Privates Chard and Harrison, 254 Med Rgt. Going Dark! Image © 2011 Archant Norfolk. http://www.edp24.co.uk

Just a very quick post to let you know that, thanks to Paul’s persistance, charm, and wit, the press are showing some interest in our cause. The EDP, Norwich’s Evening Daily Press interviewed us and took some snaps a couple of days ago. They’re available for purchase from their site, and we may well raffle one off at the end.

We’re hoping to be in the studio with Anglia TV this coming week, too, so we’ll let you know.

Our route around Norwich: screenshot from MapMyRun.com

With about a month of preparations left, we’re going public, and if you’re lucky you’ll catch sight of us as we make our way around Norwich’s ringroad. Laden with our 40lb bergens (that’s rucksacks for the uninitiated) we ‘re not too difficult to spot, so words of encouragement from all are very welcome!

(and to the lady who needed pushing to safety after breaking down the other day – hope you got home safely!)

The Brighton Marathon is Saturday 9th April, and our fundraising is taking off now as we push to achieve £5000; please visit the Justgiving website and make a donation. St. Dunstan’s is a really worthy charity, doing fantastic work for blind ex-servicemen and women. Just have a look at some of the inspiring videos we have posted on the site.

Toot if you see us (if it’s legal to do so), and thanks for all the support you’re sending us – each email, tweet (@blindmarathon), and Facebook like, and donation is really appreciated.

With only 6 weeks to go until race day, Paul and I have started training in ernest. The results of yesterday’s 17 miler surprised us both.

Not really used to the distance, we had rather assumed it’d be no more challenging than a brisk walk in the park. Carrying no more than 12kg each (although I think Paul’s bergen was packed with 2 sleeping-bags for effect), we set off with Jayne Cooke, our ever-cheerful Warrant Officer and professional chef. Not only has Jayne run, (and that’s run, not walked!) 100 milers each of the last 7 years, she pops off for a quick half-marathon at any time during the week that the feeling takes her. She’s well-known in the Norfolk running scene, and is a brilliant training partner.

We chose a popular walking / cycle route that starts right in the centre of Norwich, and heads out North along a disused railway.  The weather perked up a bit on the way back, but it was raining all the way out, which to be honest made wearing the blindfold much more enjoyable! And Norfolk’s not known for it stunning hill-views. Mariott’s Way, as famous as it may be, is not quite as pretty as the cycle path from Bristol to Bath. That’s a corker, for anyone who lives nearby and hasn’t walked it.

At the risk of sounding soft, if it weren’t for the Altberg boots and Anna’s expert foot massage when I got home, I don’t think I’d be walking far today!

I’m sticking to 10 milers each day this week, and then a big one next Saturday with Jayne, Paul, and Anna.

With such a short time before the event, please consider sponsoring us now rather than waiting till the night before!

The winding roads of North Yorkshire are calling

So I’m riding up to North Yorkshire very early tomorrow morning, hoping to miss the festival-goers around Leeds. Destination is a tiny little place  (well it looks tiny on Google Maps!) not far from Darlington. A few days of rest and relaxation with loved ones, some good hill-walking, and a trip to the Altberg factory before coming back down mid-week to get ready for a 2-week medical course.

Updates probably won’t happen for a week, and I am assuming that the beautiful cottage we’re staying in is ‘off -the-grid’ so I may not even be getting emails. Training will be great though, and I’m lucky enough to have a local photographer on-side to get capture some of the sweatier, hillier bits for the blog. That’s if the weather holds off. Here in Norwich it’s often windy, but the monsoon we’ve been treated to over the last week has made for a pretty nasty August.

I should add that I saw Dobbsy earlier and his training’s going very well too. He had a nasty injury a couple of months ago and it’s healing nicely. He’s back to doing his ‘lovely little 8-miler through the woods’.

Congratulations are also due to Ian – he’s a new Dad, although he still hasn’t had time to let us know officially. The power of Facebook!

So, panniers are packed and all that’s left to do is fill up before hitting the main roads.

All the best everyone and I’ll be posting some photos upon return.

