A dry run in Bath

I did it. I actually got around my first official race and in a decent time too; 13.1 miles in 2 hours 13 minutes. Not bad huh! Being part of the reason a city grinds to a halt for 12,000 crazy individuals who decided at some point in 2012 to accept the Bath Half challenge was amazing. Being amongest so many charity runners doing something selfless for the good of others is a powerful emotion. Being over taken by a banana... humiliating!

As a complete novice I had absolutely no idea what to expect, least of all the nerves which seemed to rise the closer the train drew to Bath. I thought I was pretty well prepared; well trained, had a target time, carb loaded... And whilst I realise the previous 48 hours had not been ideal pre race conditions (late night, early mornings and a 3.5 mile hike) the Bath Half was really more about experiencing a real race before the marathon.

So what did I learn? For me the most important thing was don't panic. The first mile or two was at a very slow pace due to the crowds and I did what every book, article, blog and expert cautions against; I went too fast to make up for the loss. Lucky this was my "easy week" so having built up my core stamina and mental abilities over my long runs since Christmas, I was able to just about continue the race at this higher pace. It was helped considerably by the fact that I had £40 riding on finishing in under 2 hours 15 mins (thanks Nicole, Lorraine, Jude and Pip). But believe me this is not something I would be able to do across 26 miles and so NUMBER ONE lesson is: listen to the experts they really do know what they are talking about.

I had already planned to write my name on my running shirt for the marathon but the benefit of this was made even more apparent in Bath. The crowds really seem to carry people - and for me in Bath the deep routed psychology of not hearing my name shouted and supported (like the the kid at school who no-one liked) was really de-motivating.

Take a bag. I had assumed that as I had supporters they would "hold my stuff". But it was only as I started stripping off my warmer outer clothes (trackie bums, sweatshirt and coat) and witnessed the growing bundle of clothing that I realised I hadn't even bought a bag. At all big races there are luggage tents so this is the place for belongings... not for your supporters to carry (especially when they also have a 7 year old, a 2 year old, a supply of snacks, entertainment and nappys! to carry and manage).

Have post race fuel ready in your kit bag. The Bath Half post race goodie bag was full of quick hit sugar rushes (and a random Corss and Blackwell cooking sauce!?) but having spent the past 2 hours chewing/drinking and sucking a veritable smorgasbord of sugar packed, artificial flavoured sweet things I was in desperate need of a savoury hit. For once a Mars a day just wasn't going to help me rest and play!

At the end of challenge number 1 I have raised a tremendous £1300 and, selfishly, have my very first bit of metal - engraved with my name and official time - and my name listed in the Bath Chronicle. I hadn't realised how proud I would be of these items and I can't begine to imagine how amazing I will post marathon. With only 5% of the population ever undertaking a marathon this is huge (and I will be milking it!).

Hedge your bets!

I have officially 66 days left of training left before the big 26.2 miles and I still have a few more goals to achieve before then:

- Increase my longest run by a mere 7 miles (up to a max run of 22 miles on 24th March)
- Reduce my average mile pace to my ideal marathon pace of 10 mins 30
- Raise another £1300

The pace issue is just about running faster - who knew? So on Tuesday's 6 mile run I focussed on setting a fast pace and achieved an amazing average pace of 9 mins 44  per mile which was a huge improvement on my previous PB of 9 mins 59. However there is no way I can keep that kind of pace up for a whole marathon but I would like to improve my average long run pace of 11 mins 17. Sadly though the faster I run the more I look like Phoebe from Friends (click here if you want a preview), which when coupled with my really appalling running wardrobe (80s legwarmers, child's high vis jacket, luminous shorts over supermarket leggings and ski sweatband) you can see why I have been avoiding it until now. Hey ho London must have seen worse...?

The money raising, though, is more of an issue. My penny pots are slowly infiltrating friends' mantelpieces, desks and kitchens and the two I have already had returned have raised a staggering £29.45... although I am fully expecting this average to be drastically reduced.

So I have stolen borrowed a great fundraising idea from the remarkable Ms Johns and have created a human version of "guess the number of sweets in a jar"... I can tell you are on the edge of your seat now.... which is "guess my London marathon time". Riveting huh! I have listed 240 time spots between 4:30:00 through to 5:29:45 and loaded the document onto Google docs (click here) so feel free to dive in and nab your best guess (or guesses) cos you could be a winner! For just £1 per go the winner will be the guess closest to my official marathon time and they will receive 26.2 pence for every time slot bought. So if all 240 time slots get bought the winner will win a staggering £62.88.... that has got to be better odds than the national lottery! So go on buy a time slot, pay your £1 (or multiples of as I am sure you want to buy more than one) via my just giving page here or give me the cash when you next see me and you could be set to make a small fortune (small being the operative word).

