UPDATE

For an update on how the race went, please visit http://bendyrower.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/a-very-wet-but-really-fun-first-10k.html

Thank you!

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. This is my story behind my event and my chosen charity.

On Sunday 3rd May 2015 I will be taking part in my first ever wheelchair race: the Grand East Anglian Run. This is a 10k race held in King's Lynn, Norfolk. I first started training in racing wheelchairs in January of this year. I train with Cambridge and Coleridge Athletic Club, who have been fantastic in supporting a number of disabled athletes in starting the sport and achieving early success. Up until now the only race I've ever done in a wheelchair was a club-members-only event over 100m which was all over in less than 30 seconds so this will be a very different challenge! 

I have decided to raise money for the Riding for the Disabled Association - another organisation which has had a huge impact on me over the last few months. As a child, I was heavily into horse riding and even owned my own horse for a short while. However, after fracturing my spine in a gymnastics accident in 2003 I was unable to ride or to take care of horses, and although I tried several times to get back into riding I just never managed a way to make it work with my ongoing back and leg problems and other problems relating to my genetic condition, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

I had always been aware of the RDA and the work it did but it wasn't until 2014 that I joined a group (Cambridgeshire College Group). I wish I'd joined so much sooner! My riding sessions are the highlight of my week, both for the wonderful people I meet there (both riders and volunteers) and for the fantastic opportunity to spend time with the lovely horses and to work on improving my riding skills. Nationally, the RDA helps thousands of people of all ages and with all kinds of (dis)abilities, aspirations and equestrian preferences. At my group we have a mixture of physically- and intellectually-disabled riders, representing a wide range of different symptoms. We all get on really well and have a great time. The RDA is a fantastic charity which really leads the way in disability sport in the UK and worldwide, and I feel very lucky to be a part of it. Getting back on a horse has not been easy for me because without using special tack (e.g. reins and stirrups) I find it very hard to ride safely - and some people look very worried when I inform them I can only hold the reins in one hand! The RDA has this special equipment and also has volunteers with the knowledge, experience and confidence to help me to work out a way round my physical limitations. Best of all, riding with the RDA gives you a way to experience a freedom which you may not have if you have mobility problems. When I'm in a wheelchair, the wheels are my legs, and when I'm on a horse, the horse's legs become mine - a fantastic feeling.

As well as helping me personally and all other riders, I am aware of how much the RDA does to help its volunteers. People of all ages can work towards qualifications awarded by the RDA, and many young people use time spent at the sessions to count towards a Duke of Edinburgh award. The benefits for volunteers are reflected in the benefits they bring to us riders - for example, I have been able to get a huge amount out of the Cambridge University Riding Club's involvement with my RDA group, and have so far competed in one dressage competition and one showjumping competition with them as a result (acquiring two rosettes and a medal along the way!). I would never have thought it possible for me to compete alongside able-bodied riders, but the CURC members who come to RDA are unfazed by my needs on a horse and just do what needs to be done to make things work. They are a real credit both to CURC and the RDA.

All of these things do cost money, and it is well-known that horses are not an inexpensive 'hobby' (/'lifestyle'!). RDA riders pay a vastly subsidised rate to attend their sessions, and most of the money comes from charitable donations. The money goes towards training volunteers, looking after horses, buying tack and equipment for the horses, buying equipment for riding lessons (e.g. bending poles) and general administration. In March 2014, there were 27,819 participants, 3277 horses and 18,904 volunteers across 489 groups in the UK. It's a large-scale organisation but somehow the system works!

The most crucial thing that I have witnessed in my experience with the RDA so far is that every little donation (whether financial or otherwise) will make a difference. For example, £10 would pay for three riders at my group to have a one-hour session and for a bag of carrots with which to reward the horses afterwards! Even donations of under £1 can be put together towards something more expensive, or can be used to buy pony treats or reward stickers for successful riders. 

You may be wondering why on earth I want to do a 10k wheelchair race. It has to be said that this is something I have asked myself several times over the last week or so! I want to do it because I know it will be a challenge, but I also believe it is achievable for me. I want to do something that is sufficiently difficult that it makes it really worth doing. At the moment, I know I am held back by lack of experience, heart conditions causing exercise intolerance, and a lack of strength and co-ordination in my left arm, meaning that although I will attempt to use both arms to propel myself I will really just be pushing with one arm most of the way. I know that the race will take quite a long time and will wear me out, but for me, the challenge of the 10k is not just to complete it, but to start it in the first place. My body is very unco-operative, and I know that the stakes are higher for me than for an able-bodied competitor. The back of my race number is filled with tiny writing detailing all of my medical conditions and their treatments; I have had to be in contact with the race organisers so they know to keep an eye out for me; my training for this event has been marred by emergency hospital admissions and stress fractures in my hands - BUT I am determined to do it and I'm just looking forward to the feeling when it will all be over and I can feel proud of what I have achieved.

I suppose the main message is that I am doing this event because I want to prove what I can do. I have become progressively more disabled all my life (a trend which will continue until I die), but dwelling on the things which you are no longer able to do is unhelpful, if inevitable from time to time. Instead, I'd rather celebrate what I can do now that I couldn't do before, and wheelchair racing is just one of those things. No, I can't run a 10k, or even 10 metres, but I can and will complete it in a racing wheelchair.

This is the attitude which is behind the whole of the Riding for the Disabled Association: "It's what you CAN do that counts." Although Sunday's race will be in a different sport, I will be using that RDA motto to keep me going; to remind myself that I'm not there to set any records, but merely to prove to myself and others that what I can't do pales into insignificance compared to what, with the support of A LOT of remarkable people, I can do.