... If you can walk you can dance" Well at least according to the old Zimbabwean proverb. Last week, after a fantastic initial response - thank you for your sponsorship and words of encouragement / incredulity - I felt I should hit the roads and start my training.
Peeling back my bedroom curtains I found a crispy fresh winter morning waving at me. Feeling invigorated I de-bagged and de-tagged my new running gear; struggled my vest over my paunch and hula-ed into my short shorts.
A few short stretches later and I couldn't help but bound down the stairs and out of the front door, and pound down the pavement.
I was eating up the sidewalk; chewing and spitting it out. Woooooooosh. A left turn up to Paddington Recreational Ground, and I was buzzing. Around the park and, after slaloming a few prams and stray footballs, onto the running track I bounced. A few laps would suffice for my first run, right?
************************************************************************************
Four laps later and I was beaten. My back ached; my legs burned and I had to stop. Gone was the great feeling that had propelled me down the stairs and my legs virtually sprinting to the park.
I walked back to the flat. Slowly.
************************************************************************************
I worked out that I had done two-and-a-half miles in half-an-hour. Meaning that if I continued at that (what felt like warp) speed, I would complete the 26.3 miles in, er, over five hours.
I felt so demoralized. You have to start somewhere though, right?
"If you can talk you can sing. If you can walk you can jog a little, but not for very far" (A new Maidavalian proverb ... )
Monday, 10 December 2007
Friday, 30 November 2007
RNLI - making a difference
Hot off the press ... For those of you who were wondering why I am running for the RNLI, my good pal Owen has just sent me this, which he has written for his paper, and it is a superb account.
On Friday, RNLI lifeboats tried in vain to save the lives of three people whose boat capsized off the coast of Whitby. Two days later, Owen Amos spent the morning with Hartlepool's lifeboat crew as they trained on the stormy North Sea
The orange lifeboat dashes through the North Sea, a maelstrom of white water in its wake. The waves toss the 28-tonne boat into the air, and, as it lands, cold, salty water crashes onto the deck. As the water hits my skin, I grip the deck rail even tighter. My face, tucked between a blue woolly hat and a yellow RNLI jacket, is whiter than the water.
The boat zips down the east coast, past the fuming chimneys of Seal Sands and Teesmouth.
Hartlepool, where we started, moves further away, and Redcar's seafront and church spire appears.
"Man overboard!" cries lifeboat man Darren Killick. Fortunately, the overboard man is, in fact, a buoy.
The RNLI crews from Hartlepool - who have one big boat, and one smaller inshore boat - and Redcar - two in shore boats - are out on joint exercise.
For the next hour, the lifeboats dart across the sea, retrieving buoys and towing each other.
I stand on deck and try not to vomit.
"You're not looking too well, " says mechanic Garry Waugh as the boat rocks from side to side. "This is nothing. It's almost rocked me to sleep."
The RNLI is a charity, its £120m annual operating costs met by donations and legacies. Its crew - there are 30 in Hartlepool - are unpaid volunteers, apart from the full-time mechanic.
The Hartlepool crew includes a lecturer, a carpenter, a gardener, and a window cleaner. At one time, nearly all crew were off-duty fishermen - now, only two work at sea.
They all carry pagers and are permanently on call. Stories of wives left in restaurants while their husbands rush to rescue stranded sailors are common. One crew member once turned up with half a haircut.
As the cold bit my fingers, and my stomach churned, I had one question: why would anyone be a lifeboatman?
"Eighty or ninety per cent of the time, we'll do tow-in jobs for boats in trouble, but every now and then a job comes along and you know you make a real difference, " says coxswain Robbie Maiden, 40.
"It only happens now and then, but when it does it makes a real difference. That’s when you get the feel-good factor, or whatever you want to call it."
Crew member Mark Barker says: "It's the satisfaction of knowing one day you will save someone's life. It's a good feeling. It's a fantastic feeling."
The Hartlepool crew have been on 52 emergencies this year. Most are mechanical failures, but the list includes a number of people, and dogs, rescued from the sea. In August, the crew rescued a man who had been thrown from Steetley Pier, Hartlepool, in a fight.
But not everyone can be saved. Every lifeboat has, at some point, brought dead bodies on board. Last Friday, Whitby's lifeboat crew rescued three people after their boat capsized. All three died later in hospital.
"I spoke to the mechanic at Whitby an hour and a half after that happened and he was still very upset, " says Garry. "They did an amazing job.
"Whoever was handling their boat in those conditions did brilliantly.