Copper-bottomed

So very excited when I arrived home yesterday to see a parcel on my desk.... it was my long awaited take-away coffee cups (for relevance see previous post here). Now once upon a time (in fact only 31 days ago - is it really only 31 days?) this would barely raised a smile, let alone manic jumping up and down, however it appears my world (and sanity) has been turned upside down by fundraising fever.

So this evening once the kids were fed, I run up the stairs two at a time (my marathon training means I managed this without getting out of breath), raring to get the printer revving into action to spit out the hot pink labels to adorn the lovely, but currently plain, cups. But as predictable as "You've been framed" can you guess what happened next? Yep the printer was out of ink. Grrr. However someone was on my side as we actually had a spare sitting on the side. I can honestly say we have NEVER before had a spare and I suspect it will never happen again, and so I have decided to see this as a sign that my copper cups are destined to be brought alive with some hot pink.

A few hours later and the labels have printed and adhered and lids now have money slits cut. Well 25 out of 100 have been created but it is a start. I am so genuinely proud of my Blue Peter sticky back plastic action and really love my novel fundraising idea. But with a career in marketing I think I have a few creative ideas now and again although I am not sure the creatives would agree... heaven knows what they'd say if they knew I own a scalpel and spray mount!

Want a sneak preview?

Aren't they the cutest and most beautiful fundraising recepticals ever? Now I just need to find them good generous homes. I have only had 3requests so far from people who have a mighty vision and are clearly the innovators amongst my friends (Daddy Wolf, Fav cuz and lush bestie) but that means there are 97 still available to any early adoptors who, having now seen the fancy design, would rather like a receptical to house their ugly tarnished coins, annoyingly small 5ps, funny shaped 20 and 50s, gold (so last years colour!) or screwed up paper containing the queens head.

Roll up roll up - request a copper cup and get your friends, family, colleagues and even strangers emptying their pockets of lose change all in aid of a fantastic cause. And don't forget down the back of the sofa!

PS The lovely people from Breast Cancer Care dropped me an email today which has really encouraged me and I thought I would share it with you all. It is easy to imagine that £5000 to a national charity would barely raise a blink and it was refreshing to receive such a warm and genuinely appreciative email. Dig deep folks!

It’s lovely to hear from you.  I’ve just been reading your blog – it’s brilliant.  I love the layout, the content and especially the pink pennies!

We are so excited about your fundraising.  £10,000 is a huge amount of money and we are really pleased that Breast Cancer Care will be receiving half of what you raise.  £5000 will make a massive difference in enabling us to continue being there for anyone affected by breast cancer.  Thank you.

Sober up

My ponderings during my 9 mile run today were inspired by an amazing young lady called Alice Pyne. I stumbled across her through setting up this Blog and searching for other Blogs with similar tags, sadly our matches were cancer and charity so you might well see where this is going.

In short Alice is a 17 year old girl who has terminal cancer (she lists her occupation as “full time cancer fighter”), having first been diagnosed at the tender age of 12. But instead of wallowing, at the age of 15 she set up a Blog as a way to communicate with her friends and to share her bucket list; things she wanted to achieve before she left our world. Unlike your average cider swilling 15 year old Alice’s list included the following as her top three:

• To get everyone eligible to join a bone marrow register
• To get EVERYONE to have a bucket list
• To get to the Royal Garden party in May

Sobering isn't it. Now think back to your 15 year old self and I dare you not to swallow hard.

When Alice launched her Blog back on 6^th June 2011 no one, least of all her and her family, could have predicted the turn of events that followed. Through the magic of the interweb in just 2 days Alice's Bucket List had over 7,000 followers and lashings of comments from around the world with many promising to join bone marrow donation schemes in support of her wishes. By 9^th June she was mentioned on This Morning and the Anthony Nolan bone marrow charity web site received 17 times its weekly web traffic over night which could only be attributed to Alice. 10th June and following a postscript on her Blog for people to sponser her sister in her Race fo Life taking place that Sunday, donations topped £10,000, the majority of which came from generous strangers touched by Alice and her story. Staggeringly by the 11^th June this had reached the substantial figure of £30,000!

But as we know there is always evil around the corner and on 14^th June there were countless clone sites claiming to be Alice and taking generous donations from innocent people for their own pockets. Seriously I still can’t believe this as I write it but it gets worse. On 19^th June her charity was hacked and funds were stolen. Thankfully some wonderful strangers donated their time and skills to help Alice and her family secure and protect their Blog and charity site from further hacking.

