The Celebrity Edition

Oh yes, the blog has finally made the big time and this morning I achieved my first celebrity endorsement.  The ladies could scroll down for some gratuitous eye-candy but it would show a level of decorum and decency to stick with my chat for at least another couple of paragraphs. 

It was a balmy old Fife night tonight but I popped the trainers on after work and managed my longest long run since the marathon - a whole 10.5 miles or 16.8k for the more metrically minded like me.  It was a tough old slog which included a bit of abuse from the young neds outside Asda - it's like we've got a thing now - they shout stuff at me (god knows what because I have an ipod on) and I flick them the bird.  If ever I give up running it will be like a deep sense of bereavement that I won't see the boys anymore.  The good news is that the calf held up well, chafing was limited to very superficial damage on the hip and my feet didn't get too hot. 

The last real long distance training event will be at the weekend when I do a brick (bike ride and then straight into a run) which will be a 4 hour ride followed by a one hour run.  I don't care what anyone says - that is hard and made worse by the current weather and made so, so, so much worse by leaving night from the finance team tomorrow night.  Having been dry for two weeks I face the evening with a sense of trepidation and already fear another Saturday on the sofa in my wife-beater wondering when I'll chunder.  I think there was something nice and reassuring in the old days when I didn't get hangovers!!

So, for those interested in the biomechanics of my newly invented swimming technique you are going to have to wait for a future blog.  Loch trials were delayed when Shakey, the training partner, ate far too many chips and couldn't squeeze into her wetsuit.  Pam, as self-styled official support crew and long suffering wife (she really has no concept how lucky she is!) decided the wetsuit would close and removed about 4 inches of Shakey's back as it was nipped in the zip.  It closed for sure but there was no dignity left and no chance of swimming, or moving, or breathing.  So next week is the last chance for a bit of cold water acclimatisation and to prove the concept that you can actually go forwards when you swim with one arm.  Interestingly, I took the broken shoulder to the physio today and she looks like she has given up.  She is convinced it was quite a bad dislocation in addition to the fracture and that I shouldn't have been able to remount the Temptress and ride for another half hour.  Apart from generally being hard as nails I didn't tell her that about 45 minutes after the crash I was anaesthetising with a Stella and kept the medication up for 48hours - sure beats Neurofen!  I have a bit of muscle wastage on the arms and shoulder now and she has started referring to my arms as the "chicken wings".  Unbelievably, in the last few weeks I have lost about 5lbs and my breeks aren't any looser so I can only assume it's because of the chicken arms.

Mark Foster takes Gold in World Chest Shaving Champs 2010

OK, to unveil the celebrity endorsement.  I discovered that Mark Foster was the patron of the Anaphylaxis Campaign and that we have an awful lot in common.  He is a few months older than me, we swam at the same time and he just pipped me for Olympics places in Seoul and Barcelona (hey, we've all got Mark Foster fantasies!!).  I have also noticed he is always photographed from the waist up so I can only assume that, like me, he also has clinically diagnosed stumpy legs (my inside leg is 28" despite being nearly 6'4").  Mark is 6'6" so he could look very odd with short stumps.  Anyway, the endorsement......

"Best of luck with your triathlons Dougie.  It's a big challenge but it's a great event and thank you for choosing to support the Anaphylaxis Campaign.  A friend of mine died of this terrible condition and it's so important that we raise the profile of the charity in any way we can".  Mark Foster, 5 time Olympic swimmer.

Since unveiling this information to a few ladies and gents this morning I have been asked by several people whether I have his email address or mobile number.  I am sworn to secrecy, and I am generally scared for the man particularly if Pam, Shakey, Mandy or any other number of man worriers get a hold of him - so no comment.

With each day I am managing to raise a little more money for the Anaphylaxis Campaign and I have now raised over £2.2k and hopefully people have learnt a little more about the Campaign and what it is like to live with severe allergies.  Although I have gone through my target I am still pushing on with fundraising until I have finished the three events.  If you haven't had the opportunity yet please don't be shy - do it for Mark!

Thanks for all the kind contributions so far.

Another week down

I honestly thought that this was just like a diary and that only a couple of others had a guilty read of what I have been writing when I'm not looking.  However, I've discovered this week that the blog has developed a personality of it's own.  I have been getting emails and texts of support and more than a few slightly unkind questions which I may tackle if I can keep typing long enough tonight.

Last week was a tough training week as I near the end of the preparations for August.  This week I did 125 miles on the bike and ran 22 miles.  Despite all the festering injuries my long distances are now at a level where I don't really fear finishing in Aberfeldy but do worry about the state I will finish in.  Of biggest concern is losing one or both nipples, public exposure of the lycra and, possibly more bizarrely, swallowing a fly when I am on the bike.  My new fear this week is of the bonk - more of which later.   


