<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>JohnLevison - Tri247</title><link>http://www.tri247.com/index.html</link><description>Latest articles submitted by JohnLevison on Tri247</description><item><title><![CDATA[Looking for inspiration?]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3335.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[From time-to-time we all need a good kick up the rear, a bit of motivation or something to inspire us. You know the score; racing slower  than you expect, training becoming a drag and perhaps the urge to do anything  about it at rock bottom. Nothing is really wrong as such, but you just hit a &amp;lsquo;down&amp;rsquo; and need a chink of light to show you the way.

As athletes, the performances of others is often the source and as a sports-mad guy, I often get a real buzz that way. For example, I&amp;rsquo;ve never been in a rowing boat in my life, but I was shouting and screaming with millions of others when Steve Redgrave crossed the line (with a little help from Cracknell, Foster and Pinsent!), for Olympic gold number five. I never  realised how emotional it made me feel until several years later and it was replayed on the TV. Gary Herbert&amp;rsquo;s commentary &amp;ldquo;the Italian&amp;rsquo;s are coming!!&amp;rdquo;, as  it looked so close at the finish, set the hair on my neck on end. As they crossed the line I was in tears &amp;hellip; and this was years later and I knew the  result!!

Last Saturday evening I had another one of those &amp;ldquo;kick up  the arse&amp;rdquo; moments. I was doing some research (hopefully the boss is reading, and is impressed with my dedication&amp;hellip;) on the Open Water Swim World Champs held in Seville. The 10km event debuts as an Olympic sport this summer and there are plenty of triathlon connections. The report highlighted the success of two British athletes qualifying for Beijing (silver and eighth), and then almost casually mentioned that &amp;ldquo;South African amputee Natalie Du Toit also qualified for Beijing after finishing fourth&amp;rdquo;. HELLO!!

Remember her? Commonwealth Games 2002 in Manchester and she  made the final of the 800m &amp;hellip; after losing her leg in a motorcycle accident the year previously. And here we are again &amp;hellip; except this isn&amp;rsquo;t the Commonwealth  Games, it&amp;rsquo;s the World Championships. In an Olympic discipline, du Toit  finished, after just over two hours of swimming, less than one second from the  podium, and barely five seconds from gold. 

Impressed? You should be. Open water  swimming isn&amp;rsquo;t going to be an easy (in a medal sense) event. Both Grant Hackett  and David Davies, gold and bronze respectively in the 1500m in Athens, raced in  the men&amp;rsquo;s event, as all of the world&amp;rsquo;s top distance pool swimmers seek an  opportunity to medal. Oh, and the legend Hackett didn&amp;rsquo;t make Beijing&amp;hellip;

It&amp;rsquo;s not often I stop in my tracks, but reading that was incredible, and leaves Natalie with just one remaining ambition. Ironically for  triathlon readers, it&amp;rsquo;s to be able to run&amp;hellip;

I&amp;rsquo;ll leave you with a poem I found on Natalie&amp;rsquo;s website a coach had given her:
  
The tragedy of life  does not lie in not reaching your goals;
The tragedy of life lies in not having goals to reach for.
It is not a disgrace not to reach for the stars;
But it is a disgrace not to have stars to reach for.

Time for me to set a few goals of my own, I think &amp;hellip;
Livestrong,
John]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Aqua-gone?]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2945.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[It&amp;rsquo;s not been a great time for the International Triathlon Union (ITU) of late. Originally scheduled to last until at least 2014, providing funding of at least $2 million a year, in January the ITU announced that its global partnership with natural gas business, BG Group, would end in December 2008. One result is a loss of the title sponsor for the World Cup Series and World Championship Events.

This was followed only days later by the announcement that the planned ITU World Cup Event in Hyde Park this year had been cancelled, due to problems in raising the necessary funding and sponsorship requirements to run the event. With 2008 being Olympic year, and Hyde Park being the venue of the 2012 Olympic triathlon event (and this year due to be the first of the test events at the venue), it isn&amp;rsquo;t great publicity. For the UK, this is further compounded by the absence of Salford from the World Cup calendar&amp;hellip;due, ironically, to scheduling issues caused by the Beijing Olympics!

While the rights, wrongs and implications of the above can (and have) been discussed elsewhere, one thing that grabbed my attention, was an apparently &amp;lsquo;regular&amp;rsquo; announcement from earlier this month &amp;ndash; the 2008 World Aquathlon Champs are to be held independently of the ITU World Triathlon in Mexico on June 28th. Last year the aquathlon championships were also held as a separate event (again in Mexico), when Hamburg were apparently unable to fit them into the schedule alongside the Standard and newly-introduced World Sprint Championships.

