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Sam Blanchard joins us to today to talk about a unique challenge and how he’s planning to train for it. His ambitious plan has never been attempted before and he’s hoping it will raise awareness of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, an issue very close to his heart. Sam is a fantastic physio with a wealth of experience in elite sport. He’s also a Man United supporter but we won’t hold that against him! 😉
Follow Sam and his adventure on Twitter – @Trisleofwight and via his website thetrisleofwight.com.
This is not a story of a couch potato who suddenly wants to prove something to the world or has been given an ultimatum by his doctor to dramatically change his lifestyle, I am fit and healthy and I love going to the gym. On a good week, I go up to 6 days a week. But herein lies the catch, I sit well within my comfort zones. I have probably lifted around the same zone for the last couple of years, give or take a few kilograms. I have never followed a program, I have never trained for a specific event, I am not part of a team. My comfort zone involves long rest periods, frequently checking my phone, stopping early if I don’t feel like it.
So with that in mind, let me introduce myself and my challenge…
I am a physiotherapist who for the most part of my adult life has lived in East Sussex, a brief spell in the United States and then in Scotland. But I was born and raised on the Isle of Wight in the South of England. From an early age, I picked up a level of competitiveness from my Dad who was always in great shape, he was chairman of the local cycling club for 7 years and would frequently go to France to race in the alps. Growing up, I had two strong connections to my dad, a love of Manchester United (no don’t go, please keep reading…it won’t get mentioned again) and going to the gym. My dad taught me about gym etiquette, basic anatomy, reps and sets, good form for lifting and as a young lad, I always wanted to be as strong as he was.
My dad now has Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a rare condition that affects around 3 in 100,000. Or So we think. PSP is an aggressive and degenerative disease that falls under the umbrella of Parkinson’s… but only because they don’t fully understand it and it quite often gets misdiagnosed. So that number may actually be a lot higher. Where Parkinson’s is located to the basal ganglia, PSP affects the whole of my dads brain; personality changes, impulsiveness, his speech is quiet and slurred, his sight is going (he struggles badly with double vision), he finds it difficult to eat, he struggles badly with his balance and as such, his mobility has rapidly decreased, he is now wheelchair bound. So in a very short space of time, everything he loves to do has been taken away from him.
So I wanted to do something that was a testament to him & to raise awareness of his condition.
I am going to swim around the Isle of Wight (96km), cycle around (93km) and run across (42km)…in 3 days.
The guy who doesn’t do programs and stays in his comfort zone is going to have to adapt pretty sharpish!
The first thing I needed to do was get advice. So I have recruited some very knowledgeable members to a growing support team. Mike James (@theEndurancePT) and Chloe Pollard (@chloenpollard) are helping with the specific event training for the triathlon. James Butterfield (@JButterfield_) is my S&C and is looking after the gym side of my training (more info on all the team here). So when you are starting from nowhere and need to reach bonkers distances, where do you start?
The bike:
The bike for me is probably going to be my go-to choice of the three events. I have spent a career in professional sport designing rehab programs for injured athletes and more often than not, the bike is a mainstay of the early rehab. So, I’ve spent many an hour sat on a watt bike with athletes working through intervals or long slogs and I seem to do quite well. Which is probably down to dad again, that was his event after all. I would be naïve to dismiss or take the bike event for granted, so I will certainly be building up the hours and miles on this through my training. In the early stages, I am using the bike as a form of recovery, trying to get distances in the legs but not specifically working to any intensity just yet (that will come in the new year). I’m estimating it will take me around 5-6 hours to do the 93km but this is where it becomes difficult.. the bike event will be after the swim!
The swim:
96km.
That’s 3,840 lengths of a 25m pool.
In open water.
Perhaps that is why this is the event that seems to have caught most peoples attention!
I need to get exposure to swimming in the sea, with waves hitting my face and learning about currents and tides. But I don’t have the miles in me to do an effective open water swim this early. I am also pretty sure I have a SLAP lesion or transverse humeral ligament tear from an old surfing accident. So to start, I am going really basic. I have two 1.5km swims that move through different intervals and strokes, I am starting this immediately and depending on my reaction to the reps and rest time, Chloe is going to manipulate the program from there. The aim is to build up the distances through the winter period and then tackle the open water in mid-spring, although I am hopeful of an Indian summer and getting some sea swims in before it gets too cold.
I won’t be able to practice a 96km swim before the event, so Chloe recommends building up to 2x 40km swims back to back. Another clash of my preferred training style… I like variety.
Luckily, I have James to create a bespoke training program for me. The key for me to withstand the repetitive swim is going to be a foundation of upper body strength. Nothing overly complex, working through lots of pull-ups and lat pulldowns, variations of shoulder press and on the advice of Chloe, lots of triceps to help with the pull in the swim. Cramp would be a killer to the challenge so as a nod to a physio cliché, I am working on load tolerance and capacity.
But alongside the tolerance for swimming, which at some stage is going to become a 2x a day training, at some point, I am also going to have to introduce marathon training. I best get used to double sessions. And being inside my own head!
The run:
There is a famous event on the Island in May called “Walk the Wight”. From the Eastern tip to the West, its 42km. That’s a marathon. So, that’s my intended challenge, to take that route (not on the same day of course!). After the swim and after the bike, a tip to tip run of the Island. I am not known for my running, the furthest I run is from the subs bench to the centre of the pitch when there is an injury. Also, my friends delight in telling me I have the smallest calf muscles on the planet. I don’t have strong legs at all. So for me, despite the length and duration of the swim, I think the run intimidates me the most. The good news is, I have time on my side, I can plan for an extended marathon prep of just over 20 weeks, which for a summer challenge would see me start my running training with some structure around the new year. My intention immediately is to treat the preceding months as a “marathon pre-season”. I can structure a gym program to build some size and capacity into my legs that will protect me during the incremental running distances, equally, this will transfer nicely to the bike too. Now that doesn’t mean I’ll be avoiding running. I plan to include some high-speed work as part of my hamstring focus, which might also help me grow some calves too.
What now?
So, September is looking like a heavy bias in the gym (yay, comfort zone) albeit a first for me to follow a program. Two days of uppers, two days of lowers, two days of swimming. Alongside some swimming familiarisation (hopefully getting a few open water swims in), sprints as part of my leg day and using the bike as a recovery modality. From October, I really need to start fine-tuning the swimming. This where the mentorship of Mike will come in as I look at the number of double days, periodizing the training, avoiding fatigue and mental burn out.
What’s next?
I’m hoping to use blogs like this, YouTube (see video below), Facebook & twitter (both @trisleofwight) and instagram (@thetrisleofwight) to record the highs and lows of the challenge and would love for you to follow and share your thoughts, re-share what you enjoy and find interesting and please help me in my mission to raise awareness! We are affectionately calling supporters “TRIsle Blazers” and you can become one by subscribing to my website www.thetrisleofwight.com
I have a growing list of things I need to consider; getting a bike (I really am a novice at this), a turbo trainer to help in the winter months whilst watching inspiring documentary’s like Free Solo, an open water wet suit, but top of the list is sorting out my nutrition. I will gladly take on some advice from those more experienced than me. A number of issues worry me here. I need to make sure I am eating enough to recover from my training to enable a decent work out the next day, but more importantly will be the days leading up to the challenge. Not only will I need to get enough calories to finish the swim, I will be loading for the bike and marathon that will be just around the corner.
Thank you for reading this far, I look forward to the comments but I’m going to challenge you – think of an adjective that isn’t “mad” or “mental” (I’ve had loads of those messages)!
