Paul Sander

My Gratitude is Immense

Sunday 10th Aug

We are now into the last month before the Great North Walk and as I feel sorry for my injured self I find myself also reflecting on what I owe other people.  For a start I am now within sight of my fund raising target thanks to the generosity of the people around me.  My work colleagues have been amazing.  From time to time I find myself wondering where my life would have gone if I had started working life at Teesside University rather than ending up there.  Even where we live in the far from affluent Teesside area has thrown up a couple of generous contributions for which I am very grateful, as have friends in the wider community, people from my worlds of cycling and running.  

The generosity hasn’t stopped there though: Alex’s rowing club have been amazing as have her contacts through her work, past and present.  Molly’s (my daughter) work colleagues and her netball crowd too were very generous.  People can be so wonderful.  Thank you, thank you.

Where would all this have gone without Alex herself?  Arguably the path that is leading inexorably to the Great North Walk started with my broken ankle in 2023.  Broken ankles are no fun: They are very painful and mobility is very seriously compromised.  Alex though rose to the occasion, looking after me, sorting out physiotherapy and insisting that I had a bone scan which showed some cause for concern.  It was that that played a big part in me deciding that I was going back to where I started in my sporting life, running.  

Then came the stroke when we were out in Mexico.  There Alex stayed with me for all the nights in hospital, sleeping on a chair and getting up at 3am to work.  She fought the hospital in its mean and callous attitude and the Travel Insurers for an equally mean and callous attitude.  You really don’t want a private medical system, even assuming that insurers pay up but that is another story.  I am not sure she ever beat the hospital but the insurers did eventually pay up, to our relief.  She organised Chava and his taxi to take me to appointments, to get prescriptions and even, memorably, to have my stitches taken out.  If that sounds like a moan at Mexico’s medical care, let me make it quite clear that the doctors and the nursing staff were beyond wonderful.  In particular, the cardiologist who diagnosed and fixed the (very large) hole in my heart and the neurologist who supported me through the scary, neurological side of the stroke were beyond brilliant.

Back in the UK she looked after me through my convalescence; selflessly drove her car the length of the Outer Hebrides supporting me, with Thomas (my son), on a recuperation cycle along the Hebridean Way and generally, on a day to day basis, making sure that I looked after myself.  Then, with donations seemingly stalled, she messaged her friends last night which brought instance success, bringing the fund raising target to within sight.  One way or another we will get there.

I suppose that what I am trying to say is that whilst I have done my best to train for the event, have coped with injuries supported by Momentum - phase 2 of the bringing me back to runner programme is even more gruesome than phase 1 which I didn’t think would be possible - none of this would have happened without the support of those around me.

I have just finished The Social Instinct by Nichola Raihani which was a refreshingly different analysis and consideration of us humans as not just a social animal but a highly cooperative ultra-social animal.  It was a book that I found very absorbing and one that taught me a lot and not just about ants, meerkats pied babblers, cleaner fish, naked mole-rats and termites but about the evolutionary nature of our own cooperative existence that has been so evident in my fund raising efforts for the Stroke Association.  What is the connection?  Well, put crudely and by a non-expert, if evolution is about the survival of the fittest, why would any animal help another at some cost to itself, even if the cost just the energy cost of a bit of time wasted?  Over the last 50 years the answer to that question has been thrashed out leaving behaviour such the the generous donations from all you wonderful people explicable.  Nichola Raihani offers a refreshingly new approach to that area of behaviour; cooperative behaviour.  Succinctly, we can help ourselves by helping others which I see as wonderful.  I feel good that I have tried to give back after a journey in which many gave so much for me.  Hopefully you all feel that your donations along with the time and effort given by Alex and some special friends, is worth while.  People can be wonderful.

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Oh dear, it is all falling apart

Thursday 7th Aug

An email from the Stroke Association reminds me that there is only a month until The Event, The Great North Run.  When I picked up a calf injury, I will say why that may have happened in a bit, at the end of May I wasn't too worried.  It dragged on a while but I was still thinking that I would be running by July and so there would be no problem.  Sadly the beginning of July saw the problem get worse rather than better.  I was receiving Sports Injury support from Momentum who have been brilliant but I am still not running when I was thinking, in July, never mind, I will be running by August.  When massages and some length strengthening exercises were not solving the problem, I was recommended a gait analysis which suggested the cause of the problem.  In an amusing little exchange, as I remember it, Momentum poked a bunion saying that that is not helping and nor, pointing at the other foot, is the ankle that was broken but what else?  Well, I suggested, I have been riding and racing bicycles for the last 35 years.  Well, there we have it!  Whilst I was quite a good runner, I am now useless because the legs have lost their running ability.  Cycling is a non-impact sport which, in some ways is good but in others catastrophic.  To be honest, part of my picking up running again was because running is an impact sport.  A bone scan after breaking my ankle showed that my bones were not as dense as they could be and that worried me.  Running was going to fix that!

