A few end of year notes

Realisation is a great thing, in this fast changing world, days, weeks and months can go by in what seems a blink of the eye. It’s good to stop every so often to take it all in and realise what your life is all about and what is important to you. Life can seem monotonous and just the same thing over and over, then you have a change-over moment where things click in your head and you realise some changes need to happen in order to progress. If new year is your change-over moment, grab it with both hands.

I don’t do new year resolutions because I think they’re a bit tokenistic and are made to be broken.  Adopting life changing new routines and making them habit will have a much profounder effect on your quality of life and well being.  I want to live my life a little bit better each day, it’s true that you are what you continually do (Aristotle), so do it well and you will be well.

I set personal goals all the time, and I try to attack my daily goals knowing to achieving them will lead me to realising my dream, the dream being the ultimate goal of the time. Seeing a dream is important to maintain focus and motivation to attack daily goals, I see my dream every day and night, each time I see it makes it seem more real. I can feel it and smell it, it is me and I am it.

Have a prosperous 2012 and whatever want to achieve in it, have a damn good crack at it and make it memorable.

That is all for now.

Half Man Half Machine (what does it mean?)

Well what a difference a year makes, this time last year I was stuck in the house due to tons of snow. I was trying desperately to stay in peak condition for the coming World Championships by doing various exercises in my bedroom with a single 2kg dumbbell. Thankfully so far this winter there have been no such weather related dramas and I’ve been able to get on with training quite happily – well, when I say happily I obviously mean whinging like hell after every brutal session, mostly to Rachel who gives back minimal sympathy. I guess it is my job, but everyone moans about their job at the end of the day.

I’m very much looking forward to the new year, when I’ll start throwing my big balls around – medicine balls, in case you were wondering. Then by the spring I’ll be starting to try and remember how to throw again, which is always an exciting time after months of dumbbell war in the gym. Before then though there’s plenty of body pounding work to get stuck into.

There’s been plenty of discussion around the results of a recent Scope survey where the results suggested only 18% of disabled people are excited about the Paralympics and 65% think the Paralympics should be combined with the Olympics. I’m not one to shy away from an opinion, so here it is, look away now if you don’t want to know it.

Firstly, I’d like to reiterate a point that has been raised with me, that the survey sample was very small and could in no way be representative of all disabled people in the country. So with that in mind, I’m pretty confident that most disabled people especially young disabled people are excited and inspired by the Paralympics. In my experience watching someone with similar impairments doing things you might not think possible creates a great connection and renews belief. In terms of combining the two, I’m completely against it and make no secret of my belief that integration between disability sport and able-bodied sport doesn’t generally work. I think if anything this survey highlights the need once again to convey the complexities of Paralympic sport more effectively to the general public so they can understand what is going on before they watch. Channel 4 are currently doing a great job of presenting all the sports and athletes.

However, Paralympic sport is complex, and you can’t really change that, and I wouldn’t want to change that – the beauty of the Paralympics is that it caters for a massive range of disabilities, allowing fair competition between people with a similar impairment and whom can’t compete with able-bodied athletes, certainly not to Olympic standard. That is how I view the Paralympics, the latter part is a bit fuzzy at the moment, especially with what Oscar Pistorious is achieving in sport. The question is should you be able to compete at both Olympics and Paralympics, it’s a similar argument to the integration discussion, so I don’t really agree with it. It comes down to the fact that it works on a very specific level in certain circumstances but it can never be wholly inclusive, any integration would result in exclusive disability events/sports/athletes being chosen to take part, and that would massively harm disability sport.

The IPC are already cutting events and classes in the Paralympics to make it more accessible to the watching public, but there is a danger that we start to lose what makes it uniquely great by doing that. We don’t want a situation where the Paralympics becomes almost like the Olympic B event and remember why the Paralympics was founded. It should be the pinnacle of any disabled athlete’s career to compete at the Paralympics, which is why I believe if a disabled athlete can compete at the Olympics, they should not need to compete at the Paralympics.

I might be completely biased, and I am, but for me there is something awe-inspiring about watching guys who would struggle to make a cup of tea or tie their shoe laces throw a club over 25 and 30 metres. In the Paralympics there are endless events like this that make it so special to watch, and combining it with the Olympics would dramatically water this down. What we need to say is yeah, to watch Paralympic sport you might need to do a bit of homework on classification and rules to get it, but once you gain an understanding you will enjoy watching it – I think that’s pretty true of any sport.

