Category Archives: Charity

Dodgy knees

Posted on by
Reply

The crowds have gathered before the start of the race.

My knees are really hurting as I write this. They’re not too bad whilst I’m sitting down (more a dull thudding sensation letting me know that I’ve done something), but when I attempt a flight of stairs they scream out as though they can’t possibly hold my weight up any longer. Going down is much worse than coming up, but it’s even slow going on level surfaces. What’s worse is that I did it to myself. I took part in the Derbyshire Building Society 10k in Derby yesterday morning.

But what a great time I had! Ordinarily I manage to just about tolerate running as a necessity for getting and keeping fit. I sometimes tolerate it more than I do at other times, but never has it before reached a level where I’ve finished and wished I could just carry on. There was a grin on my face from beginning to end. With the sun shining and the adrenalin pumping, it was just a lovely morning to be out on a run with over 3,000 like-minded people. Of course, most were much faster than both myself and @Mooley, but we defeated the challenge we set for ourselves (namely finishing) and it was great to see @Mooley complete her very first 10k in an extremely respectable time.

Staff were still setting up the stalls which occupied the carpark in front of Pride Park Stadium as we arrived, due to the fact that I had decided we needed to be there much earlier than we actually did. I thought we’d have to register once we arrived and I pre-empted a long queue; neither of which was true. So a cup of tea in Starbucks proceeded a quick walk around the stadium in order to stretch our legs before heading to the start line. Well, I say the start line. We actually started two minutes walk away from where the front runners were, but that was fine by me.

Me and @Mooley after finishing our race.

For those who know Derby I shall give a brief summary of the route, though you should be able to see it on my Nike+ tracking page (probably won’t work on an iPhone). We started in front of the ground before heading through Pride Park and over the fly-over into town. We ran under the Cockpit carpark, down The Morledge and through town up to the Cathedral Quarter, before turning back on ourselves and heading towards the new bus station. We headed around the back of that to the river and made our way through Bass’ Rec, towards town once more along the footpath and out onto Station Approach, heading the other way up the fly-over. We then ran to the second roundabout along (just passed Egg), turned left and left again at the stadium roundabout. We reached the fly-over once more, but took the path down to the river instead, making a sharp right turn to head back in the direction of the ground. We carried on underneath the bridge which heads to The Wyvern Centre and took the path by the side of the indoor football pitches back towards the ground. A quick skirt around the outside and we were into the stadium. At this point the finish line was just on the other side and we completed the race around the edge of the pitch with people cheering us on from the stand.

And that was that! I loved the route, but probably because I’m from Derby and it was great to be taking part in something around my home town. It’s a shame it was so early on a Sunday morning that there weren’t too many people around in the city centre to watch, but then I guess they wouldn’t have been able to close all the roads or the pedestrian areas through town if there were more people milling around.

If it’s on again next year I’m definitely taking part. I’m also in the mood to do something a bit longer, but I shouldn’t really until my cycle from London to Paris is done and dusted. Now I really have to kick my training for that up a notch as there’s just under three months remaining until it begins. I’m getting a bit nervous now!

No mobile phones, please

Posted on by
2

People enjoying our pub quiz at The Ship in Bedford

As you may or may not know, I’m cycling from London to Paris in June in order to raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity. As it is with these things, a person’s willingness to donate when you simply ask for money is very dependent on the type of people you know and whether or not they have a great deal to give. As such, extra money-making ideas often need to be utilised.

When @Mooley suggested that we hold a pub quiz in order to raise a couple of quid I must admit to being slightly apprehensive. Hell, I was extremely apprehensive. I mean, what do we really know about hosting a pub quiz?

But host one we did. After weeks of planning questions, organising prizes for a raffle and auction, getting Ewen Macintosh off of the telly to come and be the quizmaster, advertising in the local paper and all over town and selling tickets for raffle prizes, we finally got around to holding it last night at The Ship on St Cuthbert’s Street in Bedford.

