Tour of Britain- East Anglia Stage

On the 24th July I arrived at the start line for a gentle 62 mile ride across a flat landscape. Myself and Andy were driven over to Diss for a 9am start. The weather was pretty good- some blue sky beginning to peep through BUT- head wind and with this not being a circular route, it was going to be a head wind for the full distance. First half of the ride went well. For the first hour, Andy and I led the way and eventually we were caught by a small group with which we tagged on to and took some shelter- slipstreaming at this point was very welcome as we were beginning to tire (or at least I was!) so some energy was save there. At the feed station half the group stopped and this is where my mistake was made. I should have stopped too. I didn't know it, but I was running low on fuel and should have topped up. Foolishly I carried on and by the 3 hr mark I was starting to tire....badly. Andy is a pretty good cyclist. No, actually he's an extremely good cyclist and he tolerates my pace. I could tell he was holding back (let's face it, he had from the starting line) so I said I was happy to go it alone and for him to go at his speed. Within a few miles I began to regret this - I was in the middle of no-where riding into the wind... no other riders in sight (which always makes me think I've manage to get lost!) and I was low on water and getting mardy because I knew I should have stopped earlier. Only got myself to blame, so I plodded on.

As you can see from this picture, I'd got my GoPro camera on my head- this was beginning to get heavy. You will also note it's angle and you'll see the results shortly...

By now, I was watching the miles on my cyclometer. 100kms...approx 62 miles...fantastic...only 2 more miles to Sandringham... or so I thought. When you're tired and getting, a'hem, 'fed up' the last thing you need is for the course to be longer than you thought. And it was. It turned out to be 68.5 miles and whilst I'm (now) happy with that achievement, at the time I was cursing every revolution of my pedals under my breath. I was absolutely wrecked. No water, no energy and no sign of the finish.

At last the turn into Sandringham appeared- a massive stately driveway which led to a fabulous finish line as used by the pro riders on the Tour of Britain AND with quite a large and an excitably noisy crowd to cheer all us riders to the finish line. Phew. It was all over.

I collected my medal and found Andy and his family- he'd finished about 25 mins earlier. I was pointed toward the pasta, drinks and...a chair! EXCELLENT- heaven does exist! So, with hindsight (always a good thing) a great day. A lot of lessons learned for me... keep hydrated, don't be a smart arse by not stopping at the feed station and, finally, try to keep within a group to save more energy. These are gonna be important for the ride in Switzerland. With some major climbing, I'm going to have to prepare and pace myself properly. As for the Go Pro, I should have checked its angle before setting off- a short bit of footage below. And I'll need to plan camera positions carefully for the Swiss ride to get the best out of what will be some stunning scenery.

And a final word on this ride below. My time and finish position. Better type it cos it's small in the picture... I came 38th out of 273 with a time of 4hrs 22mins. 

Quite pleased with that even with Andy getting 10th (well done mate)

St Ives 10k

And so I can proudly write up a small piece on the first extra team member to complete his event. Lincoln Drill Hall's one and only Simon Hollingworth put in a very respectable 59m27s for the St Ives 10k. Well done Simon and within the space of 24hrs an extra £100 raised with the promise of more to come!
Simon writes...

So the St Ives 10k was my third official race-type-run-thing, having done the Lincoln 10k in 2010 and 2011. I would never refer to myself as a runner, but I guess that gradually I’m coming to accept that it’s one of the things I do… so I’m kind of a runner. Sort of… ish.
I was running with my buddies Andy, Cliff & Pete (together we sing as a 4 part harmony comic cabaret group,  The Boxenburgs and are thinking about running the 2012 Lincoln 10k stopping every 2000m or so to serenade the crowds. What do you think?). Weather was kind (in a dark, gloomy, forbidding sort of way) and 2/3 of the race was across an airfield – we were told that if the sirens sounded we would HAVE to stop…. unfortunately they didn’t.
It was a ‘there and back’ style race so it was nice to be able to see the whole field stretching out in front and behind us (about 400 runners in total) but not so nice when the leaders started passing us on their way home, long before we were anywhere near the half way mark…
Anyway we managed to keep going (I swear the whole race was uphill) and I even dug deep for a last minute push to make sure I crossed the line under one hour.
A well-earned lunch and a sweet, sweet beer later and all that remained was one set of ultra stiff legs.

