Right. Its official. Having received my first donation from the wonderfully lovely Charlotte Evans yesterday there's no turning back; this August (date to be confirmed), alongside cricketing pals Ben and Jeff, I'm cycling from Lands End to John O'Groats for Breast Cancer charity Cancer Research UK!
Firstly, I'm looking forward to being able to raise some money for a charity that's trying to cure a disease that has heavily affected both my family, a close friend's family, and so many others. Approximately 46,000 people a year being diagnosed with the illness, breast cancer is currently the most common form of cancer in the UK, and one that I certainly see as a worthwhile cause to support.
Furthermore, I'm really excited to undertake such a challenge, as I've been looking to do something like this for a while, though knowing that I'll get pushed to my physical and mental limits, have been looking for some friends to do it with. With the trio of Ben, Jeff and myself all deciding to undertake the 1000+ mile journey, I can see it being tough, but also a lot of fun, and there aren't many people I can imagine I'd rather be by my side (or in front/behind me in this case) for such a trip.
After that, it must be admitted that a fair part of me is taken up by nerves, as considering I've never cycled for more than half an hour before, to choose such a big task to undertake as my first one is quite scary. I've definitely got the motivation to do it, and believe I'll put in the hours of training, but I'm more than a bit worried about whether my body can take it.
Currently on my second bout of physio, just heading past the year mark, whilst my shoulders have shown some reasonable improvement, my knees aren't in much of a better position than they were when we started, giving me constant hassle and pain. Having said that, super-physio Jo told me that, so long as I get some ridiculously expensive orthotics made, I should hopefully maybe possibly sort of be ok. The thing that worries me is that at some point on the road from now to the finish line my knees are going to properly give out, and I'm going to have let Cancer Research UK, everyone who's sponsored me, and most of all myself down. I guess all I can do is 100% guarantee that I'm going to give it my best shot, and hopefully, with some good pals by my side by hook or by crook I'll make it through.
So what's the next step? We'll so far I've got the approval of Cancer Research UK from the lovely representative Benita Wright, who's going to help me with organising my fund-raising etc, and I've also taken the massive step of acquiring a cycle helmet, so that's a start I guess. Next up is getting a bike and starting training. Currently scouting the world wide web for transportation, I need to wait a wee bit before funds will allow a purchase of that magnitude, though I'll continue with the gym in the meantime, and have started researching how best to go about training.
So that's it for an intro really; I'll keep updating with any developments that come my way. Fingers crossed by the next post I'll have made some in-roads (no pun intended) into sorting out these orthotics, have amassed a couple of pounds of sponsorship (hint hint lol), and lost those inevitable, cake inflicted Christmas pounds. Until next time...
Happy Christmas everybody!!
Owen : )
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