these before in the past – so was no surprise.  I had come prepared with a new saddle to try and Alex had a shelf of about 10 different saddles you can try.

The height of the seat post had also been set to give me the correct angle on my hips and knees. We tried both the saddles I had come with and they were no good to be honest, they just didn’t suit my butt. We started trying some of the saddles on the shelf – there was literally one of about every type; Snub nosed, slotted, curved, wide, narrow, hard, soft etc. The mechanism on my bike is quite awkward and it took a few minutes to change each saddle, but alex had a special tool that enabled a quick change.

After trying just about every saddle on offer I decided on the saddle for me.  Alex kindly offered to lend it me for a few weeks to make sure I was happy with it before committing to buy one.  Now just the cockpit to set up.

Well we had a lot of fun setting the front end up. Well, me being a gadget man certainly did! It was also apparent that the bars and Stem I had did not provide a comfy position suitable for a 112mile ironman. The setup on my bike was very aggressive, which would be ok for a ten mile Time Trial but not what I am planning. My bar and stem couldn’t be adjusted enough for the position I required, which left me with a few choices to make. So what we did was use a gadget to mimic different positions to find out the ‘perfect’ position for me and then try and find some bars afterwards.

Having found the position I needed we called it a night – this had taken about 4 hours so far!  He is very thorough.  I didn’t mention the set up of the pedals or shorter cranks either!

Alex shopped around and looked to see who could supply the kit to give me the right position. Profile Design were the supplier of choice and we ordered them and re-convened in the studio again. Alex set everything up as we had measured. We then spent the rest of the evening on the turbo ‘in position’ dialling everything in to give me the perfect setup.

Since then, I haven’t ridden my bike on the road yet, but have been pulling in 90 min Turbo sessions on it in relative comfort. Result.

The past few weeks have sucked to be honest. I’ve not really had much motivation for anything. Not in a bad mood sort of way, more like a ‘I’m tired’ sort of way. I look back and realise I’ve been pushing myself for ten months and needed to kick back.

My way of kicking back was to eat and drink stuff ‘not on the programme’. Every day would start the same. I’d get up and exercise then eat like a saint until 5pm, then I’d get hungry and start snacking. The snacks wouldn’t be healthy! Slowly this has caught up with me to the point that it seems like climbing a big wall to get back on it.

A few week back I discussed my current mindset on Facebook and a friend, Nigel, the same guy who took me on my first 100km ride back in June organised a ride. It was the best medicine for me.

So I turned up at the meeting place on my bike on a lovely sunny autumn day to find Nigel wasn’t alone. He had brought a new member of the club along for a ride too. Turns out that she is a British Cycling youth rider and boy does she ride fast! As we swept through Mickleover another rider, Martin, joined the ride. There was another group up ahead. What set out to be a small thing turned out to be a proper club run – my first for 6 years!

We passed through south Derbyshire and worked our way towards Leicestershire. The pace was a lot faster than I was used too and had my heart rate monitor beeping away like a checkout at Tesco! I also was struggling with my new saddle. I have used leather saddles for years and decided to go for a cambium saddle (rubber) – but I didn’t like it. It hurt. I also used my new winter bike. It was faster than my gravel bike I had been riding.

When we got to Loughborough we stopped at a cafe called the farm. It was nice and I had a Jacket Spud and beans. Something happened to me on that ride. I felt different. I felt like a ‘proper’ cyclist again. Being part of the club and riding with a group felt great. I’m sure Nigel had this planned all along.

When I got home I had been planning to have a chicken Kebab for tea however I swapped it for peri peri chicken. My mojo feels back again. On weds I weighed and my weight had gone up a little but I figured that was the previous weeks catching up on me.

I’m pretty frustrated tonight. The government have put us in zone 2, this means we can not mix households. Now I had plans Saturday, my friend was coming to work out at 6am in my new gym I had built in the garden. Gutted. Hope this doesn’t drag me down again.

Well the comedown from my sprint Tri has continued longer than anticipated. I don’t know how to describe the feeling, other than saying ‘I don’t care’ attitude. I’ve hadn’t been following my religiously followed diet. This started with a week off following the event, which morphed into a second week on holiday and then a third week where I binge ate again.

One day it was so bad I thought ‘fuck it’ and had a packet of biscuits and a dominos pizza. The next day I took my emergency meds. My low mood was starting to spiral. My weight has gone up a bit too. I’m back on the wagon now though so to speak so have high hopes of achieving my weight again in the next two weeks.

While going through this though I managed to keep working and didn’t miss a single training session. The closest I came to missing a session was on Saturday 10th October. I didn’t get out of bed till 1 pm and had zero motivation. Now this is really out of character, I usually get up at 5am most weekends. I really did not feel like a 2hr 10 min run in the rain.

Just as I was about to throw in the towel for the session I received a message from a friend, Lena, who is also on the Ironman journey, asking how my run went. We had a text conversation where she talked me into going for a run.

During the run I had a lot of time to clear my head. The first 80 minutes were not exactly enjoyable but I kept going, one leg in front of the other. Then when I got back to Mickleover (the district where I live) I felt a lot better and began to enjoy myself again.

Which brings me back to today and this week. Things are looking more positive, I’m sticking to my diet and looking forward to training again. I even enjoyed swimming this past week :-).

It was also world mental health day, which made me think a lot. I would have liked to blog then but to be honest I really didn’t feel upto it.

Onwards and upwards

Hi, this is Linda, Carls long suffering wife (Lol). I thought that this week I might gate-crash Carls blog. 

I am completely in awe of Carls achievements to date with his weight loss, his fitness training and his earnest desire to blog it all with the intent to inspire and encourage others. Over the last 9 months I have watched him change into a healthier and better version of himself in more ways than one, its just incredible! I am beyond proud of him.

But I didn’t want to gate crash his blog just to gush about how great he is doing, as you can all see that for yourselves from his updates and photos. I have been reading Carls blog, not all entries I must shamefully admit, but most. As I’m living through this journey with him I feel lucky enough to get to see it with my own eyes and not just get to read about it. However, from what I have read I sometimes notice that Carl often glosses over some of the nitty-gritty, shitty stuff. 

Now I don’t want to sound like a negative ninny or moaning myrtle but Carls blog is call ‘Bipolar Ironman’ for a bloody good reason. Maybe he was being intentionally facetious or flippant in his chosen title or maybe just plainly blunt because of his Aspergers, who knows with Carl sometimes. I like to think he doesn’t write about the negative stuff because he wants to keep himself and his readers positive and inspired. So, some of what I’m about to write may sound bad or unsupportive but I don’t wish this to be the case, but in fact quite the opposite. I want you to know more about what he is achieving despite all of the difficulties and toil of his Bipolar, Aspergers, sleep apnoea and prosthetic hip!

Carl and I have been together for nine years and married for just over five of these. Its been a very interesting journey so far. When I met Carl his humour and outgoingness was infectious and I thought that this was just him, a little off beat but bold and fun! It wasn’t too long into our relationship that I began to realise that Carl isn’t always like this though and behind closed doors and deep within himself there is a much bigger battle to fight. To overcome depressive episodes of Bipolar is no small feat and probably takes much more strength and courage than that needed to shed a few pounds or run a marathon. Carl has always been acutely aware of the ‘dark side’ of his bipolar, he recognises the symptoms and gets the appropriate support from health professionals, family and friends when needed. However, he always has a problem with recognising the manic side of his condition. So, when he announced at that he wanted to do an Ironman, you can guess what I thought…. OMG was an understatement. Over the last nine years I’ve seen and lived through some erratic and spontaneous times with Carl. Others may see them as fads, but I have become to recognise that probably most them are a result of manic episodes of Bipolar. We’ve moved house on a whim (twice, lol), he’s bought more bicycles (and coats come to think of it) than I can count, got obsessed with camping and wild camping, scaling mountains on foot and on bike, remote control car racing, watercolour painting, woodwork and learning piano just to name a few. I’ve often noticed it’s all quite impulsive and more about the stuff and buying the ‘right stuff’ than it is about the doing. Maybe that’s the combination of autism (the endless researching for the ‘right stuff’) and the compulsiveness of the Bipolar, who knows I’m just a witness not an expert psychologist. Anyway, despite my joking to Carl: “all the gear no idea”… he’s kept on with this idea of doing an Ironman.

So, the books have been bought and read, the personal trainer is on-board. The numerous bikes purchased, upgraded and professionally fitted right, obviously. The swimming lessons researched and arranged, the wet suits, trainers and all of the other gear got. A giant ‘shed’ outbuilding is even under construction in the back yard to use as home gym. (I think Covid may have a lot to answer for here). At this point I’ve lost count of the costs, but as long as the mortgage and bills are getting paid I on longer care about the cost.

Carls weight loss has started off with great guns. With the help of Zoe, a food tracker app and me constantly weighing salad leaves, Carl has lost over a massive 6 stone. The weight loss each week has kept him motivated and helped him regain more fitness than I think he ever dared imagine possible. When Carl started the dieting he was allowed much more calories as he was so much bigger at the time, and he was like, ‘great I can eat loads of stuff as long as I count it’. Now it seems to be a bit more difficult as he a lost so much weight his calorie allowance has obviously needed to come down and he has to pay much more attention to what he can eat. Like with anything the novelty and excitement wains after a while, but you need to keep on going and pushing through. There been a few minor blips which Carl has just got on with, but the post sprint- triathlon has been the biggest and hardest blip yet. This is why I’m writing the blog this week. To let you allknow this is not an easy road and Carl needs everyone’s support now more than ever. 

