As you should know by now I’m running the Edinburgh Marathon to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care. This event is part of my challenge of running 1,000km in 2011. Every £20 raised for Marie Curie helps provide one hour of nursing care. Marie Curie were a fantastic help with my daughter Emma before we lost her to MND.

If you are feeling generous I will be accepting donations until the end of the year at http://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011

If you would like to follow me during my marathon I have set up my phone so you can track my progress:

Another way you can track my progress is via Twitter: https://twitter.com/rossgoodman

I will be attempting to live tweet during the run using VLingo on my phone which should tweet whatever I speak to it. Who knows how well it will work when I’m a bit “breathless”.

To date I have run 164km or 16.4% of my target distance – unfortunately I am only at 4% of my fundraising target – Never mind I have the Meadows (half) marathon, the Kilomathon and the Edinburgh Marathon in the next few months to give the fundraising a boost.

I thought it would be fun to visualise just how far 164km is, turns out I would be almost at Newcastle by now!

You can see this by clicking here.

I would have just included the picture rather than the link but PlusNet is screwing around with the permissions on my blog.

Here is the first draft of the dashboard I’ll be using to communicate my progress.

Click here for the bigger version.

The JustGiving page has also been set up here : http://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011

photo credit: Nick-K (Nikos Koutoulas)

The concept behind Marcothon was simple : run every day in December for at least 25 minutes or 3 miles.

My results:

• 15 days out of 31
• 18 runs in total
• 75.51km or 46.92 miles covered
• 10 hours 30 minutes running time

Officially that is a “fail” but it is my fourth best month in the year for distance and time but by far my best for actual number of runs.

I’m counting it as a HUGE success as it has been the ideal “warm up” for my 2011 running challenge.

Full details and stats to follow in a subsequent post but in summary:

Run 1000km in 2011 to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

http://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011

I have also been mucking around with Xcelsius for a parkrun project, more on that later.
To keep an eye on my progress I have built a dashboard to track my running over the current year and so I can visually compare my training year on year.

photo credit: darkmatter

Marathon Team Update

Start with the good news: as of today the fundraising total hit £300 which is great but the marathon is no sprint, so lots more time (6 weeks gulp) to go. http://www.justgiving.com/26miles4chas
The not so good news: unfortunately Paul has had to pull out of the Edinburgh Marathon due to an injury he has picked up during training.
The better news: Paul has agreed to competitively run the distance of the marathon before the end of the year. Due to this, we will be keeping the fundraising page open until the end of the year so you can show your support.

Things I Never Thought I Would Hear Myself Say

At 23:30 tonight I actually said:

I’m tired, and it’s late. I think I’ll just do 10k tonight.

And then did 11k in one of my fastest average speeds yet, oh how things have changed since January!

My Running Mantra

The other thing that has changed since the start of the year has been the mantra, or chant that I say to myself in my head when running. I used to say:

Slow Down
Head Up
Smile
And Breath

but over time this has subconciously changed to:

I’m a Runner – THIS is what I do!

and even then, this is only used when I’m struggling.

My Running Philosophy

When I started running, rather than follow a formal plan, as my route was beside a road I used the streetlights: run for 2, walk for 2 and variations thereof. This I found disheartening after a while. What I have found works better now is:

• Start with a smile and know you will win.
• Run through your tiredness but not into your exhaustion; then walk.
• Walk faster then you would but not as fast as you can.
• Walk farther than you need to but not as far as you want to.
• Start again !

Using this method every leg of your run can be classed as a victory and we all know how success breeds success!

My Training Totals This Year

Being the Business Intelligence geek that I am, I know the best way to present the running stats that I have captured ……. but it’s not quite working yet!
Jan - 21miles avg 4.42mph
Feb - 22miles avg 5.40mph
Mar - 58miles avg 5.20mph
Apr - 23miles avg 5.26mph (so far)
Highlights
On Sunday 14th March Angus and I competed in the Balloch Half Marathon.
Angus did it in an amazing 1:42 and put my 2:46 to shame!
It was a new personal best for me!
To top it all off, Angus then came back along the course and re-ran the last three miles with me!
Future Runs
In addition to the Edinburgh Marathon on Sun 26th May I have also signed up for:
MND Scotland 10k Fun Run on Sun 16th May (the week before the marathon)
Mens Health Forum Scotland 10k on Sun 20th June
Great Scottish Run Half Marathon on Sun 5th September
If you know of any other interesting runs let me know!