I&amp;rsquo;ve nothing against aquathlons, quite the opposite &amp;ndash; they are fun to race, need minimal equipment, are easy to organise and, as British Triathlon have shown, are an excellent talent spotting tool. But it&amp;rsquo;s rightful home, in my opinion, is alongside the &amp;lsquo;real&amp;rsquo; World Championships. As a championship, aquathlon has only ever really been a junior partner: the warm-up act if you like to the main event: the ITU Standard Distance Champs. Usually held a few days prior, and often used as a warm-up by age groupers. Holding a standalone World Aquathlon event, in my opinion, diminishes its standing and credibility further. If you were a female age grouper in 2007, you were almost guaranteed a &amp;lsquo;World&amp;rsquo; medal, simply by turning up and finishing. Honestly, only two ladies didn&amp;rsquo;t medal&amp;hellip;

So, I say to the ITU: either put it back where it belongs or bin it. There are quite enough championships around as it is.

My own training has been mixed of late. After making some good progress during December and early January, including a fair number of running events, I managed to pull my calf at the Wendover 5-mile race. I had a slow, painful (and miserable&amp;hellip;) hobble to the finish. Apologies to club-mates Dave, Melissa and Oliver if I was a grumpy so-and-so after the race! The last month of running has been swapped for regular physio treatment - after putting in some consistent treadmill sessions it is frustrating being stopped in your tracks, and feeling like you have to start all over again.

That said, I&amp;rsquo;m still REALLY looking forward to the 2008 season! Strangely, having decided (well, Colette persuaded me) that trying to do an Ironman this year was just too soon on the recovery process from 2006, I&amp;rsquo;m really looking forward to competing with no pressure. Forgetting Ironman for this year is absolutely the right decision and a weight off my mind.

I know I&amp;rsquo;ll enjoy the club TTs, sprints and relays or anything else that sounds fun. With a bit of luck, I&amp;rsquo;ll also manage a half Ironman somewhere too. Variety is, of course, the spice of life and one of the main reasons I love this sport. Whatever your plans for the year are, enjoy!

Livestrong,John]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Three years in the making]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2626.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Last Friday, 9th November 2007, was one of the best days of my triathlon &lsquo;career&rsquo;. It wasn&rsquo;t a race, and I didn&rsquo;t even go training.

By day, I work for Barclays Bank at Canary Wharf. Back in November 2004 I suggested that spinal injuries charity ASPIRE would be a worthy recipient of our charity efforts. My interest in this charity was via a friend of mine, Paula Craig (now MBE), who was greatly assisted by ASPIRE when she suffered a spinal injury and was paralysed in 2001 when knocked off of her bike, training for a triathlon.

Within my business area (Treasury), we had undertaken &lsquo;big&rsquo; charity events in 2003 and 2004, raising &pound;10k to &pound;12k, with gym based rowing and cycling challenges involving the whole of the Treasury team. I had no idea what we might do in 2005, but knew that I could easily &lsquo;sell&rsquo; the merits of ASPIRE as the beneficiary of our efforts. In early 2005, the rest of the Treasury Charity committee agreed with me.

In June 2005, we were very fortunate to have Jessica Penney from Aspire come in to Barclays and present to Treasury about Aspire, spinal injuries and the great work they do. This was followed by an amazing talk from Paula Craig herself &ndash; one of the most inspiring people I&rsquo;ve ever met. I don&rsquo;t think anyone who was there will forget it. So inspired was our Treasurer that on the spot he increased our target to &pound;20,000&hellip; The challenge was set!

Our objective was to raise enough funds to pay for the conversion of a house under the Aspire supported housing programme. Spinal injuries patients will often spend 6-18 months in hospital following injury, and when discharged are often unable to return to their own home and live independently. By offering an adapted house for up to 12 months, Aspire is able to remove this obstacle in a constructive way, while permanent accommodation is sought. This doesn&rsquo;t come cheap &ndash; it can cost &pound;20,000 plus to undertake such a conversion.

So, how were we going to raise the money? Well, we quickly came to the conclusion that a triathlon of some description was the way forward, but what and how? Myself and work colleague Jeremy sat down to try and come up with a plan, which we expected could take some time and a lot of head scratching. Just two minutes later, we&rsquo;d got it!

