So, in the midst of all this exciting stuff happening – being an adult, going to parties (rarely) and university – I had almost forgotten that I’m doing a half marathon soon. October 21st seemed like ages and ages and ages away until last Sunday, when I saw a little post come up on my Facebook news feed. “Two weeks until the Great Birmingham Run!”.
Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction. People are starting to receive their race packs and numbers (I’m assuming mine’s arrived but is at home, so I’ll need it picked up and brought to me seeing as I’m not home until after the race!) and it’s all feeling a little too real right now. In 11 days, I’ll be attempting to run (although it’ll probably be more like walking, and then shuffling, and then crawling, and then wriggling) 13.1 miles (I don’t like the “.1” bit – I want to see “13 miles” and be finished, not have that extra little .1 of a mile to go!).
At least I won’t be on my own – there’ll be 18,000 other people doing exactly the same thing, although I’m fairly sure the majority will be able to run – or at least walk – all the way, and won’t have to resort to wriggling. People keep saying on the Facebook page, “aiming for sub-2!” and things like that, and I’m thinking “Hey, that’s feasible”, and then I realize they’re talking hours, not days. They’re aiming to run 13.1 miles in under two hours. I’m aiming to… complete 13.1 miles before they take down the banners and pack up and go home – that’ll be an achievement for me as far as I’m concerned.
Of course, my time and performance in the run isn’t the important thing – it’s the fact that I’m raising money for a charity very close to my heart, and we’ve done so much better than I thought we would. At the start, we aimed to raise £150 as a team – doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but when you’re from a village like mine where, in general, people don’t want to give a penny unless it’ll directly benefit them, it is a massive target. Thanks to the generosity of so many wonderful people – many of whom are not from the area, as predicted, but there were a few lovely people from my area and village who have donated and sponsored us, and I am so grateful for that – we’ve managed to smash our target, raising just shy of £400 between us.
Now is the last push – please, please sponsor us – Birmingham Children’s Hospital is such a fantastic charity and so deserving of your donations; they’re currently trying to raise £4m to build a new Children’s Cancer Centre, and every penny really does count. You can sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/madison-matthews , or Daf at www.justgiving.com/dafydd-williams09 – or you can see how our team total is getting on at www.justgiving.com/teams/madanddaf – please donate and encourage others to do so too! Thanks 🙂
the life of a moomin 