open your heart
On Saturday night, ie 8 days until That Thing We Won’t Mention, I’m having a party to raise money for Heart Research UK.
dispatches
This is a post on behalf of Heart Research UK.
Following the Dispatches programme on Channel 4, this is what they have to say:
From Heart Research UK’s point of view, the London Marathon is a fantastic fundraiser for us and one of our top events. Generally as a charity we work hard to keep our costs down and for every £1 that is donated at least 80p goes towards our pioneering work (much higher than many other charities)
Our expenditure budgets are very tight and we do not spend money unnecessarily. The London Marathon will this year hopefully generate £50,000 for us whilst the Golden Bond places themselves cost £345 per place (a total of £6900 for all our GB runners this year).
With travel and accommodation costs for the event weekend (both at the cheapest rates available) this means our costs are kept very low so that the overall total is as much as possible.
If you want to read the reaction from the organisers of the Virgin London Marathon, go here.
Thank you.
(removes serious hat and takes a bow)
thursday ramblings
I’m taking part in the Ultimate Blog Party! This is my welcome post – come in and say hello. It’ll be lovely to meet you.
As an introduction, here are some little-known facts about me:
1: As a child I lived in St Kilda in Melbourne, Australia (with Mrs Hall)*. I loved it. We went to the beach after school, we had pie for lunch, we had suntans, wore sandals and had skinned knees.
St Kilda Beach, Melbourne, Australia
2: One of my ambitions (besides running the London Marathon) is to compete in the Tevis Cup, an endurance ride which covers 100 miles across the Sierra Nevada in one day. The motto of endurance riders worldwide is To Finish is to Win. I like that.
©The New Albion Stud, CA, USA.
taper time
So, it’s taper time for the next two and a half weeks.
When you’ve reached the pinnacle of marathon fitness (hahahahahahaha!) you rest your body, allowing all your bits to regenerate, Doctor Who style, and after three weeks of gentle runs (who knew I’d be calling 8 miles a gentle run?) you get to the start line full of beans and ready to go.
the long run (part 2)
The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start – John Bingham
So. A long run is a learning experience, designed to iron out problems and help to focus your mind on the big day.
Lessons from yesterday:
