Edit (3rd Sept): I have hurt my neck and have reluctantly had to postpone this challenge until 10th October.  Thankyou to everyone who has supported me so far... hopefully I can get back to training very soon.

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Jenny gave birth to our second son Josh in May last year.  It was such a happy time for the family, but over the course of the next few months, things started to change.  Jenny had some health problems which doctors were struggling to diagnose, and the resulting worry was just one factor that ultimately contributed to her suffering from Post Natal Depression.  It’s a horrible illness that not only affected Jenny, but it sadly turned our once very happy family into something quite different.  It’s not something we discussed with many people, but for several months it was very difficult to feel so helpless, witnessing Jenny suffering so much with her mental health.

Jenny was put in touch with Acacia, who are a local charity who support women and their families suffering from Pre and Post Natal Depression.  From September last year to March this year Jenny attended regular sessions that included everything from befriending, to an amazing CBT based course with other mothers in the same situation, combined with activities such as crafting and mindfulness, all whilst Josh was safely looked after in an adjacent room by volunteers.  

We all know what happened later on in March with Covid-19, and just a few weeks after Jenny had returned to work, she was suddenly furloughed and my work stopped dead for the foreseeable future.  It wasn’t long before Jenny was taken off furlough to return to work full time, but very sadly this was primarily to carry out huge levels of redundancies, which was not pleasant for her at all.  Thankfully throughout all of this Acacia were able to maintain a level of support over the phone and by this time Jenny had been making significant progress.

So then moving this story onto me… 

There I was, suddenly without any work in the diary for the entire year, with a 5 year old to home school and a 1 year old to look after at the same time, whilst Jenny utilised my office.  What a massive shock to the system that was, and I’m not ashamed to say it wasn’t too long before the stress of it all started to take its toll on me a bit too… I was getting very short tempered with the boys and was quite shocked when I realised I was displaying quite a few other signs of anxiety.  I felt the bombardment of negative news generally, and constantly seeing the dire situation of my work life being played out on social media, was pretty bad for my mental state.  As you may have seen, I uninstalled it all from my phone and threw myself into my new life of home schooling, babysitting, shed building and exercising… something I hadn’t done for several years and it was starting to show!

I bought a rowing machine, and started training pretty hard in the evenings once the boys were in bed.  I saw the Olympic rower James Cracknell had done a marathon on his rowing machine and thought I might have a go at training to do one myself, and perhaps raise some money for charity.  My weight has dropped 2 stone in the process!

So here we are… I’m feeling much happier again, mostly because Jenny is in a far better place emotionally thanks to Acacia, but also because I stopped dwelling on the dreadful work situation and decided to instead make the most of a golden opportunity to spend quality time with the boys and get fit.  At the same time, my 40^th birthday has been looming… how to celebrate that at a time where we’re all social distancing still? Anyway, and sorry it’s been a LONG story, but I’m going to row my marathon… a whopping 42,195 meters (26.2 miles)… on the morning of my 40^th birthday (4^th September).  I’d like to use this occasion to raise money for Acacia to simply say thankyou in a way that will allow them to carry on offering support to other families, and at a time when they have seen a dramatic fall in any fundraising during this period of lockdown and desperately need some income too.

So surprise surprise I’m asking for your help please!  Any size donation at all would be really appreciated.  If you might have possibly bought me a birthday drink if we’d seen each other out and about on the day, then perhaps you might consider donating the cost of a Jameson & Coke!  If you can spare a touch more, then that would be amazing!  This challenge is tough… really tough actually.  I have built myself up to being able to complete 30,000m so far and the pain I had in my backside for the second half of that was making me seriously doubt whether I can do this.  I won’t be setting any British records unlike James Cracknell, but really want to complete the distance within 3 hours 30 minutes.  For anyone who has spent time on the Concept 2 rowing machines, hopefully you can understand how that amount of time on one isn’t the most pleasant way to spend your 40^th birthday…. So please, anything you can spare to make it feel worthwhile and help Acacia, who helped my family so much, would be really appreciated.

THANKYOU for reading all of this… 

Love and best wishes

Colin x