12 months. 12 events. One Cause.
For those that don’t know me, hi I’m Chris. This is the start of an eventful 2018. I’ve finally decided to put my fitness, determination and resolve to the test and participate in one big(ish) event every month, all in aid of the Stroke Association.
I’m going to share the highs and lows (although hope there won’t be too many of those), the smiles and tears and hopefully raise awareness and a bit of money along the way for a really important cause.
Leading a normal life
I’m really lucky. I turned 40 this year and have managed to get by in life without any significant life changing personal or family illnesses. The odds have really been in my favour.
16 years ago I was diagnosed with arthritis. In the early days I was on some pretty horrible medication. Since then though, the drugs available to me have got a lot better in terms of side effects. So as well as managing my condition, I largely go about life not really noticing my illness.
I haven’t had to make many adjustments and to be honest whilst I’ve had some ups and downs, I’ve managed to stay relatively active and lead a pretty normal life. As I said, I’ve been really lucky.
From tiddlywinks to swimming
I’ve always been obsessed by sports. Watching, playing, talking about it. It’s been a big part of my life. When I was young I was also quite good at sports. I pretty much played everything and anything. If there had been a school tiddlywinks competition I’m sure I would have given it a go.
Judo was the big thing our family did. That and fishing (yes an odd combination). Other than my mum, we all did Judo at some point throughout my childhood.
The challenge for me when I was young was that I didn’t want to be bad at anything. At the age of eight or so, I remember not being moved up to the bigger pool in school swimming lessons when most others in my class had. That was it, swimming wasn’t my thing and I promptly stopped going to lessons, something I’d regret later in life.
Throughout the next 31 years I learnt to swim as most adults do with things in adulthood, really badly. I now have two young children, Ania and Kasper, and so it felt a bit wrong taking them to swimming lessons every week saying it was really important they did it.
That all changed just over a year ago. For the my 39th birthday, my wife Kasia, bought me what turned out to be probably the best present I’ve ever had, three swimming lessons with Dave Quartermain from USwim.
I remember stood at the end of the pool at my first lesson with Dave saying, ‘off you go Chris’. He was awfully kind but I know what he was really thinking when he saw me take the plunge!
Fast forward 12 months or so and I’d have to say that learning to swim properly has really been life changing. I can’t explain why but it feels like a barrier has been lifted and my enthusiasm for sports and events is more than it has ever been.
So you’ve probably worked out by now I kind of like sports. Kasia thinks I’m a bit obsessed and that I think about nothing else. Friends are saying I’m going through a mid-life crisis and my colleagues are surely getting fed up of me going on about the next training session, event or the amount of malt loaf I need to eat each day.
Changing my perception of stroke
This is all good but to be honest I’ve been quite selfish. I do lots of events each year. I’ve haven’t really contemplated doing my events for charity and do them because I can and want to push myself. So, with my health and fitness still good, I felt it was about time I did it for something more meaningful and more important.
I work for Well Pharmacy. Our corporate charity for 2018 is the Stroke Association. As a national pharmacy business with nearly 800 stores we can use our expert knowledge and skills to truly make a difference to people throughout the UK who are at a risk of stroke. Many of our colleagues and customer are also impacted by stroke in some way every year. Our CEO, John Nuttall is one of those.
I didn’t know much about stroke until recently. I probably still don’t know enough. At work we have TV screens around our offices sharing business updates and other news. I remember very vividly when I first joined, the facts about stroke that were shown on these screen.
There are more than 100,000 strokes in the UK each year; that is around one stroke every five minutes.
Stroke is the fourth single leading cause of death in the UK
Stroke is a leading cause of disability in the UK — almost two thirds of stroke survivors leave hospital with a disability
The NHS and social care costs of stroke are around £1.7 billion a year in England
A few weeks ago I went to the Stroke Association Life After Stroke Awards where my perception of stroke was changed dramatically. They are held annually to recognise organisations, professionals and carers for the truly amazing work they do to prevent stroke as well support stroke survivors.
They also celebrate the brave and courageous stroke survivors. Their stories are heart wrenching and show the greatest strength and determination to prove their is life after stroke. There are so many stories I could share. The ones that stuck in my head most were those where the doctors said that the individual would never walk again, yet they walked out of the hospital. It is truly humbling and inspiring. I guess this is partly because I couldn’t imagine not being able to walk again let alone not do the sports I do.
A long road ahead but it’ll be so worth it
Something about all this has pushed my buttons and so is why next year I’ve set myself the personal challenge to participate in one event every month for the whole year.
My year is not totally planned out yet but it’s safe to say the first five events have me worried a little.
So this is what it is looking like so far
Jan 7th : Central Lancashire New Year Half Marathon — Preston
Feb 18th: Great North West Half Marathon — Blackpool
Mar 15th — 18th: Tuscany Lucca Escape (4 days bike ride 380km)
April 22nd: Virgin Money London Marathon
April 29th: IRONMAN 70.3 — Marbella
April is looking pretty feisty to say the least!
The rest of the year is yet to be confirmed and welcome any recommendations or challenges. I’ll probably do a couple more triathlons and a big openwater swim. I’ll keep you posted.
Raising awareness as well as fundraising
Our goal in 2017 as a business at Well is to raise £250,000 for the Stroke Association. We’ve made great progress getting close to half this figure. With over 7,000 colleagues and millions of customers I’m confident we can smash this figure in 2018.
But it not just about fundraising and so I will be blogging regularly as well as working with the Stroke Assocation to raise as much awareness as I possibly can throughout the year.
I’m not setting a target of how much to raise but I’d like to do something extraordinary and also maybe encourage others to take part in these events too. I’ve set up a Just Giving page if you want to show your support.
Feel free to follow me on twitter, LinkedIn or my blog to see how the training is going and of course how I get on at each event.
Finally, many people think that strokes only happen to older people but stroke can strike anyone at any time.
While most people who have a stroke are older, younger people can have strokes too, including children. One in four strokes in the UK happens to people of working age.
There are lots of things you can do to reduce your risk. Visit a Well Pharmacy, your GP or any local pharmacy and get your blood pressure checked. It really could make all the difference.
Until the next training session or event, stay healthy, stay active.
