Sometimes work just gets in the way....

Hi and welcome back to my blog!
So this week I knew wasn't going to be that good for my training as I had a lot of shifts to work and had jobs to do at home as well as wanting to spent some time with my family. This means that there's not much to report training wise but let me start my blog off with some good fund raising news.

Monday
Apart from a strength walk, lots of housework and spending a fun day with my kids and my wife (once she was back from work) I managed to squeeze in a new and very hard interval session, which I really enjoyed.
Hold on that's not all. I also received 2 standard open ended return tickets from the kind and very generous people from First Great Western Trains.

tickets just didn't look as good as their logo

 Tuesday
Just work no fun no training but the first USB stick has been reserved thanks to a kind charitable donation. :-)

Wednesday
No training but a great friend of mine sent me authenticated autographs of Michael Owen, Badly Drawn Boy and Sting!!

bad picture but great donation I am so pleased

 Thursday
No training no news apart from an exciting email from a potential sponsor which if it does come true will blow my mind and yours. I am  just waiting to hear back from Babygourmet about the proposed arrangement and then I will give details right here.

Friday
Before my night shift I managed to do a quick interval type session training and it was nice just a bit short but I have to be sensible.

Saturday 
After finishing my night shift we looked after our  baby boy who has been suffering with his last teeth coming through and a nasty temperature. SO only a strength walk and some manly jobs done and that's all.

Sunday
Today was an exciting day as lots of my friends ran the Virgin London Marathon #VLM and for some strange reason I was really excited for them and a bit nervous too. 
Anyhow my lovely wife decided that we should explore a bit more of my actual 35 mile+  ultra route as there is roughly a section of 13 miles I have never even seen... So my brother in law, fellow sith logger and good friend Tim ran from Streatley/Goring to Wallingford with me. That route was scenic and beautiful but this 6.5 mile stretch had 22 gates which I know will be hard to overcome on the 14th of July 2012 but I hope to have friends with me to ease the pain.....

Further more has the lovely Melanie Ellis owner of www.springlark.com informed me that she has hand made a lovely cushion which she is sending down to me to use in the raffle/auction.

She has not stopped there she has also mentioned my blog (including address),Charity and fund raising challenge on her facebook site, via twitter and on her brand new and brilliant new blog which is worth a read whatever you are in to.

Anyhow that was my training week and now to some exciting fund raising news and some impressive stats.

Fundraising news:
I'm still waiting for the final registration for The Amber Phillpott Trust with the virgin giving site before I can register my support site. I will keep you posted with further details. I have received a lot of negative replies from companies and even more have not even answered at all which is sad but it wont stop me.
All of the gifts  received so far will either be raffled off on the day or entered in a silent auction but if anything takes your fancy you can always take it off our hands beforehand in exchange for a donation to The Amber Phillpott Trust.

Stats Zone:
Runs: 3
Distance covered this week: 15.75 miles 
Distance covered this month: 107.4 miles


Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my 35 mile long Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space

The prizes start to arrive

Hi,
so let me tell you what happened in this exciting week as one part of the fund raising has started and I ran more than I have in any other week before.

Monday
Nothing really happened today apart from me sending out a lot of emails to companies asking them for their support

Tuesday
I ran an exciting 19 miles in a decent time with some decent hills in there. It was exciting as I ran a new never before run first 6.5 miles and I absolutely loved every bit of it as the view was amazing.

Tuesday was also exciting because I received my first donation to help me raise money for The Amber Phillpott Trust from the lovely people from HiPP. They sent a very cute soft toy, a lot of samples  (which will be raffled\sold as packs of 10), a bip, a few multi coloured spoons and a bowl.

Wednesday
After finishing my night and getting home I decided to go out for a slow jog across never before explored routes. I did just that, taking turns everywhere where I saw public footpath signs getting lost a few times, running through dry but boggy riverbeds and quite possibly tresspassing through some fields at times..... I decided to take it easy as my legs were tired from tuesday's run and from working all night. I loved the 10 mile run as it was a beautiful scenery and just enjoyeable as I ran carefree. #happyflo

Thursday
I was at work all day so no run but a great bunch of donations arrived from Draeger. They were kind enough to send me a few 4GB usb sticks in the shape of health care professionals, Frisbees, pens, post its notes, id holders and golf ball&tee sets.

