As I turned 40 I began to suffer more and more aches and pains in my back, arms and legs that culminated in a long period off work with a bad back. After a prolonged exposure to health-care professionals such as physiotherapists and doctors, the diagnosis was that I am fat and unfit! I have a BMI of 34.1. I suffer periods of anxiety and depression. I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. My doctor advised me that I needed to begin an exercise program, which combined with a good diet would sort out all my problems. So, the GP prescribed me exercise and I was referred to the local Leisure Centre with a 16 week discounted pass to the county's leisure services. The GP's referral scheme is a fantastic initiative funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, probably with the idea that a little spent on increasing one's activity and fitness now will save a lot on expensive health-care further down the line.
Now, I work as a response police officer and I usually work shifts with a six days on, four days off pattern. The shifts follow the pattern: 2 earlies (7am-4pm), 2 latest (3pm-midnight) and 2 nights (10pm-7am). However I was still on restrictive duties at work at the time of the referral, which meant that I was working days. I began swimming regularly, say about once, maybe twice a week and attended hydro-therapy classes and back classes, which I assume are Pilates based, with a new health inspired vigor. Four weeks later my restrictive duties came to an end and I was thrown back into the thick of it at work. This was the end of my new fitness drive, the pool and classes fell by the wayside. Life quickly fell back into the old routine which included absolutely no exercise, apart from taking the dog for a walk. I was resuming my duties a full one stone heavier than when I first reported sick 5 months previously. I was now officially the fattest copper in the station!
At work I have qualified to stand-in for the shift sergeant when she is off and just before Christmas last year I was doing just that. Now this was the first time I had covered for the sergeant for any prolonged period of time and it just so happened that my shift was covering the late shifts over the Friday and Saturday nights, so straight in at the deep-end. As you can imagine, taking on the extra responsibility of the sergeant's role can be quite stressful and about a quarter of the way into the shift I suddenly had pains in the left side of my chest, the top of the left arm and up the left side of my neck. Now I'm no doctor, but I do remember my training as a lifeguard from my younger, fit days and from all the first aid training I have done since. Considering my current health and fitness levels, it is fair to say that I shit myself! I seriously thought I was having a cardiac arrest. On admission into A&E, angina was mentioned and I had bloods taken before being admitted to a ward. I spent the following three days in hospital, having further blood tests and a heart stress test. On the last day, the doctor came to the bedside and told me that my heart was fine. What I was probably experiencing was either heartburn or a pulled muscle. Oh how I laughed! As a result of this little scare, my workmates have christened me with the nickname Captain Gaviscon, or just Gav for short! Although the outcome was a favorable one, this was still a severe wake-up call. It was time to get my arse into gear, lose weight and get fit.
New Years Day 2012 was the start of it all. I had been policing the streets of our local town center, which was typically full of the alcohol fueled idiots wanting to fight each other; hug and kiss each other; and generally stumbling around and falling over and landing face first into their own kebab or pizza (not necessarily in that order) in our local town center. The night had run its course and I was returning to the police station with the rest of my shift in the back of the riot van at 3am in the morning. I don't remember what the conversation was or where it was going, but I do remember the fatal words that stumbled out of my mouth... "I'M GOING TO DO A TRIATHLON". I also remember the raucous laughter and ribbing that followed.
Throughout January I started swimming again, this time with a renewed dedication. After all I had just publicly declared that I was going to complete a sprint triathlon by the end of this year and a full Olympic distance triathlon by the end of 2013. Considering the potential humiliation and the ribbing and banter that would come from not following through, failure was not an option.
At the beginning of February I had to take yet more time off for a scheduled operation, which meant that I was at home for 3 weeks and I had plenty of time on my hands. Unfortunately, although I had all the time in the world, there was very little I could actually do without a great degree of pain. I couldn't work in the garden, I couldn't train, I couldn't even walk the dog for the first 2 weeks. This led to boredom and another momentary lapse into madness which I completely blame on still being under the influence of the anaesthetic. What did I do? Well, I stupidly updated my facebook status to:
I used my time to scour the Internet looking for training schedules and books on training for a triathlon. I bought 'The Triathlete's Training Bible' by Joe Friel and 'How Triathlon Ruined My Life' by Darren Roberts.
'The Triathlete's Training Bible' is just that. It is great tome on sports science and training theory and to be honest, completely out of my league. Still, I’m pretty sure it will prove itself to be useful along the way.
How Triathlon Ruined My Life by Darren Roberts is completely different type of book. It's a book about one mans journey to Ironman. He claimed to be a fat Northerner and I bought the book as an inspirational read. It soon became clear that Darren Brown was not in-fact a fat Northerner as he had claimed. He was in-fact quite a fit, ex-para with pretty good connections in the sports industry who managed to train for and complete an Ironman triathlon with only 9 months training! Mr Brown, if you considered yourself unfit then I hate to think how you would class me. I am a slob, a sloth, a sedentary, junk-food eating couch potato. I am the pure definition of unfit! That said however, it was still a massive achievement by Darren and I did find the book to be an inspirational and amusing read which I had finished within a matter of days.
One thing became clear from these books and my Internet surfing, and that was I was never going to get fit enough to complete a triathlon without some sort of structure to my training. Oh! and I also needed a heart rate monitor but that's another story all in it's self.
Enough talk, so I finally bit the bullet and entered a triathlon. I have entered the Hardwick Sprint Triathlon on the 12th August 2012. This gave me around 6 months to get fit. I would love to get fit enough to finish in under 1 hour 30 minutes, but to be honest, I'd be happy just to finish the race!
Thanks for reading and I hope you sign up and follow me through this quest to Ironman.
You can also follow my training updates on Twitter @Captain_Clive
