Post Race Report

Well I made it to the start line which I think was an achievement in itself!
We arrived on Friday morning, pretty early and spent the day having a bit of a look around.  I have to see my knee was already feeling 'a bit wrong' which didn't bode well, but I just ignored it...
On the Saturday we found our way out to the sports centre next to the Olypic arena where we had a bit of a look around the marathon expo and picked up my bib number, chip, map and free running shirt.  It was absolutely rammed but seemed really well organised, I spent quite a bit of time scanning the crowd looking for people who I thought might be slower than me and really I struggled to find any.
Infact I didn't realise this was such a 'serious' event.  There was a grand total of 2 people in fancy dress, one was batman and the other may well have just been (as Paul described) a bad tranny, we weren't sure. 
I think I look a bit daft in my seal hat so passed it over to Paul before the start on the day.

 

(missguided confidence at the start)

So on the day itself Paul and I got up stupidly early for breakfast and paranoid it would take ages to get to the stadium set off on th emetro before it got light outside, we were there before they even opened and it was freezing!

I started in the final group (F) and I couldn't believe how many people were there, met some lovely ladies at the start line one of which told me about a marathon in France which sounds more up my street, you get wine instead of water every 5k, and food on the way around, oysters, mussles, cheeze and bread - AMAZING!

Anyway the speedy ones at the front set off at 9.30...

(the pros hadn't come out yet but these were the next best super speedy amateur types)

It took us at the back about 20 mins to get out of the stadium and then we were off around the park doing an 8k loop before moving further out of the city.  Paul had spent the previous evening planning, over pasta, where he might see me if he fully utilised his travel card.

As we started to be abl eto run freely it felt like the whole world overtook me, so whenever I managed to overtake some one (very rarely) I felt a small victory inside.

I saw Paul first before I'd hit 10k then he managed to get back to the stadium to see the winner coming in, it would be another 3 and a half hours before I made it back there...

My knee started to go before 5 k and at about 16k I first thought of giving up, a minibus had come past me to pick up some poor wounded bloke and seeing me limping along they drove along side me and asked if I had a problem and needed to get in, I soooo wanted to get in but didn't, they followed me for 5 minutes like vultures waiting for their prey to die.

I started texting Paul, mostly words that I don't care to repeat on here but I knew that I'd see a friendly face again at 26k so though I might as well keep going till then, in the meantime there was some great entertainment along the way and some lovely families who had set up their own refreshment stalls on the route giving out home made lemonade and gingerbread men, not quite merlot and oysters but it was gratefully recieved.  

It was around this time that a woman puked banana and energy gell right next to me and another chap swayed off the course into a hedge.

I got past the half way point literally 6 minutes before the gate cut off time and thought I'd have a little walk for 1k and see if it helped... it didn't but a nice lady (runner) gave me some codine (or at least I hope it was codine) and it actually took the edge off for a while.  So anyway I carried on thinking just 1 more k then see how you feel, just 1 more k...

About 7k fron the end I was walking (limping) intermittantly and had been for a while but I saw mum, dad and Paul and Paul decided to run alongside me on the path by the route until the end, I think I would have given up if he hadn't.  By this time the half marathon speedy ones were wooshing past me, and me and the fellow slow/ fat/ old/ injured marathon flaggers carried on amongst the crowd.  It was easy for Paul for a while but as we got near the end it was really crowded and he had to keep taking detours through cafe bars, hurdling dogs and children and weaving through the crowds, I was pretty much crying by this point.

I had a brief moment of insanity at the last 500m mark and decided that I needed to beat someone so there was another marathon runner ahead of me that I'd been tailing for miles and I decided to sprint to the end.

I can't believe I made it but I'm so glad I didn't give up! Yes my knee is completely buggered (since coming home I've been to minor injuries and been diagnosed with a stress fracture which is why it hurt so much and why the injection didn't make it better, there is also potentially some carlidge damage)... but I don't care, it was worth it.

 

I can tick this marathon lark off the bucket list now, I think I'll keep running when my knee heals and might even have another go at some point to see what I could achieve without a fracture and a cold, but thats for another year, the next thing will have to be a bit more low impact.. suggestions on a postcard

xxx

This shit just got real...

Packing up the kit, (note all the various forms of drugs and performance enhancers, and stupid seal hat - thanks Dr Paul) heading up to the airport tonight after dropping off the gremlin...