I eventually did last week's long ride on Saturday morning.  As I am currently abstaining I got up with a clear head and set off just after 730 in glorious weather expecting the ride to last 4.5 hours.  The Tour de Fife took in most of the glamour locations in a long loop - Dunfermline, Aberdour, Leven, Cupar, Falkland, Leslie and Cowdenbeath (and not forgetting of course Ballingry and Lochgelly).  I have now noticed that when cycling all weather logic goes out the window - on Saturday, despite it being a loop I constantly had the wind in my face and eventually limped home wind scorched and starving after over 5.5 hours.  The implications of the ride were pretty grim.  I only had 2 bananas and 2 bottles of energy drink with me so somewhere around the 5 hour mark I "bonked" for the first time.  I can now confirm that a bonk isn't as much fun as it sounds - runners call it hitting the wall and doctors call it hypoglycemia.  All I know is that all of a sudden my legs turned to jelly, I started talking to myself and I honestly developed a deep paranoia that the hill that I was climbing was conspiring against me and that it was actually an escalator going in the wrong direction!!  

Hotspots of Leven

Back home and well fed everything slowly came back to normal.  All except, of course, my new and intense dislike for Leven.  In one grim little seaside town has several new claims to fame - 3 drivers attempted to squash me, they have built speed "bumps" the size of bloody Ben Nevis that re-dislocated my shoulder every time I hit them and their sign-posts are rubbish.  As a result of the poor sign-posting I rode up a dead-end which resulted in a 2 mile unnecessary detour over the 8 (yes, I counted them) humungous speed bumps. If there is a bright side to Leven it least it was kind enough to bounce my shoulder back into the socket after dislocating it.  It may be harsh but once the Americans have finished with Iran and North Korea I will be recommending that they should decalre war on Leven as part of the axis of evil - god knows they might even win that one if they can get the tanks over the speed bumps!

After the long ride it was back to domestic chores when I had to mow the grass - I was clearly still a little delirious as, when I reviewed my handywork this morning, I appear to have left the lawn with a brazilian.   

Anyway, I finished the week with a long run yesterday.  I am now up to 8 miles and this was my furthest run since the day of the marathon.  0730 on a Sunday morning is fascinating - I was witness to several walks of shame (with faces that only a mother could love who knows how they got laid!!!) and several fellas on their way home sporting fresh facial injuries from a damned fine Saturday night out. 

Today, thank god was a rest day.  A new training week starts tomorrow and will be the last hard week before I start to taper.  Tuesday will also bring a bit of a novelty with the first sea (OK, loch!) trials of the one armed swimming technique.  All was set for Shakey to have her maiden voyage in her gimp suit until I received an alarming/hilarious (depending on your point of view) call from her this evening.  While trying the wetsuit on for size she appears to have got a herself a little stuck.  The big question is.........did she order a suit too small out of vanity or did she put on a couple of pounds in Spain last week?  You can decide for yourself from the photo she managed to take on her iphone.  Health and Safety concerns have been taken into account and Pam, as official support crew, is life-guarding for us.  From past experience, unlike her diligent, professional Baywatch namesake, Pammy normally laughs hysterically and generally finds the bondage suit, particularly with me in it, hilarious.  She hasn't been tested yet but I would hazard a guess that in a crisis she will be taking photos rather than calling the coastguard.

As mentioned before the main question I have been getting (mainly from friends that haven't seen me for a while) is (and I have paraphrased the alliteration to keep the blog family friendly), "How on earth will a fat f(ella) like you manage all of this?"

OK, I'll admit I have lost a couple of pounds in the past 18 months which has helped me accelerate from a waddle to a gentle jog (also known as the shrek strut). To illustrate the point I have included two photos.  The first was taken in Berlin on New Year's Day 2009 as I enjoyed a Kaiser's feast of champagne and bratwurst for breakfast.  Exactly 5 days later it dawned on me that I was on a fast track to a heart attack and signed up for the Edinburgh 10k.  The second photo was taken after the Rome Marathon in March 2010.  The change is pretty subtle but hopefully it should explain how I can complete these events and squeeze into a gimp suit (although there is still precious little dignity in skin-tight neoprene).

I have absolutely loved the Tour de France this year.  And I have a clear winner in my favourite moment of the Tour.  No, it wasn't Schleck's chase after losing his chain or Lance's dream of another win ending in three crashes in one stage and it wasn't even David Millar trying to take down a Dutch labrador.  Nope, it was the ladyboy fight after stage six - you get all the action in the first thirty seconds (watch the abuse of the carbon wheel) but bear with the rest of the video for in-depth analysis of the art of the biff.

The great news today is that I have now raised over £1600 for the Anaphylaxis Campaign and the fantastic work it does after just 10 days of fundraising.  I am hugely proud of that but it would be great to keep going and really blow away the target to give a huge boost to the charity.  Thanks for all your support so far.

