So I went to squad training last night, for the first time in 4 weeks.
Getting to Can Too training early is almost always worthwhile, especially when we have a cancer research who’s been funded by the programme come and speak to us, as we did last night. We met Dr Hilda Pickett, who does basic research on telomeres. She described telomeres as like the aglet on a shoelace; a protective structure at each end of a chromosome. She explained how, in normal cells, the telomeres shorten slightly each time a cell divides, thus naturally limiting cell division; however, in cancer cells, the telomeres are maintained so the cells can divide an unlimited number of times, becoming a tumour. Hilda’s Cure Cancer Australia grant was awarded for a project examining ways to target telomerase, the enzyme responsible for the telomer maintenance in cancer cells. For more information, Hilda’s very interesting one-page bio is here.
Hilda also spoke to us about the importance of organisations like Cure Cancer Australia in funding cancer research by young researchers. She described how difficult it is for young researchers to get funding in general, as they necessarily don’t have the same level of experience as older researchers; however, a grant like the one awarded to her by Cure Cancer Australia allows young researchers to do innovative research, get a foot in the door for getting other grants, and get experience in writing competitive grant proposals.
After Hilda’s talk, and a little pep talk by our team captain, it was time to get in the pool. The swimming itself was, frankly, bloody hard work. We did interval training, wherein we had a fixed time interval to swim a certain distance, then a rest between finishing the distance and the end of the interval, then started all over again. It was all a bit of a blur, but I think we did seven lots of 200m, at a pace of 4:45/200m. At first we were getting about a minute’s rest in between swims (which would be a pace of 17:25/km if I could keep it up!), however by the end that was down to more like 30 seconds or less. By the third set out of seven I was ready to throw the coach in the pool for making us continue, had I had the energy; by the end, I could barely manage human language. However, I was assured I did extremely well considering I’d been sick and off training!
Oh man! I’d forgotten how intense that session was.