Ross At Edinburgh Marathon

Thanks to Marathon-Photos.com

For those that don’t know, my eldest daughter Emma Berry Goodman passed away in September 2008 from Motor Neurone Disease. Whilst she was with us we were greatly helped by three fantastic charities: MND Scotland, Marie Curie Cancer Care and the Childrens Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS).

For the last three years I have dedicated a years fundraising to each of these charities. This year my challenge was to run 1,000km in 2011 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.
If everything goes to plan then I will achieve my 1,000th kilometer when I run in Strathclyde Parkrun -  event number 86 on Saturday 17th December.

I know that this is an expensive time of year but if you could see your way to giving a donation at https://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011 or by texting “Ross70 £5″ to 70070 – feel free to adjust the amount as you see fit!
Every £20 raised helps to provide 1 hour of nursing care and I can personally vouch for how invaluable the Marie Curie are!

Thank you all for your donations and your support and encouragement in this past year!

If you would like to see just how far 1,000km actually is have a look here.

As you should know I set myself the challenge of running 1,000km in 2012 to raise money for the fabulous folks at Marie Curie Cancer Care. I have been slightly tardy with my updates but I am please to report that I’m getting close: I have just 110 km to go. i.e. I have run 89% of the planned distance with one month to go.

I had hoped to be able to raise £1000. Every £20 raise helps provide an hour’s nursing, £1,000 would equate to 50 hours care! Unfortunately I’m only at £766 or 76% of target. I am putting a big push in, I’m planning to run every day in December to guarantee that I hit my km target but I need some help from you to make sure that I hit my £ target!

I understand that these are financially trying times and December is an expensive month but this is exactly when we should be thinking of others. Any donations at all will be gratefully received at https://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011 or you can donate via your mobile phone by texting “Ross70 £5” to 70070

OK it’s been a week since I finished my second marathon:
Ross Goodman Edinburgh Marathon 2011 Finishers Medal
This was the first “big” race in my year long 1,000km in 2011 for Marie Curie.

To just add an extra element to the marathon my friend Andy from Reynard Nursery asked me to tweet every mile. I knew every mile would be very offputtingbut I thought I would give it a go. My marathon day tweets start here. I had experimented with VLingo for my BlackBerry which I was carrying anyway. My pre race day tests were all fine – press a button – speak – translated into text – press a button to confirm sending it to Twitter – easy. On the day, being a little breathless and having a howling gale (more of that later) things didn’t go quite to plan. “Four Miles” was translated as “F******* Hell” and “Five Miles and Feeling Good” was translated as “Hi Smiles and Feeling Good”. I reverted to typing after that.

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Edinburgh Marathon 2011

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”.

As you may knowI am planning to run 1000km in 2011 to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

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.

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As you know I have pledged to run 1,000 kilometers in 2011 For Marie Curie Cancer Care.

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

Marie Curie Logo

In 2011 I plan to run 1000km to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

This will be spread across multiple events including the Edinburgh Marathon and all of my training sessions.

If you would like to donate please visit http://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011

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Fast man!
Creative Commons License 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.

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I’m building up for my running challenges of 2011 and breaking in my new treadmill so I am slowly building up my miles.
On incentive is the Marcothon group on FaceBook, the basic premis is to run for either 3 miles or 25 minutes in every day in December.

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.

The Good

Most would have said the weather was good, I beg to differ it was waaay too hot!
On the plus side I’m sure that helped bring out more spectators who really helped spur me on and yes the garden hoses and sprinklers WERE appreciated!

The Bad

The golden rule is to have practiced everything and have no new kit on race day.
Due to the heat in the days leading up and the forecast I decided to treat myself to a new belt with a bottle holder built in. Unfortunately this was not really up to the job and my bottle jumped out the holder in the first few yards after crossing the start line.
Due to the excitement of the start I even forgot to start the timer on my watch so it was a few minutes after crossing the start line before my watch started. My watch gave me a time of 6:23:24 and my official time was 6:34:05. I had also made sure that my watch had a new battery but I had not double checked the settings and I ended up having to fiddle with it during the run to get it set properly. My Garmin FR50 was complaining over the last few miles of low memory, I’ll either have to buy a new watch or speed up: I’m “cheap” so I’ll have to keep up the training !

The Ugly

No real injuries to speak of, the plasters on my nipples fell off so I had to get some emergency vaseline from the first aiders at mile 8. I finished with a small blister on each heel, but this was due to the fact I did more walking than running in the latter stages.
Obviously I’m stiff and sore today but I’m keeping moving to prevent complete seizure.
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