Anyway, on a similar note of inspiring disabled people. I was back at Remploy recently to unveil a plaque marking the opening of their new showroom at Newcastle. I also helped to launch their baton relay, which tied in with the International Day of Disabled People on December the 3^rd. The idea is to spread positive stories about disabled people and the great things they’ve achieved. To find out more and get involved go to http://www.facebook.com/Remploy – where photos and stories are being posted. Here are some photos of me receiving the baton from David Gooding and with other inspiring disabled people and employees at Remploy.

That’s all from me, next time you here from me we’ll be in the year 2012 – OMG!

Have a sexy Christmas and a dirty new year.

P.S If you haven’t seen my advert for Channel 4, it is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBKKPUCdsOw

Testing

Here I have a hand
with so many scars,
it would take so many hours
to work out the journey we’ve had
to this point. What happens now
is up for grabs.
And with both hands, grisp,
grasp and clasp, maybe collapse,
to get the thing that seems so
insanely important at this specific moment
of my being.
I clash with everything
until it is in my salty palm,
only to instantly drop and start
reaching up again.

Gary Speed

Driving back from London yesterday we heard the news that ex-Newcastle United player Gary Speed apparently took his own life. This terrible news was greeted with general horror and shock that such a well adjusted and stable person had seemingly chosen to commit suicide. So much was the shock that my mam almost crashed the car, and it took a while for me to accept that it was true. It is still hard to comprehend and I cannot begin to imagine what his family and friends are going through. All we can do is offer our best wishes and pay tribute to a man who touched many lives and who lived his life as well as anyone would love to aspire to do.

In his time at Newcastle United I got to know Gary pretty well, we weren’t close friends but I would often see him at various events and dinners, and he would always stop to talk. We had great mutual respect for each other as sportsmen. Gary was generous with his time, no more so than when he came all the way to the Benedictine social club in Cramlington to do a charity talk-in for Cerebral Palsy Sport as a personal favour to me. He came on his own with no club official guarding him or insisting how long he could stay, he got lost on the way but calmly stopped at a local petrol station to ask where to go. Once Gary got to the Bene we took to the stage together and answered questions from the floor. All the questions were for Gary, probably because I knew pretty much everyone in the room and everyone was so excited that Gary Speed had come to their club. Gary stayed for hours, he was comfortable and light-hearted, we raised over £1000 that night and people still talk about it now as it was such a great night.

Gary had a difficult start to his NUFC career but he ended it a hero, which sums up his character. I hadn’t seen Gary for many years but I know had our paths crossed he would’ve come straight over to talk and ask how my throwing was going. I was gutted when he left NUFC, you could not help but to look up to Gary Speed, a man who was everything to aspire to. He was a man who gave so much to so many people, and a life that ended far too soon.

We might never know why this terrible thing happened, but we will remember Gary.

Acceptance

Well, I’m about 4 weeks into winter training and I’m still alive and well. To be honest I’m better than alive, I’m happier than a pig rolling around in the proverbial. So far everything about this winter has been positive, even NUFC are doing scarily well with an almost unbeaten league record (Man City doesn’t count as they’re cheating with all their spending) and 3rd in the league for the first time in donkeys years – I’m eager to get those statements in my blog before our next 2 games, and before the Tottenham game tonight, although by the time you read this we may well be down to 4th.

As usual the thing that I dedicated most of my precious spare time and money to tried to push the self-destruct button recently, with the corporate renaming of St. James’ Park. I’m not too fussed about it, it will always be St. James’ Park to everyone who knows of it and if someone wants to put a lot of money into the club to get their company’s logo on the side of St. James’ Park, so be it. There, glad I could clear that up.

So it’s coming up to 9 months until the Paralympic Games next year, nine months that will go very quick. In a weird way it’s like I’ve just become pregnant and am going to give birth to an awesome performance in 9 months – I’m already getting cravings, mainly for digestive biscuits.

This year we have changed lots about my training in order to improve next year. It’s taken a while to sink into my skull but I’ve finally accepted that I can’t do everything on my own, at I need more help that I used to in order to get the most out of my body. For about two years I’d been doing my own strength & conditioning and had become stale, whilst still working as hard as I always do but just not progressing.

