There's no 'I' in Team

Well what an amazing week I had last week.

I had the honour of meeting the Queen as she officially opened the leisure centre that I operate.

Now those that know me would not be surprised that I would try and shoehorn this is to a blog about me training for an Ironman however humour me as there is reason other than me wanting to show off the fact that I met the Queen!

You the Royal visit didn't just happen, it wasn't a case of getting a phone call from the palace to say that the Queen fancied a day out and will be popping along.

This was a meticulously planned visit and had been in carefully put together for months.

But it wasn't just the planning stage that was impressive it was the support team that was in place to ensure that every last detail, including food and drink, and eventuality was looked into but also to ensure that everyone on the day enjoyed themselves.

You see so here's the thing it made it clear to me that in order for me to do this massive challenge I'm going to need a team around me to ensure that every last detail is looked in to and planned to get me to the finish line.

Now clearly I'm not going to have the number of people that the Royal party had but it is important for me to build a team I can trust as I'm not going to be able to do this without help and careful planning.

The first part of my support team is obviously my family, mainly my wife and kids, they have been there for me through all the previous challenges and have a lot of patients particularly when I'm not around because I'm training, but the support of them however vital and improtant it is to me I'm going to need a few more people as part of the team.

So where do I start looking for a team, well fortunately I work in the leisure industry so I have a few specialists in different fields available but it's about selecting the right people.

I've also looked at the areas where I feel I need the most support at this time so I have focused on a swimming coach, nutritional and strength coach and sports therapist.

Now it's still early days but I have started piecing Team Average together and hopefully in the coming weeks I will be able to introduce you to the team.

As for now I'm going to continue smiling over the events of last week as well as training for the Race the Train event I have in 4 weeks time.

Average Joe returns

The last time I wrote a blog was back in December 2013 as I completed 12 challenges in 12 months (http://averagejoechallenge2013.blogspot.com)

So what have I been up to since then, well I have remained active and following the end of the challenge I started to play hockey again. I hadn't played in over five years but I joined a great little club and I've loved playing again.

I've continued to run as well as playing but I have missed pushing myself to the extreme although if you see me the day after I've played hockey you'd think I had just ran a marathon!

So this year I have completed the Essex and Halstead Marathon in May and in August I will be taking part in Race the Train in Tywyn, Wales.

This has just wet my appetite for more and so I have decided that despite my 'fear' of swimming I will do a triathlon. Well that's not a challenge I hear some of you say and to a certain degree you are right however I plan to do an Ironman distance triathlon!

So what does that mean, well this would mean swimming 2.4 miles in open water, cycle 112 miles and then run 26.2 miles (a marathon).

So this is just the start of the journey and although I haven't officially entered yet I am planning to do an event in September 2016 and I will share with you my journey through the good times and the bad, the highs and lows.

I want to share how an average person can achieve the seemingly impossible and prove those doubters wrong!