The Terrence Higgins Trust is a charity that supports those living with HIV – they are the largest voluntary sector provider of HIV and sexual health services in the UK, running services out of local centres across Great Britain.
No one really wants to live with this; it’s not limited to any one section of society.
The Terrence Higgins Trust estimates that about 7% of the roughly 103,800 people living with the virus in the UK, do not know they are HIV positive.
Their vision for 2030 is that there will be no new HIV transmissions in the UK.
The twenty eighth of my 40 donations goes to the Shark Trust who are safeguarding the future of sharks through positive change. The Sharks Trust believe the best way to safeguard the future of sharks is through a solutions-based approach that promotes positive change.
The Sharks Trust’s conservation goals set the agenda for their work. They achieve their goals through projects and campaigns that bring together different players. All of their projects, campaigns, and policy actions drive progress towards these 3 key goals:
SPECIES PROTECTION – protection of endangered species through legislation and effective conservation action. Their Saving Species projects place science at the heart of conservation action.
FISHERIES MANAGEMENT – fisheries managed for sustainability to prevent declines in non-threatened species. They’re working to transform fisheries to prevent population decline through overfishing.
RESPONSIBLE TRADE – They promote responsible trade and reduced demand for non-sustainable shark products.
There’s lots of ways you can help. From raising awareness about shark conservation, to taking part in one of their citizen science projects – they’ve got something for all ages. Visit their Get Involved page to find out more.
I’ve been uploading content to YouTube for some time now but initially used it more like cloud-based storage for videos I wanted to keep but not necessarily share. More recently, I have been creating content that is more viewer friendly and shared publicly.
My original videos were either from a Mobius Action Cam or a GoPro and for a while, I was creating content on my Samsung Galaxy S10+. It was surprisingly effective but copyright claims on licenced music were really causing me a headache so I recently upgraded to a decent programme on my Dell XPS-15; it’s like night and day!
I enjoy creating content and sharing my experiences via this medium and will try to improve my offerings as I learn more about editing and production. I have a lot of respect for those who have ‘mastered the algorithm’.
I guess a lot of viewers like to see a particular topic on a channel but mine is an eclectic mix of things I enjoy participating in from freediving to mountaineering and loads of other stuff in between.
In April 2021 a total of 40 people had subscribed to my YouTube channel and I was made up!
40 for 40!
By June 2021 my subscribers had increased to 47 – a 17.5% increase in two months!
If things carry on like this, I might achieve 440 subscribers in October 2023!
Seriously, thanks for all your support – I hope to keep entertaining you for years to come.
Check it out here or click one of the above images – like and subscribe!
Event started at 3am Thursday morning 03/06/2021 KSA time / 1am GMT and ends 7pm KSA / 5pm GMT on Friday 04/06/2021 – read below for a summary of what happened, the Garmin data and links to a couple of videos…
Video of the event itself:
Introduction and preparation the evening before:
So how did the event go?
My original plan was to cycle outside for at least 9 hours on my road bike, then come inside to ride my time trial bike on the turbo trainer where I can control the air conditioning for 7 hours. I would then join the 24 hour spinathon and use a spin bike.
However, the spin bikes do not track distance and as the disc wheel is fully enclosed, I had no way to rig up any trustworthy equipment. This meant I would have to alternate between the road bike and the time trial bike or simply stay on my time trial bike for a lot longer than originally anticipated.
The reality is, it was too hot to stay outside for any longer than 6 hours and so this was suggesting I was due to spend 34 hours on a Time Trial bike?! I tried not to think about it.
I figured if I take it easy and just stay awake, the distance will rack up. If I maintained 25 kilometres per hour average then this would allow me to outturn at 1,000 kilometres distance over 40 hours. I had my nutrition and hydration sorted, I had support on hand (thank you), had taken the day off work and a 24-hour spinathon event to look forward to as the finale.
It wasn’t easy to get up at 2am and in fact I snoozed until 02:40 so I missed some of my breakfast and this likely led to me becoming slightly dehydrated early on. That said, I started on schedule at 3am exactly as per the below:
The first 6 hours outside flew by. I maintained a low ‘easy’ heart rate and was making good progress with an average speed between 25 and 30 kilometres per hour as per the below. I took 15 minutes breaks every 2 hours 45 minutes so I was aiming to simply repeat a 3 hour cycle.
However, at the 6 hour point, it had become seriously hot outside (over 40 degrees Celsius) and I decided to move inside on the turbo trainer and my time trial bike as I was dehydrating. You can see from the below diagram that this was immediately around 20% slower than being outside (I was averaging around 25 kph outdoors and 20kph indoors). I also had to replace the battery in the speed sensor once I moved inside and the impact of this can be seen below by my slow start after the second break.
