It's Official!

My Time & Position - According to the Fun Run website.

My Time was: 2:45:09

From 7000 entrants...

My Overall Position was: 5458

My Position amongst Male Entrants was: 3078

My Position amongst Senior Entrants was: 4672

So, as I thought, just over half an hour off last year's time - unexpected to me. Now collecting in sponsorship money - so far so good!

Done again!

It turned out to be a perfect day for the big event - bright and dry but not too hot.

This year's Fun Run was the biggest ever with 7,000 participants. Steve and I certainly felt more part of a crowd as we went round the course - it seemed that there were a great many going at the slower pace, so we didn't feel so much the "Also Walkeds" and we were less inclined to suspect that the spectators around the route, particularly in the later stages, offered their applause and shouts of encouragement from pity or sympathy; the citizens of the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield are a genuinely warm-hearted bunch.

Official timings are yet to be published, but to our surprise and delight, we completed the course in under three hours - we anticipate that it will be in the region of 2 hours 45 minutes; the runners on our team in support of Walsall Samaritans - our sister Diane and brother-in-law Paul are also pleased with their times.

Should you feel inclined to support our fundraising effort, please head over to http://www.everyclick.com/2012funrunners4walsallsamaritans/info

The Big Day Dawns

It's a sunny Fun-Runny Day. Just about to set off for Sutton Coldfield!

Only a few to go now!

There are only a few days left till "the big day"! I will be entering this years GMFR less prepared than either of the two previous times.


A holiday in Woodbridge (Suffolk) did provide quite a lot of "walking around", particularly on the firs Sunday, when we spent the whole day wandering around the town, getting to know the place - well worth it too, I'd say - and in fact we probably did clock up quite a few miles - some of it up and down hills; the tale told about Suffolk (and Norfolk too) that it is "very flat" is, in my experience, far from true. The rest of the holiday was just tourist sight seeing walking - around sites such as Sutton Hoo (very interesting!), Snape Maltings, Orford, Aldeburgh and Framlingham; no serious cross country walking or anything though. Our after dinner perambulations on the last Friday did attract the attention of the Town Pastors though - they must have been having a quiet night to take an interest in 4 middle aged blokes who had downed a quarter bottle of wine each with a meal. I wonder if they ever get an invasion of "girls" from neighbouring Essex who need help negotiating the streets with the legendary white stillies after an excess of alcopops, or whether that's not only stereotyping the populace of the Eastern Counties, but street pastors too!


Returning from the holiday with (despite the superb weather) a really heavy cold - the type that goes right through your body with every possible symptom you can think of, pretends to go away, then returns again...and again.... has not been very conducive to getting out and about over the bank holiday weekend (not to mention the appalling cold and wet Sunday!), but today, I did manage a two hour walk along the canal up to Wednesbury and back via the streets. The hard surface walking is good practice for next Sunday's walk, though the course in Sutton involves rather more gradients. Feet hurting from the first few steps didn't actually get any worse, but not much better either - I think its going to be tough this year! Felt done in by the end of today's walk and I'm evidently showing the effects in my movements around the house. The sponsorship is encouraging though, and I know the atmosphere and the people of Sutton will be too on the day!