&lsquo;Treasury Ironman&rsquo; was launched &ndash; five teams, over five days to complete five &lsquo;ironman&rsquo; triathlons, consisting (virtually) of three of London&rsquo;s biggest sporting events:

ROW: the University Boat Race
CYCLE: London to Brighton... ...and back
RUN: the London Marathon


The event would be undertaken within the gym here at Canary Wharf and, after a lot of organising, nearly 100 members of Barclays Treasury took part, with some showing surprising degrees of competitiveness!!

Importantly though, the fund raising efforts made were staggering. We honestly wondered how on earth we could possibly get close to &pound;20,000. Thanks to everyone&rsquo;s efforts, on 19th October 2005 (which purely coincidently was my birthday&hellip;), at our post-event party I was able to present Aspire with a cheque for &pound;25,000 (which later rose to approx &pound;27,200). An amazing effort by everyone, and something I&rsquo;m very proud of, as should everyone be who took part. Our efforts were recognised by the bank with a Barclays Chairman&rsquo;s Award.

Fast forward another two years, and after a huge amount of planning, negotiating, research and work by Aspire, Estuary Housing Association and many others, those efforts have now been rewarded. The house was opened by Brian Carlin (Chief Executive of Aspire &ndash; himself an active triathlete), Paul Durkin (Chief Executive of Estuary Housing Association) and James Duddridge (MP for Rochford &amp;amp; Southend East) along with invited guests on Friday 9th November. This was the ninth Aspire House to open.

The houses&rsquo; first tenant, Steve, is already in place and has been in the house for a month. Steve is 37 and suffered a motorcycle accident earlier this year. He gave me a tour of the house, and it&rsquo;s very impressive with kitchen, bathroom, garden, access, etc all adapted as required for the needs of a wheelchair user. He is in the process of looking for permanent accommodation and is exceptionally pleased with the house and hugely grateful &ndash; without it he would now be in a care home and unable to live independently. Many more people like Steve will benefit from this house in the years to come.








So, it really was &lsquo;three years in the making&rsquo; but the benefits will be recognised for much longer.  If you are looking for a worthy charity cause, I can highly recommend working with ASPIRE.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Small steps]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2228.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Looking around the Tri247.com team, I realised that everyone appears to be &amp;lsquo;tri-ing&amp;rsquo; around the World, except me! Our editor was out in Lanzarote (don&amp;rsquo;t mention the journey&hellip;!) with the head of the house (Iron Jen), Richard &amp;lsquo;Stan&amp;rsquo; has been, well, all over the place while still managing to win Windsor, and Paul Shanley is now an Ironman. And Mr Trew? Well, he&amp;rsquo;s currently living it up in Bermuda!! Nice work if you can get it.

As Colette mentioned in her recent update, our nearest thing to a training camp involved a gorgeous Caribbean island, a beach, and an all-inclusive package. Happy Days.

I feel like I&amp;rsquo;m missing out, as in years past I&amp;rsquo;ve competed in Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, South Africa, USA, Malta, Italy and Finland amongst others. No &amp;ldquo;big event&amp;rdquo; this year to look forward to and focus on. This is proving to be a recovery season for me &ndash; it&amp;rsquo;s been difficult to get back to fitness after last year&amp;rsquo;s cancer &amp;lsquo;interruption&amp;rsquo;, and the weight I gained during that period is proving tough to shift. I seem to be doing the reverse to Lance in this aspect!

That said, I have managed to do a couple of &amp;lsquo;events&amp;rsquo;. The Milton Keynes Open Water swim was fun &ndash; the Big Cow team really seem to have the balance of quality/commercial event and fun/relaxed atmosphere spot on. It took me 2 attempts to finish a 10-mile time trial, after my new bike punctured 2 miles into the first one. Attempt 2 was pleasing though: I managed to dip under 26 minutes in what was my first bike race of any description since Roth 2005. This was way ahead of my expectations, and I thought 23 mph+ was pretty good considering this time last year I was in the middle of chemotherapy. Hopefully, there will be more to come in the weeks ahead.

Last night was &amp;lsquo;step 2&amp;rsquo; of the return, a multi-sport race. It was just a small event: a club Aquathlon at Eton College. Now, I&amp;rsquo;ve never been much of a swimmer, but failing to overtake anyone on the run either was a change I could do with out! It&amp;rsquo;s difficult to accept running at over 7:30 per mile when you&amp;rsquo;ve done half marathon&amp;rsquo;s at sub-6 minute pace before, but as I keep reminding myself, you can only do what you can do at the time. Hopefully my running legs are there, deep down somewhere, though it may take another year to find them. I went for a run this morning &ndash; didn&amp;rsquo;t find them today either!