You will also note Simon is sporting the latest fashion... namely the 'Go With Crow' T shirt. There are a pair of his and hers available as a prize in the draw

...or if you can't wait, contact me!

Of course this now adds pressure onto GoWith Crow's other team member- 

Come on Gavin, let's get the sponsorship in- all for a great cause!

front & back of our Tshirt

Asics London 10k

What a race!

And I don't mean that in a particularly good way. Ok, let's examine the history to this one- I've run this 10k for the last 4 years. I run as part of the Scoliosis Campaign Fund team. I run this for my daughter, Scarlett, who has scoliosis and has, as many of you know, had two major operations to correct it. She's doing brilliantly and is a very active young lady. I can't wait for the day she will run this one with me! :)
Anyway, so I've done this a few times and it's always a bit crowded and you have to do a bit of weaving at the start to get into a pace and amongst similar strength runners...that's all fine. BUT this year the whole course was a really assault course. I was hoping to pull my time in under the hour- I'd done some good training times and was feeling strong for this one. Had a fabulous day with Helen in London the day before; met up with Aggi and Andy (congratulations btw) for dinner at Jamie's Italian and so all was well with the world. 0830 on race day, met up with the SCF Team and Nicola and Carrie-Ann- friends who were also running and headed off to the start line near Marble Arch. 0935 is when we were due to start but for some reason this was delayed by a good 20 mins, with us crossing the start line 40 mins later. Yes, it was that busy. And then for the dodgems. Now the roads down that London are pretty wide and still it was heaving- way more so than previous years. The pic below is at the 2k mark (thanks Helen and Dale for cheering me on) and it looks pretty relaxed on that. Don't you believe it! With runners of all strengths and sizes it was really hard work. I'm sure I read somewhere there were 26,000 runners and for once it felt like they were all slower and in front of me!

The other thing to dodge as well was the amount of water bottles scattered on the road- with 3 water stations (a bit OTT for a 10k) there were 1000's of bottles everywhere. Luckily there were no Gatorade bottles scattered this year. Usually at 5k you get some of this stuff and the floor gets that sticky, it's like running on velcro! I'm telling you, it takes quite a bit of concentration dodging all this stuff!

I felt good throughout the run and with Westminster and Big Ben in sight, I knew I was nearly home. As I chugged past Parliament Aggi and Andy were there to cheer and high 5 me- just what I needed- brilliant and at the last 500m and finally a stretch of road with room to manoeuvre, I sprinted for the finish line crossing at 1hour and 1 minute exactly. Pretty gutted at that time as I'm sure I could have come in 4 mins quicker. To be honest I think I might have run a 10.5k race with all the snaking between people!

Anyway, great day, great race, great friends and of for lunch and a good natter and debrief about the day's events at the Soho Pizzeria before catching the train home. It's become a tradition to come home first class (thank you Tesco for the clubcard tickets) with free wi-fi, tea and butties but more importantly, comfy chairs and room to spread with my aching ankles!

Carrie-Ann is trying to persuade me to do a marathon (in best cockney/essex accent "if you can do a 10k you can do an arf...if you can do an arf you can do a marafon!")- wise words indeed but I'm not convinced!

An addendum to all this fun...

