A Good Day

Another good run at lunch time, perfect weather, quite chilly but sunny. We got more or less all the way around our circuit, only stopped twice for a car and a pack of tiny dogs that yapped up the road like dry piranhas. Must remember to get an 'ugly mask' for Mads ............ oh, and a pair of scissors, I can't go 26 miles watching that pony-tail swinging from side to side!!!!.

I seem to have a burst of energy (and hope) in the fund-raising department too. Really must drum up a little bit of enthusiasm.

No running tomorrow but looking good for singing, might make it out the door this week.

Well I didn't like it .............

I think this is better??????

I Fancied a Bit of a Change

Hope you like it!

The Running Bug ............ do you think?

Well yesterday was bitterly cold, the wind was howling and the intermittent hail showers were sharp and heavy - seemed like the perfect time to launch my marathon training proper!.

Thankfully by this morning the wind had dropped but it was still cold and it was raining as we left but amazingly I was somewhat excited about it. As I set off with Whitney Houston's 'Run to you' blaring in my ears I can't tell you what a rush of 'joy' filled my heart - yes, I really did just say that. It was like coming home to some place that's safe and analysing this phenomenon I think I do get it. There is something very honest about running, it doesn't kid you or trick you, it doesn't pretend to be something when really it's something else entirely, it just is what it is. Likewise, you can't kid or trick 'it'. You can't make out your good at it when your not, you get out of it exactly what you put in, no more, no less. In that respect it is like being home because these are the only places I can truly be me and that's very liberating.

I have had a few tricky weeks of late, got a lot wrong, mis-read signs, gone down the wrong roads, so for me, this morning, the minute I stepped over the threshold I was a winner. I ran a lot further than I thought I would and I even succeeded with the hairy manoeuvre of stopping mid run without feeling like it was all over. I managed to walk (with purpose - like the book says) until I got my breathe back and take off again and run all the way home. We did manage to find a bit of wind along the way but I greeted it like an old friend, it wasn't going to get me down today.

I got back with a huge sense of achievement, oh I know that it won't always be this way, these days are few and far between but if I keep at it then it will come again. Please 'Will' let this be the start, I'm way ahead of where I was at this time last year so it's something to work on.

Thinking outside the Box

I sadly have to report that following some 2 or 3 years of being completely teetotal, I have for some weeks now succumbed to the odd glass or two over the weekend!.

Being teetotal was great, I discovered clear headed mornings, I could stay awake through the whole of the 10 o'clock news, I could, should I have wanted to, drive anywhere at any time of the day or night and I could feel incredibly superior as I ordered an orange juice and said 'I don't drink'
but God, it was so, damn, boring !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

The other thing that I missed was the enlightening, highly intellectual discussions Andrew and I had, usually quite early on a Friday night. It was a platform for some of our best and, sadly, some of our worst decisions ........................ in fact there were very few 'best' decisions made at this time, they were mainly all 'worst' but every decision was made with hope and the reality that comes with being teetotal is unfortunately missing the rose coloured glasses that shroud everything with an element of hope.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, this is just a glass or two and circumstances are now such that we are unable to make any disastrous, well not too many, decisions. But there we were, just gone 5 pm and I had just remembered Andrew was there and that he is quite happy to help if he can. My problem is this huge, huge fundraising target we have set ourselves. I've been trying over the past few weeks to put together what I'm calling an Autumn Fair in Diss on 10th November. I thought that if I got several of the clever people I'm always hearing about who make amazing things and offer them a stall for just a small percentage of their sales  (so if no-one comes they won't have to pay anything out) they would be biting my hand off. Unfortunately this is not the case and clever people who make things appear to have disappeared without trace, I'm struggling to find many people willing to come. I've written to several local businesses for raffle prizes but again, not a bite. My fear is that four stalls, five or six cakes and a raffle made up of a basket of fruit and a tin of celebrations does not constitute a 'Fair'. Serious consideration is now being made to down-grading to a Coffee Morning.