No major plans for the rest of the year &ndash; I&amp;rsquo;ll hopefully do the National Relays with the club in August, which should be fun. I last did these in the early 90&amp;rsquo;s when I was student at Loughborough. We have about seven teams entered and so we should have a great weekend. After that, I may even consider doing a whole triathlon (without breaks&hellip;) before the season finishes. It will certainly be a short one though! Again, that will be another step to tick off on the recovery trail.

One thing you can be sure of though is that I&amp;rsquo;ll be out and about at the races &ndash; I may not be competing myself, but I&amp;rsquo;ll have my stopwatch and notepad to hand, to keep on top of the news. Don&amp;rsquo;t be surprised if I come and have a chat to you either &ndash; I don&amp;rsquo;t bite (!). We are keen to hear from the Age Group ranks, and keep people up to speed with the news and views from this great sport. Oh, and if it appears I seem to know more about your old race results than you do, I&amp;rsquo;m not a stalker &ndash; I&amp;rsquo;m just a &amp;ldquo;statto&amp;rdquo;!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[The bright side of life?]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1591.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Blog 2 and I don&rsquo;t know what to write... Not strictly true, it&rsquo;s just &lsquo;how&rsquo; to write it that&rsquo;s difficult.

By now, many of you will have read of the untimely and sudden death of 29-year old triathlete Dave Aitchison, a member of Ful-On Tri Club. I didn&rsquo;t know Dave. I&rsquo;m certainly not fast enough to have ever considered myself a competitor of his. Yet for the past week I don&rsquo;t think a day has passed without Colette and me thinking of him, and all of those that loved him.


Maybe it&rsquo;s because he was young; and I&rsquo;ve still got a few more years till I hit &lsquo;Vet&rsquo; status myself
Maybe it&rsquo;s because his downfall was a heart condition; and I&rsquo;ve got my own ongoing problems on that front 
Maybe it&rsquo;s because he&rsquo;s a triathlete from London, like me


But it&rsquo;s not really any of those. What has struck me the most, are the words written by everyone on the condolences page of Ful-On&rsquo;s website, and the words spoken by CB (Dave&rsquo;s girlfriend) in the Evening Standard. What comes across, through all the sadness, shock, heartache and pain is... ...joy and happiness.

What seems clear to me, is that not only are people speaking highly of the fun times, laughs and experiences they shared, now that he&rsquo;s gone -- they also shared and appreciated all of that while he was here. I think that&rsquo;s the most striking legacy he can leave.

There&rsquo;s a message in there for all of us &ndash;- which can be difficult when you&rsquo;re running (or cycling, or swimming...) around trying to deal with life&rsquo;s ups and downs / mortgage payments / latest injury / stress at work / inability to run off the bike / packed trains: 


Take a few moments to realise what you have now
Share your feelings, appreciation and love with the people you care about. Now.
See problems as opportunities for solutions
They are not hills; they are opportunities to gain leg strength...
Whatever &lsquo;cards&rsquo; you&rsquo;ve been dealt in life, play them as well as you can


I can&rsquo;t claim to be a role model on any of the above, (in some areas I fail miserably), but sometimes something, or somebody comes along to remind you of what is REALLY important in life.

So, to CB, Dave&rsquo;s family and friends, Ful-On Tri Club &ndash;- thank you for the dignity and courage you have shown all of us over the past few days, you are an inspiration.

And Dave -&ndash; Rest in Peace (but only between training sessions).

