Nottingham Forest fan and keen triathlete Sam Perkins will take on one last triathlon next month as he continues his fight against Motor Neuron Disease.
After an immense journey which has seen him complete well over 40 triathlons, Sam - who suffers from Motor Neuron Disease - is hoping to give it one last hurrah before hanging up his running boots, swim suit and bicycle when he takes on the Outlaw Half Triathlon in Nottingham next month.
The 40-year-old from East Leake was diagnosed with MND in 2019 and is restricted to a wheelchair as well as relying on a ventilator to assist his breathing. With the support of friends and family, however, Sam will complete the tough but popular challenge at Holme Pierrepont, around five miles from the city centre, on May 15.
Sam’s original aim had been to tackle the event in summer 2020 with him being towed in a boat through the 1.2mile swim, and pushed through the 56 mile bike leg and 13.1 mile run.
After a pandemic-forced delay, Sam’s condition progressed and for safety reasons the revised attempt will be reduced to the run element on a five-lap course around the rowing lake at the National Watersports Centre.
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Sam will raise money for the Stand Against Motor Neurone Disease charity, a charity which Sam started with his wife Emma shortly after his MND diagnosis. The charity funds research into eventually finding a cure for the disease and has raised more than £75,000 to date. As a collective effort, Team SAM will have plenty of support throughout the day with Steph Cobb, step-father Nick Rawling and step-brother Tom, all set to complete the challenge alongside him.
Sam said: “Stef was about 13 when I first started running with the tri club. As she got older, I got fitter, so we progressed about the same rate. She’s probably the most determined person I’ve ever come across in triathlon. She was a last-minute replacement for a charity tri that included a 5 mile swim in Lake Windermere, then cycling to Nottingham to run the marathon. Steph’s a girl who doesn’t know how to give up."
Nick introduced Sam to triathlon over a pint at Christmas Eve in 2009 and will tackle the 56mile bike course on the same roads Sam used to train on when he could cycle.
Sam’s first triathlon was in 2010 in East Leake, the village where he was brought up, met his wife Emma, and has since returned after being given the MND verdict. The swim was at the local leisure centre and he wore the shirt of his beloved Nottingham Forest to wind up the triathlon club chairman who was a Leicester City fan.
Sam says: “I’m not your lifelong athlete who got into tri because I was constantly active. In my 20s I was more interested in going to the pub. I was a smoker, weighed about 18 stone and wasn’t particularly fit. But it was the sense of achievement when I crossed that finish line.
“Looking back, it was a big moment for mum and dad too, to see their son pursue something related to fitness and follow it through. I just wanted to do it again and again, and by the end of the first year I’d completed seven or eight sprint triathlons and lost about five-and-a-half stone.”
The diagnosis for MND came after suffering sustained breathing issues for five months, which eventually led to pneumonia. He was immediately placed on a ventilator and within months had lost the ability to walk and was struggling to use his hands.
He explains: “My friends were saying: ‘What is that? What does it mean?’ I don’t think I fully comprehended the enormity of the diagnosis and how few options there were... well, no options really. The disease will do what it’s going to do, and I’ll just have to cope. So, as soon as I got the opportunity I wanted to be part of a triathlon again.”
Having had initial plans thwarted by the onset of Covid-19 – mass participation events were cancelled and as someone with a part-respiratory condition, Sam was classified as vulnerable – how has he found the will to continue with the challenge?
Sam says: “I’d credit Emma for that. I remember sitting by my hospital bed a couple of days after diagnosis feeling pretty crappy about life. I was seeing all these problems, and she just said: ‘If things need to change, we’ll just do it. Whatever you need, we’ll make happen.’ That was the moment I thought: ‘This thing doesn’t need to stop me.’ I tapped back into that triathlon mentality where you have the ability to push yourself and realise the biggest limit is inside your head. It just switched that day. I thought: ‘Whatever I want to do, I’m going to try and do it. And if I can’t, at least I’ve tried.’”
Sam adds: “The first day I walked into the tri club in East Leake, I realised how supportive an environment it was. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with this sport. This event is my ambition to take part just one more time. To be on the course and encourage others as they run past, to see my old tri club running the feed station at the top of the lake. Just to be in that environment.
“I am almost certain I will cry, and for a myriad of reasons: to do something that I thought had been unexpectedly taken away from me again, something that had given me so much self-worth, and something that I always look back on as one of my biggest achievements. It’s going to be a big day.”
Support Sam in his final push to complete a triathlon by donating to his JustGiving page here.
