Participating in a Sprint Triathlon to Raise Money for Cleft Lip and Palate

Last week I ran a 5km race to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. I managed to raise past my target. I knew a young woman who had a double mastectomy at quite a young age. My dad died of liver cancer. As far as I'm concerned if I can push some money towards the charities based on my participation in a sporting event then I will. If I can get my friends, family and network to encourage me to push harder and contribute to the cause I'm running for I'm not shy to ask for support!

This coming weekend, on June 27th, I will be doing a sprint triathlon to raise money for SMILE TRAIN, a charity founded with the intention of providing free cleft lip and palate surgeries to any family affected. Examples are shown below.

 This cause is special to me. We are friends with a neighborhood couple who have a son who was born with cleft lip and palate. Liam is a funny, gentle, loving and hug-every-time kid. He hangs out with our kids and together the three of them are a force of nature...young boy attitudes with a laugh for every occasion. He knows he was born with cleft lip and palate and just gets on with it. Fortunately he had surgery when he was 10 weeks old and additional surgeries since. The photos below show him at 10 weeks old before surgery and his handsome face in a photo taken at 5 years old, about 2 weeks after a plastic “revision” surgery to give more symmetry to his lip and nose. He is now six years old. He will most likely require a bone graft for the missing bone in his jaw about age 8, and lots of orthodontics will follow to address crooked and missing teeth.You can see the impact of the surgery. Imagine the challenges that Liam would have in life without such a surgery. Imagine the lives of the 1 in 700 children in the world born with cleft lip and palate and how their lives can be changed forever by this surgery.

In the last week of June here in North Carolina it's going to be hot, damned hot, unless we have a surprise weather system. I'm going to swim 250m, cycle 12 miles and run a 5km at the end. I swim like a brick, I cycle ok and I run pretty well despite tearing my calf muscle earlier this year. Either way...I will push like a madman and it'll hurt :-). I'm going to do my part and I humbly ask you to sponsor my efforts and help raise money for the Smile Train and provide for children born with this condition.


Ways to Give

Mail: Checks made payable to Smile Train can be sent directly to Rebecca Warriner, Race Director, at the address below. Please put my name, Antony Williams, in the memo.

RebeccaWarriner, Race Director
The Smile Train Triathlon
908 Heritage Greens Drive
Wake Forest, North Carolina 27587

Online at www.smiletrain.org/goto/milesintosmiles: Use Smile Train’s secure giving Web site created especially for the Smile Train Triathlon. Please list me in the Recognition Name field.

Matching gifts: Many employers match charitable giftsmade by employees, spouses, and retirees, which could easily double or triple the value of your contribution! Check with your HR department or visit www.smiletrain.org/site/PageServer?pagename=donate_matching for details.

About The Smile Train Triathlon

The Smile Train Triathlon is a USA Triathlon sprint distance race comprised of a 250-meter pool swim, 12-mile bike, and a 3.1-mile run. This race provides beginners with a safe environment to experience a triathlon while providing a fast bike course and challenging run course to the more experienced triathlete. Each year, 400 spots are filled, and 100 percent of the registration fees are sent to The Smile Train. Since 2008, The Smile Train Tri has donated more than $50,000 to The Smile Train!

About The Smile Train

The Smile Train is the world's leading cleft charity, with thousands of partners and programs in 76 of the world's poorest countries. Its mission is to help the more than 4.7 million children in developing countries who are suffering with unrepaired clefts. The Smile Train provides free cleft surgery to children from poor families that give children not just a new smile, but a new life.

Two hours in the emergency room

I woke up this morning and could hardly walk. Despite icing my calf for an hour and a half last night it was swollen this morning and damn painful. The family ended up taking me to emergency today because I couldn't drive. Despite booking an appointment I waited for an hour and a half and when I finally got in the doctor's first comments were "So, you're a runner and you're 45. There's your problem". Then he smiled. He was being funny not sarcastic...he was a great guy. He gave me a full examination and gave me the good news. It is not a torn achilles but a tear at the bottom of the calf muscle where the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles come together. The doctor boosted my ego with the comment that the reason it had likely happened is that I have very large calf muscles from running/hiking/working out for the past 30 years. That may be true about my calves but I have quads like a seagull. The doctor proceeded to give me heel cups to elevate the back of my heel and reduce stretching on the tear, gave me crutches for the next two weeks, recommended high doses of ibuprofen for the next two weeks and twice daily icing and elevation. Oh...and to cap it all off he said that at this point this was likely to be a recurring injury. Sweet. I'd say my big eyed dreams of running 1000 miles in a year might be very much at risk and I'll get back to lifting weights and building back the upper body mass I had started stripping off to lose weight for running. When my legs back in action maybe I'll get back to cycling on a daily basis instead. Until then I can honestly say that I am disappointed, angry, feeling old and generally disillusioned. Pretty much how I felt when I tore both rotator cuffs a couple of years ago and couldn't work out properly for 18 months. Crap.

What's it all about this 1000 miles in a year venture?

If you're reading this blog post then you have either come across it because you know me as ChemSpiderman or you have happened across it based on some type of search about running. The blog title is 1000 miles in a year and is a declaration of my intent to clock a 1000 miles of running in the next year from Jan 1st 2010 until Jan 1st 2011. That's actually not that far..it's only about 2.7 miles per day, about 20 miles per week. Not much compared to the people who are running their marathons and half-marathons on a fairly regular basis.
For me it's a good target. I've got a lot of reasons that I might fail and I'll cover them on the blog over the next few months as I face them as challenges.

Bottom line though the challenges include: 1) A very demanding job with about 60-70 hour work weeks at times 2) A beautiful wife and twin 7 year old boys that I like to spend my time with 3) A lot of additional distractions that I enjoy - writing (book chapters, scientific papers, blogs, poetry, other stuff..) 4) Age...45 years old and years of pushing my body through some interesting challenges 5) Injuries - multiple sustained in recent years and still nursing a calf/achilles issue from a run in San Francisco a few months ago. 6) Lots of travel that consumes a lot of time and gets in the way of a healthy lifestyle. 7) The wackiest diet you can imagine and one that dieticians say should have put me in the ground years ago!

That said these are all EXCUSES as to why I might fail. There's no reason that I cannot run 1000 miles in a year. In fact my original thought was 1500 miles...or even 2000 miles in a year but for the first time in a long time I decided to make it something achievable rather than something that I would overly obsess about and push too hard at. I wanted a stretch goal that would achieve a series of things for me: 1) Push me outside my comfort zone 2) Give me a fixed goal that would take a long time to achieve 3) Give me an opportunity to lead my kids by example that exercise is a good thing 4) Offer me the chance to run alongside my wife as she takes on her own running challenges as a new distance runner 5) Offer a physical advantage to a new distraction..getting fit 6) Give me a chance to interact with a new group of people outside of my present network of scientists and scientific bloggers.

I'll be using an iPod and Nike+ device (more about that later) to track my progress towards my goal. I'm on Nike+ at http://my.nike.com/ChemSpiderman laying claim to my moniker from my job as host of ChemSpider, a website for chemists that was acquired by the Royal Society of Chemistry in June of 2009 after 2.5 years of going it alone.

I started running on New Years Day after a late evening that saw me head to bed at 2:30am after a party in our house. That night I clocked 5 miles on the treadmill close to midnight and capped it off with a 5km run on the treadmill at the YMCA in 29 mins. The challenge is underway and I'm excited, leery and concerned to see how it goes. I'll be tracking different stats and info as I gather them over the next few weeks and will start soon with weight, body measurements etc. This is going to be "fun"...right?