Marie Curie Cancer Care..

I thought I'd do a write up on the charity that I'm raising funds for, just so that everyone knows what/where their donations are being used for/is going to.

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Marie Curie Cancer Care supports 2700 staff and nurses that provide healthcare services for about 27000 patients each year. They mainly care for cancer patients, but they also care for other patients with life-limiting illnesses. Their service is free of charge to their patients and families. In order to sustain their activities, they depend on support from various individuals, organizations and they are partially supported by NHS. In year 2007-2008, they raised approximately £115 million.

Marie Curie Cancer can be said to be comprised of 4 main divisions- Nursing, Hospices, Research Institute, Palliative Care Research Institute. A short description of each division are as follows:

Nursing- Marie Curie Nurses provides personal care for cancer patients who are terminally ill. This allows the terminally ill patients to spend their remainding days at home, around familiar people and surroundings.

Hospices- The hospices provide general care for patients. The hospices also organize health clinics and social activities for patients.

Research Institute- Marie Curie scientists are actively researching cancer in order to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms of cancer cells. Some areas that they focus on are molecular motors, DNA replication, gene regulation, chromosome segregation, protein trafficking, cell cycle control, cycloskeletal organization laboratory and translational research.

Palliative Care Research Institute- I took the liberty to include a wikipedia definition of 'palliative care' since I figured that most normal people (like me) wouldn't know what that means. According to wikipedia[1]: Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Institute researches a broad spectrum of issues regarding palliative care. This includes evaluation of interventions and effectiveness in palliative care, assessment of psychological need, end of life care planning, sexuality, spirituality, child cereavement, evaluation of communication skills training for health professionals, complementary therapie and palliative care in advanced non-cancer conditions.

Alternatively, you can get more information on Marie Curie Cancer Care here.
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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliative_care

Swimathon 2009

Hello everyone! Its been a year since the last fundraiser and I'm glad to be back in action =). I'll be participating in Swimathon 2009 which will take place on the 16th-19th April. My aim is to help raise at least 200 pounds for Marie Curie Cancer Care and The Swimathon Foundation.

I'll be swimming 2.5km again this year and training will be starting soon. This blog will be updated on a regular basis to provide information on the progress of the fundraising as well as training. If you feel moved to donate, do visit my fundraising page. After all, it is for a noble cause =).

More information on Marie Curie Cancer Care and The Swimathon Foundation will be up soon. As for now, do consider supporting me in my endeavors. Help me help others.

Yours truly,
Peter Ng

Nil..

No projects on hand right now. I'll make sure I post when I do have one..

Thanks again for all the support

Peter

It is finished..

Whoops.. I was meaning to update more on the prep for the swimathon but it came too soon and went too soon too. =D

Let me tell you the outcome first, then I shall elaborate further on what happened today. I finished the 2.5k in approximately 48:59.88 and got myself a finisher's medal and a swimathon swim cap. Although I'm happy that I've completed it and it's over I actually feel slightly regretful and I shall go on to tell you why.

But first of all, I would like to wish to thank my sponsors and friends who have supported me throughout my 8 weeks of training. I'm sure that Marie Curie would put the money to good use.

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The swimathon was today. (actually it is held for a few consecutive days so as not to overcrowd the pool as well as to give flexibility for participation). My session was scheduled to start at 0800, and we were given instructions to arrive 30 minutes before the session. So, I arrived at ETHOS (the imperial swimming pool/gym) at 0730 hours only to find out that they didn't open until 8. So, I had to wait outside in the cold for half an hour.

I didn't have dinner the night before and went to bed on an empty stomach. So, I woke up feeling a little drained due to the lack of glucose (or I think so). I tried to pop in a couple of bananas to try get my glucose level up during breakfast, but it didn't work too well. The cold weather didn't help that much either.

So, back to the swimming pool. When we were finally let in, I did a couple of laps to warm up but found the warm up to be tiring. When we started, I was placed beside a really enthusiastic swimmer, and he sped off as soon as we started. His enthusiasm spreaded to me and I followed suit. He soon tired out, and so did I. So I ended up struggling midway to finish my swim.

