22 May 2009
Jason Gill, who has been confined to a wheelchair since falling 50 feet while rock-climbing in Gibraltar in 1997, has been steadily increasing his daily training as he prepares to hand-cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats as part of Be Number 1's LEJOG project. Most people would probably quake with trepidation at the thought of hand-cycling almost 900 miles in just nine days - but not Jason.
"I can hardly wait to get cracking," said the Chester-based ex-RAF and ex-TA 39-year-old. "It is something I have really wanted to do for some time and it should be a rewarding challenge. The furthest I have hand-cycled in a competitive situation is a marathon, but I have been doing between 50 and 70 miles a day in training. And I am now increasing that to about 85 miles a day.
"Training can obviously be a bit repetitive, so I am looking forward to the varied terrain that LEJOG will bring. Going down the hills, when I will probably reach speeds of about 50mph, will be no problem, but cycling uphill will be the tough part. And that is something I have been very mindful of in training. It will be a question of controlling my speed, and not pushing it too much, in the event itself.
"I was a very keen athlete before my accident and life hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be after the accident, to be honest. You have got to get on with life and I've just carried on. Only two or three times in 12 years have I thought: 'If only the accident hadn't happened.'
"But it did. After spending five months recovering in hospital, I began improving my fitness by training for athletics. I started competing in wheelchair pentathlon - I currently hold the British pentathlon record - and wheelchair racing. And I added hand-cycling to my repertoire a couple of years ago. I love what I do and I want to do as much as I possibly can. You never know what's around the corner."
Similarly, Jason won't necessarily know what's around the next corner in LEJOG. But you can be sure that he will handle every corner from the tip of south-west England to the tip of north-east Scotland with skill, strength and courage - just as he handles his life.