To try and get me running again for the Great North Run, Momentum assigned me a programme of strength training with the assurance that I would not like it but I still had to do it at three times a week.  That was right, it was, at best, gruesome but it has become more manageable, presumably, hopefully, because my legs are becoming running stronger again.  I also am having a pair of orthotic insoles made which I am anxiously waiting for as, when they come, I will be called back to Momentum when I can have another assessment.  Maybe the legs will be up to running?  Until then, it was made absolutely clear, I was NOT to run.  I was to cycle though.  That point was just as emphatic so I haven’t been the impossible injured athlete, I have just gone back to riding my bicycle along with the weekly club time trial race in which I have seen my times come down to something almost respectable.  In fact I have become to buoyed by how I am going on the bicycle that I have entered an Open time trial race towards the end of the month.  However that is not running a half marathon for the Stroke Association.

I decided to run a half marathon because it was further than I wanted to run in this, my latest morph into being a runner and because doing something on the bicycle wouldn’t have been much of a challenge, well, without being something silly.  It has all turned out to be much more of a challenge that I had expected.  I had been following a training programme assiduously and slowly my ParkRun times were coming down, although not as fast as I wanted.  I know that I am not as young as I was (as the cardiologist reminded me the other week in my yearly check-up appointment) when I was a runner, a reasonable athlete, in my 20’s and 30’s, but I still felt that I should have been quicker.  Maybe it wasn’t just that I hadn’t done much running recently but because the legs were no longer running legs?  I will see when I can get training again - running training that is.

So, what now?  It is increasingly feeling that I won’t be running the Great North Run and cycling it is is neither permissible nor a challenge but I can walk so, if necessary I will be walking the Great North Run.  It isn’t what I set myself out to do.  I wanted to race to the best of my ability.  I knew that I was never going to run a 70 minute half marathon as I did years ago, nor turn out a then normal 72 or 73 (bad day) minute runs but I wanted to race it.  I wanted to feel tired, I wanted my legs to ache, I wanted to be aware of my breathing, of getting hot and sweaty, I wanted the focus on the event, I wanted to ignore the discomforts and pass people in front of me.  Sadly though that is not going to happen, at least not this year.  I will cross the finishing line though because that is what I set out to do and because so many people have supported me through generous donations to the Stroke Association.  I am though still £300 short of my target so please make my month before the race and help me reach that target.  Stroke survivors need our help.  I was lucky.  I survived even with a bit of my vision missing but life is going on pretty much as it did before.  Others are not so lucky.  Please, let’s do what we can to help.  Fifteen donations of £20 will get to my target.  Please consider being one of them if you haven’t already donated.  If you have donated, once again, a H U G E thank you!

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Trouble arrives

Monday 2nd Jun My training had been going so well and then a calf injury.  I rested for almost two weeks, went hill walking with no trouble, did a training session with no trouble at the time but the following day the pain was back.  I have booked a physiotherapy appointment with Momentum (now in Ponteland).  I was lucky enough to get an appointment for tomorrow; a cancellation I suspect.  There are still 3 months until the GNR so whilst frustrating the setback is not worrying.  I will be back on my feet, running soon I am sure.  What does hurt is that I had entered an event on the Northumberland Coast Path and a favourite race from my racing years four decades past, the Offa's Dyke 15.  I wanted some longer distances in the build up to the half marathon challenge.  Not the best, but that is life in all its unpredictability and I thought that I had been looking after myself so well. Share

Early days but preparation going well

Friday 21st Mar The Great North Run is still a good few months away which could mean time to build speed, strength and fitness or time in which the body could fall to pieces.  I am doing my best to fit in with the first of these two options.  To that end I am following a training programme through my Polar Pacer watch not so much for getting me out doing things but to stop my body (and mind) falling to pieces through overtraining.  So far everything is going well.  I have manage three cross-country races, I do a ParkRun most weekends and enjoyed them all.  I am just appalled at how slow I am compared to what I did when I really was a runner 45 years ago.  There are signs that I am getting faster.  I know that it is not going to happen overnight but I think it is happening, if all too slowly for patience-less me! Share

Half Way There

Friday 7th Feb This week, thanks to kind and generous donations from colleagues at work (Teesside University) and one from Mexico (where a pound is very much more expensive than here) have taken us over the half way point to my fundraising goal of £1000.  Of course, like the race itself, the first half is the easy half.  All my good friends and colleagues and indeed, some friends and colleagues of Alex's and Molly's have very generously made donations.  Now the net has to be cast further afield or maybe I have to make the message a little more emotive, to pick up the remaining donations.  If you have given, thank you so much.  If you haven't got around to it yet, please find a moment to donate, whether big or small.  It all adds up helping take me to my target - maybe quite an ambitious target. Share

A big thank you to all who have donated so far but there is still a long way to go

Thursday 30th Jan Alex and I are overwhelmed by the support we have received to date.  In 10 days we have raised a lot of money, really.  For my part, I have been running steadily, during the week to work along the river and at the weekends at Wynyard Woodland Park and Hardwick Park in Saturday's ParkRuns or often with Alistair for company.  It is wonderful to have a like minded person to run with. Share

Official Entry Done!

Tuesday 21st Jan I now have an official entry for this year's Great North Run.  Now I need two things: Firstly to train sensibly with the emphasis on sensibly to be able to perform to my best on the day and secondly I need your support.  This is fund raising project with the Stroke Association. Please help me help them so, in turn, they can help the many stroke sufferers who have been much less lucky than me.  Please support me Share

Monday Jan 20

Monday 20th Jan It is the start of semester 2 and the first day of my preparation for the GNR in September. It was a good start. Share