Party weekend!
Rushed off my feet from Friday night onwards. Went over to visit Paul and his family on Friday night and was overwhelmed at his positive attitude - he's a really happy guy and enjoys going out with his dog Button (who was trying to embarrass everyone with her antics with a teddy....I'll leave the rest to your imagination!). He's really appreciative of all the efforts being made to raise funds towards a specialist spa bath and continues to check on my progress via this blog.
Picked up the last few raffle prize donations on Saturday morning and posted all my route maps....I've had to trust Royal Mail Special Delivery to get them all to their correct destination as without these arriving, I'm going to be stuck!
Saturday night and it's party night....what a fantastic event it was. Most tickets were pre-sold but many friends turned up at the door of Sarah's huge 4-storey mansion near the Adventure Park at Hurn...we should have thought about charging for guided tours as these were really, really popular! Food and drink were in plentiful supply with many bringing some sort of edible or drinkable donation! Almost £400 of raffle tickets were sold on the night, everyone hoping to win one of the 45 or so prizes that had kindly been donated by various local businesses and individuals - all the kids (and some of the adults!) were eying up the 4' supersoft black teddy that I'd picked up just that morning from Sydenhams builders merchants (unsure why a DIY chain had a teddy to donate but it was gratefully received anyway!). I'd also put together 11 lots for the auction ranging from horseracing and keep-fit packages through to golf sessions and football memorabillia. Steve did a fantastic job on the tannoy and really got everyone involved. There were quite a few bidding battles going on, especially for the Chelsea FC football and rounds of golf at Dudsbury (Sarah's youngest son Max is an avid Chelsea fan and had his eye on the signed ball all night (excuse the pun!) - short of being on his knees and begging, Kevin couldn't ignore his son's puppy-dog eyes for too long and eventually won the coverted prize!).
The music room proved extremely popular and the sounds of drums and guitars continued well into the early hours of the morning. Sarah and Kevin's eldest son Will was playing requests on his guitar and I have no idea how little Max and Eddie managed to fall asleep on the sofa in the room next door whilst all this was going on!!
A fantastic total of £1,088.20 was raised through admission, raffle, auction and the odd donation which has now boosted the current total through the £5,000 barrier. There is £2,479.37 in the pot for Paul with £1,600.01 online (the extra penny came from Lilian who wanted to see her name at the top of the donation list!) and £1,015.00 offline for Cancer Research, making a huge running total of £5,094.38.
Just one working week to go now!

Look who I met at the marthon!

Then looking very pleased with myself after it's all over

WOW!! feel like I'm in a whirlwind now and there's no way down! Meant to post a blog on Friday night but as usual, hadn't got anything packed for the London marathon weekend so you'll just have to read everything in the one blog!
Travelled up to Fareham Friday night so that Jason Beck could interview me for Wave105 - he decided to do this outside to create more 'realism' and I had to pretend it was the morning of the marathon! Met Andy Jackson who was just going out for a quick ciggie and then when the interview was over, Andy decided he wanted me in the studio for a live take as well!! Although I was only on air for just over 2 minutes it was fantastic! Kate Weston and Andy are a terrific double act and it was so funny...Andy kindly sent me on a copy of it so I'll try to work out if I can add this to the blog.
Saturday, travelled upto London with Sue Evans and best mate Tricia. We met up with Dory and Michelle at the hotel then went off to the marathon Expo to register and have see how much free stuff we could pick up! Had our last carbo pasta meal and early to bed although didn't get to sleep much - that's about 3 nights running now so getting a bit tired.
Sunday dawned a lovely blue sky - perfect and not too chilly. All went to plan with the trains to Maze Hill then walked to Blackheath where Dory and I wished Sue good luck and the two of us went into the 'good for age' green start. We already knew exactly where Tricia would be cheering us on and made a bee-line to the celebrity corner and had photos taken with Ronan Keating who was also kind enough to sign our numbers! Made our day - didn't matter what happened in the marathon now!
There was a huge downpour after I'd run around 11 miles so got a bit chilly and feet were soaking wet but stopped raining an hour or so later. For the first time I actually saw the lead men running down The Highway, at 21/22 miles when I was going through 13/14. When I ran back through the other side there were still thousands going through halfway.
Question of positive brain bullying going along Embankment - my initial target was a sub 3.45 so that I could get another 'good for age' but having trained on a sub 3.30, if I reached that....well that would be the holy grail. I was definitely going to get the initial target so part of me was saying to ease back so it didn't hurt so much but then I bullied myself into sticking to it and seeing what happened....so I did! I'm sure they move that finish line further down the Mall each time....crossed it in 3.29.03 on my watch but hands so cold I couldn't push the stop button! Official time (drum roll please) 3.28.56......huge pb by 15 minutes!! I was sooooo proud of myself. Then was a little bit ill....!!
Met up with Tricia at the Cancer Research hospitality - they really look after you there even carrying all your bags! Couple of teas and coffees later I felt much better and decided to go for a massage....who should then walk in and pop up on the table beside me?? Ronan Keating!! Had a good chat - he was hoping for a sub 4 for his first marathon and achieved 3.59 so was ecstatic...
What a day!!

