In November I must have gone slightly mad as out of the blue I decided I wanted to do the Bath Half, I had a look through the available charity places and one of the main charities being supported this year is Guide Dogs for the Blind.

As someone who is visually impaired, and being from a family with many others who are also visually impaired, Guide Dogs as a charity resonated with me.

Now I have two reasons to get through this, personal satisfaction of completing a 13.1 mile run (along with 15,000 others), and raising funds and awareness for a worthwhile charity.

Since the bizarre decision was made in November I have been training (unlike when I decided to do the 40 mile ITEX walk many years ago that practically crippled me) and, despite a small blip at christmas where I had to lay-up for a few weeks due to an airport related knee injury, I have percevered.  Recently I completed an 8km race (5 miles in old terms), albeit in a fairly slow 1hr 2 minutes.  I put the (lack of) speed down to my still trying to regain fitness following my christmas injury break.  I have a 10km race coming up in mid-February as another practice and from here on I have the intent on doing some longer runs around a course I am now fairly familiar with (around the campus at Bath Uni, used for the recent 8km) to make sure that I will survive the half marathon - especially in light of the recent news that my parents are flying over to witness the event.

Anyway, that's probably enough!  As I proved during the ITEX walk, I am a stubborn fool and even if my legs are shattered from the impact on the tarmac surfaces, I won't give in so I would really appreciate it if you could spare a few pounds, or anything, to add that little extra encouragement, and to reward a very worthwhile charity.

Thank you :-)

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