Project Unicorn - The Running Channel’s Quarantine To Qualifier

Project Unicorn - The Running Channel’s Quarantine To Qualifier

We’re delighted to be working with Anna from The Running Channel (if you’re a runner and you don’t follow The Running Channel you should!) on her challenge - ‘Project Unicorn’:

Hi everyone, I’m Anna and I’m a runner! I’ve been presenting on The Running Channel on YouTube for a couple of years now and I’m always up for a challenge. So far these have included (but are not limited to) a marathon in my 10m back garden during lockdown, running a mile every hour on the hour for 24 hours, a 260km ultra in the Azores plus a few other marathons along the way.

Anna Harding from The Running Channel, about to take on Project Unicorn.

Project Unicorn

My next challenge will be a little longer in the making. It’s a challenge we are affectionately calling ‘Project Unicorn’. My next challenge is to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

I’ll be training for the next few months up until Autumn 2021, when I’ll take on a marathon to get that time. For me, it’s 3 hours 30 mins. Well, it’ll be a few minutes under that actually to guarantee qualification. To give you an idea of what that means for me, my marathon PB, set at Amsterdam Marathon 2019 is 3:53:06. So just a casual 25ish minutes to shave off.

The BIG difference this time though, is that we’re treating this as a bit of an experiment. We’re building ‘Team Anna’ to get me to that finish line. We’ve put together the best of the best when it comes to a coach, sports psychologist and, of course, physiotherapist. Paul Martin is going to be an integral part of Team Anna - he’s already helped me with my first hurdle of injuring my calf on a rather overzealous speed session!

Training

The real training will start 16 weeks out from race day, which hasn’t been 100% set in stone yet because of the uncertainty with coronavirus, but it’ll be around May that I need to step it up a notch. Until then, it’s cross training on the bike for me, calf raises, Paul’s infamous glute circuit and a bit of core work to get me in top shape ready for the mileage to increase.

Watch this space over on YouTube for Paul’s first appearance in the Quarantine To Qualifier series in episode 2. You can find out more about the challenge in episode 1 now:

We are superchuffed to be part of Team Anna and we’re looking forward to following her journey to Boston!

Words by Anna Harding from The Running Channel.

Patient News: Alex Flynn - Certainly Uncertain

Patient News: Alex Flynn - Certainly Uncertain

Last year we announced that our patient, Alex Flynn, would take on the 4 Deserts Grand Slam Plus this year – racing 1,250km / 780 miles unsupported on foot across some of the most inhospitable landscapes in the world in the Namib Desert, Gobi Desert, the Great Caucasus of Georgia, the Atacama Desert and Antarctica - and that we’ll be supporting him in the lead up to this epic challenge.

Alex was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2008 at the age of 36. His diagnosis became the catalyst in his life for showing people the possibility of creating positive change in the face of adversity.

We asked Alex to write us an update on how things, including his training, are going, given the most recent turn of events.

Alex says:

I haven’t written for a while. Truth is I’ve been training for a race that may not happen.

Coronavirus has thrown everything in the air so to speak. Not only has it panicked many people and caused uncertainty across the world, it’s also made travel, insurance and racing in close proximity to others a game of Russian roulette.

I like things to be relatively certain. That’s why I like to train five times a week and take two days off. In typical Flynn style, my training graph would normally resemble the topography of K2; steep and unforgiving. I made this mistake in my past. Stress fractures and hotspots on my lower legs became frequent friends. Discussing this with Paul, I’ve managed to soften the curve of the graph by incorporating more cycling and cross-training into my regime. This is not just to obviate the risk of stress fractures but also cope with a changing physique that comes with being almost 50 years old.

So, training over the last few months has been a mixture of functional training with Gareth Batson at Cynergy PT, muddy trail and long road runs and cycling. In addition, I’ve spent time at the Park Club and have been working on my strength training with Quentin at the Engine House.

The result is that I’m stronger and fitter as well as benefiting me with fewer Parkinson’s symptoms. However, it’s not been without its aches and pains. Paul Martin has been amazing at managing my anxiety where I feel pain in my knee or ankle. He knows exactly the right thing to do. Paul helped me achieve my 10 millionmetres challenge and made it possible for me to #KeepMoving.  

I guess I will go with who I trust and know. After all, we are all looking for certainty.

Words by Alex Flynn. Images by 10MillionMetres.