I'm getting a bit emotional now...contacted the news agency and they really want to tell my story but after I've finished so that they can do the full 'end to end' diary complete with my photos and then sell it to the highest bidder! And then I got a call from the radio station asking if I could possibly call in to see them before London in order to do an interview.....plus I've been stopped so many times at work today following the article about me in the internal bulletin : everyone either thinks I'm inspirational or completely crazy! I'm taking the latter in a positive manner! Does all this publicity mean that I'm a celebrity?
Loads of 'hits' to my justgiving site so I just have to keep raising the target figure...only did that yesterday and I've nearly reached the new goal already....keep it coming
Weather for Sunday's marathon is currently 13 degrees with showers - be nice if they stayed away for the duration of the race so that there will be somewhere dry to curl up afterwards! Hope it changes over the next day or so but at least the temperature will be good for running.

WOW!! Exciting news - arrived home from work today to a letter from a news agency asking if I would be interested in being interviewed for an article for a women's magazine.....would I?? absolutely! Don't want to start getting too excited but it's a real break-through on the advertising front. Have to call them tomorrow to get the full scoop so hope it's not going to be red-herring. My 'adventure' is also being publicised at work on the internal web tomorrow so my face is everywhere at the moment. I feel like quite a celebrity!!

So what on earth has happened with the weather?! Last weekend's Bournemouth Bay was held in lovely spring sunshine yet awoke this morning to a snow blizzard! Running has now really tapered ready for next weekend's London marathon. Ran every day last week but the 13 on Sunday was my longest distance. Raced in the Poole Runners Ladies 5k on Tuesday night and despite being a little windy in places, ran really well finishing in 11th place in a time of 21:12 - thrilled to set a new club record and therefore a pb - strangely enough another one I bettered by just one second!
Collected another 4 raffle / auction prizes yesterday and I have to admit that it's been amazing as to just how many businesses and representatives have been willing to help me out (but also how many just don't bother to answer emails and letters!). It's looking as though I will be able to have at least 5 auction lots and more than 25 raffle prizes which is fantastic.
On the fundraising side of things, this is going brilliantly. One of my neighbours popped round yesterday to say that they'd had a whip-round at work and presented me with a cheque for £100 for Cancer Research - it really does amaze me how many people will put their hand in their pockets to help.
Current pledges are : Paul £1,144 and Cancer Research £778 offline and £1,105.01 online (thanks to Lilli who bucked the trend and included an additional penny in her donation!) totalling£1,883.01 and a fantastic £3,027.01 overall - it's certainly a great feeling to move over the £3,000 mark as it seems only a few weeks ago that I hadn't even made it to the first grand....roll on the next one!

Official results are out and yipee, 1:35:18 means I did improve my pb by a whole second! Received an email from Paul Cole, racehorse trainer, yesterday offering me a morning on the gallops as a prize for the auction so having already had the same offer (plus breakfast!) from Nicky Henderson I can put these together with the national hunt racing badges at Newbury and flat at Salisbury for a couple of really cracking auction prizes at the party on 19 April (I might even have to go in disguise to try to bid for them myself!).
My story was in the Echo yesterday and took up half a page! Two pictures and a really good write up. Also phone Meridian and South Today and sent of the required emails so hopefully they'll be interested in my upcoming adventure....