Breaking news!

Today i received my first £50 donation from John Gibbon. He works as the Director of care services at Nottinghamshire Hospice and has donated as he wishes to join me on a few runs. The first of which will take place on Wednesday. Thank you very much John, I'm looking forward to running with you.

That takes it up to £817. Thats 8% of my total!

Week 8 and 9

I have really got to make more notes!

Ok so, here are a few things to bring you up to date, sorry it’s a bit of a ‘War and Peace’ but I think I have nothing to tell you …and then I start typing and it all appears from nowhere.

At 9.45am on Wednesday 19th March I appeared on the Mark DennisonShow on BBC Radio Nottingham to talk photography. 

Mark Dennison

While there I asked about returning to talk '5K a day' they said they would love to have me come on again and do that, there was talk of joining in on a run as well.

I’ve completed the run with the TSB. It took place on Thursday 20th march and I ran it with just one staff member, Jack from Clifton to the West Bridgford branch.

TSB Jack and I 

We set off and it was very windy and cold, the traffic was starting to build up on the wide and already busy roads we used and the schools were kicking out. It made for an interesting obstacle race. I had no part in plotting the route and it turned out to be 6.6km. we just made it to the other branch and it started to rain. A glass or 2 of water, a sit down and then back in a taxi the Clifton. The intention was to run with 3 of the staff but they were unable to make it due to family stuff. Jack told me that they had raised around £100 for the hospice in the weeks leading up to the run. Thank you staff and customers of the TSB and big thanks to Jack for getting out there with me.

The challenge made it in to the Nottingham Post again. Just a small piece this time covering the TSB run.

I also made the back pages of the Stapleford Inspire Magazine,

I’m a photographer so Saturday 22nd March was a wedding shoot day. Knowing these things are usually a full day and there was no way I was going to run when i arrived home at 10pm, I ran early. It was a lovely morning so I thought a gentle run down the Nottingham Canal would be a good idea. I took a few photos while I was trotting along. If there are photos it’s because I’m walking. It was a tough one even at the slow pace I mustered up. My body hates me dragging it out for early runs these days. Nice to see some green on the trees though. I hardly ever see anyone on this route, it makes me think that it’s my own private track sometimes. Now I’ve said it, I won’t be able to move for bikes, dogs and runners!

Sunday 23^rd and Adam and I were out for a run, but this time it was his route. It took in a lot of what I already do around the area, but it sort of joined them up. It made for a nice run with a lot of different surfaces, road, pavement, gravel, single track and grass. We tried to miss out as much road as we could. There was a great sunset that day and I have to say I should have took a shot or two but here’s never time when we run on a Sunday, we are a bit too driven. I even saw a guy I used to work with many moons ago. I acknowledged him out walking the dog with an “ayup” and a nod. As I ran off I realised this was the second time id ran passed him on the same route so I shouted back “Next time I might stop and chat!” I think he laughed… not sure. Anyway we finished the run at 9.2km… 9.2? who runs 9.2km it was only a bit short of 10km. This realisation was made worse when I noticed that my app had once again done the dirty on me and stopped at 8.6km.

Monday 23^rd would you believe it, I ran the same route as the day before but added a bit on the end to make it 10km. It bugged me too much!

I felt a bit better, nothing too much to report from this week’s runs. I received a foam roller in the post, Victoria at PhysioNeeds recommended I get one as it was better that stretching out and could be done at any time. As long as it hurts when you roll on it you’re doing it right she tells me…. Well it does!

Thursday 27^th march was my eldest sons 12^th birthday and it also marked 2 months’ worth of running every day.

I don’t know what amazes me more, him getting to 12 or me running for 2 months every day without a rest! I arrived back home that afternoon knowing I had only a small window until we were off out for pizza so I had to run now or id struggle to do it later with a ‘deep pan -flaming hot’ sloshing about in there. Feeling the pressure of time I went out way too fast and had to stop to walk a bit. No time to warm down either. Friday morning I was out on my old man’s legs again at 6.30am. running early was the only option as I had a massage booked for the evening and was told not to run straight afterwards. No time to warm down properly after that run either, consequently I was in some pain by the time I arrived for the physio later. I explained my lack of stretching/warm down due to a pressing pizza party and work commitments. Unfortunately there was an unforgiving look received… I considered myself told. She beat me up as usual and I came out feeling better, but by the time I arrived home I was thirsty as is the norm. I felt quiet sick as well, this lasted all evening, anyone else ever feel like this after a massage?

