The Pond of Hell

It was a day I‘d been dreading for a long time – my 10km swim in the Men’s Pond on Hampstead Heath. It turned into everything I feared – and worse.

I started about 1.30pm and finished about 7 hours later. I can’t really tell you how the 7 hours passed. Some rests, visits from Jon and Liz with much needed food, a couple of crisis calls with the office – and lots of mind numbing, body numbing swimming. At first I diverted myself by wondering whether all the urban rumours about infestations of crayfish were true. But after a while I was bleeding in so many places from wetsuit chafing that I don’t think I would have noticed even if I had been attacked by a swarm of crayfish. It was a long, very very long day, and utterly exhausting.

In truth, the Pond is a brilliant place to swim but no-one should do it for 7 hours!

Which Sports Should be Dropped From the Olympics?

Some personal thoughts – based on having done every Olympic event – on which sports the IOC might drop from the Olympics http://tinyurl.com/cwp7z7a – and reaction to the IOC’s recommendation to drop wrestling http://tinyurl.com/d5zhdyc .

Double Trap at Owls Lodge Shooting School

Adrian, Richard and made our way to the Owls Lodge Shooting School for our double trap shooting. Set in lovely Hampshire countryside near Andover, Owls Lodge is owned and run by Tanya and Richard Faulks. Tanya is a European champion shot and Richard won the double trap gold at the Athens Olympics (and a host of other titles) and will shortly be competing at London 2012.

Richard is one of those very rare people who’s not only one of the best in the world at their chosen sport but is also an excellent instructor. How do I know? Because, under his guidance, I actually managed to hit a few clays.

Double trap involves two clays being fired off together – always on the same trajectory – and you shoot at them from five different positions.  The idea is to hit the first clay immediately it leaves the trap and then hit the second very quickly thereafter. On my first go, I couldn’t hit anything. With Richard in close attendance (even saying ‘bang’ to let me know when to shoot) I managed to hit in the 10-20% range. Richard, on the other hand, will shoot about 98% in competitions.

We finished the day with a bit of ‘teal’ shooting and then a discussion about the Olympics (Richard seems impervious to stress) and about Owls Lodge. Not only is Owls Lodge a great place to shoot but they have discounts for youngsters and special arrangements for corporate groups so it comes highly recommended. With any luck you’ll also get some personal tuition from Richard or Tanya! Just visit their website to find out more or book a session like mine: http://www.owlslodgeshootingschool.co.uk/

And finally, as the opening ceremony is approaching terrifyingly fast, please show your support for the final leg of my challenge by sponsoring my efforts here:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DansGoldChallenge

Every penny goes to NSPCC, Cancer Resarch UK, Oxfam GB, Right To Play and Scope all fantastic charities who do truly life changing work, and make this challenge worthwhile.

Making A Splash With Canoeing and Kayaking

Jon and I drove up to the Lee Valley White Water Centre for my canoe and kayak slalom coaching. The centre is the venue for the Olympic white water events where – to quote from the website – you can “Experience the thrills as you tackle Olympic standard wild rapids, drops, holes, eddies and boils on the 300m Olympic Standard Competition Course”

For anyone not familiar with the sport, slalom canoe / kayak involves going down a white water course while navigating your kayak or canoe through a series of downhill and uphill gates. It’s a spectacular and thrilling sport.

My coach for the day was Paskell Blackwell – assistant manager at the venue and captain of the UK’s men’s white water rafting team. He began the day by walking us around the venue and, yes, the Olympic course did look pretty terrifying. We them moved on to kitting out – a fairly major process given that every part of your body has to be covered with skin tight water proof material. As a final touch you add a skirt which goes around your middle before (later) being attached to the cockpit of the boat.

Paskell first took me out on the flat water lake where he established that, although I struggled to paddle straight, at least I didn’t fall in the whole time. We then moved onto the bottom of the Legacy Course (a 160m fairly easy white water course). I managed to get through a few gates so Paskell moved me onto the lower reaches of the Olympic course. The water here is a lot easier than further up the course but things quickly got interesting as I tried to learn the techniques of manoeuvring myself around in increasingly fast flowing and choppy water.

Inevitably I went over – which is a little scary as you don’t come out of the boat due to the aforementioned skirt. You just move down the course at a fair old speed – upside down. At this stage, I forcibly reminded myself of Paskell’s training “You’re not going to drown immediately – you have some time. Don’t panic, take a deep breath (figuratively rather than literally..), pull the skirt off the boat and kick yourself free.” I followed his advice and soon found myself bobbing down the Olympic course before being fished out and put back in my boat.

In an odd way, it helped to have gone in as it removed some of the fear and when, after further training, Paskell suggested we took the ‘boat elevator’ to the top of the Olympic course, I didn’t panic too much. At this stage, I should stress that I was in a two man boat with Paskell – there was no question of a beginner like me going down the full Olympic course on my own.