Carl was so hyped up, ready and prepared for his first ever sprint triathlon. The week before Carl was pretty difficult to live with, we were both short tempered and snappy all round. His excitement combined with his nerves made for a difficult and emotional week. But the exhilaration and look on his face when he completed it was amazing, and I’m so proud. This was by far his biggest achievement so far in the journey to ironman, completely overshadowing the 20min run of week 5 run 3 or even completing the couch to 5K app.     

Nothing prepared us for the post sprint triathlon after shockthough. It started with an ‘eat whatever you like’ for the rest of the day after the event. I purposely don’t take Carl food shopping, ever. One, he just hates it so is mardy and impatient and two, he throws all kinds of stuff into the trolly and is a complete nightmare, definitely worse than the kids. But we drove the cycle circuit the night before so he could be prepared and headed in to Tesco on the way home for a few things I needed…… Well, lets just say the binge eating lasted a lot longer than a day. It was almost as if the triathlon was the main event, end goal, and it was all over now so ‘normality’ could resume. Back to the old days, before Christmas when Carl was 22 stone. The following weekend we went on holiday, and so ‘holiday mode’ began…. You can see where this is going.

A short week away in the Lake district, lonely campers on our camp site gave us time to sit and gather ourselves. Carl was determined that even though he knew he was being naughty on the eating front, he was going to stick like glue to the training plan. A few dips in some very cold lakes, long runsand a few walks did him the world of good. The first swim of the holiday was pretty pleasant, even me and Paddy (the dog)tagged along in our inflatable canoe. The second time we stood and watched, I wore like 23 jumpers and 2 coats and he still went in! I’m pretty sure only someone with Bipolar could swim in a freezing cold lake on holiday in late September. I guess maybe the condition helps if your determined to do an ironman. So, our next mini goal was to getting back home to return to our ‘new normal’, healthy eating and back to the training plan was the aim and job done, he’s back on it!

Please all remember the man behind the ‘ironman in training’. However inspirational Carl seems, he is not superhuman. He is a husband, a dad, a son, a hard worker and someone who is trying his very best to achieve a dream, be healthy and a role model to his boys. He is a man who daily fights many invisible disabilities that we often forget about or choose not to see. 

Carl, I love you xx

Having been writing my blog for 9 months now I generally just write whatever comes to my mind. I find this a cathartic process. This week I have been dreaming about the hopeful crossing of the finish line of the PMA Racing Etwall Sprint Triathlon. I have been following another excellent blog called sober Ironman and he used this structure for reporting this race, so with his permission. I used the same headings. Thanks pal! Check out his blog…

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How did you feel going into the event?

The week before the event was quite stressful. I was having doubts about my ability to complete the swim element of the triathlon I had been spending as much time as possible in the Pool. I had practiced the 12 lengths tonnes of times and was as prepared as somebody who had been having lessons for 6 weeks could ever be. Decision had been made – I would be swimming the whole event ‘front crawl’. In the week before the triathlon I had also been having some technical problems with my gears on my new TT bike. The gears were not changing smoothly and we could not figure out the reason why. We (me and my mechanic mate Josh) had changed the cassette and checked the chain, found a kink in the cables – but still could not get it shifting smoothly. So with 18 hours before the race I made the painful decision to switch bikes and ride my trusty Bianchi. Now this bike deserves a special mention. It was my first ever road bike and I have owned it for 16 years. It was a basic model in 2004, but has been upgraded onto Ultegra and Open Pro wheelset (thanks Rich!) and is almost like an old friend that holds a special place in my cyclist heart. Part of me was a little relieved that I would be taking this challenge on using my trusty steed. Not the fastest bike – but I love it!

The week before I was getting nervous, my mate Ian (thanks!) has done the event before come round my house and talked me through everything.  He even took me to the venue and we walked around showing me where we go and what to expect.  This really did ease the nerves, one of the worse things I find being autistic is when I don’t know what is going to happen (the unknown).  Ian helped massively.  Two days before the race my son was sick, this raised the stress levels – but he was ok after 24 hours and the Saturday I was able to relax.  I spent the day chilling out in front of the TV catching up on the Tour de France and football.  The evening was watching Boxing.  Perfect really 😊.  About ten o’clock, with a little pressure from Linda I switched the TV off and got my Transition Bag ready.  I felt strangely proud hanging up my race suit on the wardrobe and took a pic of it hanging there, just waiting to do the race together.

The morning was completely stress-less to be honest.  I woke at 04:45 had my breakfast and loaded my bike into the car.  Me and Linda made a couple of strong coffees in Keep-cups and set off for the short journey to the village.  We were early as usual and arrived before most of the marshals had even arrived.  We sat and chilled in the car – I were far too chilled!  After about 20 min we headed off to registration where we had our temperatures checked and got my race numbers.  At this moment I thought ‘I best go get my bike racked’ – check me out! Sounding pro!! Linda gave me a hug and kiss as I didn’t know when I would be seeing her next. 

I headed to the racking and could not for the life of me figure out where my space was (they were all numbered), it must have been the early morning start. When I found my rack I started to get a little nervous. Fortunately the bloke (Paul was his name) next to me settled my nerves and helped me set my bike the right way and gave some advice on what was to come. Once racked I kind of hung out with my trusty Bianchi not really knowing what to do. I wish I’d have kept my phone with me but Linda had it. About 30 min before I de-robed and set off to the start of the swim in my flip flops. As I passed the toilets there was nobody there so I quickly nipped inside. When I came out a guy gave me a mouthful as I didn’t realise there was a massive snaking queue 20ft away! I didn’t have my glasses on, as I was swimming, and didn’t see it. Oh well – lesson learned I won’t do that again. So now, being the most unpopular man in Etwall I headed for the start queue.

One point I will make is how self-conscious I was wearing a tri-suit.  When you are getting used to your new body after shedding a lot of weight I personally find myself still self-conscious about lumps and bumps.  If you’ve ever seen a tri-suit you’ll know.  They are tight!

How did each leg go? (What went well? – to take with you for the next race, what could’ve you done better? – what did you learn?)

Swim went ok – I suppose. There were a few lessons I learned here. The first thing that caught me by surprise was the temperature of the pool. I’ve had cooler baths, David Lloyd where I have done 98% of my swimming training is cold as. This took some getting used to, the pool was also really shallow at one end. Your arms hit the floor as you swam. But that aside I set off. Length one, beautiful – like a floating sea mammal I glided through the water, great I thought. I can do this. Length 2 and 3 same again, I was gliding doing exactly what my teacher (Chris) had taught me. I even overtook my new mate Paul who had started before me. Then as I got to the middle of the pool (you started off in lane one and moved through the pool across a lane at a time) the water became very choppy, I started taking glug fulls of water in my mouth. Not the one! I was also tiring massively, I had committed the cardinal sin of endurance sport and set off far too quick.

The drop off was incredible. All of a sudden I was struggling to maintain my breathing rhythm and was getting passed by people. Each time I arrived at the wall I stopped for several seconds trying to get my breath back. It had now become a mental challenge, I saw Linda stood at the side through the window and at one point I stopped and looked at her thinking how on earth I was going to finish this. The end couldn’t come quick enough, my technique had gone up the swanny and it was all about survival now. Without noticing I had reached the end and as I ran out the pool Linda captured the moment – my face kind of says it all.

The bike leg started (eventually) after a 7 minute transition, the swim leg had sapped me. Transition consisted of a run to my rack position and getting my cycling gear on (eventually after I’d caught my breath) and having a banana. I then ran with my bike towards the road after loads of people passed me in transition. Now the bike is my triathlon comfort zone, despite being out of shape I have a few years of cycling in my legs. I had ridden the route a few week previously and done in just shy of an hour. I knew I could beat that. I’d point out here that I was also racing blind! For months I have been running, cycling and swimming on Heart rate to judge my perceived effort. Well, it turns out that in triathlon mode you don’t get alerts as default while riding – I noticed my heart rate hit 189bpm at one point. I was flying (for me) as I left the village we headed up hill and then dropped to Heage Lane. As I hit the lane I started picking cyclists off – sorry, I mean passing my fellow competitors. The competitive dragon within Carlos the Jackal (nod to Ash) was re-borne. I rode on the drops all the way round and as I hit St Michael’s church my legs were on fire.

From the church I know the roads well and flew into Hilton, even remembering the pothole on the bend before the farm.  Coming into Hilton I passed several more people, and every person I passed we exchanged positive vibes and encouraged each other.  The tricky triple islands leaving Hilton were next and I couldn’t believe my luck – the roads were completely clear.  I negotiated these with a feeling of immense pride, but also a feeling of dread as I was concerned I had pushed too hard.  My legs were really burning.  As a result the Hilton-Etwall road I dropped it up a couple of gears and span my legs at a higher cadence.  Within a few min I had hit the Seven Wells pub island and went round for the final approach into Etwall.  I had no Idea how fast I had been as my watch was not displaying my usual settings, but it felt quick.  I reminded myself that the goal was purely to finish today and I was nervous about the run after abusing my legs for 18km.

