Pants In The Park

At last, I've signed myself up for Pants In The Park on the 12th June, the week before the Leeds 10k.

It's a 5k fun run, raising funds and awareness for Prostate Action, a charity dedicated to research and education to beat prostate cancer. As a lovely guy I used to go to networking meetings with once spent an entire presentation telling us, if you have a Dad, a brother, an uncle, a boyfriend, a husband or mate who is a bloke, it's something you should make sure he's aware of, but men rarely talk about "problems down there" and prostate cancer is rarely picked up until it's too late, but if the signs are picked up early it's treatable.

So I've got to get the foot working again, and find some time over this week to get out for a run. Seems I was a little over-eager on Friday. Walking's not been as easy as I thought it would be when I leapt out of bed and wrote that last note. My foot is still stiff and painful if it's moving anything other than in a perfectly flat straight line up and down. And this week I'm working 12 hour shifts that start early and finish late. Might be the perfect time for a rest.

I set myself the challenge of finding 5 running events arranged by various cancer charities, and so far I've only managed to commit to this and the Leeds 10k, thanks to changes in practically everything in my life (yes, really!), but I'm really glad to have clicked onto this one. The idea is to run in the events, raising money for them if people prefer to be specific with their charities, but collecting sponsorship for Macmillan for the general project, thereby spreading the support around.

My shout out on Facebook the other day about needing more sponsorship and motivation resulted in almost doubling the amount I'd raised so far - and my lovely sister-in-law Mim managed to give me a boost with a few words. It was the loss of her sister Sadie in February that kicked off this whole project, and I'm very proud to run to celebrate her memory.

If cancer has touched the ones you love, please click on my Just Giving page and sponsor me!

Disaster strikes!

With less than a month to go! Well, slight and temporary disaster, anyway....

I have sustained a drinking injury. I went out for a catch up with an old friend on Wednesday, and on the way home, weaving rather than walking, I went over on my ankle. Being in a rather relaxed frame of mind, I walked all the rest of the way home with the recognition that it hurt, but not really very bothered. I fell into bed around 1ish.

...And then woke up at 6am to go do some early overtime, wriggled out of bed and realised my foot wasn't working. It was all swollen and stiff and wouldn't move to either side. Putting weight on it was not a good idea. I've sprained it.

But it's not a very bad one. I strapped it up yesterday and fed it ibuprofen, didn't walk on it, spent all day at work with it nicely resting, and got a very healthy 9 hours sleep last night. This morning, the swelling's gone down and it's doing as it's told again, but I'm not going out for the run I was planning. I am about to walk to work though, it felt really wrong to be getting the bus yesterday, and I'm not missing another easy 8miles today.

Thanks so much to everyone who's given me an extra dose of motivation - I promise this won't slow me down for long!

Non-writers guilt.

Oh deary me. I've not written for more than 6 weeks.

This does not mean that I've not been running though. I've had some glorious long runs out through Horsforth woods and along the canal into town in spring sunshine. I'm up somewhere around the 5 mile mark, on about an hour of running. Or at least that is, I am when I've got time.

I have all sorts of excuses - not the least of which are the interruptions of consultations, weddings, and editing, cleaning the house and showing prospective housemates around, which have absorbed my morning and evening times around shifts at work which are on a rolling pattern which sometimes make a morning run impossible.

However, I've been getting out when I can, and I've got a new attitude. I've spoken to a few people in the know, a highly placed amateur very long distance athlete and a personal trainer who've reassured me that as long as I can say I've been for a run, then I'm doing ok, whether that was for an hour's slog or a 20min jog. I'm doing alternate days, keeping going for as long as I can manage, rather than going on just 2 long runs a week. And I'm sticking with that.

In the meantime, it's less than a month to go til the big long race. Im working on getting the distance up, and getting my weight down. 40 miles of walking a week is beginning to show, I can see muscles in my thighs and the scales are below 14stone for the first time in ages.

Now I need a big dose of motivation and a really good long run that I can relax into on Sunday morning.

More later!