Hence, the regretful feeling. I should have ate some dinner the night before, or at least got up earlier so that I could get some proper breakfast and let the sugar levels stablilize. Its regretful that I had to wait for 30 minutes in the cold for the swimming pool to open. Most of all, I regret trying to follow the dude beside me. All the time I spent trying to learn to pace myself gone down the drain. =S

The final time of 48:59.88 was way short of what I had expected. In fact, I hadn't swam so slowly before in my other previous training sessions. My personal best was 45:10.30 (which I hadn't recorded on the blog due to overwhelming laziness) and I was hoping to dip below the 45-minute mark today.. Guess not..

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The only good thing that happened was this picture that I took =P

Swim cap, medal and me!

status: Online!!

Heya people... Not to fear, I have not stopped training. My internet was down for a couple of days hence the late update. So, I shall update you further on my progress.


Monday 3rd March- 1.75km swim, 34:40.75
Wednesday 5th March- 2.0km, 38:34.44
Friday 7th March- the pool was too crowded.. so I didn't time myself
Monday 10th March- 2.0km, 37:41.98
Wednesday 12th March- 2.5km, 47:20.75
Friday 14th March- Slept through swim time..
Monday 17th March- 2.5km, 46:56.12
Wednesday 19th March & Friday 21st March - went to Warwick to visit Gaston, so I missed out on 2 sessions. However, we jogged 15km while in Warwick.
Tuesday 25th March- 1.5km, 29:15.61
Thursday 26th March- 2.5km, 45:28. 39

I do apologize for not being too consistent in training. I will try harder. However, I shall have to miss a week's worth of swimming as I'll be headed to Wales for Word Alive from the 7th-11th April =S.

A tribute to Bill Shankly

I have a confession to make.. I missed swimming prep last Friday. No excuses i'm afraid. Was sleepy and decided to sleep instead. However, prep has resumed and I went to the pool today. I managed to clock 46:56.12 for 2.5km. Looks like I'm a little more than half a world champ =D. I'll try aiming a little higher.

According to a very reliable source:

".. a decent long-distance swimmer should be able to maintain AT LEAST 1:30-1:40 for every 100m all throughout the distance. At that pace, u should finish 2.5km between 37 to 42 minutes.

For perspective, pool competitive swimmers maintain 1:00-1:10 for every 100m, depending on level of competition, and that's how they end up doing 1500m in 16-18 minutes. At this pace, they finish 2.5km within 25-30 minutes.

If u're Grant Hackett, u do 58 seconds per 100m to get a world record in the 1500m race :P

Again for perspetive, ironman triathletes do about 1:20-1:30 per 100m (but this is in open water), and finish their 3.8km swim leg in 50 min to 1 hour. :) "

I think that swimming 1:30-1:40 is a good speed to aim for. Being realistic, I honestly doubt that I'll be able to shave 5-9 minutes from my current time. But a wise man once said:

"Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the ground."
- Bill Shankly

Hence the tribute to Bill Shankly. If you don't know who he is, try wikipedia. =D

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If you've been following my prep so far, you'll notice that there has been progress. Hopefully in the next 5 weeks, I'll be reaching for the sky, or the ceiling. Anyway, updated times:

Monday 3rd March- 1.75km swim, 34:40.75
Wednesday 5th March- 2.0km, 38:34.44
Friday 7th March- the pool was too crowded.. so I didn't time myself
Monday 10th March- 2.0km, 37:41.98
Wednesday 12th March- 2.5km, 47:20.75
Friday 14th March- Slept through swim time..
Monday 17th March- 2.5km, 46:56.12

Prep (updated 10th march)

6 weeks to swimathon, 2.5km to swim, and a pear shaped belly. Not too good a combination eh?

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I'll be attempting to do 3 swims a week, each week untill the 19th of April. Hopefully that will get me sufficiently prepared for the swimathon. =D

I checked out the swim times for the 1500m freestyle event and currently the world record is held by Grant Hackett with a time of 14:34.56. That averages out to about 1.7m/s and I know that its impossible for me to swim at that speed. But I thought that I'd be happy to try be half a world record holder and swim at half his speed. That means that I should be swimming 2.5km in about 48 minutes or so. Hence, my aim is to finish the 2.5km swim under a time of 48 minutes.

I thought that keeping a log of my training times would be a great way to keep all of you updated on my preparation. Here goes:

Monday 3rd March- 1.75km swim, 34:40.75
Wednesday 5th March- 2.0km, 38:34.44
Friday 7th March- the pool was too crowded.. so I didn't time myself
Monday 10th March- 2.0km, 37:41.98
Wednesday 12th March- 2.5km, 47:20.75