Technical Training Issues

Okay, so last week with the shoulder injury there was no swim or gym training. However, my run mileage for the week was 21 miles (a 6 mile long run and the calf held up well) and I completed 65 wet and windy miles on the bike. To the trained eye it is probably apparent that unless I have a basket and a bell that there are not enough miles for my promised 4.5 hour bike on Sunday. Now a funny thing happened there - I woke up on Sunday with what I can only describe as a pernicious virus possibly from the same strain as ebola. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour I chose to spend the day in loungewear sipping small amounts of water watching Le Tour live on Eurosport.

I was on the verge of calling NHS24 to seek advice on euthanasia when Pam reminded me that I had fallen off the wagon at Jane and Gary's wedding. As well as nausea, amnesia was taking it's toll as events remained unclear despite Pam's clarification. By all accounts I had been gripped by my fear of going home while there might still be something exciting happening and could only be convinced to go when the lights were switched off. My post-mortem identified several pints of Carling as aperitifs, Jaeger Bombs (thanks Knight Rider), Baby Guinness (thanks Shakey), Tequila (thanks Marvin) and then the whole lot again (cheers Deek). It was neither big nor clever.

And my alcohol problems didn't end there. Still wallowing in the wife beater on Sunday night it dawned on me that the car remained abandoned. It was going to be tough to get out of bed but, no problem I thought, I'll just jog (yes, a jog - this was never going to be a run) to get the car in the morning. So just before 630am I set off for a 4.5mile run to the car which as a result of an early morning heatwave was going to hurt a lot. Now, alcohol plays havoc with hydration and about 8 metres into the run it first crossed my mind that I needed a pee but I pressed on like an apprentice ironman. About 3km later events were rapidly overtaking me and I started investigating bushes but none provided sufficient cover for a large, dehydrated Shrek-like runner with dashing hi-viz stripes. I have pretty good local knowledge from my long marathon training runs so I knew I wasn't far from a suitably sheltered country lane. As I fumbled with the lace on my shorts I was preoccuppied in equal measure by my bladder and large, scary, waist height nettles waving menacingly in the breeze. Paradise found, my relief was instant until I looked up and remembered that my marathon training was in the deep mid-winter and, without cover of darkness, the lady-blow drying her hair in the upstairs bedroom of the previously darkened semi had a clear view of the low point of my weekend of shame. At this point the jog accelerated to a run before the police were alerted.

All is not lost, however, this week was scheduled to be a recovery week so with a quick shoogle of the programme I should be back on plan by the end of the week. I still haven't quite worked out the swimming thing yet but how hard could it be??

Maintaining the alcohol theme as I enter a fortnight of abstinence I discovered an interesting fact from the Anaphylaxis Campaign's magazine today. I thoroughly enjoy a Gin & Tonic - my preference is normally Hendricks with a slice of cucumber (don't judge me - remember I am going to swim with a broken shoulder and that is very manly!!) but I am also partial to a Bombay Sapphire. However, Bombay is infused through a mix of ingredients which includes almond oil and if, in ignorance, I were to drink it and then kiss my nephew I may put him in hospital. You won't read about that on the label and this is the kind of manufacturer and consumer education that I am trying to support through the Anaphylaxis Campaign. Please give generously, even a little can make a big difference........

Tuberosity and Chafing

Since I started training Saturday morning has always been the time for my long run or ride. However, this morning I woke up just before 7 ready to head out and discovered I still have a bit of a sensitive injury from Thursday night's very wet brick (http://august-challenge.blogspot.com/2010/07/4-weeks-to-go.html). What no-one tells you when you start this kind of stuff is that you can tear muscles, break bones etc but real pain comes from chafing and friction injuries. As a larger and hairier athletic specimen I seem to suffer more than most and in the last 18months I have gone through more vaseline than a pharmacist would think was reasonable. The consequences of not lubing liberally are significant and in terms of performance I can only assume that the old hi-viz wifie got in front of me because I was weakened by the loss of blood!


So today instead of my 4.5hour ride I will go for a shorter training day with a 2 hour ride and a 1 hour run. My chafing limit is somewhere within those time limits and hopefully I will recover enough to take the more sensitive abrasions out tomorrow.

