celebrating ...

I was talking to Audrey, one of the people taking the 365challenge for CRUK, about the website she is developing for her effort. I mentioned my Remembering page, and suggested that she could put one of these on her site, and maybe send me photos to put on my Remembering page. "

But", she replied, "I'm doing this because of my dad, and he's a cancer survivor ... it doesn't feel right to put his photo on a "Remembering" page.

Then Audrey sent me a draft of her site (when it launches, I'll post a link for it), and she had included a "Remembering" page, but, clever girl, she'd also put up a "Celebrating" page, where she will post photos of people who have come through cancer and have something to shout about.

What a great idea!

I've now sent her some photos of me(!), cos I fit this category, and, with her blessing, I've created my own "Celebrating ... " page on the 365challenge website. Click on the link to visit it, and if you would like to celebrate someone (yourself or a loved one) who has survived cancer, please email photos and details through to me via the 365challenge site.

one-handed rowing ...

I don't know if you've noticed from my "Track my Progress" page, but while I'm keeping on with the rowing part of the challenge, I've not exactly gone all out on this rowing thing. I DO enjoy it - in small doses, and it does give you a good work out ... but I can't get too excited about it really. I originally intended to do 3.5 Km per row (1% of the total roughly), but then I upped that to 5 Km per visit - mainly because I wanted to get through it! The problem however, is that this extra distance is creating a bit of a problem - or maybe that should be being a bit of a nuisance - for me.

You see, when I had my tumour last year, it was in an unusual place (NO, not there!). It was on my left forearm, about half way between my wrist and my elbow. And it turned out to be on a part of the muscle, so ... to get it out, the surgeon had to take a strand of muscle out too. He had no idea how this would effect my arm/hand, but thankfully, there was no lasting problem - which is useful, as I'm left handed!

Well ... no lasting problem ... until you start rowing 5 Km, that is! The first 3 -3.5 Km are usually okay, but in that last 1.5 Km, at some point, my left hand starts to feel a little numb, and my grip isn't so good. I keep going, but occasionally, if you are wandering around the gym, you'll spot me taking my left hand off the bar, and rowing on with just my right hand, while I frantically shake my left hand to get the blood flowing again - which it does, by the way, and I do finish with both hands in action. But it is annoying, especially when I'm trying to beat my previous time and I have to slow my pace while I get my left hand started again!

But that's why I'm not taking on extra distances on the rowing as I have been with the cycling - I just can't see me managing to get a 10 Km row in one-handed, however much I might want to!

I bet Steve Redgrave - sorry, SIR Steve Redgrave) never had this problem ...

10 days in, and I need a holiday!

Things have been going great with the challenge, though I'd have liked to have covered a few more miles on the bike and river by now. But work has been busier again, and that's gotten in the way a little - what a pain! And now, I'm only going to bugger off and have a 10 day holiday in Ireland! What am I like?

Thing is, this will be my first break since I had my tumour removed a year ago, and believe me, I'm ready for one! I've been flat out at work since I returned on January 2nd, playing catch up a little, as I'd had 2.5 months off for the operation and follow-up radiotherapy - and when you work for yourself, having that amount of time off is not recommended. But the business is on track again, and as I said, I'm ready for a short break.

As for the challenge, I've got a good start on this, and I'll do some while I'm away too - I've found out that there is a health centre and pool near where we're staying for the middle part of the trip, so I'll get in the pool at least.

So keep checking n, I'll have updates from Ireland soon.

Sand traps for CRUK

A friend I'd emailed about my 365challenge got in touch the other day. She loved the idea, but couldn't see herself taking it on - though she did become one of my 1%ers club!

Thing is, Sue's a golfer, and she was trying to think of a golfing angle for this fund-raising of mine, because she wants to support Cancer Research UK (CRUK) too. She mentioned how she'd recently been playing golf somewhere in Yorkshire and came across a bunker with a sign that informed people that if they landed in this particular bunker, they had to pay a forfeit when they returned to the clubhouse, and all monies collected would go to the Lady Captain's charity. I loved it! What a simple idea ... sure, some people will ignore the forfeit, but I know golfers - they are very charitable folk, and I'm sure that over the course of a year, those forfeits added up to a substantial amount.

So ... I called my brother, who is involved with a fairly large club in Ireland, and he's going to look into this as an idea that they could implement - and he immediately saw the sign working best on the bunkers (yes - plural) on the ninth green, RIGHT UNDER THE CLUBHOUSE TERRACE! Not an easy forfeit to avoid, eh?