I am now working one to one with Gary Nash and Tom Clay at the Unit Gym in Newcastle, the gym is under a railway bridge and is absolutely not a poncey gym – apart from when Tom has his Glee music on. I’m feeling the benefits already, basically Gary makes me do things that I wouldn’t make myself do, even for someone as motivated as me, there’s a point where you need that little push to go past, and he is certainly pushing me. Every session is a challenge and a war – that is what I’ve missed in my gym sessions since UKA stopped my S&C support. Very grateful to Gary for his help and I’m sure it’s going to have a massive impact on performances next year.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people who have told me they got tickets to watch me compete next year, it gives me even more motivation to be the best prepared I can be. I’ve been very frustrated the last couple of years that things haven’t always gone how I’d liked but now this is a fresh start. When I started at the Paralympics you virtually had to drag people into the stadium to watch it, now people are paying good money to get tickets and some sports are selling out, it’s massive progression. I for one, want to put on the best show possible for everyone coming to watch. I know in my mind I am defending champion from Beijing, what happened there was wrong but it’s now accepted, and I go into London looking to defend my title and undefeated record with honour, pride and bravery.

The man versus hip battle is going well, it has been botoxed and cortisoned, and it is behaving a lot better.

Man Versus Hip

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Above are some pretty awesome pictures of the training camp in Portugal, and of my new frame made by Tharsus.

I’ve been on holiday from sport for 4 weeks, but I’m back on the ball now and even more interesting than ever. Had a great holiday to Tenerife with Rachel which consisted of crazy bingo, winding up Mackems, buying a silly hat off a man from Senegal for a Euro and a bit of drinking, but nothing to trouble the England Rugby team. Got back in the early hours off the morning but was straight up the next day to go to Northumberland Sport’s  SportsAbility event where I met Mascot Mandeville and lots of enthusiastic kids doing Paralympic sports. I also got some great news when returning from Tenerife that through Sainsbury’s and the Caravan Charity I was chosen to receive a special award of £2000 for my willingness and openness to support Sainsbury’s, over the past few months I have visited all 16 Sainsbury’s supermarkets in the north east to talk to the staff and spread the word about the Paralympics. I even went to Fulwell the day before the Wear-Tyne derby, now that’s commitment. On my last visit yesterday I got stuck in the lift at the Gosforth shop and wondered if I would get out in time to compete at the Paralympics, but we were rescued thankfully, I blame the other 3 people in the lift for being to heavy.

Other exciting developments to happen have been my retention on the World Class Performance Programme for meaning I have been on the programme since it came in back in 1999, thanks to UK Athletics and UK Sport. Grainger PLC have renewed their contract with me which is a massive boost. I must also give special thanks to Easibathe who have fitted the bungalow with little ramps for me.

So, my holibobs are over booo, but to be honest I was gagging to get back into it after 2 weeks so I’m really proud that I managed to have 4 weeks off training, I needed it though as I haven’t had a proper break since 2009. So this week was my first week back and I’m starting to feel like my normal self again, it sounds stupid but my body is so used to being battered every day that when I stop battering it my body seizes up and shuts down. I’m excited about the next 6 months, it’s my first proper winter’s training since late 2009 due to the timing of this year’s World Championships. I love winter training, it’s when I come alive and I know how important it is to get this part right if I want to achieve my goals next year. I’ll take my pains now and make my gains now and we’ll see the results next summer.

Of course this training year has added significance with the target being London 2012, it’s a bit surreal to think I’ve started preparing for the competition that has been in the back of my mind for 6 years, the competition that convinced me to keep going in 2009 and not have a hip replacement – It’s here and it starts now for me. This next 10 months or so is all about man versus hip, as you all probably know I love a challenge and since April 2008 my hip has been a hell of a challenge. It has steadily deteriorated to the point where now it is pretty much locked at a 90 degree angle and I cannot put any weight through it. I take enough tablets to rattle in order to take the edge off the pain however when I think I’ve reached the most painful it can get, my hip keeps finding new levels of pain. The hip has probably gotten the better of me over the last year but I have a new resolve to meet it head on, know this is the last leg of the journey. I don’t regret the decision not to have the operation, I think it was the only way I could compete in London and be fully prepared, there have been times I thought I might not make it, particularly in the last year, but I know I can get myself in top shape for next year and make sure the hip holds me back as little as possible.

Let battle commence.

End of an Error

The 2011 athletics season is done and dusted, its in the books and I have to say I’m pretty glad to see the back of it, although the way I finished left me wishing it was just starting. I’m not going to dress it up, this year has been my toughest, most stressful time in sport. Performance wise it was one of my worst as a senior athlete. However, the season has ended very positively and after months of toil and torturous soul searching, I finally feel progress has been made and we can kick on from here.

