Life from Harriet!

I have just watched an amazing inspirational video. It's worth a blog all on its own. http://tinyurl.com/jzzop23

It is stories like this that have prompted me to participate in Ride London and ride from London to Paris for Bloodwise and raise money for reseach into blood cancers and care for the suffers. Please support me by visiting https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/

Thank you

The Gospel of St.Rava - Training progress for Ride London and London to Paris 2016

Its been and interesting week week. Four training sessions, two indoors on Wattbikes at Cadence Performance (Crystal Palace) and two on the roads of South London. All of them started before 7am with me on my Giant Defy 3.

Thanks to Jack (Tuesday) and Rob (Thursday) the Wattbike sessions have seemed more brutal than the FTP test a couple of weeks ago. Tuesday's interval session of sprints followed by 4 x 4 minute 'zone five' efforts followed by max sprints seemed bad https://www.strava.com/activities/517479725 until Thursday, when Rob decided that it would be 10 max out sprint sessions in 40 minutes https://www.strava.com/activities/519164974 But, each of these tortures did have the appropriate warm up and cool down sessions.

What have I learned? First, I can keep going even when I thought there was no more to give; second my legs will turn the pedals at 154 rpm if I try hard enough, that will generate 740 watts and sent my heart to 160 bpm and I can still ride home afterwards.

Then finally the 'inside out effect' is that my road session this morning on my standard 18.6 mile training route, while not fast, was the fastest I have ever managed at an average of 15.7 mph in the gospel according St.Rava! https://www.strava.com/activities/519975588

Hopefully this will turn into Ride London in about five hours (dream on) and keeping up with the fast group on the Paris ride.

The whole enterprise is so I can raise £2000 for medical reseach by Bloodwise into Blood Cancer. Please do visit my justgiving page https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/ I am 15% towards my goal of £2000 and would really value your support.

New hope!

I am using the following with permission from Martin Abrahams who is writing about his daughter Jess and the bone marrow transplant she has had within the last month. It is a moving story. A.L.L stands for 

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

I am doing the London to Paris (L2P) ride this year to help children like Jess

Martin writes: "I did L2P in 2014 whilst my daughter, Jess, was in maintenance for A.L.L. For those that don't know, Jess relapsed in September 2015 and since then we have been preparing for a bone marrow transplant and now we are 29 days post transplant. Jess is responding well. 

smile emoticon
"The reason I am posting here now is because despite all the odds Jess is still going, thanks to research and thanks to the one donor in the world that was a 10 out 10 match.
Jess made a thank you card for him; in return he had already written a few words but our transplant co-ordinator couldn't share them until we decided to make contact. It has been translated from German.

"My family and I want to pay it forward, as what he has done for us is priceless, so if this message helps motivate anyone with regards to the fund-raising or indeed the training, then it was worth sharing."

I am pleased I can raise money to help children like Jess. Please support Bloodwise by visiting my just giving page and sponsoring me. https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted2/

below is what the bone marrow donor wrote to Jess

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello

Dear patient

I wanted to write a few lines for you today.

I am 57 years old, male and come from Germany.

I wanted to help and give you my bone marrow whole-heartedly.

I myself have children and even grandchildren and all are doing well. I am glad every day that passes that they are well and I love them more than anything.
I hope you are better soon and you will be healthy and you can live your life like any other human being and experience all the beautiful things in this life.

So in conclusion, I wanted to tell you that I'm really happy that I have been able to help someone else in this world.
It wasn’t easy for me to write these words but it was important to me to write a heartfelt message.

All my love,

Your donor.

Left behind on the hills!

I love being out on my bike and especially riding with friends.

The problem is that I am almost 15 years older than some of the friends I ride with and even more than that for a few others. The result, I get left behind when ever the road starts to climb. So a year ago I decided I needed to do some proper training and on 26th April 2015 I joined Cadence Performance at Crystal Palace. The aim was to stay up with the group but that has turned into the higher goal of being able to ride from London to Paris to raise money for Bloodwise, the blood cancer charity.  (I am the one with the beard!)

Proper training now includes WattBike sessions early in the morning (7am) twice a week. WattBikes are indoor instruments of torture designed to help you understand how well you cycle. You can monitor the power output of your legs, the relative balance of pressure on each pedal and your pedal stroke; not to mention heart rate. they also enable you to be tested. I have been introduced to the mysteries of FTP, MMP and training zones; none of which I knew existed before last year. 

This is a bit technical but the cyclists will understand I hope! I did a Functional Threshold Power test this morning at 7am at Cadence Perfomance Cycling and survived. My Maximum Minute Power has increased from 244W last August (based on a ramp test) to 262 W in Nov (from an FTP test) to 288W from today's FTP test. I am pleased with the improvement. Thanks must go to Jack Lynch the coach who has lead the Tuesday morning sessions so well; even if he did take us through sprint intervals before the test today. It's on Strava so it did happen, you can check it out

Why does the power increase matter you ask (or not as the case may be)? The first part of answer is that hopefully I can ride up hills faster because I can put more power on my pedals. The second and more important part is being fitter and getting to Paris. My aim is to raise £2000 for Bloodwise who support people with blood cancer and fund research into cures and treatments.

