Cancer Research UK and #RunThisTown

I've found myself with a bit of free time thanks to the long weekend, so thought I'd write a quick update on the running and training progress:

Training wise has been a bit a bit hit and miss recently, the weather had been absolutely appalling for over a month now, meaning I haven't been hitting the roads as often as I'd like (can't afford another bloody illness) but I have been hammering the gym 4-5 days a week, so can't say I've been slacking off. I don't really do any cardio there though, so really need to get back on the roads a good 4-5 days a week. I REALLY need to stop eating crap too, but that's unlikely.

More positively - I've been running well when I have been going out, breaking my personal best for the 5k and feel I can run further with each week. I do find it a lot easier running at the start of the week, with my pace dropping off through to Friday, so will have to find a better balance with my gym visits. Some sun would be nice too!

Things have been good off the road too - donations are going well, plus, I got an email from Cancer Research UK last week saying that they'd came across my Just Giving page while looking for interesting runners/stories and if i'd be willing to do some publicity for them. Nothing too major, -potential local press, radio and website stuff but anything that would get my donations up while raising awareness seems like a good opportunity. I spoke to them on the phone for about half an hour and just need to send some photos off and see where it goes really.

I've also just became a part of my very first running team with #RunThisTown. All started up by the delightful @Samcentric (whose tweets in the run up to last years Great North Run played a big part in me signing up to this year's event), it's a running team for those who wouldn't necessarily describe themselves as runners or join a running club and I certainly fit that criteria. Her blog here explains it all a lot better than I could! I just run by myself so I think it will be a massive motivational boost for me personally, especially given my competitive nature. No excuses for not going out when you now everyone else is hitting the roads hard!

Song for the Day - M83 - Reunion

Ryan Adams at the Sage Gateshead

A bit late with this one but I went to see Ryan Adams at the Sage Gateshead a couple of weeks ago and it was most certainly worthy of a blog. I've been a fan of his for over ten years now (Gold was constantly on my MiniDisc player back in the pre iPod days) but this was somehow the first time I'd ever seen him live and it also shockingly doubled as my first ever visit to the Sage too. I follow them on Twitter and Facebook but only ever seem to find out about gigs there when someone is tagging them-self at the actual event and it's all a bit too late at that point. Thankfully, not the case this time....

My brother and I got up there for about 7, had a few drinks at The Central (nice bar, not so nice prices) and then went straight into the theatre. Neither of us are too keen on support acts, so we skipped whoever that was and got there just before he came on stage. The gig was in an all seater theatre, with Ryan Adams shuffling between just a piano and a couple of guitars on a bare stage. Predictably, the acoustics were the best i've experienced (I particularly enjoyed the Empire Strikes Back style rooms that act as a sound buffer between the main theatre and the outside hall) and his voice was just incredible. Bit of a nightmare if you need to leave the hall mind, as you can only get back in during a 'song break', so need to wait in the buffer room and then quickly run to your seat when one occurs. The gig itself was very reminiscent of the PJ Harvey one last year with the audience being very knowledgeable and a lot more respective than those you find at the average Academy gig, so no thrown beer here. Not everyone was obviously - despite people being told not to use flashes they still did it (and it was very distracting), even after he called out someone for doing so. People shouting out shit like 'WELCOME TO GATESHEAD RYAN'  and song requests should be shot on the spot too. I'd literally punch one of my mates in the face if they did that, and nobody is changing a setlist just because you screamed some obscure b-side. Absolutely mortifying. The person 'miaowing' particularly freaked me out.  He handled it all well though and his rambling stream of conscious style stories were throughly good craic too, a lot better than I had been led to believe. 

The setlist was a mixture of older stuff and tracks from the Ashes & Fire album with every song fitting the setting perfectly. Winding Wheel and Come Pick Me Up were the definite highlights for me. Another pretty much amazing gig! (And no photos unfortunately because i'm not a dick).

1. Oh My Sweet Carolina 
2. Ashes & Fire 
3. If I Am A Stranger 
   (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals cover)
4. Dirty Rain 
5. My Winding Wheel 
6. The Rescue Blues 
7. Please Do Not Let Me Go 
8. Do I Wait 
9. Firecracker 
10. Everybody Knows 
11. Sweet Lil' Gal (23rd/1st) 
    (Ryan on Piano)
12. Let It Ride 
    (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals cover)
13. English Girls Approximately 
14. Chains Of Love 
15. 16 Days 
    (Whiskeytown song)
16. New York, New York 
    (Ryan on piano)
17. Lucky Now 
18. Come Pick Me Up 
19. Encore:
19. Nutshell 
    (Alice in Chains cover)

He's just released an iTunes session too with songs and arrangements from the tour which i'd highly recommend as well!

Song for the Day - Come Pick Me Up

Progress! #runveeversrun

Well I finally finished my first stage of training and it went rather well, so I thought it was time for a quick update. It's still awhile off to the Great North Run but I've went from not being able to run at all to running 5k fairly easily, so rather pleased with my progress so far.

