Phill’s Week 3 Update – Run Away!

Oh what a week that was. I really feel like I’ve made progress this week. Things are starting to come together nicely. I’ve still not raised any actual money yet, but things are coming together nonetheless. The website is starting to take shape and some of the challenges and events I want to organise are beginning to feel possible, rather than just mystical things that I tell people I’m going to do. It’s been a very positive week. It’s also been a very exhausting week.

Saturday started with an attempt to run a marathon. It was my first run since Christmas and given that I had just signed up to do a marathon as part of this madness, I decided it would be sensible to try and see if it was possible for me to run a marathon. It turns out that it wasn’t either sensible or possible. The first 25km were mostly okay. I had plenty of thinking time and so I decided that if I was going to do all this long distance training, I may as well add a running 1000km in a year challenge to the list too. Anyone would think that I actually like running. Shortly after deciding 1000km was possible, things became a little more difficult. In the end I ran 35km in 3 hours and 5 minutes. I was knackered by the end. I should probably have taken some water and some snacks with me. I’ve been told that most normal people don’t train for a marathon by just attempting to run one, but what the heck I’ll try again anyway next week and see if I can get any further.

I’ve been doing some strength training with a guy called Jase Elves. He makes me lift heavy things and put them back down again. I think that without all the lunges, squats and weights he makes me do, my knee wouldn’t have held up for the run I’d done this week. He also has clients that want to lose weight, he provides nutritional advice and is an all round nice guy. He’s volunteered to run some sort of crazy fitness challenge to help raise some money, so that’s another challenge in the pipeline. I’m sure whatever he comes up with is going to involve me lifting or pushing even more heavy things.

I also met up with the fantastic Paul Richards, playwright, writer, comedian, drummer and awkwardly nice guy. He was responsible for a 10 gigs in a day fundraiser for Macmillan which was part of the inspiration for this project. He’s given me a bit of advice on organising gigs, comedy shows and given me a few other fundraising ideas. He also very kindly offered to help with organising things and putting me in touch with people who might be able to help.

Finally, I’d been thinking about trying to learn to juggle and do some sort of short fire-juggling video for the website. I turned up to work and discovered that a work colleague had left some juggling balls on my desk. She’s also offered to help me learn to juggle. I’m not sure she realised how difficult a challenge that might prove to be. Another person I work with offered to look into the possiblity of running a bake sale at work. That’ll be awesome if we can do it. Everything is coming along nicely.

I know there’s no way I can raise the money alone, I seriously need all the help I can get, but even so all the offers of help and people getting enthusiastic about what I’m doing is ever so slightly overwhelming. People are so kind, it’s amazing. So if you’re one of the people reading this who have been positive and enthusiastic about my silly little project then thank you! I really appreciate all the help you guys are providing.

And before I forget, you can donate to any of my chosen charities by visiting my JustGiving page.