You must remember…it was quite recent…
it was here if you want to check…
Not focused on running enough to be a runner as such, I said…or words to that effect…
I was a person who ran sometimes, I had no burning desire to do more races or vastly increase my distance, I was happy to be a not runner.
That was until exactly 4 days after this realisation. When I was asked, by a friend, to run the Reading Half Marathon with her.
Yes…
You read that right…
Reading Half Marathon!!
That is 13.1 miles of running…all at once!!!
13.1 miles!! that is 21 km that is more than twice as far as I have ever run in my life…
and when I say I have run half of that…I haven’t…I have covered the distance but only doing intervals!
What the hell have I let myself in for!!
You may be wondering why I did this when I had decided I was not really a runner.
Well, I was asked to by a good friend who needed the support. She is new to running (and exercise craziness) so I was hardly going to say no and leave her on her own!
This does of course mean I have to somehow become able to run (mostly) 13.1 miles!
13.1 miles…have I told you that I have to run that…
can you tell I am fairly daunted by this prospect!!
I am also slightly excited by the challenge…terrified but slightly excited.
It is a crazy thing, and I have to say it is not one that has ever been on my to do list, or even my wish list…but there you are, that is how these things work out 😀
I was trying hard to find a motivational quote thingy…but they all strike me as a little contrived…so as usual, the best I could find was this…
Yes…I am a little obsessed with Doctor Who…
I am a little obsessed with a lot of things 😀
The other reason I am slightly excited by this run, is I have found a lovely charity to support!
I was looking for something that was important but also small enough that my contribution will actually make a difference!
Don’t get me wrong here, all the big charities are worthwhile causes, but they have armies of fundraisers and thousands of people raising money for them every year. I wanted to do something for a charity that was not well known and was doing important work.
This search lead me to Hauser Bears
They are a UK based charity who work in conjunction with other bear and wildlife charities around the world to save bears from horrible conditions in bear bile farms and bear baiting “fights”.
They do some awesome work…go and read about it!!
It might seem like a slightly left field choice (which is a phrase I totally don’t understand by the way), as I haven’t actually mentioned being interested in saving wildlife and conservation before. But it is something I consider incredibly important. If I can save a bear…then 13.1 miles may not seem quite as far!
The charity has been awesome too, they have offered me a t shirt to raise awareness and are going to put links to my fundraising page on their facebook page…not something you always get 😀
So once you have read about the bears…and want to encourage me in this crazy endeavour! you can go here:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/mycrazyhalfmarathon
And sponsor me…even if it is just £1!
I am feeling amazingly enthusiastic…I am not sure it will last through the hours of training…but for now…bring on the half marathon!
You are crazy and awesome! I look forward to cheering you on every step of the way, Sam!
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😀
crazy…definitely crazy!
I am so pleased you will be cheering me on…it REALLY helps 😀 and I am going to need all the help I can get!
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I am so not a runner either, but will cheer you on every step of the way!
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😀 than you so much! I need all the help I can get!!
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You can so do this! Woohoo! (that was me practising my cheering!) Seriously, you can definitely do it, and what a brilliant cause – I’ll pop over to your fundraising page when I’m at home 🙂
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it is such a long way and i am so scared of it, but I want to do it for the bears and for all you guys cheering me on!!
😀
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It does sounds scary, there’s no getting away from that, but you’re so much fitter now than you were, and you’ve proved so many times that you CAN do things. And just think how awesome it will be to be able to say you did a half marathon!
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It will be long and hard but you are right, it will be awesome afterwards to say I have done it!!
😀
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Oh, wow! This is really exciting. When is the race? A half-marathon is still a small, fuzzy idea in my brain…
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It is not until march which is good,..plenty if time to train and/or become terrified!
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Wow! That is awesome. I’m glad you’ve found a nice “little” charity to support too – we need all the help we can get! Don’t get me wrong, the big charities are great but your little, local ones need help too. We always promote any fundraising activities which our supporters are doing on Facebook and Twitter, if we know about them, and offer to supply a t-shirt but the t-shirts are quite heavy to run in for 10K or a half marathon.
Remind me/us of the link to your virgin money page nearer the time and I’ll pop over and sponsor you.
Oh, and YOU CAN DO IT!
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😀 thank you 😀 I am still flitting between excited and terrified!
I will definitely put up a reminder post when I get into training and post about how it is going (slowly at the moment!)
I am glad you agree about the small charities 😀 they seem far more appreciative of what I am doing!
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I work for a small charity and trust me, we appreciate even the smallest donation as they all add up. We especially appreciate the individual fundraisers doing silly things like running! We have a few, including Adam and me, running the York 10K in August so I am hoping that we can get a group photo before we all start the run.
Make sure you let them know how you did with the actual run and include a picture and a link to your Virgin Money page so they can try to get more donations for you.
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I definitely will 🙂 they have been lovely so far, and offered to put info on their fb page.
😀
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