I recently returned from a UKA camp inPortugal which was a sort of test for what will happen before the Paralympics next year. I have been to the training complex in Monte Gordo many times but we stayed in a different hotel, it was very plush and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Sounds very nice I know but when you are away on a training camp you don’t really get a chance to enjoy your surroundings (although some athletes do try to), as long as I have decent food and a nice bed I’m happy. It was a very productive camp for me, I took my modified new throwing frame that Tharsus did a great job on, getting it ready the day before I flew. In training the frame made an instant difference and technically I improved every session. The last session was the best I’ve thrown in well over a year. The only negatives were that our room almost turned into a zoo with crickets, beetles and ants getting in because my room mate Danny kept opening the window. I got my own back on Danny by turning the heating up to full on the day I left, leaving him sweating in bed.

I returned in good spirits for the National Championships, I had one night at home with my lovely neglected fiancé then it was off to Nottingham for what should be a relatively painless journey. However the A1 was closed and seven hours later we arrived in Nottingham, I reckon we could’ve flown to Portugal then flown back into East Midlandsand got there quicker. All that travelling takes its toll but I still threw a seasons’ best 31.29m to become national champion yet again. I wanted more as always but I can’t grumble too much after going through a pretty torrid time most of this season. I had 5 throws over 30 metres and it was easily the best I’ve thrown in well over a year. I had two aims for this season which were to throw at least the same distance as my age and to beat the distance I threw in New Zealand at the world championships. I finally did that, the latter was by 4cm but progress is progress and we move on now.

I guess the biggest positive I can take from having such a bad season in my eyes is that I still came out of it with a bronze medal from the World Championships and being ranked 4^th in the world (2^nd in my own class). Performances this season hurt me deeply, particularly in Wigan and Cardiff where I threw my worst distances for 10 years. After that I was guilty of chasing competitions, hoping something would click and changing from my new frame to my old frame. I know that is a recipe for disaster, I’m so stubborn and single-minded though and I won’t give up, that goes against me sometimes. My coach has the patience of a saint, I am a nightmare to coach because I think I know so much, I have to be convinced to change any aspect of my training. That can be the sign of a good athlete, but I take it too far at times.

One thing I do know is that my coach is usually proved right. This year I have done hardly any work on my legs because of my hip being so sore, I was more concerned with protecting it than using it. I got away with it until about June when my performances dropped away dramatically. I was worried, I was training as hard as ever but just kept throwing rubbish, training was horrible as every session would be the same. My coach would say to me that I was turning into a ball because my legs were getting tighter and my shoulders rounder. I guess I turned into the kind of athlete I slate, who thinks by doing the same things they can improve. It took an embarrassing performance at the UKA Challenge at Stoke Manderville to change my mindset. I finally took a good hard look at myself and knew that what I was doing wasn’t good enough. I looked at my scrawny pigeon-like legs that could hard even lift my bum off a seat and thought if I can’t do this properly I might as well go and have the hip replacement and be done with it. I realised that my hip hurt whether I used it or not, so I might as well use it, and my right leg is still 100% so I need to get the most out of that.

After months of doom and gloom and wondering if my career might be over, feeling sorry for myself, I finally started listening to my coach. I started working with a person trainer – Gary Nash at the Unit gym – he is going to work one to one with me up toLondon, that’s something I haven’t had for nearly two years and will make a big difference. I stepped up my Pilates programme with my brilliant physio Penny – it’s a bit girly and seems like it should be dead easy but it is some of the hardest training I’ve ever done.

Right. I’ve gone on a bit in this post but needed to get stuff out. Speak to you when winter training starts in a few weeks.

Just a thought – Success and failure are like love and rejection, it’s the for the beholder to rejoice in or endure.

Summer Bummer

Been a while since I last blogged, and I’m sincerely sorry for the disruption caused to all your lives. I have a few reasons for not blogging, one being that I competed 5 times last month and was left physically and mentally knackered. The other reason being that I moved in with wor lass and finally left home after 31 years, it was a very big step for both of us and has been a long time coming having bought the bungalow in May. However we are in now and all the building work is almost done, me and Rach are settling into life together nicely – I am banned from the kitchen and Rach is banned from the TV remote.

Yeah most of the work to the house is complete but I still can’t believe how much everything costs, stuff that you don’t notice when you live at home with your parents, like food shopping – I have a lot to learn. Thankfully Grainger PLC have kindly offered to relay our drive for free, which is a great gesture and I’m very humbled, they’ve supported me fantastically this year.

