The longest run yet....by far! I succeeded in conquering an epic 20mile run last week. It all started at 5am half an hour before it should have done when Vicky text me to tell me she had met Jonathan Ross at an Awards Ceremony. Managing to get back to sleep for 30 minutes, I woke to the sun rising and started my journey just before 6am.
The first 16 miles of the run were by myself pounding the streets of Millbrook, Mosley, Greenfield, Ashton and Uppermill. The final 4 were helped along by stopping by the house and collecting Roly, who joined me for Carrbrook Hill.
My friend has lent me her Garmin, a device which tracks your progress and here is the map and link to the run:
Bagpipes, whisky, haggis, neaps and tatties were the theme of the night as we celebrated the legendary poet Rabbie Burns!This is a very delayed blog post to say thank you to everyone who supported us with our Burns Night to raise money for Help The Hospices.
Order of Proceedings
·Gather: guests to gather and mingle and enjoy the
haggis canapés
·Welcome Grace: The Selkirk Grace followed by the
serving of cock-a-leekie soup
·Parade of the haggis: piping in of the haggis to
traditional Scottish bagpipe music.
·Address to the haggis
·Haggis, neaps and tatties, Fife Miners stew, Meat
and Potato Pie to be served.
·Traditional Scottish Desserts: Cranachan and
Dundee Cake
·Liberal lashings of wine and ale will be available
for guests
·Toast to the lassies!
·Traditional Scottish Ceilidh to commence
·Auld Lang Lyne
We surprised our guests by hiring an actual Scottish piper called Jim! Jim piped in the haggis and then recited the official 'Address to the Haggis'.
Following this Jim piped all of our guests across the car park into the pub where we hosted a traditional Scottish Ceilidh. The dancing was epic and a special thank you to our friend James who played the Ceilidh music on the keyboard and even did an incredible duet with the piper.
We are so grateful to everyone for coming and supporting us, the raffle was also very successful (especially the Cliff Richard calendar!) and we raised a grand total of £550 which has made a huge dent in how close we are to target. A massive thank you to everyone who came and donated!
Karl and I had such a brilliant night and we hope everyone else did too! Naturally the night ended with a good ol' sing song to the most famous Rabbie Burns song of all time:
Another day, another run! We are both trying to up the distance now and get used to that feeling of continuous running over a very, very long way! Karl had great success today and went on an initial 41/2 mile run (with little Roly who has recovered from his injured paw!) followed by a 10 mile run with his friend, Elaine. He did really well and as you can see from the photo below looks remarkably fresh faced as opposed to me who is slightly more red-faced and tired!
I managed what I thought was a 9 mile run although I have just discovered that my iPod nano Nike+ app may be slightly generous on the distance as after mapping my run I think it was more like just over 8 miles. Nooo! It's disappointing to find out it's not as far as I thought but still, not too shabby. I have however made a conclusion that running is hard... very hard! I'm looking forward to when it starts to feel a bit easier to run such a long way.
You can see from the Nike+ graph below that I started out pretty well but as the run went on I started to flag. It just highlights the need for regular training and the fact that I am terrible at running up hill!
We are both feeling pretty positive about the marathon as we have been running regularly and eating pretty well (and cutting down on wine) so the key to success will be keeping it up!I really like the words below (which I found on Pinterest) as a little reminder about the importance of training.
We are really looking forward to the charity Burn's night we are hosting next weekend. Fingers crossed it will bring us closer to our fundraising target.
Thank you once again to everyone who has donated! Your help and support are hugely motivating to us and the money you have donated will go a long way in making a difference to those who are coming to the end of their lives, thank you.
Karl and I are still soldiering on with our marathon training and thought a new years update was on the cards to remind you all that we are still working at the running and still working hard to fundraise the £4000 for Help the Hospices.We still have a long way to go with both the running and the fundraising so just want to thank everyone who has showed us support whether it be emotional, psychological or moral and to those have dug deep and donated! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
The festivities of my birthday, Christmas and New Year combined with the fact that I've been looking after Mum who was in hospital for an operation earlier this month has meant that 2014 has got off to a slow-ish start but we are still aiming high and trying our best! Karl did a 10-miler the other day which was fantastic although he managed to fall over (again) and hurt his shoulder. I have been running just 3-4 miles and am now pushing it up to 6/7 miles. The longer distance runs really need to start happening now as we only have 13 weeks to go!