What I find most remarkable is that what started purely as a means of communication and diary for very poorly 15 year old resulted in registrations for bone marrow donors increasing from 6,000 per year to over 40,000. A legacy to the wonderful and inspirational Alice.

But Alice isn’t alone. There are sadly thousands of other children fighting the cancer battle; some will make it but many won’t.

If this has touched you I ask you to please consider joining the Anthony Nolan register here or the British Bone Marrow Registry here. It is easy: apply, spit on a stick that they send to you, post it back, sit back and have a cuppa!

Whether you are eligible or not (there are varying criterias for the two registrys above) I really urge you to follow Alice's blog or Facebook page.

If you are left wanting to do more then how about you consider supporting me. I have a Vigin Money Giving site set up in aid of my two chosen cancer charities (Macmillan nurses and Breast Cancer Care) click here to donate.

Still want to do more? Then send me a message. Come watch me stagger around London and cheer me on. Or offer to help me organise my various charity raising balls, quiz nights and more; I need so much help from designs for invitations and more, help obtaining auction and raffle prizes, idea generators to come up with innovative ways to make everything more than just fabulous, ticket sales and coordination and much much more.

You could also share this page via your Facebook, Tweet about it, email it to friends and colleagues, talk about it... as Alice has proved the power of the Internet is huge. Everything counts and helps raise awareness, and funds, for an amazing cause.

One final thought. Cancer is a term we are all familiar with (some sadly more than others); something we live in fear of; and one day may need to fight.

To Ball or not to Ball

It is officially day 1 of my 1,000,000 pence challenge and I already have £30 (plus gift aid) pledged. What a fantastic start (thanks Joy, Johnny and Sam for donation number 2) but the hard work really starts now and I am not simply referring to my marathon training but also to the serious fund raising I need to begin to plan and formalise.

So last night (New Years Eve) whilst sat around the dinner table, having followed the dress code to the letter (slob clothes), with dear friends, gossip and drinks flowing, the subject of how I might reach such a significant target was raised. Having just streaked (I assure you it was an accident - but you wouldn't believe me if I told you the story so I shall leave you intrigued) it was suggested by the caveman in the group that I could simply raise money that way. Luckily, despite the drink, I had enough sense to realise that a 37 year old streaker was probably not the inspiration I was intending for the children and so I declined the suggestion. And then hope appeared in the form of my lovely girlfriends (having wiped the tears of laughter following said streaking incident) who suggest a charity ball as a good one hit wonder which should get my target hit (and possibly exceeded).

Now this is something I have considered on and off over the past few weeks but always dismiss due to a reoccuring concern. What if I don't sell enough tickets and make a loss - it is not my money to gamble with? How can I be sure to make it a fantastic night (we've all been to lacklustre charity events) so that the money raising becomes almost a by product rather than the purpose. Or am I missing the point? Maybe I am being terribly British in my embarrassment to openly ask people to open their wallets and spend. Maybe people expect auctions, raffles and alike and am I trying to fix something that is not broken? Maybe I am asking too many questions at this stage?

And so I close with my new years resolution; to make a decision and run with it. As someone very special always says to be "you always get it done... somehow"

The big realisation

So it is official. I have publically announced my quest to raise £10K in a year for cancer charities (read more about the back story to this challenge in the why 1,000,000 pence section). Shit. If you say it fast it almost sounds feasible but looking at the figures it equates to a stinkingly staggering £833.33 per month. With no fairy godmother / lottery win / sugar daddy in the wings I am going to have to think big. My friends pockets are certainly not that big (no comment men please!)

So my calculations mid run today were that the marathon and half marathon might net me £2K. But what about the other £8? Quiz nights (from PTA experience) can raise £1-2K, maybe I can get some corporate sponsporship for another £1-2K then what... ideas are running out. Maybe my adult ballet class can put on a performance... on second thoughts it would be more like a skit!

All I know is that if the half marathon wasn't challenge enough (3K has been the most I have ever run in my 37 years), then the marathon is pure idiocy. But to pledge to raise such a signifant amount whilst raising two children, running a home and holding down a full time career I must (and it has been said) be bonkers (a more polite term than was previously uttered by my better half.)

And it is at this point I think I need to mention that whilst I am gaily announcing such huge commitments there is someone without whom this would be impossible to achieve. Someone who will deserve my marathon medal more than me. Someone who will make me cry when I see his face in the crowds in London. So thank you. You know who you are and without you this is all impossible so it is our challenge and our pledge.

Now where can I find a sugar daddy... does anyone have Lord Sugars number?