Our thanks to Estates manager John Smith, who was the first person to complete the Cardiff Bay Triathlon in aid of the Cardiff & Vale Health Charity. John completed the 2016 Olympic Distance event and came 8th in his age group – an excellent achievement for his first ever triathlon! CORRECTION: John was actually an even more impressive 6th in his age category! Since enquiring minds want to know, John’s times were: swim 00:34:15; bike 01:23:50, run 01:12:21 and total chip time: 03:18:21.

Pictured here is John, on the left, with his colleague Gareth Simpson, who was one of John’s kind sponsors. John raised £105 for the Health Charity’s Diabetes Research Fund, which is spent on diabetes research and improving diabetes services in Cardiff and Vale hospitals. Dr Aled Roberts, Clinical Director for Internal Medicine, said ‘‘This donation will help provide our Diabetes Nurses with new, bespoke mobile technology that will analyse glucose data for inpatients with Diabetes, so that our Diabetes Specialist Nurses can be even more proactive in managing the health of those patients, and reduce the reliance on receiving a referral to review a person with Diabetes.

“On behalf of all the diabetes team, I’d like to say thank you to John for his fundraising, which will improve patient care in Diabetes.”

If you fancy setting your own challenge for a Cardiff and Vale UHB department close to your heart, there’s still time to sign up for a #TeamHealthCharity space in the Cardiff Half Marathon on 1st October 2017. Contact Lucie Barrett for details (02921841802).