Sector 1 performance data
It was at this point, that I realised I had not factored the heat, the breaks and the increased rolling resistance of the turbo trainer into my calculations properly. It was looking like I would cover a lot less than my 1,000 kilometres over the 40 hour period.
Realisation sinking in
The statistics for the first sector and almost 7 hours worth of cycling are as follows:
Sector 1 statistics
I originally wanted to record the whole 40 hours as a single activity but after 6 hours and 51 minutes the battery in my Garmin 245 needed charging. I understood that it could be charged mid-activity but made the mistake of plugging it into a laptop port which made the Garmin assume I wanted to transfer data and it stopped the activity! Having charged it enough to get it out of the red, I started the second sector and considered how to resolve the matter.
Sector 2 header
Sector 2 was all on my Time Trial bike indoors. Sector 2 at 1 hour and 51 minutes plus the earlier 51 minutes on the Turbo Trainer from Sector 1 and ~15 minute break made up the third 3-hour long section. The negative impact to my average speed is clear here as being consistently lower than when outside.
It should be noted how the GPS signal recorded some quite significant movement when I hardly moved at all for almost 2 hours.
Sector 2 performance data
At this point I stopped for my third 15 minute break and stopped the activity to be sure I recorded it, in advance of trying to charge the Garmin again.
Sector 2 statisticsSector 3 header
I started the new activity at the end of my break (so there is a circa 10 minute gap of unproductive time in the data) and then plugged the Garmin into an external battery pack – thankfully, it kept running meaning I would only need to have three sectors. I was pleased and relieved in equal measure – lesson learned!
Sector 3 includes the final time I spent at home, the time I took moving the equipment to the school sports hall and the whole 24-hour spinathon period. You will notice so odd data. There are significant sections of down time.
Sector 3 performance data – note the significant down time
I maintained until we had watched the film Top Gun. As much as I love it, Goose’s untimely demise did not provide the adrenaline shot I required. Jester was not dead, but I was in a lot of pain, my hands were numb and needed to do something to help myself. I decided a walk and some fresh air would help and I used the opportunity to fetch my torque wrench from home. This allowed me to dismantle the headset and raise the handlebars on the time trial bike by a couple of inches. The idea being that a more upright position would reduce the weight burden on my hands. It helped but I was already too far gone by this point.
Our DJ Gladderz arrived in the early hours and this was a welcome addition.
Nonetheless, I had become increasingly tired, the rotating and morphing geometric visuals that were projected onto the whole wall right in front of my bike became like something out of clockwork orange, I was suffering from some gastrointestinal discomfort, coffee wasn’t helping and at the 27th hour I had to make the difficult decision to take a proper break.
I was very frustrated at first but upon arriving home and experiencing extreme difficulty inserting and turning the key in the lock due to impaired dexterity, I knew I had made the right choice. I slept, I showered, I changed, I ate pasta, had a cup of tea, sorted my head out and went back for more.
The final 5 hours were like a different event for me. I absolutely rinsed myself and loved doing so, especially when Gladderz came back on for the final hour.
Sector 3 statistics – note the significant down time and erroneous max. speed (I think caused by my hand slipping when I was adjusting the head set (I recall setting off the Garmin crisis assistance feature on my watch))The finish line Respect
Challenge and sweepstake results:
The challenge and associated sweepstake was to guess what distance I would travel in 40 hours and I have to say how impressed I am at all the predictions and guesses, not least because they were so high. I’m humbled that you have such high expectations of me – thanks for your contributions!
The long and short of it, as per Garmin, is that I only completed 552 kilometres in a 40 hour period. This was not only below my expectations, it was below every estimate that anyone put in!
Therefore the lowest estimate presents a clear winner: Congratulations Nelly Attar whose prediction of 600 kilometres was the closest to how far I cycled in 40 hours!
Nelly Attar is the most experienced person I know in fitness training, endurance and sporting challenges such as this so it should have come as no surprise. Nonetheless, thank you to everyone who took part and made the event possible.
Whist the average speed over the full period appears to be woefully slow at 13.8kph (552 / 40) it’s interesting to compare against ‘moving time’ alone. For example, only 27 hours and 28 minutes were recorded as moving time. This provides an average speed of (552 / 27.5) 20kph which is acceptable / understandable / more like it – certainly on this particular turbo trainer and considering my relatively unscientific approach to data collection (for example, the watch remained on my wrist as I walked home and this slow period would probably also class as ‘moving time’ – I think my pure cycling moving average was more like 23kph).