I mentioned the injury in the previous post so here is the full story. On the 10th Jun I was biking down to the borders and was about 10k from the end when the Sultry Temptress (the new wheels, also known by the less kind as Jezebel. You can see her here http://www.justgiving.com/Daft-Dougie) decided that I just wasn't good enough for her and bucked me. She stopped serenely at the side of the road and after a brief glide through the air I made contact with tarmac and travelled on my left hand side for a couple of meters down the road. My legs looked a bit like uncooked mince but the good news was the lycra held together and I didn't have to bare my bruised and scabby ass to the good people of Hawick. The bad news was that my shoulder was a wee bit sore - being a sensible kind of lad I withdrew from the Lochore Triathlon and today's Gullane Triathlon to ensure I could blitz the swim at Aberfeldy. However, fast forward to Wednesday night and I met a jolly fine chap called Mr Robinson who moved me into impossible positions with very cold hands and then sent me off to see the equally nice radiologist lady who took my photo and then gave me one of those pitying looks. Back to Frosty Hands and he revealed that I have a Greater Tuberosity Fracture and probably had a dislocation which is apparently quite sore but there isn't much he can do about it. I have now concluded that I have a very high pain threshold because I found it a wee bit nippy but not as sore as everyone tells me it should be. And all this leaves me wondering if 30 years of swimming training leaves me with the ability to swim one-armed for these distances. Perhaps more worrying - can I get my gimp-suit off after the swim or do I have to wear it for a 90km cycle and a half-marathon terrifying the locals of Kenmore and Aberfeldy and causing the wise, old sheep of Loch Rannoch to raise an eyebrow as I puggle past them?

Before the Rome Marathon I lived like a monk and didn't touch a drop of alcohol for 6 weeks including when Scotland beat Ireland the night before. I have been slightly less disciplined this time around sipping on a G&T while circulating my JustGiving page last night and heading to a wedding tonight where abstaining is just not an option (Congratulations to the Laughlins!!). And on the eve of my challenge I am going out with my old team to celebrate the old days and look forward to the new - my aim that night is damage limitation and trying to avoid botulism from a donner at the Cappadoccia!

I am taking my broken shoulder (not sure if I have mentioned that before - and it doesn't really hurt very much) out on the water to raise money for the Anaphylaxis campaign. The statistics are shocking and in my humble opinion not enough is being done to protect this vunerable group. Life can be traumatic and uncertain for people living with severe allergy, with an emergency dash to hospital an ever present possibility, every day of the year. Research suggests that around one in 70 children across the UK are allergic to peanuts, however, this is now thought to be as high as one in 50 – a quarter of a million children. International comparisons show that the UK population has the highest prevalence of allergy in Europe and ranks among the highest in the world. Disease frequencies of the more serious and systemic allergies, e.g. anaphylaxis, drug and food allergy, are increasing fast and, sadly, there is evidence that anaphylaxis causes some 10 to 20 deaths per year.

Even a little can help a lot. Please take a moment to visit my Just Giving site.
http://www.justgiving.com/Daft-Dougie

4 Weeks to Go

So, it is now 4 weeks to go until the first event of the challenge. To re-cap it all looks like this.....

8th August - Ayr Sprint Triathlon (750m river swim, 20km bike and 5km run)
15th August - Aberfeldy Half-Marathon (1.9km loch swim, 90km bike and 21.1km run)
21st August - Great Scottish Swim (1 mile open water swim)

It doesn't really look too bad written down but by the time I start the half-marathon in Aberfeldy I suspect I will be suffering from total body collapse. Since I swapped the pleasures of fine alcohol (think Guinness and Jaeger bombs rather than Montrachet) and kebab (grilled chicken of course) in January last year for healthier pursuits I have run over one thousand miles and cycled nearly two thousand in preparation for these events.

Since the start of this year the mileage and time commitment has been substantial despite a spectacular collection of injuries.

The Bike - 1300 miles done, with one spectacular crash near the end of a 60miler
The Run - 350 miles done - 280 in the 2 months before the Rome Marathon and a measly 71 in the 5 months since
The Swim - 115 miles done. I use every excuse not to swim having spent my whole childhood with my head submerged in verruca infested water with vaseline soaked cotton wool in my ears. Luckily, I now have a good excuse not to swim - more later!

Pam has been very patient with all the training time and, like this week, "took one for the team" by selflessly working in the Dominican Republic so that I could concentrate on my training. While I was out biking in the hosing rain Pam had to endure a warmish PinaColada next to the pool and the pool boy even smeared her shades when he was cleaning them.

The key training element to the triathlon is the "brick" - basically running straight after you get off the bike which is a sensation similar to wellying back a bottle of sambuca blind-folded, being spun around for a minute and then sent off for a run. Tonight me and my old training partner "Shakey" did a 25k bike and 8k run in the dinging rain. Thankfully I had a Yorkie in the afternoon which I think was the only thing that got me to the end of a sodden, hilly run. Shakey and I aren't the most accomplished of bikists but these fellas make us feel a bit better!

So, "what's it all about?" you may ask. Well, in all my couch potato years I spent a lot of time sponsoring others but haven't really done anything myself. I decided that to make up time I would really put myself on the line to raise money for a great cause. It's not a well known or "sexy" charity but I am doing all of this for The Anaphylaxis Campaign which supports a cause that I feel very passionately about. I will write more in the blog but in the meantime you can learn a bit more on my justgiving page............

http://www.justgiving.com/Daft-Dougie