This transition was going to be my crowning glory – having learnt from my previous lengthy stay I knew I would be quicker.  Dismount line hit like a pro – check, quick run with bike to my rack – check, shoe change – check.  That’s it right??  Giving myself a virtual high-five I ran off only for another guy to shout ‘hey – you.  Helmet’.   Amateur.

The run leg was purely enjoyable. I cannot describe it any other way. There were a few things; I realised with me doing my greatest Milan-San Remo impression previously, I’d not had any of my drink! Doh! But there was a drink station on the run so I didn’t worry. My biggest concern was how my legs would react. Turns out, pretty bloody well! I had spent a lot of time the past few months doing ‘brick sessions’ Bike then run training and this had clearly paid off. The run circuit was pretty much uphill all the way to the exit of the village and I was flying. My watch was behaving now and was showing 6:15/km which is nearly a minute faster than my usual run pace – and I’d just done this running uphill, thirsty and just getting of my bike.

As I neared the top of the hill I saw Linda, I’m not exaggerating I think just seeing her shaved 30 sec of my run time. I felt so happy. It was at this point I knew I would succeed. The rest of the run was dead flat until the downhill run to the end. I was still running around 6:15 and felt comfortable, the feeling was amazing. I soaked it all in and enjoyed the moment. One person I hadn’t seen though was my coach Zoe. Just as I turned into the run for the venue I heard my name – I turned round it was her. I was so happy she was able to share this moment with me and Linda. I then entered the venue centre and as I ran up the chute I was busy looking around soaking it all in, turning round looking for Linda as I’d not seen her on the return leg. The MC said ‘runner #267 it’s this way’ – I thought I best keep going 😊. And with that it was over. Success.

Nutrition (pre, during and post-race)

Before the race I had breakfast of overnight oats and mixed berry’s with a side shake of Protein powder and ground oats.

During the race I had 2 Bananas

Post-race I had my favourite birthday cake grenade bar

Hydration

What did I drink – well not much.  Other than a token ginger energy drink.   I kind of got caught up and forgot about drinking. 

General feeling after the event

I am so unbelievably proud of what I have achieved. This is not the end of the journey, this is the beginning. From being over 22st in January to putting in a respectable time in my first ever triathlon I am incredibly proud. I could not of done this on my own. Big thanks to everyone who helped make this day happen. I will always be grateful x

I discussed last weekend my journey to Huub where I got my Wetsuit. On the Saturday I had a meeting with my swimming coach Chris, where we discussed my training plan for the next two weeks – in the build up to the Etwall Sprint triathlon. I have been given a series of drills for the swim leg, which truth-be-told is what is worrying me. In my lesson we did a couple of dry runs of the 300m swim leg of the Tri and I found it incredibly tough, to the point that I had to stop several times. I could not string together more than a couple of lengths. I’m starting to get quite anxious about the 300m swim, but Chris had an idea. I was to alternate between Swimming 1 length front crawl and then 1 length breaststroke. This was a big deal to me, I knew I could do 300m using the breaststroke length as ‘active recovery’.

I discussed with Chris my training plan and we agreed that open water training would form part of my drills. I had a wetsuit and the required kit and was able to go to a local outdoor swim venue called Spring Lakes. If truth be told I was pretty terrified of the thought of being in an open lake in cold, unheated water. My mate Rob said he’d come with me as he is a strong swimmer. Arrival at the centre was straight forward and the parking was good. The staff greeted you at their cabin and there were 3 pools that you could swim in. I opted for the smaller lake! Getting into the water was weird – your feet are cold, but your body is kept warm by the wetsuit. My issue of sinking legs was improved by the buoyancy of the 3:5mm wetsuit.

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The smaller lake was the closet one to the centre huts and has 4 buoys which set out the water course.  The first buoy was near the edge and there was a lot of water plant life, which freaked the inexperienced Carl out.  I struggled with the feeling of plants on my arms and feet ha-ha.  I will need to get used to this though for Ironman!

Swimming around the buoys was awesome though.  Me and rob agreed to swim breaststroke to one and then front crawl to the next alternatively.  I did 2 laps using this technique, interestingly each lap was 450m or 150% of my target!  My final lap I was determined to front crawl to each buoy and this I did! I needed 20 seconds rest from each buoy mind, but I’m claiming this as a success 😊.

Then at home later in the day we had some drama.  What started off as a normal and exciting delivery ended in a bit of calamity.  Back at Easter time we decided to do the garden in our house.  The holiday to Germany was cancelled and we had time to kill as we were off for Easter week and we decided to begin the garden.  Well the plan was to have a summer house at the bottom of the garden to be used as a gym, but there was a huge Leadtime on delivery so we have been waiting literally months for this moment.  Delivery was this weekend, the Lorry driver and Fork Lift operator it turned out was on his first day in the job – what could go wrong….

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Only me would end up with a forklift buried in my brand new plant bed… sigh

So, this reflection starts about 18 months ago. I was working in the world of Innovation and received an invite to a company conference with the guest speaker being Dean Jackson – CEO of Huub! Now, Huub are known as being the company to go to if you want to go fast in a triathlon. This was shortly after I had first had my Ironman epiphany, so triathlon and speed was at the front of my mind as I listened to Dean speaking. Two things come to mind as I sat there listening – first, was that this was a seriously innovative company who push technical boundaries and two, I needed a wetsuit and didn’t know what to go for – but at that moment I knew I’d be shopping for Huub!

After the presentation I made a beeline for Dean and introduced myself as a future Ironman (imagine the scene being 22 Stone). I honestly do not know what he thought of me – but he gave me his business card and said to call him when I was ready to start open water swimming. He told me that he had a wetsuit in his office hanging up called the ‘Goliath’ which would fit me. Que 18 months later, nee – 2 weeks ago, I bumped into him 100 yards from my house at the local shops. At first I’m not too sure he recognised be at first; until I mentioned I was the guy wanting the Goliath wetsuit. He said it was amazing how much weight I had lost. We had a chat about the journey I was on and he said to call him. Anyhow – this I did!

I was so nervous of meeting him to talk about my journey, but at the same time I was the most excited man in Derbados (this is a play on Derby and Barbados the name of the famous record breaking Huub cycle team). I even had a conversation with Linda about what to wear – in the end I went in my usual relaxed summer attire. Naturally, me being me I arrived 20 minutes early and Dean instantly welcomed me in. Now, if you have never been to Huub HQ it is hard to describe. It is literally wall-to-wall with the most awesome kit you can buy for Triathlon or Swimming/Cycling or Running. One thing that instantly took my attention was the coolest ‘Beam bike’ I have ever seen. I have only seen this in cyclepedia. Now these guys have one adorning their wall. Sure, it was easy to be impressed by the kit you could buy – but what was pulsing through me excitedly was the fact that the Brownlee boys had also surely been in there and had the same feeling as me. Sure enough, one of their race suits was on the other wall 😊. Inspirational!

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Did I mention I was excited or impressed yet? I was given a coffee and Dean and his daughter Ellie sat down with me and asked me to tell them my story. I duly did, some of it was hard to go over – but I think I got the point across that I my journey was simple had a bit of a rough time – Got myself better – In the process of getting better I got out of shape – now I’m on a journey for Ironman glory – well for me 17 hours will be amazing 😊. They were genuinely interested in my story and were really reassuring – I received some tips on cycling gear in the workshop too which was also very ‘wow’. I spoke about how I am working with my coach Zoe and that I would really like some advice on what kit I needed to race and train.

The wetsuit was the piece of kit I was looking forward to most, but how would I pick. Well no fear – I was introduced to David Bishop GBR Athlete! How to notch up the impress-o-meter another level! I was honestly so grateful to be able to get to speak to somebody like David. We spoke at length about the kit basics and what sort of stuff would be suitable for my training and ironman journey. I opted for a Varman wetsuit, because technically it seemed perfect for me. It had a special +43 foam that in its simplest form makes you more buoyant and lifts your legs. Also – I couldn’t help myself and opted for the top of the range Tri-Suit, Winter coat (as you do), visor, pull float, Tri-belt, T-shirt, Buoyancy shorts and Huub Luub (Apparently you apply it around your neck as you use a wetsuit), Derbados Shirt and a sleeveless tri-suit. No excuses now!

As I got talking to David I was trying to absorb as much knowledge as I could from him! We had a conversation about my running and coaching. I am super excited that we are going to have a follow on meeting and will be getting some running coaching from him. All of a sudden I don’t feel on my own. Dean even said he may join me in Venice 😊

So, the past few weeks have been pretty good for me.  I continued to have my swimming lessons and have received a set of ‘Pyramid’ drills to do in the pool to practice from Coach Chris.  These are Tough – and total over a km of lane swimming!

I also dusted off my Turbo, I have decided to be more efficient and able to maintain my Heart Rate more accurately I am going to do my Thursday session on the bike using my Turbo.  Also, I am going to use my TT Race Bike 😊 for Thursday turbo sessions.

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I also had another session on my arm which has held me back a couple of weeks as I cannot swim.  My lessons are booked again next week!