I’ve learnt loads from doing this. The main thing is that I’m not doing it again unless truly exceptional circumstances present themselves. It is clear to me that things go down hill after being awake for 24 hours and going past this whilst trying to operate at a high level of performance is not only stupid, it is dangerous. I think missing a night’s sleep two weeks in a row also has a compounding effect, as does working the day before undertaking anything like this; I didn’t sleep well or long enough the night before.
It highlights just how important proper breaks are and sleep is for us to operate properly; really good rest is essential for us to operate at our best. I often forego sleep to hit deadlines or have a good time and it’s not worth it.
My nutrition and hydration strategy remains sound and I’m glad I over-provisioned (I estimated 500 calories an hour and 1 litre of fluids) but I ended up wanting other things, like cups of tea, cookies and nuts, not just energy bars, gels, dates and electrolyte fluids (too samey over 40 hours). In the end, I kept my heart rate as low as possible to go the distance and this meant I Garmin tracked me using 11,998 calories which equates to ~300 calories per hour over the 40 hour period.
I had a few technical and mechanical issues throughout the 40 hour period, my speed sensor battery, charging my Garmin watch, my bottle cage came loose and I had to change the geometry of the bike by raising the headset. In hindsight, setting the bike up better in advance would have helped my longevity but really, I do not believe a time trial bike is good for a spinathon. It was not my plan to use a time trial bike but in the end was the only way I could track the distance.
For sure this turbo-trainer is slower than being outside. I like the set up but it does feel like you have to put too much effort in to achieve a low speed relative to the road outside and the fact you can’t coast at all sucks!
I’ve learned a new appreciation of my capacity for pain and ability to sustain effort over a prolongued period.
In the end my frustration at taking some time out to rest was offset by me realising it was the right decision for me. I listened to myself; I needed it.
The fee for the spinathon went to the Royal Air Force Association, I paid in full. I was not asking for donations, I encouraged estimates as to how far I would travel – the ability to win charitable prizes in return.
Closest estimate won:
1). a #40s440 t-shirt 2). a £40 donation to a charity of your choice 3). Choice how I spend 40 minutes of my time
If you are inspired to make a charitable donation, then check out RAFA or any of the other worthy causes that I have already made donations to on my ‘Forties for 40’ blog @ www.40s440.com #40s440.
Follow me on Instagram @cjburgoine and see how stories unfold as they happen…
My twenty third donation goes to Cancer Research via Beth and Laura who are raising funds to help fund life-saving research and to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.
My twenty second donation goes to Help for Heroes in memory of my friend and colleague Jason Ferdinando, who passed away unexpectedly recently.
It is appropriate that this donation follows the ‘Setting my alarm for 04:40‘ post because Jason’s untimely passing was a wake up call for many of us and will remain so.
You never know just how long you’ve got left; respect Jase.
They say ‘the early bird gets the worm’ but I’ve not ever been a morning person. In fact, I’d say I was the distinct opposite: a night owl, so this challenge was one that did not come naturally to me at all.
Since April 2015, I had to start work at 7am so waking up earlier had become more normalised. Often I would wake at 06:00 and then rush around to try to get into work at a reasonable time but more recently, driven by wanting to training in the morning, I realised that I would have to get up much earlier if I wanted a chance of stopping sweating by the time I got into work!
Since mid-2020 I was setting my alarm for 04:40 between two or three times a week, to go training before work or at the weekend to allow enough time to travel to a place to train before it got too warm. In any case, I wouldn’t wake up this early every day because it would tire me out and I would need at least one lie in a week!
However, when the Holy Month of Ramadan came along and I decided to fast and abstain for 40 days it became essential to wake up at 04:40 to eat and drink before the sun rose and have a acceptably challenging amount of time fasting throughout the day.
So from then on, I set my alarm for every day at 04:40 and with only a few reasonable exceptions for travel for example (often I woke up before 04:40 or in the case of being on board the Dream Master Boat in the Red Sea I woke when the engine started) I stuck to this time.
In all honesty, I went back to bed a few times, largely because of a late night the evening before but this typically would be at a weekend but always having eaten. There were only a couple of days in the 40 day period where I slept in but I punished myself for doing so by not eating or rehydrating until 18:30 the same day, at the earliest.
Will I be carrying this on? Yes, I really enjoy being able to train before work and not rushing around every morning to get to work on time. That said, will I be getting up every day at 04:40 for the rest of my life? Hell no!