Thanks to all in the Twitter-verse for your mentions and retweets today. It’s struck me today just how time-consuming running this sort of event is. Global connectivity brings everyone and their interests to the fore, and it’s tough when wanting to raise funds to build an online personality which will endear you to a public to whom, largely, you may remain forever a stranger. Especially when many of these digital communications are crammed into so few words.

It’s also a really busy space to be working in. So many good causes, and so many fantastic people donating their time and living their lives for others’ benefit. I intentionally steer clear of the word competition when describing this cohort; to compete when our reasons for undertaking these challenges are purely for another group’s reward (and not for own own), seems to miss the point completely, and turn it into an ego thing. It’s very easy in this world of instant communication to get caught in the SEO trap: what words can I use to make me more attractive than “x”, and so on. Yes, I accept it’s smart to play the game, and that tags, hashtags, metatags, and key phrases are relevant, but I am just slightly concerned that the driving force may become avarice if too much time is spent in this endeavour.

Of course, I would dearly love to raise £1 million for our charities, and yet at the same time how we get there is paramount to us.

That being said, here’s how you can keep in touch, by means other than coming back to the site to see if there have been new posts:
Subscribe via rss (your browser may have an RSS button in the address bar)

• Go to Facebook and become a fan of the page. In the ‘Blog’ tab there’s a feed of all the site’s posts
• All posts should be being router through Twitter, so following us there should work too
• We’ve got a newsletter signup form on the site and on the Facebook page, too (see the ‘Email signup’ tab).
• And there’s the possibility to donate via Justgiving on the site’s homepage, as well as on the Facebook page tab ‘Donate’

I think that just about covers it, for now! Who knows what new-fangled ways there’ll be in the next few months for communication. In the meantime, if you are a fellow fundraiser and we can give you some publicity, or you’d like to train together, please get in touch. We’re in the Norwich area and always up for a tab. We’ll gladly retweet or put a link in the website sidebar, too.

All the best, and please, spread the word. We’re raising money for St. Dunstan’s by running the Brighton Marathon in 2011. Our Justgiving account is empty at the moment, so if some brave soul would like to get the party started……!

For those who aren’t familiar with St. Dunstan’s, here are three very touching short clips, featuring soldiers who have found new meaning in their lives after being wounded in the service of their country.
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Phew! It’s been a very hard day at the office, dear.
The website is up and running, although very few static pages – the stuff which actually tells readers what it’s all about, are complete. That’s a job for when exams are over. In the meantime, please get in touch if you have any questions – in a nutshell, there’s four of us who have decided to raise money for Forces’ Charities, and our first challenge is the Brighton Marathon in 2011. As our name suggests, 2 of us will be blindfolded, and the other 2 will be leading. It’s all to raise money for St. Dunstan’s, who do fantastic work for blind ex servicemen and women.

But i think all the web infrastructure (the website and the social networks like Facebook and Twitter) is glued together properly: posts on the site get twittered and published to Facebook automatically. Which should save considerable time and reach as many potential sponsors as possible. And I’ve been very surprised to discover how few people have heard of St. Dunstan’s. Let’s hope that changes soon.

If you find any problems, or are getting double posts, please let me know. This is very much a one-man-band exercise at the moment, and it’s certainly not what I do for a living.

Can’t wait to go for a good tab tomorrow – Dobbsy’s ruined his feet again so I’m on my own.
Night all.

Perfect timing! I’m off ‘Up North’ for my girlfriend’s birthday in a few days and am paying a visit to the Altberg factory in Richmond to look at their boots. I’m well-informed that they’ll be able to find a pair that fit just right. Issue boots, in my limited experience, just aren’t good enough to pound the streets the amount we are for these challenges.

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And while I’m there I’m hoping they’ll take a donation tin (which was the point of this post) to put by their tills, as four have arrived from St. Dunstan’s this morning.

I haven’t been up in this part of the country for many years, and am looking forward to some good walks around Piercebridge. I’ll post some photos and let you know how the boots are breaking in. Do you even need to break Altberg’s in? I must say, I’m looking forward to not having to pour boiling water into a new pair of boots, or suffer the, always well-intended, bystanders’ suggestions to soften them up with a hammer or sit in the bath with them.

If you’d like to host a collection tin or have experience to share regarding Altberg boots, please
get in touch