"When you have to recover bodies from the sea, that's not easy. That's when our debriefing room is good. We have access to a counsellor, but generally we just go in there and talk about it ourselves."
So what's it like, sailing to an unknown emergency on a cold, dark, wet winter’s night?
"When you first head to sea, you get the old adrenaline flowing for the first 15, 20 minutes, " says Robbie. "But as the hours go on and the cold sets in, it gets tiring. You can't give in, though, if there's a chance someone could still be out there. We've had 24hour, 36-hour searches."
The crew, which includes one woman, repeatedly call themselves a family. To join, prospective members do a year's probation, with training, and the crew vote on whether they stay. Almost all RNLI stations, especially in large towns such as Hartlepool, are well-manned.
The crew - most have children - must keep two families happy.
It's not easy. Robbie, the coxswain since 1998, joined the RNLI when he was 16. His dad and granddad were also lifeboatmen.
"The hardest bit is for the families," says Robbie. "When they're waiting at home, not knowing what's going on, it's not easy.
"At least we know what we're going out to - they don't even know that. It's a big commitment for your partner as well as yourself, but she never tells me to leave. She knows how much I get out of it."
Garry adds: "The amount of times I've been at a restaurant and the pager goes off, and I've said 'Sorry love, got to go.' They have to be understanding."
Last year, RNLI lifeboats rescued more than 8,000 people, an average of 22 people per day. The organisation was founded in 1824, when lifeboats had oars and sails: the Tamar, which I was on, cost £2.5m. Even the life jackets cost £500. Despite the pressure - there are more than 330 lifeboats at 230 stations - the RNLI prefer independence to government funding.
"We raise enough money to keep going every year thanks to the generosity of the public, " says spokeswoman Alison Levett. "We run perfectly well thanks to our fantastic support."
With the two-hour exercise complete, I totter from the boat to the warmth of the station. As I wrap my frozen fingers round a cup of tea, the crew use mops and brushes to clean saltwater from the boat. Once it sparkles, the lecturer, carpenter, gardener and window cleaner get back to their families and back to their work.
The RNLI pager, though, will remain on. Soon, someone, somewhere in the North Sea will be glad it does.
On Friday, RNLI lifeboats tried in vain to save the lives of three people whose boat capsized off the coast of Whitby. Two days later, Owen Amos spent the morning with Hartlepool's lifeboat crew as they trained on the stormy North Sea
The orange lifeboat dashes through the North Sea, a maelstrom of white water in its wake. The waves toss the 28-tonne boat into the air, and, as it lands, cold, salty water crashes onto the deck. As the water hits my skin, I grip the deck rail even tighter. My face, tucked between a blue woolly hat and a yellow RNLI jacket, is whiter than the water.
The boat zips down the east coast, past the fuming chimneys of Seal Sands and Teesmouth.
Hartlepool, where we started, moves further away, and Redcar's seafront and church spire appears.
"Man overboard!" cries lifeboat man Darren Killick. Fortunately, the overboard man is, in fact, a buoy.
The RNLI crews from Hartlepool - who have one big boat, and one smaller inshore boat - and Redcar - two in shore boats - are out on joint exercise.
For the next hour, the lifeboats dart across the sea, retrieving buoys and towing each other.
I stand on deck and try not to vomit.
"You're not looking too well, " says mechanic Garry Waugh as the boat rocks from side to side. "This is nothing. It's almost rocked me to sleep."
The RNLI is a charity, its £120m annual operating costs met by donations and legacies. Its crew - there are 30 in Hartlepool - are unpaid volunteers, apart from the full-time mechanic.
The Hartlepool crew includes a lecturer, a carpenter, a gardener, and a window cleaner. At one time, nearly all crew were off-duty fishermen - now, only two work at sea.
They all carry pagers and are permanently on call. Stories of wives left in restaurants while their husbands rush to rescue stranded sailors are common. One crew member once turned up with half a haircut.
As the cold bit my fingers, and my stomach churned, I had one question: why would anyone be a lifeboatman?
"Eighty or ninety per cent of the time, we'll do tow-in jobs for boats in trouble, but every now and then a job comes along and you know you make a real difference, " says coxswain Robbie Maiden, 40.
"It only happens now and then, but when it does it makes a real difference. That’s when you get the feel-good factor, or whatever you want to call it."
Crew member Mark Barker says: "It's the satisfaction of knowing one day you will save someone's life. It's a good feeling. It's a fantastic feeling."
