THE LONG PUSH 2012 poster campaign

This is the poster that is going to be going out to shops and businesses along THE LONG PUSH 2012 route, between Southport and Fleetwood. Please help me out by sharing around Facebook, Twitter and other forums you use on the interweb between now and the 2 day ride in August. 

Thanks.

Chris

 

WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY - Monday April 2nd

For some families of course, EVERY DAY is about autism awareness. So I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone what The Long Push 2012 is all about. 

As well as raising general awareness of autism, the aim of The Long Push is to generate some donations towards an autism support charity that has helped myself and my girlfriend to come to understand what is happening since her son was diagnosed last year, and that has supported us through some of the meetings and hard times. The charity is FAMILIES CONNECTED. 

The charity was formed to connect the families of children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders by giving them a voice and a forum for support. Families living with a child with ASD can find it to be an isolating experience. Families Connected was founded to provide avenues for communication between families who can understand each others experiences and help others through sharing. Families Connected works to help families find support from a community who understands the effects of ASD on family and daily life.

To find out more about FAMILIES CONNECTED check out their web page at http://www.families-connected.org.uk/ 

April being AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH, seems the ideal platform to step up the fundraising aspect of The Long Push 2012, and several different aspects of fundraising are going to start from this month. The posters have been ordered, press release finalised, letters and e mails will be going out to several different potential corporate sponsors and some other events are being planned. Anyone can donate at anytime using the Just Giving widget at the side of this page or by visiting the page at http://www.justgiving.com/TheLongPush but, with today being WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY I have a small request...

THE LONG PUSH 2012 Facebook page has 256 likes. On my own personal Facebook page I have 108 friends. That's 364 potential sponsors. If only half of you (in the UK) donated £1 each towards The Long Push today that would be another £182 towards the £5000 target, allowing Families Connected to support more families in the same position as us. Almost double the current total. And it's easy to do....

Just giving can now accept donations by text message from your mobile phone. All you have to do is type a text message with the following code LFAA50 £1 and send it to 70070. If you wish to donate more you can just substitute the amount for £2, £3, £4, £5, or £10. You will receive a receipt for your donation by text and also be given the opportunity to choose 'Gift Aid' to increase your donation to the charity. This could be an enormous boost to the fund raising in just one day, so if you are able to, please consider making a £1 donation today, World Autism Awareness Day.

Me? I'm hoping to break that 20 mile barrier on the board, if the weather holds. But if not today, then I should have it done by the end of this week. Then it's the 25 mile barrier by the end of April.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has donated or sponsored me in some way so far. Please continue to share links and tell your friends, neighbours, work colleagues and bosses and help me reach that £5000 target.

See more events for WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY here  http://www.autism.org.uk/news-and-events/news-from-the-nas/stand-up-for-autism-on-waad.aspx

More soon, until then, however you spend your day, have a great one.

Chris

Training Days, 8,9 and 10 and the elusive 20 mile barrier

One of the biggest challenges of The Long Push so far is finding time to get all the training I need in around work, life and the weather! To be fair we've had some awesome weather for March here in the UK just recently, and when everything has fallen into place I've taken advantage of it to get out there and get some miles in. But trying to fit my training in around a three week shift pattern that mixes day shifts and late shifts is not easy at all. Still, here's how I managed it over the last three times I got out...

DAY 8 : Monday 19th March 7.78 miles. 

Today's training was just two laps of my Marine Lake training circuit after work one evening. It was bright and sunny, so had to be done. Pretty uneventful as I remember, but It's a while ago now, so I've lost track a bit. Seem to remember I had the wind behind me going north and against me coming back south. I tried to make a vid at the end of it, but the sound seems really bad on the camera for some reason. If I managed to 'tweak' it then it's here below. If it isn't then... I didn't! And I deleted it again! I really HAVE to get this lack of video situation sorted out.

DAY 9 : Thursday 22nd March 9.93 miles

Aaaaarrrggh! If anyone saw my Facebook status when I posted the stats of this direct from RunKeeper you'll know that I just clicked 'Stop' without really looking at my distance for this training and it was at 9.93 miles, when I was aiming for 10 miles! I only needed to leave it on for another 100 yards down the pier to the car and I'd have made it to the 10! Grrrr! What a doofus! Still, this was a good ride. Another session after work around the Marine Lake circuit, and the first time this year that I was able to get out training wearing shorts and a T-shirt!  The wind was in my face northbound this time and then behind me coming back around the lake onto the promenade. All good practice because the wind could be blowing any which way on the two days of the ride. but hopefully it will be behind me at some point and allow me to deploy the Sporting Sail maybe?  Still need to trial that too on a training day sometime. I got the attention of a lot of the skaters in the skatepark while I pumped past down the pier. Problems? Yeah, a couple this time...

