My name is Russell Winwood, I was born in 1966 in Brisbane Australia. I’ve had a good life thus far but have had a few health issues along the way. I have decided to take to blogging to share my experiences with other people in the hope that it can help people with similar health issues. I was diagnosed with asthma when I was young, but managed to have an active childhood playing sports & doing what most kids do. In my late teens I started smoking socially, I’m not sure why as I knew it was bad for me but continue to be a social smoker until I was 36. Christmas Day 2002 I collapsed , too many years of not looking after myself had caught up with me in the form of a stroke. Time to change my habits , I gave up the cigarettes , started eating better, at the time of my stroke I was 88 kg about 15 kg over weight . My son had just started cycling & talked me into taking it up, best thing I ever did . The weight started coming off & I started feeling like a 36 year old should. A friend of mine suggested I should do a triathlon, & after a little hesitation because I wasn’t a great swimmer I agreed. So for the next 8yrs I raced into varying distances of triathlons from sprint to Half Ironman as well as a couple of ultra marathons. In 2011 after noticing my times were getting slower, exercise was getting harder & I was constantly short of breath I took myself off to the Doctors. Spirometer & lung function tests confirmed I had copd, surprisingly the scan showed that there was no damage to my lungs from smoking. My airways had become very narrow due to years of chest infections causing a build up of scar tissue. And so my Ironman journey begins , hopefully my blogs will give some insight on exercising with copd & respiratory disease in general.