The weather's been great and that's a big motivator in getting out there; running up and down the coast is a hell of a lot easier to do when the sun is shining and the view certainly couldn't be bettered. The only downside of training has been I caught a pretty bad viral infection for a week and that set me right back. It only kept me out of training for a week and half but I felt like I'd went back to the level I was running four weeks ago and found it really hard to keep my pace and distance up the first few runs after. Thankfully I persevered and managed to finish my final 5k before not being able to do it dragged out too long but it really did bloody hurt. I'm just hoping that there'll be no more illnesses or injuries for the rest of the year now.

I've also signed up to the Great North 10k in July - I've got to run 10k as part of my training, so thought I may as well do a proper event and I think it'll make it easier to raise funds along the way too, rather than just doing mass chugging on the last week. I've not really done much on the fundraising front, just the odd use of social media here and there but i've raised about £45 online so far which is good. I'd imagine most people will donate around the time of the events but my Nanna has kindly donated all the money she'd have received for her birthday presents to me, so that was rather lovely of her.

As i'm writing this there's a story on Sky Sports News about Stylian Petrov being diagnosed with blood cancer and just this week and 18 year old work colleague has been diagnosed with cancer after taken ill the week before. Looks like they'll both be fine thankfully but Cancer really does effect everyone and hearing stuff like that certainly brings a reality check to the minor things in life but I guess it's motivating me to raise as much money as possible.

Overall fitness wise, I've come on leaps and bounds - my stamina has always been pathetic but I'm finding the running has really brought it to a level that I've probably not had since I played tennis every evening and I feel like I could easily play competitive sport again now. I've dropped over 12 pound since the new year and continued going to the gym, so managed to do that while putting muscle mass on at the same time which is rather pleasing. I've not dieted at all and still drinking regularly as well. So yeah, not bad at all really!

Next up is 12 weeks of 10k training, running at about an average of 25 miles a week. Lets hope I'm feeling this good after then too!

A couple of photos i took while running and my 5k route:

Don't forget to donate on the right sidebar!

Song for the Day - Another classic training montage song

Great North Run - Oh Dear

I've signed up for this year's Great North Run and as someone who DESPISES running, I thought i'd share  why i'm doing it and hoping to raise a bit of dollar for Cancer Research UK in the process - 

1. To get fit, healthy and all that. I absolutely detest running but I quite miss playing competitive sports and unfortunately, running is always a prerequisite for such activities so this'll hopefully help me get back to peak fitness! 

2. To raise money for Cancer Research. I'm sure most people know, or know of someone who has been affected by Cancer and it certainly has affected my life in a major way. I lost my Granda to Liver Cancer when I was just three, it's taken work collegues, friends, Aunties/Uncles, and in October of last year - my Dad passed away shortly after being diagnosed with Lung Cancer. To put it bluntly, no male member of my family has lived to see 70.

The main reason I want to raise money and awareness is that I was both shocked and horrified by the length of the actual diagnosis process, and even more so by the level of care my Dad received in the short period he was ill. I really don't think it was good enough for 2012 and I wouldn't want anyone else to experiance it, so hopefully raising a bit money will make that just a bit less likely. And improving the screening process can hopefully lead to catching the Cancer at a much less advanced stage.

No donation is too small and this shows just how far the money can go -

• £61 could buy 500 petri dishes. Sterile dishes are used to grow cultures of cells for experiments.
• £120 could buy around 40 thermometers (range -10°C to 110°C). These are indispensible for many experiments that need to be performed at very precise temperatures.
• £300 could buy a water bath, a heatable tank of water which scientists use on a daily basis. Some reactions need to happen at particular temperatures. The thermostat on a bath can help maintain this from room temperature anywhere up to 95°C.
• £550 could cover around a month’s running expenses for a clinical trial investigating a new way of giving hormone therapy to improve the treatment of prostate cancer.
• £900 could pay for around one week’s supply of the drug pravastatin for the LungStar clinical trial. This trial aims to discover whether adding pravastatin to chemotherapy is beneficial for people with small cell lung cancer.
• £2,600 could buy 10 sophisticated microarrays. These help scientists scrutinise thousands of genes in a single experiment. Microarrays are a powerful piece of gene technology which allow researchers to compare how active different genes are in cancer cells and healthy cells.  
• £4,000 could buy a -80°C freezer for long-term storage of biological samples

So if you'd like to donate, then just to click the link on the right or follow here! 

Training 

I started training at the turn of the year and downloaded the rather brilliant Nike Plus iPhone app to record all the runs I do. I really can't say enough good things about the app - it records pace, distance, time and utilises google maps to clearly show your run route, giving feedback at the end of each run. The website records all the data too, so you can clearly see your progress, and most importantly - contains set training plans raging from training for novices (me) to 10k and half marathon plans. I could barely run a minute on my first day but the program increments gradually to the point I'm running about 1-3 miles a day at the minute rather easily, something i'd never have managed a few weeks ago. The Rocky IV soundtrack is a massive fucking motivator too, feels like i'm living in a montage when that's on repeat.


That's about it really at the moment, i'll try to update this blog to keep track of my fundraising and training progress as the months go on.


 I also got my sponsorship pack today and my running vest really is a treat,  something i definitely can't pull off:

Song for the Day - John Cafferty and another classic montage