I very nearly rolled my left ankle while pushing tonight. I've rolled this one twice before skating on mini ramps, so I know how much it hurts if it sprains fully, but at the time I thought I'd got away with it and carried on. Since then though it's needed some regular heat rub ointment to heal the muscle. I was lucky, it could have been MUCH worse, but I now know it's something to watch for. I may use an ankle support the next few times just to help it fully heal.

The bigger problem after tonight's session was that I got struck down by some virus. Either that or the 'man-flu' I had last weekend hadn't fully cleared and came back to haunt me! It started right after I got back from training and knocked me for 6 all weekend. And I was working late shifts at the weekend too! Ugh! I felt dreadful, and I was planning on trying to break the 20 mile barrier on the following Tuesday too, so this well and truly scuppered those plans. There was no way I could take on 20 miles until it had passed properly. So that was dissapointing, especially as we had the most amazing day of weather on the Tuesday! Grrrrrrrrrrr! Still, that's what happens with plans and I was just going to have to adapt.

Day 10 : Wednesday 28th March: 10.54 miles

So, virus passing and just a day after I intended to do the 20 miles, I felt well enough to get out again, but felt that, discretion being the better part of valour, to not do quite as much. Not to mention that I was also going into work again at 3.00pm, and I've learnt from experience not to do too many miles training before a full shift at work. It was another beautiful day, with temperatures well up into the late 50's/or 60's degrees farenheit, barely any wind and another shorts and t-shirt day. I didn't want to just do the Marine Lake circuit today, as I was keen to get back onto The Long Push route plan. So after a push along the Promanade and the old Coast Road to The Long Push starting point, it was back onto Sector 1 again, along the Coastal Road with a slight northerly tail wind and right down to the end to the roundabout at the Plough pub. Here I stopped for a bit of a breather and then pushed back up to the pier, making me up to a pretty respectable 10.54 miles. I was pleased with that. No problems at all today. That 20 mile barrier remains elusive, but I know I can do it and aim to have it well and truly beaten by Easter.

More soon,

Chris

SKATE AND DEPLOY! Sporting Sails become the latest sponsors of The Long Push 2012.

www.sporting-sails.com

Yes indeed, I am thrilled today to be able to announce that SPORTING SAILS, as seen used by Adam Colton, Paul Kent and Aaron Enevoldsen on LONG TREKS ON SKATE DECKS  have now supplied me with a sail for The Long Push 2012.









I contacted the guys after seeing the sails being used on the Long Treks Morocco trip, to see if they would be interested in supporting The Long Push and helping raise autism awareness. Check out the sails in use in this incredible episode from Long Treks Morocco.




Billy and Nick's response couldn't have been better...

"Hi Chris, Thank you for reaching out! We want to help this cause!!  We think you are doing a very noble thing and would like to support you as best we can. We are very excited about your trip. You are an inspiration to all. Hope we can be a part of it."

Thank you so much guys. Your support means so much to me and families affected by autism.



Every action that helps draw attention to me while I'm out there training for The Long Push 2012 and on the two days of the ride itself, gives me an opportunity to explain what I'm doing, and about the daily struggles familes affected by autism have to deal with. My SPORTING SAIL will be another tool to draw attention to the cause. I feel a comedy video coming on of me learning how to use it! :o) Watch this space...

Find out more about SPORTING SAILS at  http://www.sporting-sails.com/home or go visit them at Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SPORTINGSAILS?ref=ts

I should just clarify that any opportunity to use the SPORTING SAIL will only be for a short period on the ride itself, and won't detract from the amount of manual pushing/pumping and I'm going to have to do over the full 100 miles. Knowing my luck, the wind will be blowing in the opposite direction on both days! But it will be in my bag, in case I get chance to deploy and take the pressure of my feet for a short while.




Finally, please support the companies who are showing support for The Long Push 2012. So far this is, BIG WOODY'S SKATEBOARD SHOP, DC SHOES and now SPORTING SAILS. These are the people who live and breathe skateboarding/longboarding and the people who give us the scene we have today. Thanks guys.



Days 8 and 9 training blog coming very soon,


Chris

Day 7 Training, shopping for Mothers Day, and a recap on my motivation.