The Hartlepool crew have been on 52 emergencies this year. Most are mechanical failures, but the list includes a number of people, and dogs, rescued from the sea. In August, the crew rescued a man who had been thrown from Steetley Pier, Hartlepool, in a fight.
But not everyone can be saved. Every lifeboat has, at some point, brought dead bodies on board. Last Friday, Whitby's lifeboat crew rescued three people after their boat capsized. All three died later in hospital.
"I spoke to the mechanic at Whitby an hour and a half after that happened and he was still very upset, " says Garry. "They did an amazing job.
"Whoever was handling their boat in those conditions did brilliantly.
"When you have to recover bodies from the sea, that's not easy. That's when our debriefing room is good. We have access to a counsellor, but generally we just go in there and talk about it ourselves."
So what's it like, sailing to an unknown emergency on a cold, dark, wet winter’s night?
"When you first head to sea, you get the old adrenaline flowing for the first 15, 20 minutes, " says Robbie. "But as the hours go on and the cold sets in, it gets tiring. You can't give in, though, if there's a chance someone could still be out there. We've had 24hour, 36-hour searches."
The crew, which includes one woman, repeatedly call themselves a family. To join, prospective members do a year's probation, with training, and the crew vote on whether they stay. Almost all RNLI stations, especially in large towns such as Hartlepool, are well-manned.
The crew - most have children - must keep two families happy.
It's not easy. Robbie, the coxswain since 1998, joined the RNLI when he was 16. His dad and granddad were also lifeboatmen.
"The hardest bit is for the families," says Robbie. "When they're waiting at home, not knowing what's going on, it's not easy.
"At least we know what we're going out to - they don't even know that. It's a big commitment for your partner as well as yourself, but she never tells me to leave. She knows how much I get out of it."
Garry adds: "The amount of times I've been at a restaurant and the pager goes off, and I've said 'Sorry love, got to go.' They have to be understanding."
Last year, RNLI lifeboats rescued more than 8,000 people, an average of 22 people per day. The organisation was founded in 1824, when lifeboats had oars and sails: the Tamar, which I was on, cost £2.5m. Even the life jackets cost £500. Despite the pressure - there are more than 330 lifeboats at 230 stations - the RNLI prefer independence to government funding.
"We raise enough money to keep going every year thanks to the generosity of the public, " says spokeswoman Alison Levett. "We run perfectly well thanks to our fantastic support."
With the two-hour exercise complete, I totter from the boat to the warmth of the station. As I wrap my frozen fingers round a cup of tea, the crew use mops and brushes to clean saltwater from the boat. Once it sparkles, the lecturer, carpenter, gardener and window cleaner get back to their families and back to their work.
The RNLI pager, though, will remain on. Soon, someone, somewhere in the North Sea will be glad it does.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
And so it begins …
I have, just this morning, found out that the RNLI have afforded me a place in the London Marathon, which takes place on April 13 next year. Eek. The reality of what started off as a drunken dare has now hit me like a bucket of ice cold water. I am REALLY going to do this.
Still rather giddy, and with the acceptance email still open, the first person I called was my dear mother.
"What? Why on earth ... ?" she quizzed. "You know you'll have to take this seriously; it is a huge commitment. I remember when you did that sponsored half-marathon ... " More on that below, I don’t want to think about that soul-destroying day just now. It had been lodged in some forgotten, moth-eaten pocket of my mind until that phone call. Mum’s are handy like that …
After crippling my confidence, and turning me green, I wished mum well and hung off. I won't be relying on her for a motivation speech for this marathon. Kick-up-the-arse has always been her style - why would I expect any difference now, for this - the biggest challenge I have ever faced? Gulp.
I set up my sponsorship page this afternoon and the wheels are in motion. I feel ill.
Still rather giddy, and with the acceptance email still open, the first person I called was my dear mother.
"What? Why on earth ... ?" she quizzed. "You know you'll have to take this seriously; it is a huge commitment. I remember when you did that sponsored half-marathon ... " More on that below, I don’t want to think about that soul-destroying day just now. It had been lodged in some forgotten, moth-eaten pocket of my mind until that phone call. Mum’s are handy like that …
After crippling my confidence, and turning me green, I wished mum well and hung off. I won't be relying on her for a motivation speech for this marathon. Kick-up-the-arse has always been her style - why would I expect any difference now, for this - the biggest challenge I have ever faced? Gulp.
I set up my sponsorship page this afternoon and the wheels are in motion. I feel ill.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