And now I'm putting the idea out there to you, dear reader. Are you a golfer, or do you know someone in a club who could take the idea forward for you ... and help raise even more money for Cancer Research UK.

If you think it's something you could get involved with, please get in touch - leave a comment on this posting, with some contact details, and I'll give you some ideas about what you need to do next. Come on, it'll take a little effort, but could have a BIG outcome.

That's better!

Is it really a week since I last posted? I guess I've been busy, sorry.

The really good news is that the sponsorship has been moving ahead really well, and I'm already two thirds of the way to my total - and I haven't even started the challenge yet! I've had amazing support, and I know that there is more to come, so thank you to everyone who has dug deep so far, and to those of you meaning to get round to it, there's really no need to put it off, just log onto my Just Giving page and Bob's your uncle - LOL ;-).

The Cancer Research UK (CRUK) support person in this area, Liz, seems pretty pleased with how I've put things together, and is now looking to get me talking to their press officer to see if we can generate some interest in the 365challenge locally. She reckons that the papers will be interested in the human interest side of my story - what with me being a cancer sufferer in remission and the loss of my sister - but, while I'd like to promote 365challenge and CRUK, I'm a little wary of getting my mug into the papers. But ... it's a good cause, so maybe I could do it. Let's wait and see what the press people have to say.

The other aspect of this challenge is the challenge itself, of course. Last week, after my pathetic 20 length swim, I admit that I was a little concerned at my fitness. But since then, I've been into the gym several times and performed better. I've done a couple of my own version of the 1%ers when it comes to the cycling and the rowing - basically, I thought that if I try to make a point of knocking off at least 1% of the total distances whenever I use the bike or the rowing machine, that would be a good minimum for each visit and make the target very achievable. There will be some days I'll feel like doing more, so over time, I should see these challenges fall into place nicely.

And that's what I've been doing in training, and I'm very pleased with my efforts. I've been covering 16 KM (10 miles) on the bike in about 28 minutes, and 3.5 KM on the rowing machine 15 - 16 minutes, which I'm happy with at this point, but I really hope to see these times come down over the year. As for the swimming, I felt very good today doing a 40 length swim, with my arms only getting tired in the last 100 metres. I think I was inspired by watching the women's 10 KM open water swimming at the Olympics this morning - they were fantastic, arms stroking like metronomes. And what a finish! How hard must it be to lose by 2 seconds after 2 hours of flat-out swimming. Wonderful event ... but don't worry, I'll not be looking to take that on just yet!

3 weeks to go ...

Well, it looks like I've got things more or less in place to start my 365challenge to raise money for Cancer Research ... I 'm not convinced that I'm as fit as I need to be for this, but I guess as I get going, I'll have to become fitter, just because I'll be exercising so much.

Instead of spending lots of hours in the gym building up fitness ahead of the start on September 1st like a clever person, I've been working on other things related to the 365challenge. For example, the web site is more or less there - click through here and let me know what you think. You'll have to click through the front page, which is a bit of a pain, but it was the only quick way I could remedy an address problem after I'd started building the site. I may manage a better workaround in time, but for now this is the primary way in! I've had a LOT of patient help from Paul at TST getting it this far - all out of the goodness of his heart, as he supports my efforts, which has been great. He's also brought on board Nick from Lemondrop Creative, who designed our logo for free - I love it, and hopefully it'll look good on T-shirts and things as I get this going more officially.

I've decided to set up this challenge in memory of my sister, Brenda Carr, who sadly lost her battle with cancer on July 7th 2008. Also, I had my own brush with a tumour in September 2007, but fortunately appear to have come out the other side okay. However, these two experiences have prompted me to step up and make an effort to support Cancer Research UK as they work to understand and overcome this horrible disease.

I really want to draw more people in to the idea of rasing money for charity over a full year long effort. I hope it will be for Cancer Research UK, but I'm not going to get precious about it - if there are people out there with other charity interests but who like the idea of spending 365 days on some sort of challenge that'll generate interest and funds for good causes, I say go for it.

I'm meeting with Liz from Cancer Research UK on Wednesday to discuss what support they can offer, and hopefully get some ideas about promoting the idea more generally. I think I'd be up for some press coverage if I could get it, though I am a little wary of that ... but I guess if it gets me support, I should take every opportunity that presents itself.

I need to start writing to or emailing people about what I'm up to, and inviting them to sponsor me and/or take part ...

Still so much to do, but I'm up for it and really want to give this my best shot.

Watch this space ...