Hello again! Before I start writing about Day 7's training, I'm mindful that any new followers of this blog may be wondering what the hell any of this has to do with autism anyway!? So for those who haven't bothered trailing back to the begining of this blog here's a recap of how I got here...

My girlfriend's son was diagnosed as having an autism spectrum disorder around about 12 months ago. It was a late diagnosis, coming when he was in his last year of Primary school, aged 10 and without much time between the end of the school year to organise support for his first year of high school. That was the cause of a LOT of stress over the whole of last summer, mainly because all the departments who we needed to have contact with were closed over the school holidays! On top of that, the late diagnosis means that, because of Steven's age, we have a cocktail of ASD, early onset puberty and adolescence to manage and it can be a real problem trying to work out which is the driving factor at any one time. But any of you in the same position will already understand this, right? To say the last year has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions, stresses and strains would be an understatement. It's been a massive learning curve, but The Long Push project has helped me to learn from others with the same experiences by sharing links/articles etc. It's still tough enough for me to deal with but much, much harder for Steven's mum, who's health has suffered as a result of a combination of illness and stress, partly caused by the diagnosis and partly due to other stress factors that have been unavoidable. But she's on the mend and hopefully will be back to full strength again soon.

As part of our attempts to learn more about ASD we stumbled upon Carol McKiernon of Families Connected at another ASD seminar for parents run by Autism Initiatives and shortly after this, I made contact with her to ask for some advice and support. Carol's first hand experience has been invaluable to us, so I wanted to do something to 'give back'. I thought about doing a cycle ride but then thought, "Naa, everyone does bikes rides. I want to do something different". I've been skateboarding since 1976 and have a few longboards, but have never really used them for anything other than just cruising round the seafront here in Southport in the summers. I had an idea to ride to Blackpool in a day, and then started to find out more about distance skateboarding at the forums at http://www.skatefurther.com/ and http://www.silverfishlongboarding.com/ and http://www.pavedwave.org/

I decided to name my project The Long Push 2012 - Longboarding for Autism Awareness,  a 100 mile ride from Southport to Fleetwood on the North West coast of the UK and back over two days, 50 miles per day, in suppprt of Carol's FAMILIES CONNECTED charity.

Shortly after, I found out that two young American guys, Blake and Daniel had done an even longer ride in 2011 'Elevate Awareness: Longboarding for Autism', also for autism support. Then I knew I was on the right track.

By the way, Blake and Daniel are doing another, longer journey again this year, so please go and follow their journey and support them over at https://www.facebook.com/elevateawareness and http://elevateawareness.tumblr.com/

So now here I am, three months into my planning and training for the full 100 mile ride. I've found a way to combine doing something that I love (longboarding), generating some donations to a cause close to many people's hearts, raising autism awareness, physical excersise, a personal goal and, if I'm completely honest, a way of taking some time out away from all the daily stresses, to just be at one with my own thoughts and have to worry only about...not falling off! Which brings me nicely back to... Day 7 training.

Bikini clad California Girls just out of shot!

Day 7 came along almost as unexpectedly as Day 6, and was spent pushing and pumping along the same stretch of road, up and down the A565 Formby by-pass from Southport to Lady Green Nurseries at Ince Blundell, a little less than 9 miles each way. The weather looked a bit bleak when I set off but apart from that there's not much to add to Day 6's training really. Like I said it was up and down the same stretch of cycle path. One section of the path was particularly covered with little stones. I was fully expecting to hear that sudden 'SCRAAAATCH!' sound, grind to a halt and do my best Superman impression as a tiny stone just got lodged underneath one of my front wheels and catapulted me forwards, but somehow I got away with it and made it back unscathed.

'Crivit' running socks. A £2.99 Lidl bargain!

I tried some running socks from Lidl today, £2.99 a pair, to see if they eradicated the sore sole problem at the 10 mile mark and they worked pretty well. No soreness at all today. I was impressed. Well worth the money! Still going to try some padded tennis socks though.

Not sure how I managed this but... a bit gutted

The 'switchblade' is starting take some punishment through the training, though to be fair, I haven't used any of my longboards anywhere near this much before, and this IS what it's for.  Took a big chunk out of the top laminates at the front somehow which I'm a bit pi$$ed off about, but hey, it's all part of it. Heard some creaking sounds from the back truck while pumping down the bypass, but don't think it's anything to worry about. Good chance that I'll be needing a new set of truck bushings and new wheels and bearings before the ride itself though. My 'Durians' will be down from 76mm to about 66 mm by then!