Unfortunately, me being me, I find it very hard ... very, very hard, not to take this personally, which is ridiculous. You only need to look in the local paper to see the pages and pages of 'charity challenges' that are happening, it seems the whole world is walking, running, cycling, climbing for charity - people are charitied out. I think too that whilst you would struggle to find someone who hasn't been effected by cancer, homelessness is something many of us have the luxury of being able to turn away from and ignore. All of these observations led to us going into out 'thinking outside the box' faze - a second glass of wine was required for this. The Coffee Morning, as it has come to be known, is already committed to but I think we have to come up with some other more inventive ways of raising this money and my ebook could be it. I just have to find ways of promoting it and get loads of people buying it. I've sold 5 so far so £2.50 towards our massive target .............. ok, but it's a start!.

Not going quite to plan

We learn wisdom from failure much more than success. 

We often discover what we will do, by finding out what we will not do.

Samuel Smiles

.................. well I should be a flippin genius then!!!!!!!

Need to get Running!

Now there is something missing in all this marathon preparation - running! there just don't seem to be any daylight hours left in the day to get out and do any running and I'm not at the moment too sure just how this is going to work. Half my day today was taken up driving to Norwich and back this morning so I could only have half an hour for lunch - hardly enough time to tie my shoelaces. I do have tomorrow but Thursday and Friday's lunch times will be spent on the road taking Madi to work. It might have to be a lounge lope tomorrow and then I must, must, must get out on Sunday.

I've ordered a new book!..... this one seems to be a lot about 'enjoying' running, I need to know about that, desperately!.

A Moment

Important today to take a moment to remember my brother. It's two years today since he died. It's gone by so quickly, it still feels like only yesterday.

Always remembering you Malcolm and always missing you

Lots of love

x

Please buy my e-book and help support Shelter

IT'S FREE!

Well it will be at around 8 am tomorrow morning for one day only. Please download my book, if you enjoy it you could always donate to 'Shelter' by texting VIVS54 followed by the amount you would like to donate, to 70070.

If you think it's good you could rate it (if you don't - DON'T!) ...... and please tell everyone you know about it.

Thank you x

Please buy my e-book and help support Shelter

I'M LIVE!!!!!

My very first ebook. For some reason it's priced at £2.32 which just proves that I haven't quite got the hang of all of this yet but I am going to work on it.

For every book sold at least 50p will go to Shelter so please buy my book, it will really help with our fundraising total.

This link will take you straight to it:


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vivs-Mountain-ebook/dp/B009UETRQU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1350929400&sr=1-1

Well this is exciting!

I have just set up a just giving page. There is a new button on this blog which will take you straight there where you can donate. That isn't what's exciting, what is exciting is that you can now text a donation. All you need to do is text VIVS54 followed by the amount you want to donate, to 70070.

Please remember it doesn't matter how little you can afford, it all counts and will soon add up.

Thank you

I'm an Author!

Well it feels like only yesterday that it was this time last week and I had a whole week off. Now, I'm looking at getting back on the wheel again in the morning and I am so not looking forward to it. I have however, done most of what I wanted to do. The 'Autumn Fair' as I have decided to call it is coming together although there's still so much to do. Most importantly though I have got the first part of my blog published on amazon. It's not live yet, it takes up to 12 hours then it should be available to anyone with a kindle. I've priced it at £2.25 which appears to be expensive against all the free one's but I have just spent too much of my life on this to make it free. I also want to give a £0.50p donation for each book sold to 'Shelter'. I really hope that people will get behind this and buy it and share it so that we can make a bit of a dent in our fundraising total.

I will let everyone know as soon as it's available to buy.

Another Milestone

Just popped on here for inspiration for my new venture and seen that I've hit 3000 page views, not too sure how many of those were people looking for 'mountaineering advice' but I'll take it.

Thank you to all the people who have stumbled upon me and come back, hope you'll stay with me a bit longer. I so need to feel that support again. This mountain has turned out to be so much higher than I ever imagined.

