Hello, and thank you for visiting my JustGiving page. It's nice to have you here. Now give me your bloody money!

Here's the thing; I'm not a triathlete. I'm not really any sort of athlete. Being a cricketer, I barely qualify as a sportsman. So when my company (Fora) asked me if I wanted to take part in the 2020 Blenheim Palace Triathlon, I quite-quickly said no. Unfortunately, I have some rather insistent and annoyingly inspirational colleagues...

Despite my initial (and continued) fears, picking a charitable cause to support was much easier - particularly as the sum of my own personal health issues extend about as far as a root canal and eczema - which, let's be honest, maybe aren't worth completing a triathlon for. My Sister Holly however, hasn't been so fortunate... 

Holly has suffered with Crohn's disease since she was a young teenager. It's a truly horrible, debilitating affliction - sadly many people fail to understand the severity of what sufferers can experience. Despite two lengthy initial hospital stays when she was younger, she has been able to manage her condition.

Sadly, this all changed late in 2018 as my Sister entered the late stages of pregnancy with her second child (and my wonderful, beautiful Niece), Dolcie. A misdiagnosis relating to chronic abdominal pain ultimately led to an aggressive, unchecked flare-up in her condition, which created a string of severe complications. Shortly after the birth of Dolcie, her health began to rapidly deteriorate.

In February 2019, Holly had to endure two bouts of invasive emergency surgery to try and save what they could of her digestive system, and ultimately her life. Mercifully, she pulled through - but the road to recovery has been long, lonely and arduous. The trauma of what happened affects her and my family every day. She's getting better, but full recovery will take time - and sadly, further surgery.

So, whilst I'm vastly underqualified to complete any sort of physical challenge (least of all three physical challenges, merged in to one event), I'm going to throw myself at this, and in doing so, hopefully try raise some money and awareness for those suffering Crohn's Disease like my Sister, Holly. 

I've started my training, now it's time to start getting the donations coming in. Please donate any amount you can - every little helps and will spur me on massively. A quid is wicked, a fiver is awesome, £10 and I'm practically yours!

During the worse parts of her recovery, I would do my best to comfort her by plagiarising Nelson Mandela: "It always seems impossible, until it's done." I think I'm going to have to remind myself of that quote as I don my wet-suit...

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