It’s a great little pub and doesn’t suffer from the usual problem of teenagers in tracksuits. On a Monday you turn up there for a quiet drink and a nice chat. Well, you do usually anyway. That’s certainly not what happened last night. No, last night we managed to cram so many people into that pub that there was even a group sitting on the floor.

We had 18 teams in total and raised £70 directly from the quiz. The winning team then donated their prize right back into the charity pot, which was rather bloody awesome of them.

@ewenmacintosh with @Mooley at the pub quiz.

Once the quiz was finished we held an auction for a number of bags that had been kindly donated by Boots, along with a case of wine, a bottle of spirit and a signed Bedford Blues rugby shirt. The auction managed to raise a staggering £400, which absolutely blew me away. It certainly wouldn’t have been possible without the apperance of a professional auctioneer who came along to lend a hand. He even managed to get £6.50 for a pint of Fosters!

After the auction came the raffle, which we had been selling tickets for on the run-up to the event. We managed to take an overwhelming £500 from ticket sales alone and we’d acquired all of the prizes via very kind donation, so not a penny needed to be taken from that to cover any costs.

Add to that the money which had been left in collection pots behind the bar and we end up with a total figure for the night of a whopping £1,189.85! It’s so much more than I ever anticipated getting and really made all of the work we put in worthwhile.

Although most of the people who helped out or came along will never actually read this on my site, I would like to take this opportunity to thank every single one of them, wherever they are. But mostly I’d like to say thank you to @Mooley. Without her this would never have come off. There’s no way I could have done it on my own without her dedication and effort. So thank you, Lizzie. :)

After last night we completely shattered the amount needed to be raised for my cycle ride and for Liz’s 10k run and we still have at least three more events taking place in order to raise cash.

I’m still gobsmacked by people’s generosity as I write this.

I want to ride my bicycle

Posted on by
Reply

I have borrowed a bicycle. It’s been a few years since I’ve had my own as, living outside London and being over the age of 12, I’ve always had a car to get me around. That was until the end of last year when I decided to sell it because of the extraordinary running costs and lack of use. Since then I’ve used my legs to get around town and trains to take me to other parts of the country. And so far it’s all worked out and saved me a fair amount of cash in the process.

None of the above really has anything to do with why I’ve borrowed a bicycle though. The reason I now find myself in possession of one is because I’m going to be cycling from London to Paris in June this year to raise money and awareness for The Prostate Cancer Charity.

Not having ridden a huge amount over the last 10 years or so, this is going to be a particularly tough challenge. But then if it were easy it wouldn’t be worth doing for charity. The route will take me from central London to Dover on the first day, then from Calais to Paris over the course of the next three. I’ll be stopping and taking snaps as much as I can and really trying to get an experience of not just constant cycling, but also seeing a bit of the French countryside that your train or plane would normally zoom straight through.

This is about endurance and not speed, so over the next few months I will be training with that in mind. I’m not planning on breaking any records here, but I am planning on being able to say I’ve done something that most haven’t, and raised a fair amount for an extremely worth cause as well.

This certainly won’t be the last post on my cycling, so stay tuned and see how I’m getting along. In the meantime, if you would like to donate anything (no matter how big or small) to help out, please visit my Just Giving. Thank you.

Take a look at your arse

Posted on by
Reply

The Prostate Cancer CharityI’m going to go on a bike ride. Not that I’m telling you this in order that you can get a good look at my arse. No, I’m telling you this because I’m doing it on behalf of The Prostate Cancer Charity.

Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer amongst men in the UK, yet it’s the one that we pay the least amount of attention to. After all, it’s not easy to get to and it’s not something most men think about regularly. But that doesn’t stop 35,000 British men developing the disease each year. However, there are treatments available if it’s caught early enough. So I encourage you all to get down to your GP and have it checked, no matter how old you are or whether you think you need to or not. It’s not going to cost you anything and it may just save your life.

I shall tell you more about my bike ride in future posts, but for now if you’d like to make a donation towards this extremely worthy cause, please visit my Just Giving page. Thank you.