The best part about doing a Marathon

I have often said that distance running is like childbirth except that once it starts, you do have a choice!. Starting over again is a bit like childbirth the second time round, there is that moment, a couple of contractions in when you think 'Oh, **!?, I remember this now'. For me, around a mile in as I again gasp for air, it all comes flooding back. This morning though I've had another 'Eureka' moment which has nothing to do with the running. The last three days I have been doing a lot of work for our 'Autumn Fair' and I've been asking, mainly via facebook for help and I've had so much help and again I'm thinking 'I remember that' it's what doing this Marathon is really all about. Not how fast you go or where you come, it's about the charity and what you learn about human nature and human kindness, it's what keeps you going through any challenge. Thanks to everyone who has helped me this week, it's really appreciated.

That old enemy - time!

Well this week is sadly racing by and I still haven't made a start on the main reason I took the week off in the first place!. The 'Autumn Fair' is taking shape though but there's still so much to do. I'm trying to keep the house tidy and get dinner on the go for when everyone gets home in the vain hope that Andrew will say 'it's so much nicer when you're not working, how about you hand your notice in on Monday' .... anyone care to place a bet ..... no, I thought not!.

Did my first 'lounge lope' the other day with Lorraine, much more entertaining. I'm doing half an hour 3 times this week but as I'm not quite a beginner I might push it to 4 times.

So, planned for today, a quick lope, shower, a couple of emails then I will get down to what I've been trying to do all week - more about that later.

Christmas Shopping with the Bodyshop

Here's a way that you can make a start on your Christmas Shopping and help our charity 'Shelter'. Take a look at the Christmas catalogue, there are some fabulous gift idea's. You can email me, send me a message on here or on my facebook page with your orders. Please include an email address or a phone number so that Kerry from The Badyshop can contact you for payment details. 10% of all sales will go towards our sponsorship total for 'Shelter'. You can find the catalogue here:

http://viewer.zmags.co.uk/publication/41a60b66

Thank you x

The search for more time

It quite surprises me just how much gets done when you know you have a whole week off work. You seem to have time inside your head to work out exactly where your time would be better spent, I guess because there is the luxury of knowing there will be a little bit of time left over and that if you work late into the night you can at least take things a bit more slowly the next day even if you do still have to get up early.

So, here I am, two computers running and a list of 'projects' beside me, most of which I'm quite excited about - now that's a different type of Monday morning. Is there anything on the list that might part me from the day job, well, maybe but of course a lot more time would be needed and an awful lot of work but here's hoping!.

Firstly, I do now have a training programme, I also have a training programme to get me to the start of the training programme!. It has yet to be agreed by the coach but I'm sure she will be fine with it. I've actually gone back to the one I used last time around. It has the least amount of running to any other programme I have found but that's not quite the way it sounds. We just don't have the time to be out running nearly every day of the week, we are both working full time, Madi is trying to start her business and I have 5 people to wash, iron, cook and clean up after (I've given up moaning now!). I'm going to get back to the mindset that finishing is enough, I'm a bit late in the day to be going for any records now. The other thing I am 'so' determined to do this time is to enjoy it, there is no doubt in my mind that this will be my last marathon and I want to be at the marathon I've seen on TV for so many years, not the one I was at last year.

The running machine has been folded up and will be reserved for the coldest, snowiest, windiest, wettest days only. I need to get out. I'm going to do a bit of lounge loping too, I used to enjoy my lounge lopes, it was the only time I felt I was really getting anywhere.

Well for now I need to get on with the list and tick a few bits off.

FACT . . . . .

Running outside is better - provided it's not too cold, too hot, raining, windy, icy, foggy, snowing, busy on the roads and the big unfriendly looking dogs are all on leads!

No, seriously, it is better outside and I didn't think I would ever say that. I have been running indoors on the machine for weeks now but this lunchtime following a day and a half of brain curdling benefit calculations we got out into the open and although I didn't make it all the way round, I hit the wall after around 1 and 1/4 miles, it was great and I came home with that clear headiness that I keep reading about and the thing I had been struggling with since yesterday finally worked - JOY!.