I also had some drama with a treadmill; I bought a treadmill off eBay – it was advertised as being ‘excellent condition’ and being used in a private house.  It was a commercial type and cost me £250 to have it couriered from Newcastle.  The moment it arrived my heart sunk – it was in awful condition and was not the same treadmill in the photographs.  Gutted.  I raised a case with eBay and the seller had to come pick it up, which he did on the back of a trailer on a rainy day.  He also turned up with a group of friends to try and intimidate me.  Really not the situation that I wanted to be put in.  According to eBay rules he had 48 hours to process refund, which I am yet to receive.  Nightmare!  Stress I could do without to be honest.

In this time we also had a lovely afternoon out at Spring Lakes on their giant inflatable.  I was not able to join though and had to watch from the side because of a) my hip and b) my tattoo.

Then at the past weekend a massive boost and goal – I hit my 16 Stone target, which gives me 6 stone total weight loss.

Also this past week I’ve had the prep work done for the base of the Gym we’re having built. Tomorrow a 6 tonne reinforced concrete slab goes down.

Things I’m looking forward to – 1) Prepping for Etwall Sprint Triathlon 2) Recommencing Swimming Lessons 3) Meeting a Triathlon Bike specialist to set up my Triathlon Bike

The day started off like any typical Saturday morning. Buzzing alarm woke me up and I stumbled downstairs to get my overnight oats. It was 05:00am and I needed to be out early to go for a run with my buddy Sam and his boys. The plan was for me to run to Sams house and he would join for a lap of the golf course route before he peeled off as we passed back past his house and I would continue a second lap back to home. The run started off well and just got better, I’m now at the point where I’m starting to really enjoy my ‘long runs’ which consist of longer duration but at a lower heart rate. When I left Sam and his boys to go home I got into a steady rhythm and really got lost in my music. Before I knew it I was back near home but still needed to run for another ten min (I run on duration not distance) so I did a lap of our estate.

So, I had a bit of anxiety trying to get my swimming in order. Firstly, I don’t like water, hate dipping my head in the water and am not a very confident swimmer. When I started this journey the plan had always been to cover the swimming through coaching with my friend who runs Splashing Stars. However I hadn’t accounted for Covid-19. My swimming was scheduled to start in June however the pools have been shut since March.

Well last weekend Boris announced that some pools that jumped through certain hoops could reopen. However Splashing Stars wasn’t able to open for many complicated issues. This meant that I had an incredibly tough decision to make. I really wanted to have my lessons with my friend in their pool – but couldn’t wait until it opened. I needed to make a tough decision. After talking to them I decided to try and find alternative coaching provision. Problem was not many pools were open. Very few of the open ones were taking on new lessons. However there was one in Derby. David Lloyd was the venue and Chris was the teacher. I spoke to Chris and told him my plans – he took it onboard and said he had capacity to start training right away.

With the 13th September date looming for my sprint triathlon I needed to move fast if I was to meet my goals. Chris seemed on my wavelength and new what my goals were. Ironically, it turns out that him and Zoe (my coach) already knew each other and were friends.

So after signing up for membership to the Gym I went for my first lesson. Upon arrival I introduced myself to the coach and we discussed what we were going to do in the first session. The first swim was to show him a what I could already do so he could ascertain where I was at. I started with 2 lengths of breaststroke and then moved on to front crawl. Now, one of the things I don’t like is dipping my head in the water and trying to breathe. Guess what I’ll be working on the next few weeks :-).

My niece kindly gave me some floats and stuff to borrow. They were to be used during the session. There were two main floats we used. The out front float which I held in my hand to practice my footwork and the pull buoy to practice my arm stroke. Immediately it became obvious I wasn’t very good at kicking as my feet sank and I struggled with the arm work as was missing strength. But as I said, it was first lesson so to be expected. We then tried to put them together and something magical happened. I was doing it, swimming front crawl and not going too slow (from my perception).

There is a lot to remember. I need to remember to not swallow as much water – this was me panicking and rushing in places. Chris was really pleased with how it went and gave lots of encouragement which was great to hear. 6 weeks to Etwall Sprint Tri – it feels like the missing piece of the jigsaw has fell into place.

The past couple of weeks have been ticking over nicely. The first week we took a week off work spent it relaxing. We had a lovely day at Woolaton Hall on the Monday and Linda had an ice-cream while I had mineral water! We also received some exciting news about swimming pools starting to reopen on the 27^ThJuly. This is big news that I had been waiting for.

However, it wasn’t so straightforward finding an open pool – and one that would take on swimming lessons for new people. I am not sure if I have blogged this, but I cannot swim very well at all. At best, I can do a laboured breaststroke. I had booked lessons with my friend in the weeks before Covid-19. However her pool would not be able to open just yet. I spent the Saturday and Sunday calling around all of the gyms trying to find who had an open swimming pool. This left me with 2 options 1) go to Matlock and have lessons with the Tri-Club or 2) Sell a kidney and join David Lloyd.

I called David Lloyd’s and they were very open about me joining to use the pool and they said I could start lessons this week!  However it was quite expensive.  I figured it wasn’t every day you train for an Ironman so signed up with them.  The swim teacher is a guy called Chris, who Zoe knows – and Chris has agreed to help teach me to swim, with first lesson this Saturday,

Also had a meeting with Zoe to discuss plans and goals. As a result I have entered the Etwall Sprint Triathlon on the 13^th September which consists of an 400m Swim, 18KM bike and 5km run. I’m hoping this event goes ahead. I also am starting to increase my long run sessions by 5% each week until 18^th Octoberwhere I will hopefully run my Half Marathon. Here me and Zoe’s son smashing the Strength and Conditioning

So as I write this I am excited to the core; something really big (to me) has happened. I have entered my first 70.3 Ironman event. Me and Zoe started talking about doing a 70.3 event (half Ironman) as part of my conditioning towards the full Ironman and to give me some experience. We had our eye on booking the Staffordshire event as it was local, but they were nearly full from Covid rollover bookings from this year and it’d be a gamble if I got into the event when it went live. In the meantime I got an email for a completely new event ‘Ironman Venice 70.3’. My recent mood fluctuations resulted in me saying ‘fuck it!’ And with a quick message to Zoe and Linda we decided to book it. However getting into these events can be tricky and they sell out in hours. But I booked some time in my diary for the launch time and sat prepared to keep hitting refresh. Within 8 hits of refresh I was in! Excited doesn’t cover it!

I also used some of the time the past few weeks with my eldest. He is growing up so fast.

I’ve also had my toughest 3 weeks of training. Reaching a crescendo of weekend 1:52hr run and a 108km bike ride. The 3 weeks building up my training has given me a real focus and my weight has dropped even further with a 5 1/2 stone weight loss now. Mentally I was starting to feel a lot better.

This week is rest week and it appears that my focus has dipped again if I’m honest. On Sunday when I got back from my big bike ride I ate lots and had a couple of beers. Then during the week while I felt guilty for that I in turn ate ‘an extra bit of cheese here and an extra egg there’. Friday was a tough one, I went to the pub and had 4 craft cask ales of around 8% each and a couple bag of crisps. Woke up feeling pants. I hope this isn’t another mood wave!

This morning was Brick session. Which is basically a bike ride followed by a run with a sub 90 second changeover. I never have suffered with hangovers but I really didn’t feel good this morning. It wasn’t the beer – I just really did not want to train!! I lay in bed for about 2 hours before I dragged my ass out of bed. Then it took another hour before I left the house – I really wasn’t feeling the love for Brick. Linda persuaded me to go out and I rode really hard for 45 min. However I forgot to start my Garmin (grrrrr) and was paranoid about my phone falling out. I really need to come up with a solution to my phone storage. I lost a pump a few weeks ago that fell out my pocket. Ride completed; I quickly got my shoes swapped and did the regular short tour of our estate. Usually I feel a lot better having exercised but not today. But hey-ho! We don’t quit!! We dust ourselves off and race another day. Tuesday is back to high intensity training (I’m learning I thrive on the structure and focus). Here’s a picture of my fav sub 300kcal meal. Need this sort of focus right now 🙂

Sometimes with mental health you get a reminder that things can go bad quite quickly at any time, or well at least you can in my case.  A couple of weeks ago I started feeling bad again, getting stressed, confused, irritable and generally not feeling well.  My worse thing that I do is Ruminate over the same issue obsessively – even if I cannot solve the issue which begins a downward cycle.  I somehow – as I don’t know how, but I managed to continue my training.  However a small hiccup occurred with my meds affecting my training.  I have been training on time and Heartrate for my runs and cycles.  However last week I took my emergency meds again.

On Sunday I went out for a long ride (that was in my plan) and had great difficulty actually getting myself motivated to leave the house.  I woke up at 06:00 and planned to do an early ride, I got up then got back into bed until 09:30 – it finally took me until half 12 to drag my ass out of the door.  My runs were the same during the week, I had little interest in completing them.  While on my ride, which was to be 1hr 28m I was due to run at z2 heartrate.  Well I went out and immediately noticed my heartrate was low compared to my perceived exertion.  I did manage to hit z2 a few times, but had to bury myself to get there, which seemed really odd.  I thought I must be having monitor issues again and didn’t bother riding to my HR for the rest of the route.  It was only when I got home and I was talking to Zoe I realised my emergency meds my be having some effect.  I checked the small print you get with tablets and it said it will slow heartrate!  Blimey!