I’ve been neglecting this blog. There are many excuses but only one solution – to reintroduce balance back into my life. The last half of 2020 was difficult for everyone and in my case, the increasing work demands with associated laptop ultra-marathons became all-consuming. Like a lot of people, I wasn’t able to take a break all year but finally been able to spend some time with my Family over the Christmas and New Year holiday period allowed me to decompress and reassess.
My fingers and back have become extremely sore for a while now (I will write about this in a future blog now I know a little more about it) and it has prevented me from wanting to spend more hours on a laptop once I have logged off from working. The neglect of this blog is frankly an electronic symptom of how my personal life has become overshadowed by and secondary to work.
I’d like to apologise to anyone who feels they have been on the wrong side of Craig’s see-saw.
I have been keeping up with the challenges as best as possible and my achievements and experiences will for the subject of imminent 40s440 blogs as I catch back up.
I’ve been trying to follow something of a process with social media. For example, I might post a single 1×1 picture update on Instagram and this would be followed by a similar but often more detailed post with widescreen pictures on Facebook. However, following up on both of these with a much more detailed blog is where I have allowed neglect to creep in. It has helped me to appreciate the effort that some bloggers must put in.
Ordinarily, I’d berate myself and sign off with ‘must try harder’ or suchlike but at age 40, I have managed to find some of my limits and should resect them.
I didn’t set any New Year’s resolutions for 2020, instead I began the 40s440 challenges. This year I resolve to complete the challenges and address imbalance.
I previously referred to the 40s 4 40 challenges as ‘stretch targets’ and to appreciate why, I have attempted to record my current performance in this post. This will help me to understand how big a task I’ve got ahead of me. I’ve listed some of the challenges below with various reference points; my plan to completion will be the subject of a future post…
40 Press ups / push ups in a minute: the easiest thing to do is watch the video; I reckon I’ve already nailed it and with a bit of work I’ll have this one sorted by the end of 2020…
In early 2022 Thounaojam Niranjoy Singh from Manipur broke the Guinness Book of World Records for most push-ups (finger tips) in one minute. Niranjoy, who is a two-time Guinness World Record holder, broke the old record of 105 push-ups by achieving 109 push-ups in one minute during a Guinness Book of World Records attempt organised by Aztecs Sports Manipur at Aztecs fight studio in Imphal.
The previous record holder in most push-ups (finger tips) in one minute is Graham Maly from the United Kingdom who set the record in 2009. These incredible records really put my achievement into perspective!
Run 10k in 40 minutes: My Personal Best (PB) for 10 kilometres is 45 minutes 11 seconds and currently I feel comfortable running at 5 minutes per kilometre so really I’m probably running 50 minute 10ks. I therefore need to improve by between 12% and 20%. Not insignificant.
Ironman 70.3 in 4 hours and 40 minutes: My PB is 5 hours 7 minutes, split as follows:
Bahrain
To achieve a 4:40 means I need to take just under half an hour off my best ever time and I’ll be looking to the run to achieve most of that…
Marathon in under 4 hours and 40 minutes: No baseline as despite all the running I have done in my life, I have not yet run a marathon – hence the challenge! My PB for a half is 1:43.
Free dive to 40 meters: I am AIDA Level 2 qualified (20m depth in constant weight class) but I once touched 22.4 meters, according to my dive watch. 40m is practically double my current depth and so quite a challenge. As a sub-category of this, I will attempt a 3 minutes 40 seconds breath-hold (my current personal best is 3 minutes 20 seconds). This is a mere 10% improvement and ideally I’d like to get over 4 minutes.
40,000 feet of climbing: The highest I’ve ever climbed is the summit of Aconcagua at 22,837 feet (6,962 meters) in January 2020 and until now, I’ve only ever climbed one high-altitude mountain per calendar year.
The most I’ve ever climbed in a calendar year before now is 19,341 feet (5,895 meters) when I did Kilimanjaro in 2018. In a rolling year I’ve climbed a total of 56,370 feet (EBC & Kala Patthar in 2017 plus Kilimanjaro and Elbrus in 2018).
I need to climb more than twice as high in one calendar year than I’ve ever done before but actually less than I have done before in a rolling year to reach a cumulative 40,000 feet (or more).
Climb my 4th of the World’s 7 highest summits: I have climbed 3 of the World’s highest summits (Elbrus, Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua) so the next will be my 4th. This goes hand-in-hand with climbing 40,000+ feet.
Cycle 40km in an hour: I completed a 25 mile time trial in October 2019 and was I’m 8 minutes over 1 hour so I need to improve by 12%.
Drink a ’40’: I’ve seen them on American films but I’m yet to see one in the flesh and of course, drink it!
Giving £40 to 40 charities: I think is better described as a privilege than a challenge….
