2nd EDIT: IRONMAN done! If you make a donation I will then have your email address and will send you the full report :)

 

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EDIT. Well that's the swim done and what a fantastic adventure it was. If you make a donation I will then have your email address and will send you the full report :)

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Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

  

As you may or not be aware I have been dabbling in Olympic Distance (1.5k Swim-40k Bike-10k Run) Triathlons for a few years, prior to this I had been a complete couch potato.  I upped the ante last year and with my partner Tanya completed a Half Ironman (1.9k Swim-92k Bike-21k Run) Triathlon. I then followed that up with my first Marathon.

After completing the Half Ironman I felt that I had some unfinished business to take care of, I even had a t-shirt made with '50% IronMan' printed on it. I made the firm decision to sign up for the full IRONMAN distance. That’s 3.8k Swim-180k Bike-42k Run or put in 'old money' 2.4 mile Swim-112 mile Bike-26.2 mile Run!!!!

 http://www.ironmanuk.com/2011/

I signed up for IRONMAN UK and had accommodation booked within two hours of the entries opening. 10 days later Disaster struck! I have a bad back and it suddenly decided to 'go'. Now I am used to this happening once a year and it lasting four to five days. This episode was the worst and most painful I have ever had. The short version is that I was in pain and could hardly train at all for 3 months.

 

Then a beautiful ray of sunshine appeared. I could not bike or run but I could still swim, so for my surprise 40th Birthday present Tanya had entered me into the Challenge Alcatraz swim. After much communication with the event organisers Tanya had managed to book my entry for this event. I had no idea that she had done so. A couple of years ago I had seen an article about the event in one of her running magazines and I had remarked that it would be amazing to do that swim. How exciting would that be? Well on 22 May I will be finding out.  http://www.tricalifornia.com/index.cfm/ALSwim2011-main.htm  Thanks dear xxx. By the way the water temperature will be around 12c! Yikes!!!!

 

At the end of December I had to admit to myself that I just couldn't do the IronMan. I was still in pain and some days couldn't even stand up straight. I struggled into work but couldn’t imagine running more than 2miles let alone 26 at the end of that bike and run. I went online to withdraw and saw that there was no benefit in withdrawing then as I could get 75% of my money back if I withdrew anytime between December and the end of February. Tanya told me that if I persevered with my 'Core' muscle exercises I could get myself back training and then think about Ironman. I thought that if I didn’t try and stick with it I would never know. I also knew that I would never again be able to make time to do the training I wanted. It was the 2011 IronMan or never.....

  

I carried on with the exercises that Tanya prescribed. She is an excellent Physio as well as the love of my life :) I couldn't get on my Road Bike as my back could not take the bent over riding position. The way forward would be to start back into cycling by riding my Mountain bike, which has a far more upright riding position. I started off with a few gentle short runs, sometimes having to turn around and walk home as my back just would not allow me to run.

Fast forward Three months and things have improved by an unbelievable degree. By the end of March I was riding about 200 miles a week including a weekly London-Brighton-London ride. I can now run 14 miles without pain, well not in my back anyway. The swim? Well Come On that was never going to be a worry was it! :) In the seven days before creating this page I Swam,Biked and Ran for a total of 18 Hours 20 Minutes. Things are going better than I could have possibly imagined!

  

I have always just trained for the fun of it but this time given the scale of challenge of these events I thought I should do something else I had never done before, ask for sponsorship. To be completely honest I have never liked to or ever have asked anyone for anything, I don’t know why but I just feel uncomfortable doing so.

 

I have chosen Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) because there are so many things going on in the world today that raising money for an independent humanitarian medical aid organisation seemed to make an awful lot of sense.

Thanks for taking the time to read my page and please donate what you can.

All the best

Matt :)

 

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