Friday
Again I was working and did not get any running in but again I got another parcel sent to me. This time 2 T-Shirt's from the lovely people from Carlsberg.

Saturday
I managed to squeeze in a swift new approach to interval training by swapping the intensity and duration around a bit. That helped me to really push myself and worked me hard. I really enjoyed this session as it was very hard. (no pics just sweat)

Sunday
Today I ran the first part of my 35 mile ultra marathon just in reverse and I fear the ultra might be longer than initially planned my latest estimate is 37miles...
The reverse bit was very hard as the route is a constant up and down but the net change is 200m the total elevation change was 456 metres according to runkeeper. So I am glad that Iwill  run downhill on the 14th of July. This run was also hard as The Ridgeway was blocked twice by some annoying in-considerate ravers who were part of an illegally organised rave pop up party.On the positive I met "The Joyride" team and that was a nice surprise as they are an awesome group of lads doing an amazing cycle challenge in aid of Cancer research. Great going you guys keep it up.
Whilst mentioning others please take a moment to also look up Mark Townson who went through a different journey and decided to help other people with his blog and MIND by raising as much as he can by running The London Marathon next weekend.

Anyhow that was my training week and now to some exciting fund raising news and some impressive stats.

Fundraising news:
I'm still waiting for the final registration for The Amber Phillpott Trust with the virgin giving site before I can register my support site. I will keep you posted with further details. I have been promised further gift donations from different companies and once they arrive I will obviously put pictures right here. All of these gifts will be raffled off on the day but if anything takes your fancy you can always take it off our hands beforehand in exchange for a donation to The Amber Phillpott Trust.

Stats Zone:
Runs: 4
Distance covered this week: 51.5 miles (my best week ever)
Distance covered this month: 91.65 miles


Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my 35 mile long Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space

Happy Easter

Happy Easter
I hope you all had a great Easter and ate lots of chocolate as that will help our economy and our mood:-)

Anyway lets talk about my preparation this week for the charity challenge which will be a 35mile ultramarathon along the Ridgeway and the Thames Tow Path finishing in Abingdon on the 14th of July 2012. (Just in case you didn't know that)

Monday
We drove home from Baildon and it was a lovely drive with lots of fun and laughter. Once we were home and unpacked I had a chance to go for a quick 3.1mile (5km) run and I beat my personal best by roughly 15 seconds and am down to 20 minutes and 16 seconds. So it was a great day thanks to a brilliant team effort from team Stoermer.

Tuesday
It was a nice long run on a new undulating route covering some steep inclines and not before discovered footpaths across the beautiful countryside.

me in the beautiful countryside looking tired

Once I got home after the uneventful but fun run I realised that my third and fourth toe on both feet were bleeding not sure why but I thought that was weird and was planning to put pictures in here but was advised against it.....

Wednesday and Thursday
Both days were spent sleeping as I was on nights..


Friday
I slept 2 hours after my final night and was dropped off en-route to see some friends. I used to drive this section as part of my journey to work but was blissfully unaware on how undulating it was. I ran it with some tired legs and mind and thoroughly enjoyed it as it tested my mental and physical strength.

Long  straight uphill road (tough)

Saturday

No training due to other commitments but managed to email a lot of companies and businesses to ask for sponsorship or prizes for a charity raffle. I managed to contact 100 plus companies and got 3 promises of prizes already. Details and pictures as soon as I get the prizes.

Sunday
I only managed one 2 mile strength walk due to Easter and other commitments.


All in all I am very happy with this weeks adventures as I did a lot of work on the fundraising and awareness raising side and had some decent runs.


Fundraising news:
Still awaiting the final registration from The Amber Phillpott Trust with the virgin giving site before I can register my support site. I will keep you posted with further details. As soon as I receive the promised prizes I will show you pictures of them here.

Stats Zone:
Runs:3
Distance covered this week: 27.03 miles
Distance covered this month: 40.13 miles


Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my 35 mile long Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space

Its all about your goals!