 

He is not impressed.

Flying before the crack of dawn in the wee small hours of the morning.  I'm feeling anxious, got a horrid cold, still got a black eye from my little 'episode' last week and my knee... well... not even worth bothering with.  BUT am I going to let that stop me AM I BOLLOCKS!

I might not get round but I'll have a bloody good go at it.

Over & Out

x

 

'roids

I've just been to the clinic for the steroid injection in my knee.  I hate needles and almost always faint or get very woozy and always have to take Paul with me to distract me.
I am putting it up there as one of the most unpleasant feelings ever.  I am a massive woosy wimp with needles but I do have quite a high pain threshold but this was just horrid.
You sort of half sit/ half lay while he paints on iodine, then you get the pre injection (I was not informed about this!) to numb the are (which it doesn't so it must just be for fun) then the big one, I couldn't look...
I'd already made some wimpy squeels at the feeling of the local anasthetic but this next one (and after he said I wouldn't feel it) I had a very bad reaction to.
I have never sworn so much in less that a minute, even after it had finished it felt so odd (and still does a bit)
I'm laid there all woozy shouting "is it supposed to feel so f!"£$**g wierd, why does it feel so f*%&*!g wierd"
I feel a little ashamed, he was a perfectly nice man just doing his job.  Anyway it did feel wierd like my kneecap had slipped off to the left, like there wasn't enough space for that stuff in there and that as a result it had displaced something vital, wierd pressure, not pain just very wierd discomfort.
So after sitting and waiting (and apologising) for 20 minutes I calmed down regained composure and left.... and now the anasthetic has worked and I can't feel my knee.

This had better be worth it

Knee fail

First of all I got this through the post yesterday...

WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!

Anyway, I didn't go out for a run at all today, last weeks 20 miler totally broke my knee and its still feeling very sore, under the guidence (expert) of Dr Paul I am not to run until I have my special strap (patella thingmy that makes my kneecap stay where its supposed to be)

To demonstrate how bloody much I want to do this I am having a steroid injection in my knee so that I can run, anyone who knows me knows that I detest the needle, in fact I faint every time and have not had a vaccination since I was 12.  I have in the past tried to run away when faced with the prospect of an injection and it is because of this that I haven't been to the dentist in 13 years...

BUT this one I am going for of my own free will, its actually my decision, and to top it off I'm paying one hundred and thirty boody quid for it. So there, you will not only be sponsoring me (not a runner) to run a marathonbut also me to sit through something that makes my brain literally switch off.
If thats not worth a fiver I don't know what is

2 weeks aaaagggghhhhh

ps. I also have to give up drinking, and I love drinking

ode to my left knee

Oh left knee, why can't you be like my right knee, so strong and functional, why must you sabotage my efforts?

Sundays 20 mile run ended in much pain and hobbling because of my stupidly fragile left knee which seems to have a strict cut off point of 15 miles whereby it ceases to function as a bending joint and becomes more like a pirates wooden leg...

So back to the pysio and we'll see if I can get in another 20 mile run before taper time in a week, might have to run this marathon drunk, wine seems to kill the pain!

3 weeks left!!!!

This weekend I'll be coming to to final distance in my training, 20 miles, so I decided to read back where I started, can't quite believe how chuffed I was to have run 3 whole miles... non stop...
I am actually amazed at how I have improved with perseverance, I'm no faster than when I started but now I can just run and run and run for hours at a steady pace without even getting out of breath at all.

I really did not believe it when all those running types (you know who you are) said you CAN do it you just need to get past that initial pain, I though BOLLOCKS, some people just CAN'T run and I am one of them, now I find myself being one of those people encouraging others.

I remember thinking that it felt as if my lungs were on fire when I first started this training and being certain that the feeling would never go away, well it actually does, I mean really, propperly, so if you're using that as an excuse then get a better one!

I'll be running my 20 miles around Castle Howard/ Malton/ Terring so if you see me give me a wave!

This is where I'll be heading....

5 weeks!

Actually starting to get a bit scared now.  Had to do a shorter run this morning because I had to work, on a Sunday, seriously!
Finally though I have been reunited with my ipod and bum bag (never thought I'd miss it so much).  I think I've done permanant damage to my phone shoving it down my bra and using it to listen to the radio while I was ipodless - 4 hours down a sports bra doesn't really do well for my crappy old nokia!