I need your help to reach my fundraising goal. Please will you help beat blood cancer and support my ride. Thank you.

Cooking with gas!

I've been struggle for months!

With what you might ask - the answer may surprise you. I have had only one oven on my range cooker working and that's been a pain. How could I bake bread and cook dinner at the same time? What was I to do when different courses, of the meal I was preparing required different temperatures and different cooking times?

The "nightmare" (but I can't really call it that can I?) has been going on for ages - we even had to survive over Christmas with only one oven  - came to an end today when a flame failure device was replaced. The cooker is not very old - under 5 years -  but gets a fair amount of use. I bake bread several times a week and eithermy wife or I  cook our meals from scratch mostt days. We rarely eat out and have a Chinese take away a couple of times a month.

So why am I bothering to write about such a mundane occurrence as a cooker repair? The answer is that I could not help wondering about what the effect of the money I had spent on repairing my oven might achieve in Sierra Leone. That country has been on my mind a lot since I agreed to cycle 80 miles to support the work of Medair.

The World Bank estimate gross national income (GNI) per capita for Sierra Leone is $340. This translates to over 72 percent of the population living on less than $1 per day, in extreme poverty.

I spent £165 or almost $250 to repair my cooker, that is all  the money the majority of the someone who is part of the "72%" has to feed, clothe and house themselves from today, 29th January, to 6th October. If I did the same calculation on the cost of the cooker it would be all the income the same person would have from today until 24th September 2019.

It really is unimaginable poverty for us and our lifestyles unimaginable wealth for them. But if we add to our thinking the genuine nightmare of Ebola then perhaps you can understand why I am cycling 80 miles in the "Wiggle No Excuses Sportive" to raise money for the Medair response to this horrific disease .

Please will you support my ride and donate £27 or whatever you can afford to help Medair respond to Ebola in Sierra Leone. It's a desperately poor country as I hope I've been able to show you and we, in the West, are so rich in comparison. You will find more details details of how your gift and my ride will help at https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted1 Thank you.

Lesson from a fire blanket

 UN published figures show that the infection rate for Ebola in West Africa is dropping, the BBC reported on 15th January.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-30830129

This is great news, but the question comes how should you and I be responding?

My early morning training rides for the Wiggle No Excuses Sportive - I am riding 80 miles to raise money for Medair's Ebola response - are great times for me to think. This morning's inspiration came from a fire blanket so I looked for a video that would help me make the point! 

The key to the effective use of a fire blanket is not just to put it over the fire, it is to keep it in place until you are sure that the fire has really gone out. The presenter in the video I have posted says "leave the blanket on the pan for at least 30 minutes."

The Medair "Family Infection Prevention and Control Kits" can be pictured as 'fire blankets' starving the Ebola infection of the 'oxygen of contact' needed to reignite the fire of the epidemic.

Please sponsor my ride on 21st February. I am looking for 160 people - one for each half mile - who will fund one Family Infection Prevention and Control Kit. Each one only costs £27. Please do give today via my JustGiving Page https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted1/

What cost a cup of coffee!

How many cups of coffee will you buy this week? The “average” price, in London¹, for an Americano is £2.40, Cappucinno £2.70, Mocha £3 and Double Expresso £1.90 – but what price Ebola?

Sierra Leone where Medair is working is a major coffee and coco producer but a recent article I saw talked about families fleeing from farms because of Ebola, with the result that crops are rotting.

The effect of Ebola in Sierra Lone is far wider than the tragic deaths of the 3145 people who have died to date. The impact of the 10340² cases so far will have a long term repercussions in the country. Crops of coffee, coco and rice will need re establishing so that those who survive the current crisis have a livelihood.

But urgent help is needed today for families whose loved ones have contracted the disease.

Medair is providing infection prevention and control kits for families in Kontorlah, just outside Freetown. Each kit costs £27 which is why I want to challenge you to support me as I ride 80 miles in the Wiggle “No Excuses” Sportive on 21^st February.

Please will you donate the cost of 2 cups of coffee a day for a week! That's approx £27 – the cost of one infection prevention and control kit.

I am going to cycle 80 miles in day and donate my entry fee of £33 for the event to Medair. My aim is to have two people support me every mile each giving the cost of a kit. If that happens, together we will provide 161 infection prevention and control kits for vulnerable families

Please make your donation at https://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Maxted1 (my just giving page)

Coffee does not cost much but Ebola is costing lives!

1http://www.londontoolkit.com/blog/eats/coffee-shop-chains-in-london/

2http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/case-counts.html