Welcome to the fund raising page for the Great Charity Run Challenge.  The Great Charity Run Challenge involves taking a lanky and rather unfit man and turning him into a running machine – well sort of.

What am I doing?

I have in my wisdom decided to run the 2009 Great North and Great South runs.  Both are held at the end of 2009, with the Great North run in September and the Great South in October.  This means that in the space of a month, I will travel to the Northern and southern extremes of England to complete a gruelling 23 miles of running.  It’s just sunk in – what am I doing!

Why am I doing it?

Why have I decided to punish myself in this way?  I am not a masochist I do not enjoy pain.  I wanted to do it for two reasons:

1. The challenge of pushing myself to and beyond my current limits.
2. To honour my Nan by raising funds for the Hospice in which she spent part of her last weeks.

The second reason outweighs the first by far.

The worthy cause:

My Nan, Ellen Luff, passed away in 2003 after suffering at the hands of cancer.  I witnessed my Nan slowly deteriorate through the sickening illness that is cancer.  Cancer is such an awful illness.  I do not want to generalise but, the pain and suffering I witnessed will never leave me.  In my Nan’s case the cancer was found in an inoperable position between the vital organs of the lung and the heart.  As the cancer grew it became more and more difficult for my Nan to do things we take for granted; walking; washing and eating independently. 

The Dove House Hospice allowed my Nan some form of independence whilst still receiving the medical treatment needed.  This allowed my Nan to be comfortable in her last few days as the cancer painfully pulled the life from her.  Without the care and consideration of the hospice staff her suffering would have been greatly increased.

This traumatic time opened my eyes to the excellent and worthwhile work that hospices undertake.  They play an important role in supporting and maintaining people suffering with cancer.  The roles of the hospices are often forgotten as people give to other cancer charities focused on curing cancer.  Both are admirable aims and both need support.

Hospices: The Dove house hospice

The Dove house hospice is a charity providing care for terminally ill patients.  There aim is to allow patients with incurable illnesses the highest possible quality of life in their last weeks.  They aim to give not only specialist care but special care, embracing patients with warmth, understanding and friendship, offering them and their families guidance and support during difficult times.  They provide pain and symptom control, terminal and respite care for the patient and care for the whole family, including a counseling and bereavement service to anyone who needs it.
The dove house hospice receives funding for 91 of the 365 days from the Health Authority.  The hospice then relies on the good will of the community and people like us to raise the funding for the remaining 274 days.

What are my aims?

I have two aims from my Great Challenge:

1. To raise over £500 for the Dove House Hospice.
2. To complete the Great North Run in 1 Hour and 45 mins and the Great South in 1 Hour and 20 mins.

The plea:

If you agree with the worthy work of the hospices and the ‘challenge’ is great enough.  Please give all you can, each pound gets me closer to my target.  If 100 generous people donate £5 each I will reach my target. 

I realise people are feeling money pressures but, £5 equates to just 1.4p per day or 9.6p per week for a year.  That means you will need to sacrifice buying 2 pints of beer or 2 glasses of wine in 2009 to help improve the life of someone suffering from cancer. 

You could help make a terminally ill person comfortable in the last weeks of their life – couldn’t you?

 

The update:

 

1st run completed, thankfully.  The day didn't start well, after an early start (set off at ) I reached and made my way to the start line.  As I was meandering through the park near the start line, a wasp stung me on my calf!  I couldn't believe it.  After waiting round for what felt like an eternity, I was herded into my starting group.  After being warmed up by the new Mr Motivator, we slowly edged our way to the start line.  From the gun being sounded for the start of the race, it took 15 minutes for me to cross the start line and actually start the race!

 I settled into a comfortable early pace and slalomed my way through what felt like thousands of other runners, trying not to elbow or trip anyone.  My 3 mile (5km) time was in hindsight rather fast at 25 minutes.  The first 4 miles were fine....then I hit the wall.  I managed to clamber, groggily over it with the help of a bottle of powerade and settled into a good pace completing ~7miles (10km) in 53 minutes.  Still feeling good but, amazed how hilly and gateshead are, I pushed on, weaving in and out of runners and becoming rather anxious by the number of runners who were receiving medical treatment at the side of the road - would I last?!  Still feeling good, I hit the ~9 mile (15km) in 1hr 21 mins.  Then at 11.5 miles I hit another wall.  The biggest I had ever faced, unfortunately, try as I might, there was no scaling it.  The next 1.5 miles were the most excruciating I have ever ran.  Finally, pushed on by the cheering hordes I turned the corner onto the coast road and ran wearily and grimacing till the end.  I had never been so thankful to hear the words 'that's it, you're finished' from a hairy man wearing a yellow bib!  You can verify my times at http://www.greatrun.org/Results/Default.aspx. Select 'Bupa Great North Run 2009' from the drop down menu and enter my race number (27862) in the 'Race Number:' search box.

 Unfortunately, I did not make my target time of 1hr 40 mins and crossed the line in 2 hours and 2 minutes, coming a respectable 12,838 out of 54,000 and 6,282 out of my age group.  On reflection, I think I ran too fast in the early part of the race, especially as the weather was far hotter than anything I had trained in.  I don't know how hot it was but, it felt far too hot to be running 13 miles! The combination of the weather and my initial pace let me down, on the positive side I managed 15k in 1hr 21 mins which bodes well for my target time for the great south!  Onwards!