About…

Me…

So that’s me, at that point being every bit as shattered as I look after the 2014 etape du tour…anyone who did that ride will know how good that sandwich is tasting!!

I’m Rauri, I’m a Physio in London. I work full time in the NHS but also with Complete Physio at Lomax Bespoke Fittness Nutrition and Wellbeing on the Fulham Road, Chelsea.

I suppose fundamentally I’m a rugby player, I used to be alright…above is a pic of me at 16 with the England school boys squad (back row, 2nd in from the right with the hideous curtains!). It’s probably fair to say that was about the peak of my rugby career, I still play some occasional and invitational stuff but summer fitness training lead me to cycling and now that’s probably what I’m most competitive at. I say competitive…only with myself! For me the bike is about pushing limits, pushing the boundaries of what it’s possible for me to do. I’ve done some long distances in short times just to prove to myself that it’s possible.

The next box that needed ticking was an ironman, that, plus what happened with Stef is what’s lead me to this challenge.

The Blog…

And I guess the challenge has lead to this blog. Over the next year and a bit I’m going to be on hear spouting my 2 pence about anyhting and everything to do with this challenge. As well as documenting my journey from here to Japan, the plan is to talk through my training (check out my Spring Training blog) and wider preperation. This will include nutrition and injury prevention/managment as well as my mental preperation. Hopefully my expertise as a physio and the expertise of the incredible team at Lomax will mean I can put out some pretty useful content for anyone looking to take on any similalrly stupid challenges! Some of this I will wirte myself but I hope to have some guest bloggers talk about their specialties and give some great insight into what an event like this entails. You can keep up with my training on Strava

Secondly, and even more importantly, this blog is about me having a forum to talk about anything and everything to do with Stef. Our relationship, his illness and everything that happened over the few years he was unwell. I feel like I have so much to say! Having seen the response to the Ice Bucket Challenge and spoken to others who have been affected, directly or indirectly, by motor neurone disease I want to put together my thoughts and feelings so that they may inform, support and perhaps inspire even 1 other person. Again, I’m going to invite others who were part of Stef’s life to write for the blog and try to work closely with the MND Association to provide a resource for anyone out there who wants to make use of it.

Finally I guess I have to say that this is about promotion, awareness in great but at the end of the day, money makes the difference. I want to gt this blog out there, get people talking about this condition and make people aware of what I’m doing and eventaully raise money for the vital work the MND Association does.

I have a Just Giving page where you can donte, and twitter and intagram (@longweekinjapan) feeds where you can keep up to date with my progress. When it comes down to it, next August I’m going to do this event, I’m blessed to have an incredible supportive group of people around me, both personally and professionally who I know will get me through. My dream is for this to be more than that though, I want to really spread the word, about MND, about Stef and about what it all means to me.

So here I am, armed with a GoPro an iPhone and social media! As I’ve said elsewhere…please follow, like, share, comment, tweet and re-tweet. If all else fails this will be an epic journey for me to honor a dear friend, but everyone’s invited along for the ride!