I also had a counselling session on the Thursday which helped a lot, the Friday I called the hospital and they gave me an appointment with one of the doctors there and made a follow on appointment with Dr Smith on the following Tuesday.  Talking to Dr Smith was good, I got a lot out of the session – I also have had a tweak to my daily meds and been advised to come off the Emergency Med.  However I am still waiting for the prescription to arrive for the new dosage of my tablets.

I took this selfie out on my run the other day – I thought it captured quite well my mood at the time. But today is a new day and I’m feeling a lot better I’m pleased to say.

So now I’ve completed my 100km ride my coach decided it was time for a new plan change.  Previously it had been running and Strength and Conditioning, then Running, cycling and strength and conditioning with focused running sessions and enjoying the bike ride without focussing on specific training goals.  However with a Sprint Tri coming up in September it is time to start dialling in my sessions.  This called for a meeting with Coach Zoe in her garden to discuss progress and how I am feeling with my training.

We agreed training and weight loss was going well and to be perfectly honest we were a little ahead of targets thus far on the weight.  However one thing we talked about was the intensity of training.  I have been training 4/5 times a week since January with no break and we agreed to introduce a ‘REST WEEK’.  Well, we’ll call it rest week.  What it actually means is every 4^th week will be a much reduced intensity week, with 2 short steady runs of 30 min and a 1 hour ‘brick’ session on Saturday – which means Bike ride and into Running with max 90 second transition time.

I also had a big achievement last Sunday – on my usual weigh in I had hit the magic 5 stone weight loss mark.  For the first time I took a long hard look at myself and to be honest thought ‘Feck me’ this is getting serious.  I can see the changes for myself now.  Clothes I’ve not worn for a long time are getting worn and new clothes are being bought.

This week has actually been my rest week, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Tuesday I went for a run at lunch with no heart rate goals, no pace goals and a massive smile. This is my body’s way of recovering for the intense training I am going to put it through 😊. Then Thursday a good friend Sam joined me for a social distance run. We chewed the fat all the way round talking like a couple of old ladies. Remember folk running can be fun 😊

So a few months ago I wrote down my goals on a scrap of paper. These were the goals for the next 2 years effectively breaking the Ironman into tangible chunks. key amongst the goals were an Audax called the Staffordshire Lanes 100KM audax that I was to ride with my friend Nigel. However Covid has since come along and the audax has been cancelled. A few weeks back I mentioned this in my Blog. Nigel, read this and sent me a text saying we would ride it ourselves!

So here we are near the start of our ride. We met at the great northern at 09:30 in horrible rain conditions. We quickly got to following the route. Nigel has planned it out and it was to be a lumpy ride round the Staffordshire lanes :-). The first 45 KM the rain was Biblical. It seemed to be coming from every direction. About 45KM point the rain subsided and glorious sunshine, which quickly dried us out. However I had learnt a couple of key lessons here; 1) my waterproof gloves are not so and 2) my waterproof coat was equally non-waterproof. I was cold, wet and miles from home. But, this was not something a Picnic wouldn’t fix. We quickly found a south facing bench and sat in the sunshine eating soggy sandwiches. But no bother, I had a litre of tea in my flask. Nothing is a problem after tea.

Right, halfway point and the legs were still feeling great. We set off and headed back through Rolleston on Dove and the heavens opened again. It was special extra cold rain I think. Saved for cyclists. So we got drenched again. Then we stopped under a tree at the 70km mark at the gateway to Catton Park and my legs were on fire. I stretched and shook my legs out but it didn’t help. What ensued was the toughest 25km of my Ironman training thus far.

Now endurance sport is all about ‘digging in’ when the times get tough. At Tattenhall we had to cycle up a huge huge hill that about did me in. My legs were rotating the pedals, but my hamstrings were on fire and cramping. They are not used to this level of exertion. But the friendly and supportive encouragement of Nigel kept me going. I was told all I had to do was keep the pedals moving, it didn’t matter how fast. We stopped for another cup of tea and a stretch. Getting back on the bike was incredibly hard.

When we got to Hilton the rain was getting so bad we took shelter in a bus shelter for 15 minutes. This did the legs good. We then turned from there down to Sutton and over the back roads to Radbourne Lane. Now anybody that has rode that lane would know it was a gradual climb for 10km. Damn. Legs on fire. However at the top of the road is the football ground, it turns out they are selling beer in your own containers, so we duly filled our cycling bottles with beer. Nice!

Overall, I am really happy with today and super proud. I can’t thank Nigel enough for giving up his Saturday to help me. Here’s the route GPS

The past few weeks I’ve been meandering along on my trusty touring steed – my steel Tour de Fer, I decided that if I was to be taken seriously as a roadie I needed to start training on a road bike.  As such I have dusted off my First road bike, a Bianchi Via Nirone 7.  I bought this in 2004 when I first started to cycle as a young lad, it came with Campag gear but was generally a low spec.  Since that time the bike has been completely re-built, with hand built Mavic Open Pro wheels and Shimano Ultegra groupset.  This makes for a nice spec bike – but I realised it is nearly 6 years since I have ridden it.  So it needed a good service and some TLC, but a bit of elbow grease later and I had a fast bike to train on.

I went out on it last week and it felt so nice.  It was stiffer and smooth to change gears and the saddle is loads comfier as it is already broken in.  I’m still having weekly PT sessions with Zoe.  We are currently working on the plan for the next few months.  I was meant to be doing an Audax in June, but I very much doubt that this will be going ahead – much like my half marathon that has just been cancelled.  Plan for that is 1) drive to Ashbourne 2) Carl will run to Parsley Hay along the Tissington Trail 3) Zoe will follow on a bicycle to support.

I had a nice moment the other day, I got my hiking bag out of the loft, for the first time this year as I decided to walk to do the shopping. Without thinking I clipped the waist strap around and it was set from the last time I wore it – massive gap! WAHOO!! Things like this keep happening, there is no feeling quite like seeing someone that you haven’t seen for a long time and they say ‘you’ve lost some weight’. Simple things like that really move me up the mood elevator.

Another thing I’ve discovered as part of this journey is my love for cooking.  I used to cook years ago but stopped 10 years ago in a bout of depression and have not cooked since.  The diet lifestyle that I have been following is forcing me to eat freshly home cooked food.  Now, I am not going to pretend I’ve all of a sudden been transformed into Sat Bains – but I have been helping a lot.  Linda is keeping me fuelled with the right food, but several times a week I am putting a shift in the kitchen.  Tonight I made a 600Kcal Sloppy Joes meal – it tasted as good as it looked, Linda liked it too – even with the secret addition of Red Chillies 😉

Well the last few weeks I’ve been suffering with a broken Heart Rate Monitor and scales. The first one, my scales is giving me a bit of a nightmare. I have the Fitbit ones, they connect to the WiFi and log my weight, body fat and BMI. However they have stopped connecting to the WiFi and syncing data. This is naturally very frustrating. See them in action (several months ago).

I wrote to Fitbit and they put me in touch with their customer support centre and they gave me a complicated answer that to be honest needed a degree in computer nerdery to understand. Now I need to find someone who can help decipher the instructions for me. Please get in touch if you can :-). Now in typical fashion my Heart Rate Monitor that connects to my Garmin bike computer and running watch has stopped working. Really frustrating- I went out for a 40 min run and apparently my HR didn’t get above 79bpm, while my Fitbit said I was doing 149bpm. Fortunately I managed to source a replacement from my cycling club for half the price of new so happy Carl :-).

Zoe has worked out my training plan which now looks like this;

Monday – rest day

Tuesday – 40 min run

Wedsnesday – 1 hour cycle

Thursday – 40 min run

Friday – rest day

Saturday – 1 hour 20 min run

Sunday – strength and conditioning PT with Zoe

Tomorrow is the day I go out and try running to heart rate for the first time. I am going to do a 40 min run at zone 2 with a 5 min zone 3 effort. It’ll be interesting to see how I fair. Wednesday should be back on familiar ground as I was used to riding with HR when I trained for the Marmotte in 2014.

Here’s a photo of me from last Saturday completing my 1hr 20min run where I completed 10.8km run my furthest yet. Also, this week I introduced Macros into my diet planning. For the past 5 months I’ve been reducing my calorie intake to the point that I’m now on 1900 kCals. The new one is slowly introducing macros, so I have to maintain the 1900 kCal while sticking to at least 35% protein make up in my daily intake. Day one complete, it is actually quite hard. But needs must…

A couple of big decisions this last week. Primarily, we were planning to extend our house and had been building up to this. However, with the work that had been going on in the Garden I have decided to do a lover cost garden based alternative. We are going to have a wooden summerhouse built to use as a training base. It will be called the pain cave. The plan is to have a treadmill and Turbo Trainer set up permanently in there.

Also this week I have re-read the Don Fink book; ‘Be Iron Fit’ to remind me about what I am about to undertake.  I will be honest I am a little daunted seeing it all written down is making it more real.  I am literally going to be eating, sleeping, working and training – with little time for anything else for 30 weeks when I start.  However we need to pick an event and book it next year.  Current thinking is possibly Estonia, Austria or Bolton.

