Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Some of you will be aware that I had a somewhat unplanned stop in an cycle event in Surrey, Sussex and Kent in February. The event was called, perhaps ironically, the Hell of the Ashdown.

I ended up in a bit of state after the crash - unconscious, various broken bones, not breathing much for quite a while, and generally not in a position to finish the event in anything like a decent time.

The air ambulance people were called. They landed and then took great delight in slashing my rather expensive Rapha hardshell to pieces before shoving tubes down my throat to get me to breathe...apparently.

None of this I remember of course including the helicopter ride to hospital - and they did not even take any photos as souvenirs!!!

As a result of their actions I spent almost a month at St George's and King's hospitals. Initially I was in intensive care in a coma for several days. But gradually recovered to the point where a month later I could discharge myself against medical advice :-).  

They were though very relieved to see me leave apparently as they were running out of biscuits for other patients to eat.

Basically the helicopter people saved my life. So I am extremely grateful to them as you might imagine.

I have even forgiven them for destroying my Rapha jacket - look at the state of it in the picture - but all they could think about was my head and that I wasn't breathing properly!!!

The cost of a recovery in the field - which includes a doctor and paramedic landing near the victim and recovering them to hospital is estimated at £2500. Hence the somewhat optimistic target. 

They are an independent charitable healthcare provider and are funded almost exclusively by public donations. So I am hoping that at least the cyclists among my friends can see the value of such a service. The helicopter response team is a key part of providing help in any emergency because of the speed at which you can get to hospital for treatment - these emergencies include people in road traffic accidents, stroke victims and people who are suffering cardiac arrest.

In other words one day it could be you or someone in your family.

They fly an average of 5-8 missions a day and the crew as a minimum consists of a highly skilled doctor, a paramedic trained in advanced pre-hospital care and a pilot.

Now if you are wondering how hard this race will actually be for me you might have seen Alistair Brownlee winning the Rio gold medal - this is the same distance as the race I am going to take part in. 

To be honest though normally it would not be such a big challenge as I do this for a hobby - it is great fun believe me.

BUT in March I could only walk with a Zimmer frame - so it has been quite a struggle to get back to at least finishing a 5k Parkrun. Ok I am now 10 minutes slower than my previous best time. But with the current rate of improvement Mo Farah had better start worrying...

Learning to swim again with broken ribs and collarbone has also been erm ...interesting... but I can at least impersonate a swimmer now so probably won't drown. You can see in one of the photos my early attempts to swim in the Lido (and just how out of shape I was when I started back again in April).

Bike riding has progressed from wobbling about on a sturdy old mountain bike in the park though to riding about on a new Boardman cyclo-cross. On my new bike I can now overtake local vicars on their way to church.

Anyway I will let you know how training is progressing over the next few weeks. I've already made great progress though thanks to Anna, Lucy, Zec and Phil's coaching at Windrush tri club.

But my main target in doing this race now though is to try to raise enough money to cover the cost the air ambulance faced getting me to hospital on the day of the accident.

Which was quite a lot of cash...so quite a big challenge.

Getting a seriously injured person to hospital quickly makes a very big difference to their chances of surviving and the quality of life they can enjoy after an accident. So this service is very important.

Any donation - no matter how small is really appreciated. 

And I can tell you I really am suffering big time training for this - if that helps you donate ;-)

 Tony