Hello!
Welcome back to reading my blog. Its a little late as I ran a little race yesterday and only got home today.
I believe that in your life you need to set yourself goals as otherwise you may waste opportunitys which could enhance your own life and maybe even that of others.
So my goal for this year is to raise money and awareness for The Amber Philpott Trust by running my 35mile ultramarathon on the 14th of July 2012 as part of the Yeah Baby charity concert event in Abingdon.
Obviously to achieve this I have set myself "sub" goals and this week started by me tailoring my training to my 2nd goal of the year, which was to run the Baildon Boundry Way half marathon in less then 110minutes. Have I achieved this or was it a learning experience? WEll keep reading:-)

Monday

I did a quick run of one hour and covered a distance of 8.15 miles I have not achieved this in my training before so I was very proud to say the least. I was very motivated on Monday as my lovely and very supportive wife decided to go out for a run and ran 25% further than planned and regardless of the distance it was a great start and she worked hard! That much dedication by my wife made me work that bit harder to achieve my goal of 8miles in 1 hour.

Tuesday

I ran a shortened interval session after work and it was hard work as I still do not like interval sessions but at least I do not hate them anymore....

Wednesday
My last chance to run before the HM race and I managed to get a good 12 mile run in the lovely sunshine at a decent pace. I ran up the ridgeway and enjoyed the glorious view of Lark Hill and views down from The Ridgeway. I am one lucky man to live and run here.

View of Lark Hill

View on my downhill section from The Ridgeway

Thursday and Friday
No training run just run off my feet at work....

Saturday
Driving to Baildon to see our amazing friends and running partners

Sunday
RACE DAY well today was the day and when we were led to the start I feared the worst as we were led downhill and as my friend Graham aptly said  "the one who walks down will have to run up again".

View downhill  to the start

His words were very true but still that did not stop me to fulfilling my sub goal for the race of running it as fast as I can with as much fun and as little care as possible and boy that I did. The views were amazing and the marshalls, runners and spectactors were extremly friendly and supportive. I have never experienced anything like this which helped me to run up the crazy hills of the last few miles. Sadly my runkeeper died but Graham was kind enough to tag me in his. Please ignore the times and just look at the elevation Runkeeperlink. So the run was amazing and I could bore you with all the mental ups I had during the race and how challenging the hills were but I won't. I learnt a few things a) my interval, speed training and strength walks do work b) running without care really makes you faster and c) I love overtaking club runners....
Anyway I had a great time thanks to the support of my family and my friends and managed to run the hilly half marathon in 1 hour 40 minutes and 52 seconds which meant I have smashed my goal of running sub 110 minutes and am close to my season goal of running a half marathon sub 100 minutes.

Left to right: Mark,  me, Graham

Me wearing my T-Shirt with pride all day the next day:-)

Fundraising news:
The Taxman has finally done all the things that need to be done so I should be able to get my fundraising page any day now I am so excited!
Stats Zone:
Runs:4
Distance covered this week: 36.54 miles
Distance covered this month: 13.1 miles


Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my 35 mile long Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space

We run for Sport Relief as a family

Good Day,
I hope you are all well and that you have and still are enjoying the lovely sunshine. Last week there was no blog from me as I had nothing to write about as my whole family and I were ill which prevented me from training at all......

Anyhow this week I am back and  under strict instructions by my virtual trainer to stick to short runs and not to do anything big as I should give my body the chance to recover from my viral infections.

I know most of you now think that I have not stuck to that but as a matter of fact I have. I did 2 interval training session, a magic mile and a 10k run. I have managed to improve my magic mile to 6:04min and improved my 10k time for this year to 44:34min. Nothing happened during my training runs so I wont bore you with those.

On Sunday I had the privilege to run the Sport Relief mile with my lovely wife Catherine, my 3yo daughter Evie and my 1yo son Fabian (on my back).
It was a lovely experience running with my whole family as I have never done that before and now can't wait for my little treasures to get bigger so that we can try and join our local parkrun in Abingdon.
I am very impressed with my wife as she doesn't run and she did really well, Fabian enjoyed himself on my back and kept either giggling or trying to fall asleep but I am extremely proud of my little girl Evie who did not stop moving at all and ran probably for 80 odd percent of the way. We had a great time together as a family and she said that she is running for the poorly children. ( I am very proud of her!!!)
Below are some pictures of my family and me sadly some pics did not upload properly....

the whole gang pre race pic did not upload properly Sorry

Evie and Catherine enjoying their run

sadly pic of  Fabian and I did not upload properly

As soon as I have any news on the actual fund raising part of my charity challenge I will inform you. In the mean time if you have any contacts in companies which may be willing to sponser me please pass their details on to me or forward them my blog link. I hope to get corporate sponsorship as well as that would help to raise awareness and funds.....