So it really isn't long now until the marathon and as I was running it dawned on me that I only have 3 long runs left as you're supposed to do your last long run 2 weeks before the race and taper down to about 5 a few days before it.
So thats an 18 mile next weekend, then 2 x 20 mile runs then taper time, then off to the airport!

I'm up to 52% of my target for sponsorship, people who I don't even know have been sponsoring me which is just so lovely.

I'll be going to the BDMLR confrence soon which I'm really looking forward to, its at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle on October the 6th, hopefully Paul will come too and we will get to meet some of the brilliant volunteer Marine Mammal Medics, there are also some great speakers lined up including people from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the Born Free Foundation.
Hopefully I might be able to sell some of my prints!

x

6 weeks to go

Not posted for a while so heres a catch up...
Over the past couple of weeks I've been getting physio on my knee which has improved but is still really painfull and then we moved house so its been really busy.
I ran 18 miles yesterday all the same and although there was a lot of walking and jogging I got around a very hilly route in 3 hours 50 minutes which is pretty slow but if I can keep up that pace for the extra 8 miles I should get round by the course time limit!
I really can't wait for this to be over now, I want my Sunday mornings back!

Keeping motivated though by reading about the mass stranding in Scotland again last weekend, really sad that so may of the same species of whale that we helped died, but once again the BDMLR were there doing their best to save them, and a grand job they did too, read all about it here...
http://www.bdmlr.org.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=908&cntnt01origid=15&cntnt01returnid=54

The past few weeks...

... The past few weeks seem to have flown by.

Its now just 9 weeks to the Marathon!

 After hurting my knee and walking like a pirate for a few days I laid off the training for a week or so, gradually starting back up with a 4 mile jog then a 10 mile run the weekend before last.  By this weekend just gone it was feeling much better so I decided to try another 16 mile run in Sheffield.  Its really started to hurt again but not as bad as it did before, I think this time, as I felt it coming on I started to walk and stretch it out, this worked quite well and every few miles I'd walk for a couple of hundred meters and stretch it out, still needed to ice it when I got home though, I think this is definitely one for the physio.

In light of this I think I'm not quite recovering from my longer runs over the period of a week so I'm altering my training plan to only do one really long run per fornight, I'll alternate that with maybe 9/10 miles on the other Sundays as thats quite an easy distance now.
It is annoying though, now that I've finally reached the state of fitness that I dont feel out of breath and my muscles dont really ache my crumbly joints start letting me down, theres not much you can do, I don't think, to improve them...

Anyway my big shocker of the week is that I've bought a bum bag, an actual BUM BAG or fanny pack if you like, never thought I'd ever go into a shop with the sole intention of buying one of those, but seriously where else can I put my brick of a phone and my wine gums?

One Year on

Not posted for a while as I've been up in Scotland on holiday.  I had planned for it to be a training holiday and to get lots of runs in but the first night there in the cottage with Pauls family I managed to fall down the stairs and turn my arse the deepest shade of purple.  As you can imagine that hurt quite a lot, so I had a few days of not doing to much moving never mind running!
On the Thursday though I'd had enough and went out for what I'd planned to be a mid length run, aiming for around 10 miles.  The roads on Mull where we were staying are amazing, single track with passing places, stunning scenery and plenty of hills and oh so quiet, PERFECT, that is until you come upon a massive scary Bull standing by the side of the road.  I stopped and pondered going round it for a while but when it put its head down and grunted (it had quite a few calves around it that its was probably being a touch protective of) I turned around the other way and literall legged it, I was absolutely crapping myself!

Here is the beast, its blurry because I was already walking away! (looked much scarier in real life though...)

 I got in a couple more mini runs just down the track from the cottage which were lovely, down by the sea loch, but in the end didnt get anywhere near as much done as I'd wanted to.

The second week of our trip saw the 1 year anniversary of our day spent out in Durness with the whale rescue team and me and Paul hopped over on the ferry to the mainland to explore the peninsula of Ardnamurchin (that was after one lovely last night at my favourite resteraunt and beach where Paul proposed to me!)
We spent the next week exploring the area and as we were staying in the van with no shower I didnt do any training at all (unless larking about in a kyak counts?)