I have now also switched my runs to time based, rather than distance based. For example; instead of going for a 5km run – I will go for a 40 min Run. The runs and bike ride will be based on HR Zones also;

Ooh yeah – I nearly forgot to mention I hit 4st weight loss 😊

So, when I started this journey I knew I wanted to do an ironman, but that was so far off I never really thought that hard about it. The plan was always 1) Lose Weight 2) learn to swim 3) train for Ironman 4) Complete ironman. I kind of guessed that I would need some kind of support, to be honest I didn’t really know what. The first part of the Journey started with crying about my weight in my friends dining room and his wife offering to help me lose weight.

Since that point I followed couch to 5k and Zoe’s plan and managed to achieve that goal, and the last Saturday 1/5/20 I ran a 10k run. After I had finished it dawned on me, nearly 4st lighter that I was slowly but surely hitting all of the goals I had set out to achieve. The thought entered my head again about the ironman. I had booked swimming lessons to start in June, the Bike I could handle a century ride as have done this before, the marathon was following a plan I bought. What it dawned on me is that I would not have the professional ongoing support that I was receiving as part of my dieting journey. Having thought a lot about ‘I wished Zoe (my conditioning coach and mentor)’ could do Ironman Coaching – I decided to ask her to be my coach all the way to the end of this journey. This was such a big deal to have her knowledge and support in my corner.

To my delight she said yes, so that’s it, I now have an Ironman coach with me all the way on the journey. Overjoyed is an understatement. Head down to get the weight off and to spur me on a bit I booked a half marathon in October 2020! I also sat down and wrote my goals down – breaking it into achievable chunks. This is going to be the basis of my next 2 years of my life.

Well I realise I have not blogged for over 3 weeks, this is due to the work I have been doing in the garden. You see, we should have been going to Germany on the 4^th April and had the week booked off work. You can see from last post that I decided to keep the days booked off work and take the trees down. Well I followed this up the following week of holiday breaking up all the concrete in the garden.

At some point – possibly in the 1960’s the previous occupants of the house had decided to use concrete as their building material of choice. I dare say this was down to the ability to carve whatever shapes you wanted through building a simple mould frame. What I hadn’t realised was quite how deep the concrete was in places! Everything was reinforced with concrete.

The toughest job was breaking up the (what should have been simple) concrete blocks that the greenhouse sat on.  I didn’t bank on them having 18” deep foundations in an upside-down mushroom shape under the soil.  Nightmare!  I can honestly say this was back breaking.  I had cuts and bruises everywhere. 

Now I had the problem of getting rid of the concrete – me and linda wheelbarrow loaded circa 18-20 Tonnes of concrete from the tiered garden, down the side of the house and into skips on the drive. We have now managed to fill three 8yd skips!

But sitting down here now and thinking about the past few weeks has made me realise one thing – I have not felt low or depressed. This is perhaps the toughest times with Covid-19 that the world has been through for decades. I would have thought an ideal breeding ground for feeling low, but no! nothing, I have been feeling great mentally. Even during the toughest days I have been going for my run and working in the garden until dusk. I simply have not had time to think about it. I even went for a bike ride for the first time in several years.

Also, great news in my journey – I have now lost over 3 stone! 3.5 stone actually 🙂 This is really starting to show in my training runs as well and my PT sessions are starting to get really tough. I’ve been doing them now since Christmas and virtually using Zoom for 4 weeks. On Saturday I went for a 5k run around Mickleover down the old railway track and managed to do 5k in 37:54.

However I have kept up my training, running 3 times per week and PT on the Sunday morning. For the first time last week we did my PT session over FaceTime. I can honestly say that with a set of Bluetooth headphones the experience was very good. It felt just like a session in the gym – and certainly hurt as much!

This week has been an odd time. The first change was I have been put on shifts at work to minimise the number of people in the office. The place is like a ghost town and people are concerned. In particular I experienced a bout of anxiety at the back end of the week. I was getting very panicky and was visualising many worse case scenarios.

I also twice ran a longer route than I would usually taking in Littleover and Mickleover, covering nearly 6.5km with each run. During the run I bumped into my mate Sam, who was also running. We ran (2m apart) for a few km from Littleover. After the run I also decided to do some gardening, I chopped down 6/7 trees that had been growing wildly in my garden. No I am left with 3 huge piles of branches to clear up.

So, this week has been surreal.  The country has gone onto lockdown and to be perfectly honest I am scared.  Both me and Linda continue to work though as we are both classed as ‘key workers’.  I have not seen my kids for a week and a half due to them still being in isolation.

I have praised several of Linda’s virtues, but one thing she does that I don’t like is ‘move stuff’.  She calls it tidying, but I see it as a menace.  Today I had to go for a blood test, this is due to some of the tablets I am on – they need to monitor the Lithium levels in my system.  I had planned to run to the hospital and then run back, which was about a 3 mile round trip.  But I woke having pain in my calf when I walked and didn’t want to run so thought I’d jump on the bus (which stops outside the house).  However, my wallet could not be found.  I looked everywhere – in all the cupboards, behind stuff, under stuff and even in all of the coats hanging up.  Nowhere! I was forced to walk to the hospital as the car park had been closed to patients.  Actually, as it happened a slow gentle walk did me the world of good and freed up my leg to a certain degree.

When I got home I carried on looking for my wallet, Linda called when I was looking and I casually asked if she had seen it. She bit my head off and told me I needed to be more tidy and look after stuff and made it quite clear she would not be helping to find it. Oh right, I thought perhaps she hadn’t moved it – like the time the TV remote was found in her Gym bag 3 months after going missing! Que 3 minutes later, my phone rings. Linda again; I have your wallet – it was in my bag. Sigh…

It feels silly but for no reason while sat in the kitchen having a cup of tea I burst into tears for no reason. While I was walking I had some negative thoughts and they got to me. I feel trapped.

But in positive news I now have some gym kit, so I can continue doing my PT sessions over FaceTime with Zoe. Fortunately she dropped them off before lockdown came.

So this has been coming and the whole world is in panic mode.  I knew something was going off a few months ago as my wife, who is a Microbiologist, started doing longer and longer hours.  This ultimately led to our break to Cape Verde the other week as she was suffering.  I hadn’t really been following the news and not had any panicked thoughts.  However that changed the week we got back from our holiday.

While we were away cases started appearing in Italy and work had sent out communications warning about Covid-19.  To be honest I didn’t really get the seriousness of it all.  A colleague who I work with had their holiday cancelled to Italy – for the first time I thought about the prospect of not going on our planned Easter holiday to Germany.  A week later the Shizzle got real – I took a phone call saying that my eldest had a cough and sore throat and was told to self-isolate.  I hadn’t known anybody who had been through this and it really scared me.  It really hit home!  I was worried sick as my youngest has Asthma and I had a big argument with the boys mum about bringing him to my house to get him away from the situation.  I couldn’t believe she would put him at risk, no matter how small the chance.

Work also reacted to my news – as I had had the kids at the weekend I was told I also needed to self-Isolate.  This was crazy I thought – we had a boxing show at the weekend and I couldn’t afford to miss that either.  Anyhow, the next day I was called into work as they had decided as my eldest doesn’t live at home then I was low risk and could come in. 

In the proceeding 5 days the seriousness ratcheted up. Within 24 hours all of the charity shows I was involved in through the boxing club were cancelled, pubs and restaurants were closed and people considered at risk were being told to Isolate. I am not in an at risk group as my BMI has dropped below 40 – turns out my running may have saved my life! But my wife and one of my sons are in the ‘at risk’ group and are advised to isolate. However my wife works at the hospital and she cannot just do that. I take my hat off to her, she continues to work long extra hours selflessly putting others before herself. However I am really starting to get anxious about her health.

I also started to think about what could possibly happen in the next few weeks. It would appear that lockdown may be imminent. As such I am worried about my training. I have a Turbo trainer for my bike, a rowing machine and need a treadmill so I could continue my training should the country go into lockdown. I made a quick visit to a few shops, treadmills were selling out FAST. I could not find one anywhere. I was really depressed at the prospect of losing my base fitness. However, it turns out I have amazing family! My cousin Dave said I could borrow his. Panic over. Legend!!

So, I was getting into my car and I got a text message from a pal saying ‘would you like to buy my TT bike?’.  He had sent a link to a Facebook marketplace link and I didn’t even bother to look at it.  When I got home Linda was still in bed as she had been working through the night at the Hospital.  My clattering around the bedroom didn’t help her (I was trying to be quiet).  So she went and climbed in the kids bed as they were at their mums. 

I decided to have a bath as I was chilled to the bones from the park run and dropped a big Lush bathbomb in the water.  Heaven.  While chilling out I picked up the phone and replied to my mate saying that I didn’t have the money (which was true).  At this point I still hadn’t read the advert.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to have a look.  Wow – it was a doosie! Just what I would need to complete my ironman goals.  I text my bud and told him I would have it.  Problem though; N+1 is a problem that has always perplexed Linda.  She was asleep and I didn’t have the money, which meant I would have to use the joint account – which she would see.  Oh well, better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.

I got to my mates within the hour and fell in love with the bike, he even had a TT Helmet for sale, which I also bought. One slight problem though. The wheels have a weight limit of 120kg and I currently weigh 127kg! But I make that 15lbs loss to go and I can start to ride it. I am now starting to get a plan together for future plans; June 14 100km Audax, June 24 Swimming Lessons and September 13 Derby Sprint Triathlon.