However, once we got to the top of the elevator and set off, the calmness disappeared. I had the feeling you get at the top of the most terrifying theme park ride you’ve ever been on. Except when you go on a theme park ride you know, underneath it all, that it’ll be fine as thousands of people have already done the ride and survived. Here it all depended on Paskell and my efforts. In other words, it all depended on Paskell. He had steer us through the roiling, broiling water while I just did what Paskell told me i.e. paddled as hard as I could over the drops and into the walls of water.

We got to the end and the exhilaration was right up there with my show jumping or the 10m high board. Foolishly, I said I wanted to do it again. Foolishly, as by now – after two hours of paddling – I was exhausted. I’m not quite sure how Paskell kept us upright during that second run – but he did and we paddled to the slipway to get out of the boat and return to civilian life. I could hardly move – but what a session. Very testing but fantastic.

The venue is currently closed in the lead up to the Games but, once they’re over, it’ll be open again to the public. The Legacy course and the flat water lake will be open to the public for canoeing and kayaking. The Olympic course will also be open for white water rafting – saner than going down in a kayak but still a real thrill.

It’ll be an amazing opportunity to try out an Olympic venue – give it a go!

If you are feeling generous and would like to help support a number of great charities then please sponsor me.

Every little helps:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DansGoldChallenge

Great Aim At Bisley

Jon, Liz, Adrian, Danny, Richard, Mara and I went down to Bisley for our rifle and pistol shooting. Bisley is made up of 3000 acres of countryside and offers just about every (legal) shooting opportunity you could imagine. We were on our way to the Lord Roberts centre and the main thing we noticed on the way were a large number of somewhat run down caravans. Not quite what we expected from Bisley but apparently these act as accommodation for shooters taking part in competitions.

The Lord Roberts Centre, on the other hand, is a thoroughly modern venue and one of the few places in the country where anyone can just ring up to make a booking to learn to shoot. The instructors are keen to stress that it’s arguably the safest sport around – ‘you won’t even pull a muscle’ – and that the sport is particularly good for those with disabilities. The only restriction is that you need to be over 4 ½ feet so that you can reach round the rifle.

Our coach for our rifle shooting was Andrea Zakor – and ex European champion and Hungarian international. She soon had us shooting over 25m in there different positions – prone ; standing and kneeling. My first thought was that there was no way in a hundred years that I was going to hit a small target 25m away. However, with a bit of guidance – and lot of help from the sight – you do fairly quickly start to get somewhere near the target. Consistently hitting the centre of the target – the minimum requirement if you’re serious about your shooting – is quite another matter.

We them moved onto the air pistol and air rifle over 10m. We all looked pretty good after the air rifle with nice shot clusters. The air pistol was very different as, unlike the air rifle, this involves shooting without being able to prop yourself up on anything. In other word, it’s a little more like the shooting you see on cop shows where you shoot with the gun in one hand extended in front of you.  Even at 10m most of us found it pretty hard to hit the target.

Overall, it was great introduction to rifle and pistol shooting. The only shame was that we weren’t able to do the other 2 (non-air) pistol events from the Olympics as these are illegal in the UK. Be glad of any advice as to where I can do these (and the double trap which is legal but which I’m struggling to find)!

As always feel free to sponsor me  - and help me to raise money for some really great charities:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DansGoldChallenge

Track Cycling-A Steep Learning Curve

One beautiful hot day in late March Jon, Rick, Jeff, Crispin, David, and I made our way down to the Herne Hill Velodrome – home of the track cycling at the 1948 London Olympics. The track is 450m long – compared to 250m for the Olympic velodrome – and the steepest banks are 30 degrees as compared to 42 degrees of the Olympic velodrome.

But before you even get onto the track, you need to get used to the bikes. These have no gears and, crucially, no brakes. The only way to slow down is to turn uphill or to gradually decelerate – which takes some getting used to. As does the fact that you can’t freewheel. In other words, if you stop pedalling the pedals still keep going round – which was to catch me out more than once as I tried to relax after a lung busting sprint.

Having just about got used to the bike, we then went onto the track. We started going round at the lowest level and then went higher and higher up the banks. The banks seem very steep and, at first, you think the bikes are just going to fall away under you.  However, the reality is that the bikes grip very well and you soon start feeling comfortable on even the steepest bit of the curves.

Next up, was learning to cycle as team i.e. in a line with everyone very close behind each other. This is a crucial skill as it means that everyone (other than the leader) benefits from the person in front’s slipstream. Which, in turn, means that you expend far less energy. However, as you need to be literally a few inches behind the person in front it also involves a lot of concentration and trust in the person in front and in your own reactions.

We were now ready to start on our 5 Olympic events :

-              Sprint – at the Olympics this starts with a flying 200m time trial. The fastest then proceed to a knock-out competition which sees very tactical one-to-one races. (We did both elements.)

-              Team Sprint (or Olympic sprint) – teams of 3 over 3 laps with the one rider dropping out at the end of each lap.

-              Team Pursuit – teams of 4 (3 in our case) racing over a number of laps with the time of the third placed rider in each team being the time that counts.

-              Omnium – each rider scores points based on how they do in 6 different events

-              Keirin – a 2km individual race where the first 3 laps are paced by a gradually accelerating motorcycle (aka a derny)

Between the practice laps, the sun and all the different events, it was a tough – but brilliant – 3 hour session. (About half way through I got a splitting post exertion headache – anyone know how to deal with these?).