Big Thanks

As my distances have started to creep up my time out of the house has started to increase but it’s all in a good cause. Helping me keep my motivation up have been:
Parkrun Glasgow : I cannot sing the praises of these folks highly enough. A free timed 5k thought the lovely Pollok Park in Glasgow every Saturday, try it once, you’ll be hooked. I may “skip” an evening training run but never miss a ParkRun !
Sweatshop Glasgow : I was introduced to this shop through their sponsorship of ParkRun. Iain the manager helped fit me with a new pair of shoes last week. This week I have done my 5k ParkRun, a half marathon (and a bit) and a 10k (and a bit). The shoes are fantastic!
Last but not least : friends, family, colleagues : thanks for all the kind words and encouragement!

Monday – Radio Scotland

The excellent Radio Scotland program Get It On is a theme based program where you can suggest songs that match the theme. On Monday, not only did Brian Burnett play a song for me, the whole program was based around a theme that I had suggested: Happy Then Sad.
Then, to top it all off, my song suggestion on his blog prompted some great donations to my fundraising page http://www.JustGiving.com/26Miles4CHAS for CHAS – Childrens Hospice Association Scotland.
A HUGE thank you to Bryan and all the listeners !

Tuesday – Instant Karma

I managed to finish work a little early on Tuesday so I headed home to avoid the usual M8 congestion.
I pulled off at Junction 5 – Harthill to phone home. Pulling into a little side street to use the phone safely, I realised too late that the road was thick with ice and muddy puddles and I got stuck fast.
A HUGE thank you to the kind gentleman who took the time to help me get my free.
Less than one minute after freeing my car and continuing my journey, a car was coming towards me with flames coming from under and around his engine compartment. I managed to flag him down, he had not realised that his car was on fire.
Neither of us had a fire extinguisher! As I had just been stuck I had my shovel handy. A few shovelfulls of snow and the fire was out.
I dread to think what the consequences would have been if my altered journey times and kind samaritan had not happend just as it did.

Thursday – Winner !

Since restarting my jogging at the start of the year I have been a huge fan of the ParkRun concept, a weekly free 5k timed run, especially my local Glasgow ParkRun in Pollok Park.
I found out on Thursday that I had been selected as February’s SweatShop monthly prize winner. SweatShop are one of the fantastic sponsors of ParkRun that help make this fantastic free event possible!
The weird thing was, on Monday I was considering buying a new pair of running shoes so that I could get them broken in in time for the Edinburgh Marathon on 23rd May!
Karma strikes again!

Friday – Bandwidth Issues

Walking to work on Friday morning I got an E-Mail on my Blackberry from PlusNet, my ISP and website host.
Due to my website using considerably more than my allowed bandwidth my website had been taken down.
I had no idea as to why this was, I expected a spike on Monday following the publicity on Radio Scotland but had no idea why the spike happened on Thursday or Friday.
It turns out that Real Radio were running their Bring £1 To Work Day campaign. Part of this included them spending the day at Rachel and Robin House and soing a broadcast from there.
Some intrepid Googling turned up an mp3 that I had on this site of when Emma went to Real Radio with her friends from Rachel House. I have removed the file from my site and this is what casued the bandwidth problems. If you would like a copy, email me and I’ll find an alternative file host.

Last year I ran a half marathon and cycled across Scotland to raise funds for MND Scotland.

This year (before my 40th birthday) I will complete the Edinburgh Marathon on 23rd May 2010. I have also managed to elist the help of my two best friends Angus Denham and Paul Crawford.

The childrens hospice, Rachel House in Kinross was a favourite outing for Emma and she really looked forward to her time there. The staff and volunteers there go out of there way to bring a smile to everyone’s faces!

If you would like to show your support for the fantastic work done by CHAS please consider adding your donation on this page : http://www.justgiving.com/26Miles4CHAS

You can see some of the photos that I have taken at Rachel House in Kinross here.

Background

On the 7th September my 17 year old daughter; Emma Berry Goodman died of Motor Neurone Disease.
Previously I had promised her that I would run a marathon before I was 40. I have just under a year to ensure that I do that.
The only experience I have of running was doing a 10k for MND in 2008 so the half marathon is the next logical progression.
Never one to do things by half I have also signed up for a 50mile cycle ride as a “cool down” event after the run.
If you have never heard of Motor Neurone Disease have a look at their website http://www.mndscotland.org.uk/ I would pay particular attention to the video. The film has been given a cert 15 classification. It is a graphic portrait of how many people diagnosed and living with this illness can feel.
In addition to making a donation here, it would be fantastic if you could either join me on either or both events or if you could come along on the day and cheer me on!

Thanks

Ross Goodman

Running

Runs : 4
Distance : 8.81 miles
Time : 01:40
Avg Speed : 5.3 mph

Cycling

Cycles : 4
Distance : 15.82 miles
Time : 02:32
Avg Speed : 6.2 mph

Summary

Must Try Harder.
Concerned by the verl low average speed of the cycling !
August WILL be better!