I think I need to talk a little about the situation the country is in. Covid-19 is upon us. This just got real!

So this week started off rough, as I mentioned last weekend sucked. However I had graduated C25k and needed to keep it up. I went out for a run on the Thursday and did my own Forrest Gump impression. I went out in the opposite direction to what I had done before. It is a route I had walked the dog round a long time ago. I had also downloaded Zombies, run.

Now Zombies run is frankly weird. You play it in addition to your usual music and it pauses your music at set intervals to play a story. In the story I was runner 5. I had crash landed a helicopter and was set to run to the hospital to get some meds and keep my pace up to avoid the zombies that were chasing me. See, told you it was odd! The story was quite good to be honest though so I’ll stick with it for a few weeks. It may spur me on.

Well my Forrest Gump run took in a few hills, which I hadn’t done before. It added a new dimension to my training which I thoroughly enjoyed. However as I went through the footpath near the school I realised I had gone further than planned. It was tough, very tough. But I kept going. Didn’t stop for anything other than to cross the road. As I approached home in my ear I got a message saying “runner 5 congratulations you have run 7k”. I couldn’t believe it. Happy was an understatement.

Then came Saturday. Wow what an experience. I got there very early as I was nervous about parking and then finding the start line. When I got there I was greeted by the girl guide volunteers who had took over the parkrun for the day. After introducing myself I stood around nervously looking for my mate Steve who volunteered to run the parkrun with me. I quickly found Steve who told me I was aiming for 40 min time. That was 3:30min faster than my current PB. I told him I couldn’t do that, but he insisted I could. We had a briefing which all runners had. They said to be careful of the puddles near coronary hill! I wasn’t expecting a hill.

When we set off it was at a much faster pace than I was used to; we quickly regulated to a more comfortable pace as I wanted to run it all and not have to walk. As we approached the tennis courts there was a big puddle and there was a queue forming to get the route round it. Steve yelled “straight through the middle” which I duly did. Wow! The water was cold and the route seemed harder carrying about a pint of water in each trainer it seemed. Then time for the hill, at this point there were a lot of people walking. I picked them off one at a time which felt good. I felt strong. Then through the woods and more deep puddles. In for a penny, in for a pound I hit them all head on and at a pace I felt fast at. When we got to the halfway point Steve told me I was 25s down on my 40min target.

I told him there was no way I could keep the pace up. My legs felt heavy and my breathing was rapid and shallow. Steve kept looking at his GPS watch telling me if I picked it up a bit I could hit the 40min target still. not a chance I thought. I slowed the pace a click or two. When we got to coronary hill I had a second wind. Instead of slowing down I kicked on and overtook several more people. I held this increased pace through the woods and through the deep puddles. Before I knew it I was on the home straight. Giving everything I had, my legs were on fire I sprinted with Steve.

At the finish line they give you a token with a barcode on it to finalise your time. I wouldn’t find out the official time for a little while. Here I am pretty knackered but the happiest man alive. I can’t thank Steve enough, I would not have done it without him pushing me on.

We had a coffee in the shop and then I headed to my car. Just as I had opened the car door I got a text from a mate asking me if I wanted to buy his Time trial bike….

This week has been a bit of a mixture.  I don’t know why but I had a down episode on Sunday.  The previous week I was pretty exhausted, a late flight from holiday on the Sunday completely threw me out of kilter.  My last post talked about the tiredness that ensued.  Saturday I took the boys into Intu to do some shopping, which was nice to spend some time with them.  I bought a signed Derby County shirt for my eldest for part of his Birthday present and we needed to get it framed.  My other son wanted a treat too and decided he would like some trainers so I we had a look, but he couldn’t find any he liked.

On the Sunday morning I had a PT session with Zoe, which was definitely the hardest yet.  It started with the usual warmup; 30 seconds punching then 10 seconds rest, followed by Squats and running on the spot.  We then moved into my least favorite session – High Intensity Training, or HIT for short.  We did ten repeats, which is a killer.

The exercise was 40 seconds of exercise followed by 20 seconds rest, this is done in a circuit.  Exercise one was start Jump squats, 2) was Mountain Climbers on a box,  3) was sprints with a medicine ball and 4 was toe taps on a step.  This doesn’t sound hard, but doing it non stop for 40 minutes certainly tests the mettle.  Needless to say Monday I was very achy.  This was followed up with 20 minutes strength and conditioning.  Wow! What a session.

When I got home I was on a high, but this quickly defrosted.  I don’t know why but my mood plunged.  I was really angry and snappy for no particular reason.  I just wanted to lock myself away to be honest, I didn’t want to talk to anybody.  This wasn’t helped by Linda constantly asking me if I was ok, clearly I wasn’t.  I came time to go to the Football match and I couldn’t find my ticket anywhere.  I emptied my wallet at least 3 times.  This made me frustrated and even more on edge.  As I had resigned myself to not going to the match – I had even called my dad to say I’d lost the tickets, Linda checked my wallet; there they were – 2 season tickets.  I don’t know how I couldn’t see them.  At this point Linda got me to take my emergency meds.  Within an hour I was feeling great again.  The match was amazing; the mighty rams won 3:0 and put in a stellar performance.

Monday was a very big day for me, it was the final day of Couch to 5k.  For 9 consecutive weeks I have been following this plan, doing what Sarah Millican tells me to do.  I had a meeting in Belper first though, so didn’t get back till 19:00.  When I got home I was hungry, tired and it was hammering it down with rain and freezing cold.  Not ideal conditions to be doing my biggest run yet.  I wrapped up warm and went out I decided to head out a slightly different route than I have done before.  I needed to make it long enough to ensure I hit my 5k target, but not too long that I ended up miles away from home.  The run felt good.  I quickly warmed up, but the puddles were a nightmare – every few hundred yards I stepped in a big puddle and my feet quickly became cold and wet.  I wonder if there is such thing as waterproof running shoes?

When I got to the top end of the estate I was feeling great.  I had got in a rhythm and felt really strong.  To be honest I felt like I could have carried on for longer.  I logged my run in Strava and took a selfie for prosperity.  Then Sarah announced I had completed the programme.  When I got home Linda let me in and asked why I was so happy, I had forgot to tell her it was my final run in the C25K programme.  We had a big hug to celebrate, then I ran upstairs to get showered as I was drenched!

Roll on Saturday. I am going to do a parkrun, which will be by first. I am super excited.

So, I have been running 3 times a week and having PT once a week since the beginning of January.  I have also logged all of my food on Myfitnesspal.  My current bodyweight is now 19st 13lb.  We went on holiday last 2 weeks ago to Cape Verde all inclusive and I ate quite well, sticking mainly to meat and salads.  However I did not log any food on Myfitnesspal.  I also had a few puddings and ice creams.

A lot of alcohol was consumed which added to my calorie intake. However, for the week of the holiday I took my running shoes and went running 3 times, twice out on the roads and once on a treadmill in the gym. I discovered that running on the treadmill was tough, it is boring as hell and you have to stick to the exact rhythm which I seem to fluctuate.

The couch to 5k programme is brilliant, you have a choice of presenters that you can listen to. I chose Sarah Millican as she reminds me of Linda. I have a running joke with Linda that she looks like her and it makes me smile thinking about it while I’m out running.

The C25K programme started me off in the beginning of January in the rain and even snow! You start running for a minute and walking for a minute alternatively over 30 minutes.  Eventually you build up to a 30 min run.  I have progressed straight through this, even getting through the dreaded week 5 run 3 session which is the first time you run for more than 10 minutes continuously.  3 times previously in 2019 I had attempted the programme, but failed on this run.  It was a huge mental achievement getting through this.

Back to now, I returned from holiday and couldn’t sleep – I went for 3 nights with rubbish sleep. By the Friday I was absolutely exhausted. However, Friday was my ‘run day’. I got home and really did not want to go for a run [see selfie] I was fed up and tired. It was the first time I really felt like that. Even on the rainy cold nights I managed to drag my ass round. Somehow the end of the run I felt great and Strava (the GPS logging system I use) confirmed it as on of my fastest ever runs.

I’m also starting to think of my physical disability.  I glossed over it in a previous post, but I had Perthes Disease as a kid and have had a lot of different surgeries.  Culminating in a total hip replacement in 2015.  I have had to jump through a few hoops to be allowed to start running.  I will focus on that journey in a few posts…

Thanks

Carl

Phase 1 said Zoe – “lose weight”. This will be done following a strict calorie based diet and exercise 4 times a week. My diet consists of 2100 kcal a day, while exercise was to be Couch to 5k and one personal training session with Zoe in the Inspire Championship Boxing gym. I had previously attempted to complete C25K 3 times. Each time failing to complete. Largely through shin pain – known as shin splints. For several months I had been having physio sessions with Nina to free up my painful legs. Only now could I reach my perspective.

The first few weeks of C25K consists of walk/runs of alternative times (or Jeffing as Gill calls it). The PT was a shock to the system. I arrived at the gym on 12 Jan at 09:00. Freezing cold and proper old school boxing gym. We did a mix of strength, core and conditioning with some cardio thrown in. The first session I thought I was going to pass out. Tough isn’t the word. I recalled a memory of a Russian PT instructor called Tatiana who destroyed a group of 30 Ice Hockey players at a hockey camp in 2005. Zoe is the second coming of Tatiana.