 

Ah yeah, I nearly forgot.

So, it was the Thursday before Mothers Day. So part of the reason I pushed up to Lady Green was because Rachael had  picked up some things there that she liked when we'd visited a few days before, and I had to get her something from the kids. So, I pushed the 8.8 miles there, bought the presents, had an ENORMOUS veggie beakfast and pot of coffee (£5.99 highly recommended) and then pushed 8.8 miles back home, arriving just as the first spits of rain appeared on my shades. Good timing!  Time for a quick shower and then...off to work for 2.00PM! Hmmmm, in retrospect, with a full shift at work ahead of me, next time I have some training time in the morning I'll just do a short ride. As it was...I made my new personal best for furthest distance in 1 day, 17.5 miles. Just 2.5 miles short of my goal for the end on March. Chuffed! :o) But man, was I tired later? And then the day after I was hit by, that worst of debilitating illnesses...'man-flu'! Struggled through two days at work with it and Saturday and Sunday too. Grrrrrrr!

Still, I'm on target for 20 miles by the end of the month. Just got to fit some shorter training rides in around work this coming week and then, all being well, it will be the 20 mile push next week. Just got to work out where it will be, but it will definitley be back on The Long Push route again though.

I hope all the autism mom's reading this had a great day on Sunday 18th March? But it was probably just the same as every other day, huh? Respect ladies, you have my total respect.

Stats for the day here...
Part 1 -  http://runkeeper.com/user/TheLongPush/activity/75538154?&mobile=false
Part 2 -  http://runkeeper.com/user/TheLongPush/activity/75558012

Just Giving widget is fixed on the blog page again. If you havent donated and you can, please do. No amount is too small. And please keep sharing and re-tweeting.

More soon...

Chris

Days 5 and 6 Training: New personal best distance!

I sat down to write my blog post about Day 6 training tonight, and realised that I only posted the details of Day 5 on Facebook! Doh! My excuse for that is that Day 5 training was nothing more than a brief 3.8 mile push around my Marine Lake training route after work a week ago. Then again, It's important for me to vary the length of training rides, and all is better than nothing. And this was my first training ride wearing one of the new Long Push T-shirts, so it was important in being the next phase of promoting the ride and raising more autism awareness. 

Look out for me on future training rides around the seafront area of Southport, or along the Preston Bypass training for the full 100 mile ride.

Day 6 of training came about unexpectedly over the weekend and, like the heading says, ended with me reaching my furthest distance skated in one session so far, a new personal best of 12.31 miles.

Rachael had taken the kids to their grandads for a sleepover, while I worked a late shift, which left us with a bit of a problem for the next day. If I went over to meet them in the morning then we'd end up with two cars to bring back, which seemed a bit pointless. We hadn't worked out exactly what we were going to do before I finished work on Friday night, and everyone else had gone to bed by then, but when I woke up on Saturday morning and looked out the window, an idea struck me. What about skating up there? It would solve the car problem, give me a training opportunity as well, and leave Sunday free for Rachael and myself to do something nice while the kids were away with their dad. It loooked bright enough at first, but there seemed to be a bit of a wind, and I've never even thought about skating this kind of distance before, so I went out down the road to check it out.  I imagined the wind would, (of course), be blowing in my face, rather then being behind me. So I 'ummed' and 'ahh'd' for half an hour or so, looked up at the clouds, checked the weather widget on my phone and Sky News weather, but after half an hour, my bag was packed, cats fed, high viz vest was on and I was ready to roll!

This training wasn't along The Long Push route though. No, this was in the opposite direction, from Southport to Netherton in Liverpool, which I thought was going to be about a 15 mile push, and if it was, it would take me towards my 20 mile target distance for March. I think I've pretty much decided that I'm going to use the Landyachtz 'Switchblade' set up that I've posted in earlier blogs for the full Long Push ride itself so, with my board under my arm, bag on my back and sunglasses on I set out from home, down the road to a path which leads me to one of the main roads along the outside of Southport and out towards Liverpool. Here's my route...

View Day 5 Training. in a larger map

Since the 11.5 mile training of Day 4, the only training I managed to do for Day 5 was the 3.8 mile push around my Marine Lake training troute in Southport and then a bit of a scoot up and down the promenade in Blackpool last Tuesday, 6th March, so when I set off my right leg (the one I don't push with) felt a bit weak and tired at first, but after a while it settled down and was OK. This was the first long distance work with the new DC 'Monty's' too, so I was hopeful they were going to work OK as well. The first part of the ride was across a country park path and onto the pavement of Guildford Road, a long road which curves around the outside of one section of the town, dividing the urban areas from the farms on this side of Southport. After a little over 2 miles I reached the cycle path that runs alongside the A565 Formby By-Pass.
 

