How to chose a charity

I donate to charities, but the big fundraising events are not necessarily my game, although I greatly admire people who make the enormous effort like my friend Claire who will be doing LeJoG (that's short for Lands End to John O'Groats) on her bike.

However, I thought that once in a lifetime events like the Escape from Alcatraz (and eventually when I run a marathon) are a good enough reason and a big enough challenge to ask people to part with some of their hard earned cash.

The trouble then becomes to chose a charity. There are so many worthy causes: small charities, big charities, local charities, international charities, charities supporting young people, charities supporting old people, charities supporting cats and dog - you name it! All of them do fantastic work and with the cuts in government funding, many of them are badly affected and some of them sadly even have to close down. Theoretically, I would love to support them all, but that is practically not possible.

To get started, I came up with a few criteria myself:
It would be great if it was a local charity, if they supported young people, and if they enabled people to fulfil their potential. Additionally, I consulted the twittosphere and my facebook friends, asked triathletes and runners, and interestingly the majority of people pointed me to a father and son triathlon team - the highly inspirational Team Laws.

Now Team Laws have accomplished incredible feats in competing in triathlons with Ben towing, pushing and pulling Ewan round the course. They are showing that no challenge is too big not be overcome and through their engagement have inspired many people to take on challenges, that might seem just a little too big.

Team Laws are not a charity, but they are supporting MERU who have helped them tremendously in their daily life. So, I checked out MERU and - tadah!

It's a local charity - MERU are based in Epsom, which is pretty much just around the corner.
It supports young people - MERU support specifically children and young people with a disability
It enables people to fulfil their potential - MERU produce custom designed equipment, which is not commercially available to facilitate disabled children's and young people's lives.

And through Team Laws, they even have a connection with triathlon - so what better charity to chose!?

I appreciate every little bit of money that you are willing to give. Showing your support will be huge motivation for me. I have set up a wee fundraising page. On the page, the challenge of the Escape is outlined and hopefully, you will get a sense of how big this really is for me - it's one of those challenges that seem just slightly too big.

Travel Planning

In Germany we have a saying:

Wenn einer eine Reise tut, dann kann er viel erzaehlen.

Loosely translated it means, when someone goes travelling, then he can tell lots of stories. Which is entirely true. However, I've not even started travelling and can already tell lots of stories.

This is the story of travel planning to San Francisco. It starts in 2002. 2002 is when I had my last vacation. It was just before I started my job at a university in Germany. The vacation wasn't that great, I mean Turkey at the beginning of the year isn't brilliant. Since then I've just constantly used my holidays for studying (doing an internship in Barcelona, and a semester at a university in London). When I was doing my PhD in Scotland, my vacations mostly consisted of short-trips home to Germany to see my family. So the last time I was on a proper vacation was in 2002. Since then, I've been trying to make my mind up where I would go, once I had finished my PhD.

And let me tell you... it's difficult to make your mind up! How about South Africa... or... uhm... a beach holiday in Barbados, or a cycling holiday in France? Golfing in Portugal? Uhhh.... well, the problem of selecting a destination has been solved with the trip to San Francisco and the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. And it's everything I could hope for: I'm going somewhere I've never been and there's some action involved - can't really see myself just bumming about on the beach. One problem solved!

So what's left: uhmm... transport and accomodation. Fortunately, I've got friends in San Francisco, so I get to stay with my friend Cristina who magically lives just about a mile from where the ferry leaves and all the action happens. Next up flights.

This is the frustrating part. I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but travel websites are frustrating. They are supposed to offer you the best deal, but effectively you have to look at about 5 to compare comparison sites. So I looked up flights from London to San Francisco, and oh joy, there were some on offer for a lot less than £500 (that's my travel allowance). Only problem, they're at times when it's really hard to get to any airport on public transport. - Naturally.

Finally, I found one at decent times (10 am) and for less than £500. So click to buy... aaannnndddd... nothing. All of a sudden the flight goes from less than £500 to just over £600...how!? So that one's out the window. In the end, I found one that is within the price range and even leaves at decent times. 10 am out of Heathrow (yeah, I know it's probably Terminal 5). It gets into San Francisco at 5 pm(ish), so I have time to get to my friend's place, have dinner, settle down and then pass out.