Patient News: Wayne Collins' Ride To Rome Part 1

Patient News: Wayne Collins' Ride To Rome Part 1

Wayne Collins, one of our physio patients, recently cycled from London to Rome with his friends Alessandro, Dot and Aileen to raise money for two charities close to their hearts. The first is The Royal British Legion, specifically for their projects supporting Admiral Nurses who work with people (and their families who are often more affected) with Alzheimers, a disease that took Wayne’s father at an early age, and the courses that they run at the Battle Back Centre. The second charity is Demelza House, which is a hospice that provides respite care and end of life care for children with severe illnesses and life limiting conditions.

Wayne has very kindly blogged his experience for us in two parts – this is the first: the run up to the big event.

Ride To Rome!

Having completed an amazing four day ride from London to Paris with the Royal British Legion in September 2018, I thought “where next?”!

“Why, London to Rome of course!”

It’s less than 1,400 miles. We can do it, of course we can! Dot, Aileen and I have only been cycling for a few years and the total of our ages is greater than 180 so we are no spring chickens and we are fairly slow.

Aileen and Dot agreed to join me in this latest crazy endeavour. Dot (we have not known each other that long) has since revealed that whilst she said yes she thought I was joking! She knows me better now. When I drove to France in January for four days to reccie the section of the route we had planned from Calais to the Alps she realised that I was serious and the event would take place!

Our Charities

During the ride from London to Paris I met some veterans who had received literally lifesaving help from the Royal British Legion, in particular through their Battle Back Centre. They are amazing, inspirational people. I have had, and still have and battle with to a degree, some major health challenges and problems in my life, but nothing compared with these people. I wanted to do more to help them.

The second charity, Demelza House, is an amazing organisation that has helped a close friend of mine, her severely disabled child and family in general for many years. Unlike many children’s hospices they focus on giving children and their families every possible opportunity and support during their lives. They make such an enormous difference daily to these families. Naturally they also provide outstanding end of life care too.

Logistics and Training

I enlisted the help of Alessandro Santangelo, an Italian Cycle guide that I had met on a cycling holiday a couple of years ago. Although our intention was to employ him, as we were raising money for these two amazing charities he only charged us for his expenses and not his time.

Alessandro planned the European mainland routes and we then drove them over two four days trips. This led to some adjustments and allowed us to identify our accommodation which we needed to book well in advance.

With regards to preparation we all cycled the Eden classic from the Eden Project in Cornwall.

Pasties after The Eden Classic.

Dot and Aileen are part of the HSBC UK Breeze cycle club in Cornwall. Breeze offers fun, free bike rides for women of all abilities across the UK. They cycle most Fridays, weather permitting, and obviously, being in Cornwall, they get a lot of hill training in!

Due to my work and other charity commitments I knew that if I was left to my devices regarding training I wouldn’t do enough to be able to survive the trip so in addition to training on my own I cycled the one day, 65 mile Poppy Ride for the Royal British Legion in May.

In June I then joined two friends for a cycle challenge/training down the Adriatic coast of Italy with Alessandro as our guide. In reality we spent very little time on the coast road as each day we came in land to view some stunning locations all of which seem to be at the top of long steep hills! We averaged around 60-70 miles a day.

Wayne and Alessandro at the end of our Adriatic training.

Shortly afterwards I followed up with the four day pedal from London to Ypres, a mere 320 miles, again with the Royal British Legion.

Ypres.

The final major training event for me was cycling the grand depart of the Tour de France one week ahead of the actual Ride To Rome. This event was raising money for prostate cancer. We suffered with extreme temperatures on the day and from a personal point of view, as I had never cycled 128 miles in one day before, it was an enormous challenge on many levels!

In addition to providing his guiding services and cycling every mile with us Allesandro also provided mechanical support whenever we had issues.

My pre-ride bike prep was generously provided by one of our sponsors, Pearson Cycles, who are still family owned and are the oldest bike shop in the UK. Next year they celebrate their 160th anniversary.

Our support van driver, daily fresh fruit and food buyer, water supply man and all round fantastic support was provided by Glyn who also volunteered his time free of charge for the whole trip and assisted with moving the van around in the build up to the event to help promote us and to have the stickers of our wonderful sponsors added. I don’t think he really knew what he was letting himself in for when he was “volunteered” by his wife and fellow cyclist Dot!

Provisioning for the Ride To Rome!

Tune in next month for Part 2 of Wayne’s blog post where he tells you just how much fun he had cycling from London to Rome!

If you’d like to make a donation The Ride To Rome donations page is still live and can be found here.

Words and images courtesy of Wayne Collins.

Are you going on your own adventure and would like to share it with us? Send an email to us at info@physioremedies.com.