On October 2nd, 6 months after my first 10k I have entered the Bournemouth Marathon Festival half marathon to raise money for Alzheimer’s Support.

I have never been one for keeping or even making New Year’s resolutions however this year I made a vow to become a little fitter than I was. I started running (slowly) and found a circular 1.7 mile route never more than 5 minutes’ walk from home and ran this a couple of times a week. Realizing that the time taken was not enough exercise to make a lot of difference I changed it to a figure of 8 and was still no more than 5 minutes from home. By the end of February I decided to challenge myself and for my birthday weekend away at the beginning of April I also included an entry into the Bournemouth Bay 10k. The feeling of satisfaction was so great that I decided to run 5 more 10K races over the next 5 months starting with Semington (a hot dog for every finisher) and then Boscombe YMCA in May. The next 10k booked was Poole Bay at the beginning of June but the week before I started getting twinges at the top of my leg. Probably foolishly I decided to carry on and run it but every time I put my right leg down there was a shooting pain in my groin. I knew when I finished I was going to have to stop for a number of weeks to let it heal. I took the rest of June off and then with the leg strapped up started running hoping to run a 10 k in the middle of July. Unfortunately all I succeeded in doing was straining the calf in the same leg as well so had to stop. Another 3 weeks of no running followed but I was determined to run the Lacock 10K at the beginning of August so went out for a couple of gentle jogs the week before of no more than 2.5 miles. I ran the Lacock 10k but was slow and wrecked at the end of it but there were no ill effects to the leg. Next up and 6th is the Melksham 10k on September 18th followed by the “Big One”.

Please donate as much as you can to make my suffering worthwhile and even if you don’t donate then wish me “Good Luck”.