Concert!

First things first - a massive thank you to everyone involved in last weeks fundraising concert on Tiree, in particular to Gordon, Katie, John, Ishbel, Kenny and Gemma for their wonderful performance contributions, Gordon (again!) for the PA, Oliver for his support throughout and operating the backing tracks, the team of helpers who organised food, tickets, setting up/down, advertising, etc., everyone who donated raffle prizes, to the support of a lovely audience (it was a pleasure to perform for you all) and, especially, a huge thank you to Mum and Dad for their unfailing support and particularly to Mum for pulling the whole thing together - I couldn't have done it with you.

Now, drum rolls please, the total raised was a fantastic £709.93

A real boost to my fundraising total and I know this will go a long way towards the work of Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, Breast Cancer Care and Ovarian Cancer Action. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed.

I’ve been taking advantage of the recent spell of good weather to get out for some good rides along the canal – a good off-road surface but slightly lacking in hills. I may need to get a little way out of Birmingham to remedy that as it’s not known for being the hilliest place in the world…

Plans for the warm-up Coast to Coast cycle (Whitehaven to Tynemouth) are in place for the 6^th-9^th October – 137 miles in 4 days across the Pennines… not much then! I am delighted to be joined by Janet Finlay, Rachel Cowgill and Alan Dix, with support from Fiona Dix and Esther Dix.

I’m very excited about my forthcoming fundraising concert on the beautiful island of Tiree. The date is set for 30^th May and a number of special guests will be announced over the coming weeks – watch this space! All proceeds will go directly to the work of the three cancer charities so, if you are in the area, do come along for what promises to be a wonderful evening of music-making.

In other fundraising news, I have a matched giving pledge which will cover all the costs of the Kenyan trip itself, so you can be sure that every penny you give will go directly to the charities. Visit my fundraising page and give generously to support the fantastic work of Breast Cancer Care, Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust and Ovarian Cancer Action.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight some of the amazing work of Breast Cancer Care, one of the charities I am raising money for.

• Nearly 46,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year. That's one person every 11 minutes.
• Just over 12,000 people die from breast cancer in the UK every year.
• Breast cancer is the second biggest cause of death from cancer for women in the UK, after lung cancer.
• There an estimated 550,000 people living in the UK today who have had a diagnosis of breast cancer.
• In women under the age of 35, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer.

A few years ago, I spent some time in hospital on a surgical ward where the majority of the patients were undergoing mastectomies. The strength and cheeriness of these women through incredible adversity was inspirational, but one memory will stay with me forever. A young, beautiful woman with a young, beautiful husband and a young, beautiful child was admitted to the ward. They looked like the perfect family. Shortly after her operation, she returned to the ward and her husband came in to see her. He clearly saw her as every bit the beautiful woman she had been before, but she couldn't look him in the eye. It was such a sad but powerful expression of the pain that must go along with losing such a key aspect of our femininity and the impact that has on how we feel and identify with ourselves and others, and I have never forgotten that day. Breast Cancer Care work everyday to try and prevent any woman from having to feel that pain, to save lives and to provide key support, both emotional and practical, for women and their families who are fighting this battle even as you read this.

For more details of this charity and the work they do, please visit http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/about-us/who-we-are/ and then visit http://www.justgiving.com/mimcycleskenya and support their work and that of two other fantastic charities, Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust and Ovarian Cancer Action.

4 weeks in

It's been a few weeks of training and things are starting to get moving. Since coming back from Tiree, I've bought my own bike (a rather lovely Specialized mountain bike) and have been commuting to work for 2 weeks now. My speed is starting to pick up - I'm usually 10+ mph if I make the effort and I have pedalled up to 14mph on a nice long straight stretch - not sure how long I could keep that up for though... I'm gaining confidence in traffic by working on the general principle that I can't trust motorists actions and erring on the side of caution in every situation - probably slows down my journey sometimes but I'd rather get there a little slower but in one piece! I've been up the canal path a couple of times which can be very pretty when you get away from the city centre - I had to slow down for a heron the other day! Hoping to make it to Worcester (30 miles) at some point in the next few months - I know there will be a good meal waiting for me at the other end as I have friends whose back garden backs on the Worcester end of the Worcester-Birmingham canal.

In other, non-cycling news, I've joined Slimming World, as I decided I need to train myself with some new healthy eating habits to get rid of the excess weight. 2 weeks in and I've lost 6lb so something is obviously working. I actually got the Slimmer of the Week award last week and won myself a big bag of low-fat goodies as a reward. I've also joined a new gym, Bannatyne's, and had my induction there on Saturday. I've got a full cardio programme to follow for the next 3 weeks and then I'll have a review. They seem very helpful and a lot more proactive than Virgin was, though obviously I'm more motivated as well. They've also offered to help with publicity and fundraising via their PR department so you might be seeing me in the papers...

Today was a long day, with early morning gym session, cycle to work, full days work, and then cycle home. I was feeling rather lacking in energy by the time I reached the final hill, but I made it home. The real killer will be when I start teaching again in a few weeks, it's a good thing I like to be busy!

I don't have any major short-term goals at the moment, as I'm really working on basic fitness, but I'd like to be able to join Beacon Roads Cycling Club for their Intro Ride by February 2011 (i.e. one year before Kenya) and work up to their B Run over the few months following - I don't think the A Run (15-17 mph) is a realistic goal on a mountain bike and I'm not really going for speed anyway, endurance is the key. Even longer term, I'm looking at doing a Coast 2 Coast ride or similar as a 'warm-up' sometime in the second half of next year.

But for now, it's just the daily slog, trying to up my general fitness, lose weight and gradually build up speed and distance on the bike.

Please visit my fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/mimcycleskenya or check back to this page regularly for other events which will be going on over the next 18 months.

Week 1 of 80

I did it! Well, the first goal anyway, which was to do 8 miles today (Sunday), only another 240 or so to go... In actual fact, I surpassed the 8 miles with a 9.4 mile mini-circuit of the island on Friday - happily one of the stillest days we've had. Today's 8 miles was considerably windier but the promise of a cake stop half way kept me going! All in all this week I've done just over 35 miles which for the first week on a bike in over 10 years isn't bad really, though obviously a long long way to go still. I'm done with the Tiree cycling for now as I'm back home to Birmingham tomorrow but aiming to get my own bike sorted out before the end of August so that I can really get going. It'll be back to the gym until then - not quite the beautiful scenery I've had this week though.

So signing off from Tiree with thanks to Will at Tiree Fitness for the bikes, and to Chocolate and Charms, the Scarinish Hotel Bar, the cake ladies at Hynish, and of course Mum, for the sustenance on the way, and to Dad for the company and encouragement.

Please visit my fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/mimcycleskenya or check back to this page regularly for other events which will be going on over the next 18 months.

First few days

Whilst I've been trying to build up my exercise over the last few weeks since I signed up for the challenge, I count my training as officially starting on Saturday 31st July when I got on a bike for the first time in my adult life. I'm staying with my parents on the Isle of Tiree this week and my dad and I have hired bikes for the time that I'm here so I'm getting a taste of island cycling. The advantages of this over Birmingham is that there's less traffic and a lot better scenery. The disadvantage is the wind! On the first ride out on Saturday, I actually made a comment on the way out that this was all much easier than I'd been expecting. Then we turned around and cycled against the wind and after that I didn't have much spare breath for comments of any kind.

Partly because of the wind and partly because of my poor general fitness, the distances travelled have not been great - 2.3 miles on Saturday and 2.7 miles on Sunday. We managed 4.5 miles today as the wind was a bit calmer though it began to pick up again towards the end. The aim is to get up to 8 miles by next Sunday (my last day here) with a break in the middle.

I learnt a valuable cycling lesson today. There were a couple of small hills to negotiate on today's ride. My dad suggested I switch to a lower gear to make getting up the hills a bit easier. This would have been good advice except that his gear box was set up differently to mine and he showed me how to make it lower on his bike - when I did the same thing on mine, I actually unknowingly changed to the highest gear. Not knowing any better, I assumed that the increased resistance was because I was going uphill. It was only at the top that we realised what had happened. Oh well, at least I know that if I can push my way up hills on the highest gears, it should be a doddle using the correct ones!

And the challenge begins...

I recently made one of the crazier commitments of my life so far - to cycle 400km across Kenya in the Women V Cancer charity challenge. Now admittedly I have until February 2012 to train for this event but, as those who know me will recognise, at the time of writing I am incredibly unfit and, until 2 days ago, had not been on a bike in 10+ years - in short, not your most likely candidate for a challenge of this nature. Still, I've never been one to follow the expected route in life.

So here begins the challenge - a three-fold challenge according to the information pack sent to me by Action 4 Charity. Challenge 1 - fundraise to the tune of £2,800 (minimum) in aid of some very worthy causes (Breast Cancer Care, Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, Ovarian Cancer Action). Challenge 2 - serious training to get me to a point where I can even contemplate 400km in the saddle. Challenge 3 - actually complete the ride. Not much then...

I will be updating this blog regularly over the next year and a half so you can follow my progress towards all three aspects of this challenge. I will also keep you updated on the amazing work of the charities I am supporting. Cancer affects us all at some point in our journey and the work that these charities do could change your life or that of someone you know.

Please visit my fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/mimcycleskenya or check back to this page regularly for other events which will be going on over the next 18 months.