A month to go

Getting closer now and I'm getting excited. Still a little worried about injuries and aches and pains but I'm feeling a lot more confident.

Nike Human Race 10K

On Sunday I took part in the Nike 10K Human Race. It started inside Wembley Stadium then followed a less than glamorous route through car parks and the back end of Ikea before ending on Wembley Way. It was great fun running with so many people (20,000+) in torrential rain and also very weird. Everyone had to wear identical red tops and had to endure two live bands inside the stadium before the races started - no one was into the music at all and it all felt strangely hollow (the last time I was there was to see the Foo Fighters and there were over 90,000) so the best bit was when half the crowd just disappeared midway through Moby's set to start their race (they set people free in four seperate waves, I was in wave three so had to watch all of Moby). Earlier a nu-rave band called Pendulum attempted to whip everyone into a pogo-ing frenzy but the audience were having none of it aside from the occasional keen person jogging on the spot in time. The keyboardist had a hilarious square beard though so that was nice.

I was Billy no-mates but that was OK because everyone else was too and I was glad I hadn't been responsible for making anyone endure the saddest corporate gig of all time. 

The race itself was brilliant. Dashing about with loads of people is really uplifting and because we'd been released herd like (all the T-shirts had seperate numbers for an extra dimension of branding) from the stadium it felt like we were escaping captivity. I was surprised how much energy I had and how easy I found it and convinced myself I'd done some heroic record breaking time - as I crossed the line one of the clocks said 45:08 and for a second I thought that was my time but the reality was a more pedestrian 58 minutes - I'm blaming the puddles and the fact that my ipod went weird in the first mile and I had to run to a soundtrack of Neil Young.

Holiday running

Kept on running on holiday in Northumberland. It was great running along the beach at Beadnell Bay - but yet again this was one of those times when I realised how much free-to-all green space there is in North London because the first time I went out for a run I kept following footpaths hoping to run along the shoreline instead of a road and the footpaths kept leading to dead ends because they went on to land owned by Seahouses golf course or the caravan park. It was the same a week later when we stopped over in Yorkshire - loads of countryside everywhere and most of it private or golf courses, so you have to run alongside busy roads.

Bored now

Off on holiday tonight to icy cold Northumberland - in a tent. The challenge is - how do I keep on jogging and resist eating pies to cheer myself up.
Been working at Take a Break this week so a couple of runs round Regents Park at lunchtime. It's lovely. Those geese get in the way though.

Too Far Gone

I was only meant to run 8 miles today but enthusiasm - and the fact that I got lost on Hampstead Heath - got the better of me and I ended up doing 11 and a half. Running from Kenwood House with the view of the London skyline ahead is one of the most beautiful feelings ever - not that I could remember it once I had to do the return journey uphill.
Thanks to all my sponsors so far. It really is very much appreciated. It's a bit embarrassing this sponsorship lark. I think we've all become a bit charity weary in recent times, the main culprit being those over friendly people on the street trying to sign you up to direct debit payments - so it's amazing to me that I'm not being totally ignored.
In the list of things I'm worried about connected to this race raising enough sponsorship money has slipped to third behind
1) Getting injured beforehand
and
2) Needing to go to the loo in the middle of the race
After todays efforts Being able to finish has slipped to number four, with Turning up too late a distant fifth and Blowing it all by gorging on pie coming in at number six.

First sponsor

Thank you lovely Mr Ian Wadey Wade for being my first sponsor.
Me and Ian worked together at the hilarious internet boom disaster company music3w. Oh what fun we had. Not that I can remember it right now - although I do remember quite a lot of money being spent on glass bricks.

And they're off

What's got me going with the running is two things.

1) It's nice being outside. Sounds obvious but running about in the open air is brilliant and it's really made me appreciate the outdoor space we've got around us.

2) Nike +. For my birthday Kath bought me this Nike/Apple gadget that goes inside your running shoe and connects through the wonders of technology to your ipod. You've probably heard about it. Lots of nice things happen, like the voice of Lance Armstrong tells you "congratulations that was your fastest ever mile" and back home you connect it up and it keeps a log of all your runs. And look you can stick a little thing on a blog too.