Race report

Hi everyone,

I realise I've rather neglected this blog, sorry about that. There's a good reason for it though - I started a new job, bizarrely back at Lehman Brothers, but now working for the Administrators. I won't go into details as it's all boring accountant stuff.

So here I am, two days from my second race and I haven't even reported on the first race! Obviously, I finished, but importantly did way better than I expected. My original goal when I started training was simply to finish - I'd never run that far in my life, so just getting over the line was an acheivement.

As the big day approached, thanks largely to being pushed by my training partner Iain Clark (more on him later) I realised that I could hope to do considerably better than just finishing. Iain encouraged me to do 10K training runs much earlier in my training schedule than I'd planned, and by the time the race rolled round I realised the challenge was to crack one hour. That meant running at a average pace under 10 minutes per mile, something that I really struggled to do. In my best training run I managed the 10K in one hour and 2 minutes, and felt like death.

On the day the excitement of the event carried me through and I finished in 55 minutes 55 seconds, prodly running in my royal blue Catholic Association polo shirt! For that stunning success I have to thank Iain again, my pace-setter, even though he unsportingly sped off in the last 500 m to finish 11 seconds ahead of me. I also have to thank JoJo for ferrying me to and from the race, bullying me to train, and generally being supportive and wonderful.

After the race I was exhausted, but still capable of moving about and talking, which was a bonus. I also got a shiny medal (see my facebook profile picture) and a bag of sports drinks. The atmosphere was great, the organisation of the race only marred by some delays in getting the timing chips read and results uploaded to the website. The whole thing was organised by 2:09 Events, and was really enjoyable. Race report and official results are here: http://www.209events.com/event.php?event=90

I left the Brooklands venue incredibly pleased with myself and the result, but also knowing that I had to stay ambitious. I now knew that six 10Ks wasn't enough of a challenge. But where to go from here? That's the subject of my next post.

In the meantime, please go and donate lots of money on my website:
https://www.bmycharity.com/V2/60kmtoLourdes
I'm over £350 including offline donations, but I'd really like to get over the £500 mark!

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!