Stats Zone:
Runs: 5
Distance covered this week: 73.43 miles
Distance covered this month: 55.56 miles
Strength walks:8
Distance covered: roughly 11.5 miles
Daily strength challenges completed: 7/7

Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my 35 mile long Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space

My first Marathon

I reached a milestone this week by running my first ever marathon!
I ran it as a midweek training run all part of the training for my 35 mile ultra marathon on the 14.07.12 in Abingdon. I have never run this far before but I decided to run the whole 26.2 miles on Tuesday as it was 1year and 1 day since Amber had passed away. In fact all my runs this week were in her memory. 

During my marathon run I had to knock on 2 doors, walk into a pub and disturb an elderly couple picnicing all just to ask for some water as I ran out that often. Every single one gave me water and offered fruit\snacks with a smile and declined my offer of payment. I have to say that experience made me believe that our society is not all wrong and that we still do care about each other and that put a huge smile on my face.

I had however encountered an ignorant, rude and borderline dangerous female walker who decided to not give way at all when I was running my first  fast interval session on Monday. I had three choices; 1. run into her and possibly cause injury to her and I
                2. try to stop and fall over possibly causing injury to myself
                3. side step onto a busy road and hope for the best
Yes I side stepped onto the road into oncoming traffic and thankfully I was fast enough and the driver was not speeding. So that annoyed me but her rudeness to shout something at me which was not an apology really enraged me but I decided not to let that affect me as this interval session training was in memory of Amber! I managed to improve my magic mile from 6:33min to 6:09min despite running into oncoming traffic.

My last run was a 10 mile run which I ran on Friday evening with some sore legs after my marathon run on Tuesday and two very busy clinical 12.5 hour shifts. Despite those sore legs I managed to run it in a decent time with a great finish at the end.

Sadly I have no more news on the fund raising site yet as we are still waiting for the taxman to finish his due process. It takes ages and is a little annoying but that also means that not anyone can set up a charity and a charitable account which is reassuring.

Stats Zone:
Runs: 3
Distance covered this week: 40.35 miles
Distance covered this month: 55.56 miles
Strength walks:7
Distance covered: roughly 15.5 miles
Daily strength challenges completed: 5/7

Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my 35 mile long Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space

In memory of Amber

This week I will not talk about my training in great detail or give you a stats zone as Amber's anniversary is coming up tomorrow.
I read Amber's story and think about this sentence so often "She brought happiness to all she met and has become an inspiration to many as she enjoyed life with a smile on her face right to the very end...." as it reminds me of how I see my children and am sure how many of us see their children. They are our little sunshines and angels and are the most precious treasures in our life.
I cannot start to imagine what it feels like to lose your child but have seen what it does to families. James and Fleur have decided that they would like to help prevent this from happening to anyone else and do what they can to achieve this goal. They set up The Amber Phillpott Trust and hope to help raise money and awareness for AML so they can support research projects all with only one aim; to improve early recognition and successful treatment AML.
  
When I heard about Amber I wanted to do something to help James & Fleur as what they are doing is such a brave and inspirational thing to do and must be so hard for them. So I decided that if they can push themselves to do it I should push myself to run farther than I have ever done before. I shall run my very own ultra marathon.
So all this blogging and running is just to help raise awareness and funds for The Amber Phillpott Trust and my (approx) 35miles long ultra marathon along the Ridgeway and the Thames towpath will be happenning as part of the Yeah Baby Concert in Abingdon on the 14.07.2012 and I really hope you will be there to have a lovely day listening to free music and be safe in the knowledge that if you are spending money it will help good causes as this whole day is a charitable event.
I have not started to ask for sponsorship as the site is not fully set up, however I have already received sponsorship money from very good friends of my in laws and that is so kind and took me by surprise I have to admit.....




Thank you for reading my blog please feel free to comment on it and share it with your followers and friends.




If you would like to raise money for  The Amber Phillpott Trust. and other charities supported by   The Yeah Baby Concert and to see me finish my Ultramarathon, then please come to the YeahBaby event in Abingdon Oxfordshire on the 14.07.2012 for a  free day of music, stalls, face painting etc... and soon I will be able to create my sponsorship website so watch this space