The flight back will be a bit of a mission. It leaves 11.45 pm and is the Red Eye to Chicago. Then onto across the Atlantic getting me into Heathrow at 10.45 pm. I don't know whether this flight is such a smart idea, but it'll get me home and I'll have the whole Saturday to still enjoy San Francisco or whatever I'm doing. It also gets me back late on a Sunday night and I haven't booked annual leave for the Monday. I can see a zombie going to work and just be present. - Shouldn't say that, should I?

Only the problem with getting to Heathrow. There's always the tube, I suppose. At the moment, it seems to be my lucky time though. The day after I booked the flight, I got an offer in my inbox - half price train tickets for the Heathrow Express. Two bought, quick travel sorted. I might even be in my bed by a half decent time when I come back. - With any luck!

Training week starting 28 March 2011

This was week 2 of the new training regime. I won't make changes specifically for Alcatraz because I am still aiming to have a bash at the ETU qualifier, which is the week before. However, I need to build a bit of confidence for the swim and one major step was achieved this week with my long swim session:
I actually swam 2.58 km in my session, which is slightly more than from the boat to the shore. YES, I CAN! (I'll just shamelessly borrow that from Obama). Now I just need to decrease the time so that the boat doesn't have to bring me to the shore.

Maybe I shouldn't set goals for Alcatraz in terms of time and place and just race as well as I can and enjoy the experience. However, give that the swim is my weakest event, here's me setting one goal:

I do not want to be brought ashore by the boat that collects people after an hour!

Possibly my favourite workout of the week was the time trial intervals on the bike, it was sooooo good to be back on TT-bars. Haven't been riding on them in over a year. The new shorter stem also pays off.

The full training data is on my regular blog. Click here to have a look at it.

How it all began...

All good stories have a beginning. The beginning of this one is an entry to a competition for a brilliant prize sponsored by ZipVit and tri247. The task: answer a simple question to win race entry to either Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, New York City Triathlon, Washington DC Triathlon or Chicago Triathlon and a generous £500 towards travel expenses. 


Now with this kind of competitions it is always the case that I NEVER win. Ok, never is a lie... a couple of years back I was lucky to guess the winners of the Golden League right (something only 14 people on this lovely planet managed) and was invited to the World Athletics Final in Monaco. Since then I haven't won a thing, I swear. So I thought, what the heck enter this and the chances that I win are, well unlikely.


Based on this thinking I thought, so now, which one of these would I want to do? New York and Washington? Nah... been there, didn't really like either city that much (sorry New Yorkers). Chicago? I don't really know anyone there. Alcatraz? Well, it's one of the most challenging and iconic triathlons in the world, all my friends tell me I'd love San Francisco, I've never been there, the weather is likely to be nice (-ish) and I know someone there! So in my youthful enthusiasm, without actually looking at what this particular triathlon entails, I've plumped for the Escape from Alcatraz. Might just as well pick a real challenge!


Off the e-mail went - and then as usual, I forgot about it. Until...


I've actually had a rather miserable week with lots of negative talk coming from work. It wasn't all smelling like roses. So in my usual routine, I opened my e-mail over breakfast, nothing much in the Inbox, quick look in the Spam folder.... Uh? Congratulations on winning the ZipVit competition... Ah, yeah... one of those... nearly marked it and clicked "Trash". Then thought again... and just clicked to open.


The rest is screams. A rather pale girl slurping her coffee and eating her porridge. Reading again. 


I'VE WON!!! 


And it says I get to go to Alcatraz! Oh GOD!!


Now I'm sure at this point I could have changed my mind and said, well actually, let's do New York, but that thought never crossed my mind. Instead, I went and googled the Escape from Alcatraz... so many unanswered questions:


- When was it?
- How far was it?


Both questions made me gulp for 2 reasons:
I've been training, but not swimming a whole lot. I've just decided to plump more for sprint triathlons and give qualifying for the European Age Group Champs 2012 a go. So the beginning of June, was only 2 months away and it's right after the week for the qualifying race.
And second: I'm terrified of open water swimming. I manage in a lake, but I've never swum in a river let alone the SEA! A small detail I overlooked in my enthusiasm and belief I wouldn't win anyways. A whole 1.5 miles in the sea... oh dear.


However, that all kind of paled into the background! I'd won! I'd go to San Francisco! I'd get my vacation finally after 7 years of not having one and slaving away over my PhD, I'd get to go away! Somewhere nice, somewhere new, with lots of adventures on the horizon.