Feeling a lot lighter now, brighter, happier and a lot more positive about the running bit of this challenge. Just have to keep on getting out there now.

Someone else's shoe's

A few weeks ago I was working on the counter at work. As I was leaving a man had arrived asking for help as he was homeless. It was late in the day and there was little that could be done for him until the next morning. I walked out of the office into a fairly chilly, early Autumn evening, knowing that Andrew would be waiting for me in a nice warm car. I wondered, in that moment, just what it would feel like to walk out of the office with absolutely nowhere to go. I wondered which way I would go, left or right. If I had a few pounds in my pocket what would be my priority, a drink, a sandwich or a cheap bottle of wine to help the night pass more quickly!. How long would I walk, how scary would it be as it got dark. It gave me a new sense of perspective. What is it they say about walking a mile in someone else's shoe's?. I think it would do many of us good to do just that once in a while.

If you can, please sponsor us at:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/VivienneKanharn

our page is called 'Madi and Viv's fundraising page'

We are raising money for Shelter who work to alleviate the distress caused by homelessness and bad housing.

Please be the first to Sponsor us

Please sponsor us at:


http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/VivienneKanharn

Our page is called: Madi and Viv's fundraising page

.............................. I promise there will be running tomorrow!

I'm trying . . . really trying

"What distinguishes those of us at the starting line from those of us on the couch is that we learn through running to take what the day gives us, what our body will allow us, and what our will can tolerate."
John Bingham

Well this was the best I could do for tonight and I'm not too sure if it helps or not, think I need an early night and some time to think about it, then I think I need to get out some time soon and run and I need to go to Discord and sing. Hopefully that might shift the dark clouds.

A whole week and still no running!

It's like my feet are glued to the floor, don't think I could run if my life depended on it.

I think there is something in my head telling me that this time, once I start, I can't stop until April next year, so I'm kind of putting off the starting. It's also getting cold now and it's not so easy to don the tights when you're cold. I think I need a good google for motivation tips!

A mention for another great cause

Thought you might be interested in this. A lady at discord has raised an enormous amount of money for Prostate Cancer doing a photography challenge, she has been holding an exhibition at the Forum in Norwich and last night some very brave members of Discord went along for a 'flashmob'. It looks like great fun, just wish I had the courage to have been there:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoyCUwdP4sw


You can sponsor Angie at:

http://www.justgiving.com/Angie-Sharpe10000


And take a look at some of her photos at:

http://www.angelasharpephotography.tumblr.com/

Too many damn balls!

Totally shattered!, I am just not built to take this level of stress. It's just been one of those weeks this week. Mads is doing a course in Norwich and for some reason the world and his wife had booked the week off so neither Andrew or I were able to get the time off.  Somehow, we have got her there for 2 days and there are only another 2 to go. On top of this the amount we have to raise for Shelter is worrying me. I decided the best way to counter this was to get things moving and try to get off to a really good start. I have been planning a sort of Christmas Fair although I don't really want to call it a Christmas Fair. I have got a Church Hall for a very good price and the Church are having a Christmas Fair a few weeks later so I don't want to 'upstage' them, as it were. But, we will have the Bodyshop, hopefully some jewellery, cards and wrapping paper, diaries and anyone else gifty that I can find, we'll do a raffle, teas and coffee's. With luck it will make us a good profit for Shelter and at least I'll feel that we are on our way. The end result of all of this, I don't think I mentioned work - I have been working too, is that no running has been performed this week which is not very good at all. Hopefully, without the taxi job next week I will be able to get back to it. Just can't wait to get to the weekend.

If anyone has any idea's for my Christmas Craft Fair thingy I would be really grateful, or any other fund raising idea's. If you are local it would be lovely to see you, it's on:

Saturday 10th November

at

Diss Methodist Church

Victoria Road

Diss

10.30 am to 3.30 pm

Free entry

You can sponsor us by the way, same address as before:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/VivienneKanharn

Our page is called: Madi and Viv's fundraising page

Thank you