This is the inspiring story of Dan Page.
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Enjoy…
At the age of nine I was diagnosed with a disability called Perthes disease which made exercising more or less impossible.
Perthes disease (Legg-Calve-Perthes disease or Calve Perthes disease) is a childhood disorder which affects the head of the femur (the ball of the ball and socket joint of the hip). In Perthes disease the blood supply to the growth plate of the bone at the end of the femur becomes inadequate. As a result the bone softens and breaks down. The specialists told me that I would never be able to lead a fully active lifestyle due to the shorting of my leg and the weakness within my hip joint.
I spent weeks on end going in and out of hospital, being placed on traction and having to have a number of operations to lengthen the tendons in my groin. I had to have my hip pinned to try to increase the blood flow into my hip joint and this was followed by six weeks in broom stick pots.
Through it all I stayed positive. Initially I had to walk with crutches as my muscles were to weak to support my body weight and I worked with the hospital physio once a week with a set of exercises to do at home to develop my muscles.
I actually joined a football team and got quite lucky, the manager listened to my mum and dad; working with us by giving me five or ten minutes as and when. I would have easy training sessions just doing what I could but still being involved with the team. Knuckling down I managed to progress, firstly up to half a match and finally until I could play the full 90.
I played as much football as my hip could handle and at the age of eighteen I was finally discharged from the hospital.
I continued to play football until my early twenties, but then my activity levels decreased and I put on a considerable amount of weight. Back then I never really looked at myself as overweight, however, looking back at the old me I can safely say I was both overweight and unfit, weighing four stone heavier than what I am now.
I eventually lost interest in playing football, and started to spend more time walking in the National Parks with my two boxer dogs and good friend Dan Milton. I gained an interest in walking challenges and went on to complete the National 3 Peaks, Yorkshire 3 Peaks and the Lyke Wake Walk.
This is where I developed my base fitness before embarking on the crazy challenge of running 100 miles in the Lake District.
In 2012 we received some bad news about a close family member being diagnosed with cancer, I made the decision to sign up for the 2013 100 mile Ultra Tour of the Lake District for Cancer Research UK. This meant I had to start running to get fitter, there was no question, I had to make sure I completed the race.
A few months of running passed on the local trails before I decided to join a running club, I felt I needed to seek professional help and advice for such a big event. After thoroughly scouring the internet I found a couple of local clubs and decided to join Clowne Road Runners. On my first training session I met a chap named Andy Ward and told him about the race, he then advised me to get in touch with Dave Tune at Blizard Physiotherapy and have a Lactate Threshold Test done.
On meeting Dave I was really impressed with how professional he was and his knowledge of training was fantastic. He made feel totally at ease and took the time to listen to me and explain everything. A lot of the talk went over my head but he made sure I fully understood everything before I left. I told him my short and long term goals so he could tailor the test and training to my needs.
Going through the results, Dave said that my running style and test outcomes suggested that I would be more suited to running on the roads and over marathon distance, not at ultras. Dave was also confident he could have me running a 2hr 40min marathon with the right training and support. I of course laughed and rebuffed his statement as I never thought it would be possible, especially as I was struggling to run 10min / miles at the time. Even when I played football I was never renowned for my running.
I was then given my training zones and a plan to help me complete my 100 mile race. So it began…
As the miles increased, so did the support from Dave, and consequently so did my confidence.
I went on to complete the race well inside the cut off limit and was one of the 25% to raise over £2,089 excluding gift aid!
I took advice on how to recover properly, and did so before going back to see Dave and having my training zones re-tested. We were both surprised to see how much I had improved. We sat down and chatted about moving to a road marathon and what I would have to do. We looked at how I would be able to achieve the target time he originally set of a 2hrs 40mins marathon and Dave was really confident that if I committed to a 6 month training plan, he could get me running really well on the roads.
Admittedly I was a little unsure as I didn’t see myself as a runner, but I made a commitment that I would finish the ultras off I had planned before taking a month’s recovery. I figured this would put me in good stead to start the strict plan that Dave had tailored to my needs. The plan allowed me to carry on progressing and to meet the milestones set along the journey, and also ensure that I would be on track for the 2hrs 40mins target.
We decided that the Edinburgh Marathon would be my target race. I started off with a month’s threshold training to build my strength and get my body used to training on the roads. I hadn’t done many miles on the road before and I found that it was taking a lot out of my body.
I kept in touch with Dave and he supported me throughout. At times I felt like I was contacting him too much, but he assured me I wasn’t and that if anything, I needed to have more contact with him so that he could monitor my progress and correctly guide me.
We identified four build-up races that would give me enough time to train and recovery properly. These races allowed us to monitor my improvement. I was instructed with what I needed to do in the weeks prior to the race and how much recovery time I would need once each race had been completed. Each week before a race I was given a predicted time that Dave thought I was going to run, this was based on the information he had gathered from my training runs. The predictions proved to be correct every time, even though I often doubted my own ability to achieve them.
In six months I went from running a 5k in 19mins 02secs to 16mins 16secs, 10k in 38mins 56secs to 34mins 29secs and ½ marathon in 78mins 11secs to 73mins 45secs, producing times I never imagined possible.
A few weeks before my first ever marathon I went back to have my Lactate Tests done. This time we looked at my capacity to run at the speeds around my predicted marathon pace to establish how my body would react. From this information we were able to put together a race plan that allowed me to run my perfect marathon.
The extra support I got in the final few weeks really helped, I tended to over analyse everything and worry that I wasn’t doing enough. With Edinburgh being my first marathon, I didn’t have a clue about things like tapering, but thanks to Dave, this was all taken care of.
I believe, for that moment, I was in the shape of my life.
I felt very confident on race day, maybe too confident as I set off a little too quickly in the early stages. At twenty miles my legs felt heavy and my mind was telling me it would be ok to walk for a while, but as the finish line got closer, the crowds got bigger and there was no way I was going to give up. All of the very early cold, wet, windy mornings spent training weren’t going to be for nothing…
I crossed the finish line in 2hrs 42mins 27secs.
Without all of the information and support I received from Dave and his team, and my wife especially, I strongly believe that I wouldn’t have run a 2hrs 42mins marathon on my first attempt.
Which in addition I also qualified for a championship place in the 2015 London Marathon.
