This time next week I should be able to call myself an Iron Man, having completed the Challenge Barcelona event - that's a brisk 3.8km swim in the med, followed by a 180km on the bike (that'll be over 7 hours of continuous exercise), then topped off by nice marathon to warm down.

Please help motivate me as I attempt this feat by pledging money to the BHF - a charity that has special meaning to me and my family.

When I was a tenager my Dad survived a stroke and was successfully rehabilatated - only 1/3 of stroke victims are so lucky. The remainder either die immediately or are permanently disabled. It's thanks to the BHF that these odds are changing as they support recover from and research into cardiovascular events. 

I know that my heart is relatively healthy - how do I know for sure? Because I offered myself up as a lab rat in a study run by the University of Hertfordshire looking at dietary changes among 'normal' individuals over nine months of training.

This means that in addition to the ridiculous volume of training that I've put in since January, I've been tested, bled, proded and probed in more ways than I'm fully comfortable in sharing online:

 - deeply unpleasant VO2 max tests (bike or run on a treadmill, going faster and faster until you cannot go on any more...and then a bit more, to check those tears are real)
 - hour-long bike time trials
 - blood (and other bodily fluid!) samples
 - ECG scans, flexibility measurements, and other assorted prodding and poking
 - five whole weeks off the booze - including my birthday!

It's all for a very worth cause (science!), as well as my own personal fundraising. If you can make a donation, however small, it would be greatly appreciated - and I promise to swim, bike and run as fast as I can!

P.S. I'm hopeful that there will be live tracking available during the event - so check back and I'll post up a link to my splits that you can follow on the day :-)

Event website is here - no live tracking yet though: http://www.challenge-barcelona.es/en/event/14