Over the weeks we have been moving along and my weight has been dropping off.  I have lost 24lbs so far.  I’ve even had a PT session with Sam at the Gym at 07:00 on a Sunday morning when Zoe was off ill.  I am completely focussed.  All I need now is some chickens to chase and wood to chop ala Rocky.

This is where my journey becomes present day. I will upload warts-and-all updates. Please, if you are enjoying this blog share it. Going public with this is a big deal to me. I kept it all to myself for a long time. The thing that scares me at the minute is the inkling of doubt that I do fail to achieve an Ironman. 31 months to go. Rich Roll was out of shape and he did it.

Here I had written a lot of details about what happened in 2018, but decided not to post it just yet – or even at all.  Needless to say it was a bad time.

In May I had an appointment with the Sheffield Adult Autism Centre as a routine appointment, I don’t entirely understand what I did. But they were sufficiently concerned with my behaviour presented to call Dr Smith, who called me later in the day. I was called into hospital again and given Diazepam for the first time. This is what I know now as my ‘emergency medication’, Linda always has it in her bag when we go away.

It was apparent that I was struggling at work at this time, again unable to concentrate or process information effectively.  I was sent home and was signed off work for a number of months.  During the recovery time I showed little interest in anything.  Initially not moving off my backside or getting out of bed.  My beard grew long, I stopped showering and not looking after myself properly.

One day I had an impulsive decision.  I had decided I couldn’t watch TV as I couldn’t focus or follow the pace.  But I had an idea that I could read.  That’s exactly what I did.  I buried my head in books.  I impulsively decided to go buy a kindle.  That was it.  I decided to follow inspirational books.  I read lots of different books, Sean Conway books, Ciccerone cycling books and eventually a book by a relatively unknown author called George Mahood.

The book was called Operation Ironman. The basic premise was an account of a man who is seriously ill in hospital, who has an idea to complete an ironman. I read the book in a day. I couldn’t put it down. I thought to myself I’m going to do that. I told a handful of my closest friends and family. There are a few problems though, 1) I was in a bad mental state and 2) I weighed in over 300 lbs and 3) I can’t swim properly.

I posted the odd cryptic clue on my social media about my plan.  I had no real commitment, other that I intended to do it before I was 40 – which was 4 years away.  My mate Tyler said he would do it with me. 

2019 wasn’t much better.  I was having a miserable time in my work and at home we had just taken on a huge renovation project.  We were living in my mum and dads house while we renovated an old 1950’s property in a nice part of town. 

2019 could only be described as draining. My weight spiralled and resulted in weighing 310lbs. The new year was a time of change though. My good friends Sam and Zoe invited us to theirs to celebrate Christmas. They are both sporty types and Sam a former Pro-Boxer and Zoe a fitness coach. I got a bit upset talking about my weight in the kitchen and Zoe said she would get me into shape. Thursday 2nd Jan I was sat with Zoe going through the plan.

It begins…

I’m going to try and be purposely brief for this; not because I have anything to hide – but because I don’t want to dwell too much on the past and want to get into the journey going forward. If anybody would like to know more about anything please let me know. I suppose this story starts in my childhood. When I was 9 I started getting pains in my hips that were very painful, it stopped me doing sports that I loved and resulted me spending a lot of time in hospital having operations and having to spend time in a wheelchair.

Secondary school was less dramatic, I made friends with a group, some of which are still good friends today.  The first time I remember Mental Health symptoms were around the time of my GCSE’s.  I would have been 15.  I couldn’t concentrate at school and was getting confused and my memory was non-existent.  If I didn’t know better I could only describe it as feeling like a zombie.  I remember quite vividly when my dad was driving me around Derby on the way to a hockey match (no doubt) asking if I was taking drugs.  I wouldn’t have minded, but I genuinely wasn’t.

Trips to the Doctors resulted in me being misdiagnosed with various ailments; post viral syndrome, Anaemia, Labyrinthitis etc.  Nobody ever mentioned that it could be mental health.  Despite there being a history of mental health issues in my family – I suppose in the 1990’s you never talked about mental health.

I went for the next few years through a cyclic pattern of feeling great and on top of the world and then crashing, barely able to function or get out of bed. At times I would have to take time out of work or college sleeping for 20 hours a day solid. In 2005 I had my first experience with a Psychiatrist. Dr Farrell was his name (Name changed) he said I did not present with a psychiatric condition, but he believed my symptoms presented as Narcolepsy without cataplexy. The subsequent brain scans showed no such evidence.

Thinking back, I can now reflect upon the manic episodes.  In 2005 on a spur-of-the-moment chat with a friend while walking through a London park I decided I needed to climb the world’s highest freestanding mountain.  Two days later I was booked for an expedition to climb Kilimanjaro.   Cars – these were a persistent change in my life by the age of 28 I had bought and sold circa 15 cars.  Some only keeping for a few months.  I lost a lot of money on cars.  Some were brand new and others were paid for using overtime that was a plenty at work in my younger years.  My favourite was a Subaru Impreza that was nearly new I only had for 6 months.  Clearly, now understood as manic behaviour.

Children.  Well, the most rewarding experience I have ever had in life was becoming a dad.  Our first child came along in 2006 and the second in 2007 (names removed for anonymity).  Wow, what a tough, yet rewarding experience! My two boys have kept me going through the tough times. 

Once, I got an idea into my head that the only way I could successfully raise a family was to move to Canada. Within a few days of having the idea, the house was on the market and we were on a flight to North America. Ultimately it was a combination of this and other factors that I believe ended my first marriage. I won’t go into full details, but my first wife was less keen than me of going to Canada. A couple of months later we had a divorce.

I spiralled out of control for a while after the failure of my marriage.  I suppose you could say I went off the rails.  I did this, keeping my job going and getting 2 successive promotions at work.  But burnout was evidently coming.

I was going to keep it out of the Blog, and to be honest I’d rather skirt over the issue – but it needs to be talked about.  At this point I entered into a relationship with a woman who did all the chasing and I could only describe as ‘trapped’ me.  This is what I would later come to recognise as an abusive relationship.  Several years later I still had counselling talking about this abusive relationship.  The counsellor asked me to look up 2 words; sociopath and psychopath.  It is only then that I realised that it was all pre-meditated, for whatever reason I was targeted.  I never really told anybody about this, even my now (perfect-ish!) wife Linda.

I did have one friend who supported me through all of this; she was an angel through the dark times that ensued.  I’m not going to expand on what happened – but I ended up hurting her and for that I am sad. 

2012 me and Linda started a relationship off. What started off as a few dates and movie nights turned into a relationship that has become my pillar of support over the years.

Since then Linda has become the centre of my world.  It became apparent to Linda from the outset that I had ‘issues’ we just didn’t know how severe they were.  In 2012 I was in a severe depression, barely able to function at times.  We kept it hidden, Linda kept me together when I was needed and made family appearances as necessary.  Other than that we tended to keep to ourselves.

We moved in together in another manic twist.  We were out for a walk and saw a house on the estate that said ‘house of the week’ on it and me and Linda went in the showroom and bought it.  Trading in my house as part of the deal.  Within a few weeks we had moved in.

Around this time I met Dr Smith (not real name), he is the first medical person that really started to listen to me (and Linda). He is a consultant Psychiatrist. By this point I had already been on anti-depressants for 10 years. Dr Smith quickly (within 12 months) of outpatient appointments had diagnosed me as being Bipolar. This did 2 things. 1) it explained the cyclic nature of my condition and 2) presented me with a new care path.

At this point, we began trying new therapies and medications. Most notably Lithium – this drug has all but chopped the peaks off my moods. It was also around this time that I was sent to the Sheffield Adult Autism Centre. I know conversations between Linda, me and Dr Smith had suggested that there may be ‘something else’ going on. I don’t know why – but I was seen very quickly and my attitude was to go there to prove I was normal and move on. At the end of the assessment day it came back as me having High Functioning Autism. This took me a while to get used to. In-fact only a handful of people know. I suppose I feel embarrassed.

Next time I’ll share what happened in 2018…

What is the strapline, and how am I going to start this?  Well…I am going to do an Ironman.  It won’t be easy and I am going to use this BLOG to document my journey.  Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you have any comments I would love to hear them.

A couple of things to point out, let’s get them on the table before I begin.  1) I am overweight, by a lot.  I was over 300lbs at NYE 2019. 2) I have a mental health condition 3) I also have a physical disability, I had a new hip at 35 due to Perthes Disease that I had as a child 4) I cannot swim very well.  But let’s not have that stop me!  Here is my journey;

I thought I should give some structure to proceedings, so here is how I propose to set this BLOG out.  To begin with I will talk about my past, not to dwell on things – but to set the scene.  Following that I will talk about a major event in my life and ultimately how I come to be here now planning to do a seemingly impossible ironman.  The 3^rd chapter will be about my weight loss journey and you can share this with me.  Finally, when I achieved my weight loss and got to 182lbs I plan to share my Ironman training progress and thoughts.

There will be things that may surprise people in this BLOG, least of all my parents and wife, who have always given me support and strength

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton