I’m training for a wheelchair half marathon. If I can pull that off, I’ll go on to do more, and hopefully to do some full marathons. The point of this is to raise some money for charities that support women and girls who have suffered violence and abuse. The thing is, I’m new to all this. I’m new to disability, to being a wheelchair user and to distance wheelchairing (we need a better word for that. “Distance rolling” is presumably a different thing altogether, although it sounds like a great spectator sport). I’m new to fundraising in this day and age (we just used to go round with a piece of paper asking people to write down how much money they promised to give us if we did The Thing. Now it all seems more complicated.) And while I’m not new to serious training (I ran, did a lot of martial arts and played badminton fairly seriously), that was back before the old king died. I’m only just starting to get fit again.

So this is a blog about learning to do all those things. I need to learn what equipment I need, what training regimen I should follow, what times I can expect to achieve and, most importantly, I need to learn about raising money. I also need to know more about the charities and people I’m raising money for, so I can better help them. I need to learn what else I need to learn.

I’m assuming there might be others in the same boat; mid-life crisis people like me who want to get into distance… err…. wheeling(?) but don’t have fancy racing wheelchairs or belong to any wheelchair racing clubs. And people who want to raise money in this sporadic fashion. People like me who don’t really know where to begin. This blog is for those people. And for people who want to find out more about the violence and abuse that women face every single day in every country there is. People who want to find out what we can do about it.

So to begin, here is my extensive range of wheelchair marathon equipment.

This is my wheelchair. It was cheap. When I bought it, I wasn’t certain that I’d be in a chair forever, so I didn’t over-spend. In the future I might invest in a better chair, but I don’t even know what to look for or what constitutes ‘better’. I have the off-road wheels shown here and some nice, thin racing wheels (I won’t bore you with details of the tyres, even I’m not that obsessive.) There are some things I’d like to change. For example, the footrests are a constant annoyance and they and the front castors do not look sufficiently badass for my purposes. I might change those. I might get pushrims that are more grippy and a better shape. If I get really into distance…. pushing(?) I might even get a fancy racing chair. They look bloody uncomfortable, though, and how you get in and out of them is a complete mystery. They are also very expensive, so I’d have to get really, really, into endurance wheelchairing to justify that.

This is my rolling road. I call it Rollo, after the only king I will ever serve. I bought it from Invictus Active, who make them and sell other wheelchair stuff. This was not cheap, but it’s a good, well-engineered piece of kit and it means I can train indoors. I don’t have to explain how the thing works, it’s fairly self-explanatory, but I’ll write a lot here about the cons, pros and practicalities of using it every day. There’s lots of video about Rollo on the Invictus Active site if you’re curious.

These are my gloves. Actually, I have lots of different pairs of gloves and I’m not entirely happy with any of them. Either I tear then to shreds in no time or they strip the skin clean off that bit between the thumb and finger where it really bloody hurts. They also tend to get in the way of my watch, which is busy trying to measure my pulse. These ones are climbing gloves and are as sturdy as any I’ve come across, but not perfect. I’m always on the lookout for better ones.

And that’s it. That’s my kit. I expect it will change as I learn more. And if you have any suggestions, I’d really like to hear them.