ParkRun news

Saturday 29^th was my 3^rd Rushcliffe park run. It was a lovely morning. I was running late (no pun intended) and I rushed to the start line with only a minute or 2 to spare. Steve was already there waiting to start. I pulled away a little from Steve during the first section and usually if one of us does that the other will step up a bit to catch up, that didn’t happen today. I felt a bit bad as I pulled away a bit more as he only started to run with me for support and now I was running away from him. The feeling soon past! 

My app time was 24.59 another Parkrun PB. Steve was only a minute or so behind and when we met up once more I apologised for my speed burst. During the last Kilometre I did feel as if id bitten off more than I could chew and I was about to walk for a few seconds, but as the thought crossed my mind I was overtaken by, well let’s call him an ‘older gentleman’ I wasn’t walking after that.

The organisers of the run asked for feedback from the participants so I sent over a short email about the challenge and they kindly added it to the run report, I was also sent a message of good luck too.

Here is the link to the article

Other Pages

Caroline who is the website manager at the hospice has created a Pinterest board for the challenge I’m going to try and supply enough video and photos to fill it up. Check it out here. 

While I’m on the subject of page creation, the Nottinghamshire FA have also created a page on their website for the challenge. I’ll be running at St Georges Park in June with representatives from the FA too. You can check out the page here. 

Week 7 - the one metre stride

Week 7 was a difficult one. My legs hurt a lot and a couple of runs were extremely hard. I ran during a quite foggy day and it seemed to make breathing difficult, I just wasn’t able to get enough air in and at the right moment. I also ran on a lovely spring evening and my legs felt really heavy. It would have been a great run if I felt good as the weather was lovely and the woods near Coventry Lane looked really nice bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun.

whilst looking for some painkillers to take before I went out one evening I found a pedometer. It had ended up in the medicine box because it was a change for life freebie and it was in a pill box as a gimmick.

I set it up and wore it that day to see how many steps were in a 5km run. It turns out there was 5325. So it would seem I have about a 1 metre stride. I guess I should have known that really but it was interesting to see. Some of that total was actually be stumbling around the kitchen afterwards as I forgot to switch it off.

I admitted defeat with my leg pain in the end and booked a Sports Massage with PhysioNeeds at Rushcliffe Leisure centre.Victoria at PN was very good, I had to answer a load of health questions and then she asked about the reasons I had attended. I had nearly an hour of quite intense massage. That was of course a nice way of saying it was bloody painful at times. Well worth it though, a few more of these and then regular sessions should keep thing ‘running’ smoothly.

Donations have been slow last week but its still early days i guess.
The hospice have done a great job organising the TSB run which takes place on Thursday 20th March at 3pm. I'm looking forward to that.
All in all it was a tough week, ending with a nice steady Sunday run of 7km.

Week 6 PB's and pick me ups.

Week 6 has gone by and it was a week of PB's as the Saturday run was completed in a storming (for me) 24 minutes and 12 seconds! It was slightly over the 5km distance but the actually 5km dead time was 23.45.
The following Sunday was a 5 miler. Adam and i completed it in 45 minutes dead. the trouble came when i went to close the app i use to record the run and it lost the data! Feeling strongly about wanting to prove each run had actually taken place i had a stretch and a drink and then set out again for a 5k run. It felt OK to be honest and i did it in 29 minutes.

Earlier in the week i managed a morning run too. i was out at 6.30am on the Monday and i picked a great day for it.

Ended it with one of these too.

I had the runners confirmed for the TSB run that is scheduled to happen on Wednesday march 20th. we will be running between The Clifton and West Bridgford branches and the staff will be raising money in branch towards the £10k total. Thank you to all at the TSB and to Tina at the hospice for arranging.

The Tuesday was a quick one too, 26 mins, here's me afterwards!

Week 5 - Sorry for the delay!

Sorry about the delay with week 5!

Ive got to admit i cant remember that much about it, i usually make some notes throughout the week but i failed there. Two key things happened though, number 1: on the 27th of February i completed my 32nd run. This was also my 1 month milestone. I shared the main stats from endomondo on the day here there are again...

Amazing that i had ran 172.29 km in 16 hours and i had only burnt off enough calories for 26 burgers!

Going back a day i ran around Bramcote Hills Park on the 26th February. This is significant because 18 months ago was the last time i ran around the wooded area here (at least). During that run i fell and sprained my right ankle leaving unable to run for a long time. I was feeling a little nervous to say the least. No issues though. Here's a pic from the top looking out over Coventry Lane.

looking out over Coventry Lane from Bramcote Hills

Saturday 1st was mine and Steve's 2nd Parkrun at Rushcliffe park we ran a little quicker that day than the 1st one. i noticed that all the newbies did as we did the first day and congregated in front of the start line. It does seem like the right place to stand when your not sure though. It was the most amazing day, warm and sunny, a great running day, looking forward to the next one.