I think at this point it is worth pointing out that the last few weeks (possibly months) have not been as fun as I thought and that I think I am using Go With Crow as a distraction. I don't want to get all depressing on you- and I won't, BUT all this activity and whatever you want to call it does not mean I'm, by any stretch of the imagination, "out of the shit."
'What is he banging on about?' I hear you cry! Well, I'm not right still. My left leg really bothers me- still no sensation on the outer surface of my thigh and it's been like that for a bloody long time AND my stomach still hurts where they sewed me up. It varies day by day and can go from a 4/10 to an 8/10. They told me it would improve over the year. Lying sods!
'Phil, stop whinging' - I'm whinging? Nah- this isn't whinging...no where near the whinge gear yet ;-)
But, while I'm here and have your attention, the physical stuff isn't the only thing. Flashbacks. Flashbacks like I don't know where to begin and, at the moment they are becoming stronger and more frequent. The only time they seem to stop is when I'm asleep. How odd! I'd have thought they'd be worse then. Glad they're not. I'm feeling quite mixed up at the moment because of these flashbacks. I want to work, I don't want to work- I'll do some stuff for Go With Crow to distract me from work so I think I'm working. When I am shooting, designing or whatever, I'm totally there and loving it. It's the thought of doing something fills me with dread. WTF is that all about? I find it hard to concentrate. Like I said, at the moment, I'm easily distracted and I'm in a vicious circle knowing I need to work but not necessarily wanting to. Is this like a post trauma thing? I can't afford time off!! I had 6 months off last year- not that I wanted to, so I can't take any more time out. I'm also aware of so called 'competition' around me. There are more photographers setting up businesses.... one guy is offering a 2hr portrait shoot with 20 photoshopped images on disc for £50... I'm amazed! That is desperate and surely it cannot be sustainable. It's a shame because it drags down us decent photographers. Going a bit off topic there but you get my point. Self employment aint all it's cracked up to be. Well, not at the moment it's not.
All I want to do is spend time with my family and my friends and cycle & run. Luckily for me I realise to do any of these things I (unfortunately) do have to get up off my ass and earn some money to do these things. It's not under sufferance, it's just.... these flashbacks are starting to drag me down. Oh crap I'm just repeating myself now. You get the picture. I'm not depressed, I'm just not happy with certain things. That's ok isn't it?

Just adding another note about flashbacks here- I also get flashbacks with taste. I was doing a spin class the other day and a taste from ICU came back of some sticks they used to let me use to wet my mouth when I was ventilated. I could even 'taste' the big tubey pipe being pulled out the other day. So flashbacks, sensations, tastes and feelings all triggered by.... I have no idea!

And last week, I kind of really lost the plot. I got really mad for no reason, went to work and cried all the way there. Ground control?...Houston, we have a problem. OK, handbrake. Back to the Docs and back to my counsellor I think. Whilst at the GP's I asked again about my leg. Now, doctors go through a good 5 or 6 years university training, then all that experience in hospitals, so I really didn't need to see what happened next... she Googled my leg. Fact! Luckily I had the manners to keep some self-control and saved my outburst of expletives for in the car! Bleeding hell- she actually sat on her fat salaried arse and Googles my effing leg AND still didn't have any answer for me!

So, I've 'sat' on this post since the 29th. I wasn't sure if I should make this one public. This blog was never meant to be some sort of therapeutic rant. It's about the runs and rides and raising money and this is getting a wee bit too personal for my liking. However, some people- certainly people who have had sepsis and have been in ICU might read some of this crap and be able to relate to it. If it helps one person not feel alone then it was worth it. So, here goes...be kind to me...

July '11 FFS...it's never ending. HOW MUCH OF THIS DO I NOT KNOW... tonight I'm told I was asleep for over a week as I was so ill at one point. I was on nearly every machine going to keep me alive. How am I supposed to cope with this information? How can I keep my sanity. How can I cope with the fact my family had to cope...

Feb '14 this shows how information dribbles out. Yesterday I found out that I also had pneumonia. PNEUMONIA FFS I ask you... I think the only thing I didn't have was the runs! More and more to think about. Just when I'm at my limit. Just when I have it all in its compartments in my head, more comes to light. Had enough.