July was a tough month and towards the end of it the wheels started to come off a bit in terms of performance. I threw fairly well into a strong wind at Bedford to win the English championships, but then I had pretty dismal performances at Hexham and at the UKA Challenge in Stoke Manderville – I lost to Thomas Green at Stoke, I’ve known Thomas since he was a young boy, he’s kind of a protégé to me, is very similar to me, I’ve always known that Thomas has the potential to be a top athlete and he’s progressing very well, he’s still young and has a great future ahead. Thomas is only the 4th class F32 to beat me in senior competition and arguably the first genuine one, the first two were reclassified. The whole competition was very good, and it was heartening to see so much strength and depth in British club throwing.

I was disappointed, I’m a competitive animal and always go out to win so it obviously hurt, but it was the performance that hurt more because I was well under par in what were good conditions for club throwing. It was the end of a frustrating time for me, I threw 28 metres in 4 consecutive competitions, we know that’s not me in any conditions. In hindsight I realise I have done too many competitions this summer but I’ve felt under pressure to do so and to meet certain performance conditions, whether that’s right or wrong I don’t know. In the end I was left extremely fatigued mentally and probably lost a lot of conditioning, but it’s what happened and you move on and learn.

My next competition is at my very own Gateshead Stadium on the 27th of August, it will be a very poignant day as it will be exactly one year to the Paralympic games opening ceremony. A few nice sexy throws would be the perfect way to celebrate a year to go. There’ll be lots of Paralympic athletes competing at Gateshead, so if you’ve got nowt to do, get yourself down to watch.

My beloved football is back and Newcastle are in just in need of a striker and then we can go on to dominate English football for years – well until a ‘bigger’ richer club buys our best players.

So It Is

Summer is here at last, well as much of summer as we get in this country. I’m developing quite a decent suntan because I spend lots of time sitting in a field throwing clubs as far away as possible. It’s been an up and down few months with regards to my throwing, it kind of feels like we’re taking a few steps forward then a few steps back at the moment, but we’re starting to make some steady progress.

I’ve competed a few times in the last few weeks including twice in one weekend, which was due to my trip to the Dutch Championships being cancelled. We decided to go down to the Welsh Championships in Cardiff, and my competition was on the Sunday, so I competed in Wigan on the Saturday. It turned out not to be not the best weekend I’ve had as I didn’t throw particularly well, and it’s such a long bloody way to Cardiff – everyone complains about how far it is to Newcastle but it’s takes forever to get to Cardiff from anywhere. I certainly had a couple of competitions to forget, but sometimes you need a bad one to spur you on to do better. I know you don’t become a bad athlete in one weekend.

On the subject of the cancelled trip to the Dutch Championships, KLM very kindly contacted me after I put something on Twitter about it. They investigated what happened and offered me a sincere apology, made a full refund and gave me a couple of vouchers to spend on in-air duty free, although I did think I was getting two free flights. I believe I’m the first athlete to get a response from an airline through Twitter, it’s a very refreshing approach from KLM to contact me direct when you usually have to go through a laborious process just to complain. I’ve had lots of problems with airlines and have never had such a positive response, they know something went wrong and now it will hopefully be better for wheelchair passengers. Good to see – maybe posting disgruntled thoughts on Twitter is the way forward, but don’t tell Phillips Idowu that.

I went off to compete in the Irish Championships in Dublin at the weekend. I’d never been to Ireland but it was very nice, we went on the ferry with CP Sport. It was a great trip and going by bus and ferry was so much less stressful than flying. I had a decent chuck about half a metre off my season’s best, and we even found somewhere to watch the David Haye fight, with a few pints of the black stuff of course – although there were better fights outside the pub than on the TV.

You might remember I spoke at the launch of Newcastle’s Active 500 London2012 legacy campaign not long ago. The campaign has been recognised as one of the best in the country and as part of the campaign I was at Northumbria University’s fantastic Sport Central building for the Opening Ceremony of the Active 500 School Olympics. It was a tremendous event with schools from all over Newcastle marching in, I was very inspired, there were over 40 sports taking place over the weekend. With joint working on events like this, I’m sure sport in the region will flourish.

In the Heart of a Fire

It’s like I can’t breathe for breathing,
can’t see for seeing,
break for breaking.
Always on the eve of a feeling
but never inside.
Not quite connecting.

Connect! Connect!

To be in the middle of it,
is where I long to be,
where things zip and flip
without even trying.
You don’t know you’re in there
until you are,
have to seep in gently
and then the world can be yours.