Hello Lifers, you lovely generous people!
So. Last year I challenged myself to go out running 366 times and cover 2016 miles in the process. To my surprise, as someone who had not particularly been fond of running before, I completed the challenge and really enjoyed it most of the time. I lost nearly a stone in weight and all my niggling knee and ankle pains cleared up within a few weeks of starting. Each run had to be at least 30 minutes long and I had to average just under 6 miles a day to reach my target.
Amazingly, I didn't tread in a single dog turd in a whole year of pounding the streets of (mostly) South-East London, and I only squashed two snails. I also trod on two screws that went straight through the soles of my trainers into my foot.
There were about 15 days when I couldn't run (In hospital for a clinical trial, working near 20 hour days, that sort of thing) so on 15 days I had to go out for two runs to make up for it.
The third part of my challenge was to raise £2016 for children's cancer charity
Clic Sargent. I was so busy running, holding down three jobs, looking after my kids and protesting at Charlton as well as in Belgium, that I failed to publicise what I was doing. Consequently I have only raised about £750 so far. This is where I'm hoping some of you come in, and there is an incentive!
I worked on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, earning double money overtime for both. I am putting up most of that
(£366, a pound for each run) as prize money for the person who sponsors me and whose guess is closest as to how many hours, minutes and seconds it took me to complete my challenge. To give you a chance of making an educated guess, up to the end of November I had completed 335 runs, covering 1,824 miles in just over 302 hours, burning well over a quarter of a million calories in the process!
I have posted my runs up until early December on my Facebook page,
https://www.facebook.com/mark.newell.967 There is some of the usual FB crap on there in amongst it but not too much.
The link to my Justgiving page is
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Mark-Newell3 At the end of February, I will publish my Mapmyrun page with the time it took me to complete the challenge, as well as the name of the prize winner. Minimum sponsorship of £2 to qualify. Good luck with your guessing, and no, I am not open to bribes to divulge the correct time!