To give you a flavour of what it was like here are a couple of quotes from the emails that went round afterwards:

“That was fantastic fun. I now have sunstroke and heat exhaustion. In March.” (Jeff)

“Likewise – I very nearly fainted when I got out of my car!” (David)

And the best news is that the public can do what we did and hire the velodrome and all the necessary equipment (including that derny!).

Please remember, you can help me support the charities NSPCC, Cancer Research UK, Oxfam, Right To Play and Scope by sponsoring me

You can sponsor me on the page below

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DansGoldChallenge

Once In A Life Time-Running At The Olympic Stadium

The Gold Challenge Event at the Olympic stadium was a wonderful way for us to say thank you to Gold Challenge participants and, judging from the feed-back, it was a great day for everyone involved. However, for me personally, it was also the chance to do all my flat track running. That’s 7 events in total – the 10 000m ; 5 000m ; 1 500m ; 800m ; 400m ; 200m ; 100m.

The total distance involved – 18km – was a reasonable challenge. But to make it really interesting we set ourselves the goal of doing every distance in twice the world record time. Not only did this mean that we had to run every distance at a good speed but it also meant that we had to switch running styles from a fast jog (for the 10000 and 5 000m ) to something akin to a sprint for the shorter distances.

So it was that 8 of us arrived at the Olympic stadium at 7 a.m. on 1st April – Rianna, Jon, James (from Sport England), Crispin, Jeff, Mick (from GLL), my brother Matthew and me – with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. We worked our way through accreditation and security and made our way into the stadium.

It really is something to walk into that stadium. I was lucky enough to have already had a stadium tour but there is something about being on the Olympic track in the Olympic stadium that’s genuinely awe inspiring. I almost forgot the pounding headache that had kept me awake almost the whole night (not the deal preparation for the runs ahead..)

Mick, who was a star throughout the day, warmed us up and, after a slight delay while we got permission to go, we started our first run – the 5000m – just after 8 a.m. There’d been some debate about the best way to sequence the runs but we followed the advice of Mick and his fellow GLL coaches and, in retrospect, the 5000m was the right choice for our first run. It got us thoroughly warmed up without exhausting us.

It was also the first test of whether or not it was possible to do everything in twice the world record. Paced by Mick and the others, I got round in 24 minutes – more than a minute inside our target. The others were good enough to let me ‘win’ the first race and, as this was the first 5 000m run on the track, I am now the proud Olympic stadium track record holder for the 5000m. I have a suspicion that Mo Farah may go a little faster come the Olympics but, for the moment, I’m the record holder!

Next up were the 1500m and the 400m. In both cases we got inside our target but the 400m, in particular, was tough. The last 100m of a 400m is a killer.

By 9.30 we were ready to start our 10 000m. Crispin sailed off into the distance but James and Mick held back to keep me company and we settled into a steady pace that allowed me a chance to take in the surroundings. 10 000m on a track isn’t necessarily the most entertaining of runs since it involves going round the same track 25 times. However, when it’s the Olympic stadium, there are some compensations. The acts from later in the programme were performing their warm ups, the stands were slowly filling up,  digital clocks at the end of each straight helped with the timing, and (disconcertingly) the video of my Gold Challenge to date [link] was playing on the huge video screen. Mick and James slowly cranked up the pace and we finished in 47m 36 sec – a full 5 minutes inside our target.

 Post the 10 000m we got to rest our aching legs and start to enjoy the day itself – [link to pics and video of the day?]. At various stages we went back onto the track to do our 800m and 200m – getting stiffer and more tired with each race. Eventually we came to our 100m.(Actually my second 100m race as I’d earlier had the pleasure of running the 100m with my family. Mary Peters stared that race and I was beaten to the line by my 7 and 9 year old girls.)

By now there were 20 000 people in the stadium, Simon (Head of Sport at the GLA) had joined us and we were running in the actual lanes that Usain Bolt et al would be running in at the Olympics. Surely time to put on a show and really give it everything? By now my hamstrings were screaming at me to take it easy and reminding me that they’d popped the last time I tried to run a proper 100m. I settled into what might generously be called a canter and crossed the line in a bit over 16 seconds. 4 seconds slower than I’d been at school but none of that mattered. We’d done it. We’d run every track distance at the Olympic stadium within twice the world record time.

The rest of the day was fantastic – lots of media, and a chance to enjoy the entertainment and the races. Finally, the Gold Challenge staff race and a last walk round the stadium with Fiona thanking everyone who’d attended.

A day I’ll never forget – huge, huge thanks to Sarah Fiona and the team in the office, everyone at FastTrack, to the hundreds of volunteers, to LOCOG, to my fellow runners and to the 20 000 who showed up on the day to run, to join in the parade and to spectate. Thank you all for supporting Gold Challenge and for turning our Olympic stadium dream into reality.

Please remember to sponsor me so I can support these brilliant charities, NSPCC, Cancer Research UK, Oxfam, Right To Play and Scope

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DansGoldChallenge