It's official!

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that I was officially awarded my London Marathon place today. While I had been told by Help the Hospices that they were going to give me a place it wasn't until today that I was officially recognised by the London Marathon itself so I'm very excited! No getting out of it now!

I also thought you should know that Michael Howard has been named as the new Chairman of Help the Hospices and dedicated his maiden speech in the House of Lords to praising the wonderful work that hospices do. His personal experience with cancer (his father died of breast cancer aged 49) makes him a fitting person to continue leading such an amazing charity.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/parliament/2010/11/michael-howard-makes-his-maiden-speech-in-the-house-of-lords.html

I have included the link above to his speech. But I want to draw your attention to one particular bit:

What is most remarkable about all this is the extent to which it has been achieved with a minimum of financial help from the Government. Health services are funded separately by the devolved Governments in each nation of the United Kingdom. In England, the Government contribute an average of 32 per cent of running costs for adult hospices, predominantly through primary care trusts, and about 15 per cent for children's hospices. The rest has to be found by charitable fundraising. Together hospices raise £1 million pounds a day to pay for the services that they provide. Almost 100,000 volunteers work in hospices throughout the United Kingdom, and the hospices could not do the work they do without them

This is the very reason why I am writing this blog, running the marathon and the reason I will ask all my generous blog-followers to sponsor me in April!

xxxx

A bit later than planned!

Hello blog followers!

I'm not sure how many of you are out there yet but I've had a couple of people asking me about my 'next post' which is encouraging!

I think it's fair to say that since we last spoke the training has been going well! I had a bad cold at the end of October which put me out of action for 4/5 days and the difference that made in the following week was horrifying - fitness takes weeks or months to build up and yet it seems that you can lose it in matter of days - very unfair! At the end of this bad spell I took part in a 10k race in Battersea Park which I completed in 51minutes which I was pretty happy with.There's another event in December so I'm hoping to improve on my time then.

I've now upped my training from 3 to 4 times a week which seems to be having a positive impact on my overall fitness. Mid-week I'm runnning 3-5 miles/session and at the weekend I'm running a total of about 15miles. I've forced myself to run in the rain a couple of times in preparation for the winter ahead but the generally mild weather has given me a very gentle introduction to unseasonal running!

I've also discovered the joys of Mars chocolate milk (Mars, if you'd like to sponsor me that would be fine!). Not only is it a great refuel after a longer run but it also tastes amazing. The only issue at the moment is that once a carton is open it doesn't seem to last that long - I have my suspicions that other members of the family might have developed a taste for it too!

That's pretty much all for this post. Please become a 'follower' if you enjoy the blog and post comments too if you have any valuable hints or tips.

xxxxxxx