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By day I ply my trade as an IT contractor but in my spare time I like to volunteer to support charities and not-for-profit organisations who help people with serious health conditions. 

I turned 50 last year (I know, I know, long paper round and all that…!) and although I’ve always had an interest in health and fitness I actually took the plunge and decided to take my qualification as a Level 4 Strength and Conditioning coach.

This gave me the opportunity to coach for The Battle Cancer Program, taking a group of amazing people through a specially tailored 12 week strength and conditioning program. The program is life changing; at week 1 I had a group who were extremely nervous, most had never touched a barbell, dumbell or kettlebell before, all were lacking in self-belief and confidence due to what they had been through since their cancer diagnosis, an a lot of them were very hesitant at stepping through the door of the gym to start their journey.

Well! You would not believe the difference the program has made to these amazing people. In only 12 weeks every single one of them was able to perform strength exercises such as the back squat, deadlift and shoulder press, some of them lifting serious weights such as deadlifting more than their own body weight and squatting similar numbers. 

But the biggest and most important change from my point of view was the increase in confidence and self-belief of every single participant. From hesitance, self-doubt, negative self-talk in the first few weeks to a much more confident group who were willing to give their all whatever I challenged them with was fantastic to see.

Cancer takes something away from you, this is what my group told me many times. But Battle Cancer helps build that something back, this is what one of my participants said:

“I can honestly say that this programme has changed my life. Instead of being ashamed of what cancer did to my body I am now embracing what it can do.”

So, last year I signed up to take on my first Hyrox event, if you are not familiar with what Hyrox is have a look at hyrox.com, but in simple terms it’s a running event with a difference . There is 8km of running but after every 1km participants are required to perform an additional functional fitness exercise. The exercises vary from 1000m row and ski to 80m of burpee broad jumps, sled pushes and pulls, 200m of farmer’s carry and 100 wallballs. 

As this will be my first Hyrox event I am doing it as a doubles with my friend from the gym: I’m 50 and weigh over 100kg so I think it’s only sensible for someone in my condition to share the load 😂. We both have to complete the 8km of running together but we are allowed to split the functional exercises between us - still not an easy challenge by any stretch! 

I don’t often ask for sponsorship when doing events but I’m hoping you agree with me that this event might just deserve a wee small donation to help me raise enough money to allow up to 15 participants to join a future Battle Cancer program. 

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