We are also trying to eat a lot better as we have such a HUGE challenge ahead of us. So, from now on booze will be limited (meaning only allowed at the weekends... no more of the mid-week drinking malarkey which I am SO guilty of) and the fridge is full of fresh fish, hearty vegetables, superfoods and suchlike!
I also bought a new iPod nano as mine gave up quite some time ago so I am now the proud owner of a little blue 7th generation iPod nano. It's amazing actually as it has the Nike+ running app on it so it's really motivating to be able to track my runs and see how I'm doing! See my motivated face (plus new iPod nano) below:
Here's my most recent run (a little bit up and down but not too bad!):
And here is Karl's, an impressively fast run up Carrbrook hill, minus Roly who has an injured paw at the moment!
As many of you will have already seen we are hosting a Burns Night party on Saturday 25th January to no.1) celebrate the legend that was Rabbie Burns (plus eat haggis and drink whisky) and no.2) to raise those all important funds for Help the Hospices! We are asking all attendees to buy a ten pound ticket for the night on Eventbrite (the link is on the Facebook page), all of which will go to this amazing charity.
We hope to see as many of there as possible our bonnie wee friends!
If you are feeling flush after the festive season then anything you can spare to donate would be hugely appreciated, you can donate here:
OK, so I could lie and say that for the past of couple of weeks my training has been going really well but that would be a LIE! A couple of busy weeks at work and some very long days has meant that I have been prioritising wine over running, that is indeed the truth...
Karl's training has been going really well and he has regularly been running 4 miles 3 times a week. Roly remains his little running buddy so they are both shaping up nicely. Amusing highlights from Karl's last couple of weeks of runs includes actually having the runs whilst running! Thankfully he made it home just in time (just)... the second involved slipping over in a cow pat! There's definitely a theme emerging here...great work though Karl!
I made it out today and braved the icy cold winds of Millbrook and successfully ran 3 1/2 miles which wasn't too bad considering I haven't done anything (except drink wine) for the last couple of weeks.
Roly was there as ever to celebrate my return, looking rather like an alien dog in this picture:
As far as fundraising goes we are planning on hosting a Scottish céilidh to celebrate Burns Night, we are thinking whisky, haggis, bagpipes and full-on Scottish dancing! Watch this space for an invite.
Rather hilariously Karl got some business cards printed to help us promote our fundraising mission. Can you spot the mistake?!
Apparently we are running the Londong Marathon, sounds like somewhere in China if you ask me! Nevertheless we have 250 of these bad boys to give out so hopefully they will help generate some funds.
Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far, we really appreciate your generosity!
This weekend saw Karl and I host our very first charity fundraiser and the theme of the night was Mexcian....Arriba! Arriba! Ole! Ole!
The night included a fun-filled mix of Mexican food:
Chili con carne
Smoky pork and black bean tacos
Beef burritos
Veggie burritos
Warm bean salad
Chicken fajitas
Mexican beef chili
Home made guacamole
Mexican nachos with cheese
and an excellent variety of Mexican drinks:
Margaritas
Tequila slammers
Desperados
Amigos
Some real ale (ok, perhaps more British than Mexican!)
Naturally the Mexican themed entertainment included:
Pin the tail on the donkey
Piñata
A Mexican themed photo booth
I'm pleased to say that the night raised £130 for Help the Hospices so a brilliant kick start to our fundraising efforts. Thank you so much to everyone who came along to support us, it was brilliant fun and we both really appreciate you making the effort. Watch this space for future invites! I wonder what the next theme should be...any suggestions?!
Here's a photo tribute to the night:
Thank you once again kind supporters or as they say in Mexico: Muchas Gracias!
Ok... so nothing as dramatic as falling off the treadmill happened to me today but nevertheless I am still going to tell you about the workout!
Once again it's made me realise what a long way I have to go to even stand a chance of completing the marathon. I set myself the goal of running 5km in under of 30minutes and didn't quite manage it, here's a picture of my workout summary:
Just over 5km in 36mins...I guess that isn't horrendous given that I've just started training and it's still technically week one but proof that I will need to make every week count (and maybe stop drinking so much wine...!)
Gym selfie A.K.A photographic proof I made it to the gym
Karl also did another 4-miler this morning with Roly at his side, well done Karl (and Roly.)
Once again THANK YOU to our sponsors so far, legends!
