Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first post in my "60km to Lourdes" blog.
I'm fund-raising for the Catholic Association, who do some great work in taking sick, disabled and elderly, as well as able-bodied people together on pilgrimage to Lourdes in France every year.
Many of you will know I've been involved with this organisation for over 12 years, and through them I've had some of my most enjoyable and life-changing experiences, and met some of my closest friends - plus of course my beautiful girlfriend Jo-Jo!
The work they do is also incredibly valuable, as you'll see if you visit the website. They've been running for over 100 years, and I want to do my bit to give something back.
I was thinking about what I could do to raise some funds over the last few weeks. In the past I've been involved with organising several sponsored walks, which started with just me, my Dad, and Matt Betts, but quickly grew to be a significant group event. What would be a new challenge? Well, one up from walking is running, right?
So I thought I'd do a sponsored 10K. I've been meaning to get fit and do a 10K run for a while.
Then, I don't know why, but I suddenly decided I'd do SIX 10Ks, one a month from March to August, in the run up to the CA's 2009 pilgrimage to Lourdes - hence the title of this blog. Unfortunately, I've told a few people about this now, so I can't back down!
Here's the thing though: I don't like running. I HATE running. At seventeen stone, I am not built to run. Guess I'd better start training...
Part of this blog will be to detail my progress between now and the final race in August. I hope you'll tune in from time to time to follow my progress. I'll be posting lots of photos, and all my results as I go. If you want to sponsor me I'll be setting up a donation website, details to follow in a later post.
My first race will be the Brooklands 10KM on 29th March. Wish me luck!