Raquel's 40 Race Challenge

I started this challenge with some pretty big events. I didn't plan it this way, the aim was to start small and increase the difficulty and intensity of the challenges as time went by and hopefully my fitness would follow. But somehow fate had other ideas and I managed to start with two triathlons and an absolutely epic Wolf Run. Where to go from here? RISE 8km Undercliff of course. A straight forward, flat and fairly short run, easy peasy. Thankfully an event that couldn't get more local for me if I tried and its my usual run route so I really didn't feel any pressure with this one at all.  Just before Wolf Run, I started a diet because I've realised that lugging around unnecessary weight really does make these challenges a damn sight harder. Anything that can make these challenges easier needs to be given a shot. So after three weeks of dieting and having lost half a stone I was really missing "bad" food and really really wanted to cheat. What was bad...

1st lake swim complete! What an incredible experience this was! Thanks to the amazing ladies that joined me on what was an extremely mentally challenging event. Rachel, Ash, Sarah, Nat, Sonia, Zingy, Nikki, Naomi, Debbie - you’re all my heros. In the lead up to the challenge one of my fellow team mates circulated this message on our whatsapp group and I thought it was a joke. I'd signed up to a 10km wildrun with obstacles. Not in a million years did I expect this warning: " You should be a strong swimmer to complete the lake swim during the Wolf Run - it looks a short distance but is very cold indeed and you need to be a strong swimmer to complete it ".  I honestly had no idea there were lake swims. Note to self..."I must check out these events in much more detail before entering". Its one thing knowing you're in for a lake swim (Southwater Relays) in a wetsuit and quite another doing one without one when the weather is colder. My bigge...

The anticipation in the run up to this event was huge and here's why. After completing my first ever triathlon two weeks earlier which went so well, I was hugely excited for the next one and couldn't wait. But semi-disaster struck a week after Southwater. My biggest fear, injury, raised its ugly head. I really didn't think this would be a problem so early on in the challenge. I had hip ache, knee ache and ankle ache and the worry of them all by event day gave me a headache! These are all old injuries of mine that I thought I had in hand and the devastation of them returning put a black cloud over me in the week running up to the event. I was literally swinging in roundabouts with what to do, compete or drop out? My heart said go for it and my head was obviously telling me the opposite. I left the decision right up until the morning of this triathlon and when I woke up, I felt ok (well as ok as you can feel with an alarm screaming at you 5am in the morning!) so I went for ...

 Event 1 of 40 - Well the day finally arrived for my first event of this challenge, after all the hard work of planning, organising, preparing, exercising and worry the fun bit was about to happen – yay! Southwater Relay is a slightly bonkers and fun and relatively short distance team triathlon set in the stunning backdrop of Southwater Country Park. Each team consists of three people or legs and each person completes the whole course and then tags the next person who then completes the course again and so on. I was the middle leg, leg number 2. The course is a 400m lake swim, an 18km bike around the roads nearby to the park and a 3.8km run. My team was chosen by Britri which is the triathlon club that my family belong to (mainly for my son as he competes in kids tris) but they have been fantastic supporting me and giving me advice. There were 30 of us from Britri so 10 teams and I’d never met my team mates before the day! A race report from Owen (leg 1) the previous...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8WpFGeP87cM&sns=fb Even though I felt elation at completing my first event of this challenge, and the shere exhaustion has been the sole reason up till now that the report hasn’t been posted yet. Yet tonight and the last 24hrs Klaire has been all I have thought about. I miss her so very much and cannot believe she is not here. I need my sister. I love this tribute video to her, I watch it every time I need to feel close to her. It doesn’t do her justice. God give me strength to understand what isn’t understandable. I cannot get over her passing. A person so loved and loving - one day I must come to terms with this. In the mean time, sorry for the delay in telling you what an amazing day Southwater was. I never imagined I’d actually do anything like that - that’s Klaire for you, the cause of something unexpected. It’s just brought a lot of emotions, at least I feel I’m going somewhere with them rather than sadness for sadness sake x

This 40 Race Challenge experience is already helping me make connections with others who believe in the importance of talking openly about suicide. Grassroots put me touch with Julia Thompson who is creating a 20 minute documentary exploring the impact of losing a loved one in this way and how we cope with grief in our different ways. Here's a pic of me filming her filming me! I've spent a few sessions already with Julia filming whilst I train for these upcoming challenges in my local area. Yes, some of you have spotted us on Telscombe Tye and at the Saltdean Lido!  The documentary is called "Sharing Hope" and I would love to share it with you on this blog once its finished. 

So why 40 events? Well it all just seemed to fit.  Everyone has these milestones in life where bucket lists come to the fore and they always seem to happen when we start nearing the decades.....30, 40, 50 etc! And I am no different. I had such an unbelievable bucket list when I was young. By the time I was 30 I wanted to learn how to fly a helicopter, learn to scuba dive and learn to play polo, to name just a few. The latter two I did actually achieve of which I am rather proud. As time has passed my bucket lists have become a little more down to earth such as to "be happy and content" and to "go on holiday abroad with all of my four children, on a plane" yes, on a plane, which I did this year, hooray! Now I'm nearing 40, the race to achieve things outside of ordinary life is on again.  But this milestone is different. My sister passed away when she was 40 and I am dreading heading closer to this age, not because I'm getting older but because once I turn...