Here, the ride started to seem a bit daunting, with such a long straight road ahead and knowledge of how many times I've driven this road before in the car and on my motorbike. The wind was, as I'd guessed, blowing straight towards me, but it wasn't too bad. Only 12 -15 mph according to my weather widget. Still, I would have prefered it to have been behind me! I stopped a couple of times to try and get some photos and once to get another drink while I passed the Tesco at Formby. The cycle path was smooth for most parts, but I did have to swap sides at one point, after I found one section which was pretty unskateable. Well, it was if I wanted to keep the fillings in my teeth! The set-up rode perfectly, with no problems at all. Still especially impressed with the Orangatang 'Durian' wheels and the Bear bearings. They rolled over everything in sight, smoothly and as effortlessly as possible in the circumstances.  Some sections of the path were a bit narrow as the photos show. I even took a video at one point to show y'all, which I'll try to upload over the next couple of days. 

Pretty narrow with 70mph traffic coming atcha!

I got a few beeps from passing cars while I pushed alongside the by-pass, but then it ended at Thornton, so it was back onto the flagged pavements for the last stretch to Rachael's dads house. This was around the 10 mile mark and my pushing foot was starting to get a bit sore on the sole. The same thing happened at around the same point on my 11 mile push on day 4 too. It's no fault of the footwear I'm using. The problem is simply that... 30 years of habit means I still only push with one foot, and I really need to try and force myself to learn to push with my right leg too, to balance things out and ease the pressure on my left foot. That's going to have to be a a training day (or several) in its own right, coz it ain't gonna come easy! In the meantime I'm going to try using cushioned tennis socks and running socks to see if they help (I wasn't using them today) and maybe experiment with cusioned insoles too, but I have a feeling they will just move about in my shoes and cause me even more problems. Blisters were always going to be a problem on any distance ride like this, so I'll have to go on the http://www.skatefurther.com/ and  http://www.pavedwave.org/ forums and get some advice from the distance skaters on there.

Now this ain't California! Or Madrid! So the sight of me in helmet, shades, high viz vest and back pack drew a few glances through these outer edges of Liverpool, but I think it was the board that drew most people's attention. Longboards aren't seen too much in this part of the world, and to laymen I guess the size and shape of a board like the 'Switchblade' was something they've not seen before. Still, nobody stopped me to ask what I was doing today, which was a shame, because that's a big part of the reason for the training rides, raising awareness of the cause.

Check me out...I'm 'Tron'!

After a little while I rolled the last few yards along the road and into the driveway and checked RunKeeper for my stats: 1 hr 38: 58 secs and a distance of 12.31 miles. You can see the full stats via RunKeeper here:

http://runkeeper.com/user/TheLongPush/activity/74543965?&mobile=false

Not quite the 15 miles I was hoping for, but still my new personal best and with 3 weeks to go before the end of the month, encouraging for me reaching my 20 mile target this month. So my training plan for the rest of March is this:

• A training ride each week
• Minimum distance of 4 miles (one lap of my training route)
• Target distance for March of 20 miles
• Minimum of a 10 mile bike ride each week if the weather is too bad to skate

I've got another sponsorship blog to post soon, which is great news and I'm working on another 'rainy day' blog, in case I can't get out to train again. But until the next blog post, please join the Facebook page at  THE LONG PUSH 2012 - Longboarding for Autism Awareness 
where there is daily activity sharing autism/longboarding/skateboarding links.


Also, there seems to be a problem with the Just Giving widget on the blog page. If you wish to make a donation, until it's fixed please go to directly to the Just Giving page at http://www.justgiving.com/TheLongPush

Thanks. Back soon..........

Chris

A trip to Big Woody's Skateboard Shop

Just a quick post this morning...

Had a good day on Tuesday. A trip up to Big Woody's Skateboard Shop in Blackpool to collect another pair of shoes from Long Push sponsors DC Shoes (Europe). Then had a skate up and down the prom to take a look around and get some photos, and had a chance 'small autism world' meeting while I was there too. Blog post coming about that hopefully. 

 

Thanks to Andrea, Woody (and you Derek) at Big Woody's and Leo at DC Shoes for the new 'Monty's'. Boss shoes.

 Here's a few more photos...