LiveStrong, John &amp;amp; Colette]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[John & Colette's Blog - Alcohol, the new wonder fuel]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1536.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[A new year, a fresh start, resolutions and all that... It would be fair to say that 2006 wasn&amp;rsquo;t the best year for either us, but things happen, and &amp;ldquo;what
doesn&amp;rsquo;t kill you, only makes you stronger&amp;rdquo; apparently.
Hydration strategy 
Colette decided (but only after we&amp;rsquo;d had a great NYE Party), to cut out the wine, at least for a while, and kick 2007 off in a healthy manner. For me, just finishing one race would be one more than 2006. As I don&amp;rsquo;t remember making any such rash commitments towards alcohol (non)consumption, a friend&amp;rsquo;s birthday party would be a first attempt at role reversal&amp;hellip;
Given it was a Saturday night; we decided we wouldn&amp;rsquo;t be too late home &amp;ndash; still wanted to make the early Sunday cycle. The usual start to the evening with Colette driving us there (it&amp;rsquo;s usually me that drives back) and while I enjoyed a glass or two of champagne with birthday girl Helen, Colette looked wildly happy (probably&amp;hellip;) at the diet coke she had.
Off into town and Tapas was the food of choice. When in Spain (well, Weybridge)
do as the Spanish do, and polish off the first carpaccio with a glass or two
of Sangria. Lovely! Colette sipped away at a mineral water. Helen didn&amp;rsquo;t
waste her time saying how great it was being seated between the only two &amp;ldquo;teetotallers&amp;rdquo; in the house (even though Colette is a fraud really!).
&amp;ldquo;Red or White&amp;rdquo; was the next fluid replacement option (still thinking
about hydrating for the morning ride, of course). Well, white wine looks (a bit&amp;hellip;)
like water, so white it was. And a glass or two gracefully helped along the prawns,
lamb, chicken and salad that seemed to keep appearing before us. Colette had
hit the bottle by now &amp;ndash; apple juice, obviously. 
Time for a quick coffee back at the Helen&amp;rsquo;s house, and all being well
we&amp;rsquo;d be back home around midnight, fully prepared for a nice Sunday ride.
Coffee it was, initially at least, before even more bubbly. And suddenly someone
had moved the clocks forward to 2:30 am and I seem to remember dancing, very
badly. Oh Dear! Looked like Colette would be on her own for the morning ride.
Radical cure 
Somehow, after barely four hours sleep, I was getting ready to meet for the
Sunday ride, with my Sangria/Champagne/Wine hydration strategy still making
itself known inside my head, while Colette was&amp;hellip;&amp;hellip;ill in bed!
No worries, I could manage a steady 30 miles or so. Money in the pocket, a
mid-ride coffee would surely provide any boost required.
35 miles in and it was clear that today was definitely a &amp;ldquo;non-stopper&amp;rdquo; (oh dear, no caffeine&amp;hellip;) and, what&amp;rsquo;s more, we were miles from home. And going up a lot of rather steep hills. Plus, I was about to bonk with a hangover &amp;ndash; never good for performance. Emergency chocolate needed! Thankfully a shop appeared, and I was stopping and didn&amp;rsquo;t care if anyone else was. Two Mars bars consumed in a PB time. Good job too, as we ended up at close to 55 miles for the ride.
So what did we learn? For me, well, I&amp;rsquo;m clearly a lightweight and should
stick to the soft drinks. Oh, and I can&amp;rsquo;t dance. For Colette, all
that well intentioned water didn&amp;rsquo;t seem to have the galvanising effect
that many a glass of wine has had in the past, as she didn&amp;rsquo;t even make
it out of bed. 
Next time I&amp;rsquo;ll drive, and normal service will be resumed.
Livestrong!
John and Colette are age groupers who race for Hillingdon Triathletes, but
that&amp;rsquo;s only the obvious part of their story. John has been involved in
triathlon since 1990, and is a 4-time Ironman finisher, with a PB of 10:39. He
is also involved in the organisation and volunteer side of the sport; a former
Chairman of East London Triathletes, currently Secretary and Webmaster for Hillingdon Triathletes, and a regular time-keeper and general &amp;ldquo;statto&amp;rdquo; at many events during the year. In 2006 his triathlon progress was &amp;ldquo;interrupted&amp;rdquo; following a diagnosis of cancer which is now in remission following 6-months of chemotherapy. He is now back in training for 2007.
Colette started in triathlon in 2001, competing in many local Sprint distance
events and recording several overall wins. 2002 saw a move up to Standard distance,
but her season was almost completely wiped out after being (incorrectly) diagnosed
with a brain tumour in July. Despite this, she took up her place in the team,
and competed in her first World&amp;rsquo;s in Cancun that November. 2003 saw her
best season to date, including several overall race wins and course records in
road running and triathlon plus Silver medals at the National Indoor Rowing Champs
and World Age Group Duathlon Championships in Switzerland. After two years out
of the sport with health complications, 2006 saw a tentative return to racing,
including the World&amp;rsquo;s in Lausanne. In 2007 Colette is hoping to recover
her 2003 form, whilst juggling her Physiotherapy studies.]]></description></item></channel></rss>