All in all we had a brilliant trip, didn't see any whales this time, but we did catch sight of some bottlenose dolphins leaping and loads of seals chillin on the beach.

The day after we got home I went for a propper run and covered 16 miles but now my knee has flared up and feels like the joint has been replaced by a bag of broken glass so I'll have to see how it goes this weekend.  Cant believe its only 12 weeks until the marathon... terrifying!

Also I just finished a new piece for the BDMLR T shirt design range this morning, not shown them yet, but what do you think?

furthest I've ever run...ever

Last Sunday I set out on an attempt to run a half marathon distance, because of all the rain I decided to stick to the roads and keep away from the forge dam area and the woods to avoid getting covered up to my eyebrows in mud.  As per, I got lost, and confused, and by the time I'd figured out where I was and how far off route I'd gone, quite a lot of time had passed.  I usually go out for 2 to 2 and a half hours tops, but by the time I made it home it had been over 3 hours so I was feeling a bit crap about it but when I checked where I'd been I realised I'd covered nearly 16 miles, which if you factor in the slowness up the massive hills, the time standing staring at a cross road trying to decide which way to go and the fact that I stopped at Tescos to buy wine gums.... I think I did alright.  This is where I ended up going:

 This Sunday I've got another long run in Sheffield planned, I might try to follow this same route again, though I probably wont be able to because my sense of direction is so very broken.

This week Paul and I are heading back up to Scotland again for a holiday for a couple of weeks and I'm hoping for a less traumatic time than the last time we were there!
This year we're going back over to Mull and I planning on going whale watching as well as doing lots of other lovely stuff.
It'll soon be a year since the day we were involved in the rescue and to mark it I'm planning to do my longest run to date, 18 miles around loch Scridain (well not around it as its a sea loch, but 9 miles out then 9 miles back.  Wish me luck!!
x

New shooooooooooes

Finally got round to trying out these bad ass new shoes that I was bought for my Birthday...

 Went to Up and Running in Sheffield which I would like to highly reccomend, the guy there is brilliant, I spent over an hour testing shoes out on the treadmill, they film you running, which is rather hillarious, then look at how wonky your ankles are, mine were quite wonky...

So on Sunday I took them out for a test run, just 6 miles and stuck to the roads and they felt great, really so much better than my £10 decathlon specials that I've been lumping it with.  I hope they will help my slight hip problem now that my wonkyness is stabilised!

So now I have my new shoes I'm stepping up my training a bit, my life from now until October theh 21st looks like this:

Wednesday = 30 min quick run before work

Friday = 1 hour run with hills before hitting the studio

Sunday = half marathon distance +

I would like to get up to doing a few 20 mile runs before the event, which if I'm going to propperly taper before the marathon will have to happen at the end of September which gives me 3 months, or 12 weeks, in which time I have to move house, prepare for my 1st big solo exhibition, establish my new business and keep up the 9-5.... goodbye social life see you at Christmas?

snotty orange goo

Well well I've just got back from my own little half marathon to poached eggs on toast MMMMmmmm much more tasty than the enery gel I was lured into trying today, this stuff is rank don't bother it has the consitency of snot and the delightful flavour of smart price concentrated orange juice, I'll stick to my jelly babies ta.
 Been meaning to up my mileage for a while now but... excuses... excuses... anyway NO MORE DRINKING ON A SATURDAY NIGHT this mornings run was hard for a variety of reasons: so much rain the hilly off road bits became more like gorge walking than running; last nights dinner of wine and a chip butty didn't do me any favours (I think I may have to change my lifestyle a litlle to survive this); finding a dying baby bird just as I got going caused a massive moral dilema; multipe nettle stings after tripping into a patch because I have 'balance issues' and finally a mental labrador trying to sabotage my downhill speed by leaping in my face.  Anyway I'm home now, time for a bath, heres the route....

string vests....

Finished my first T shirt design for the BDMLR!

What do you think?

 

 In other news this weekend I'll be running a half marathon...

pip pip!

kitted out

Ooh not posted for a while, so a quick update.... been off away on holidays to Ibiza so no running there, but plenty of dancing...does that count?  Then a lovely wedding got in the way so I missed 2 long runs, I've made it out a few times before work and I have a lovely new route through the woods for a morning jog before work, my dog is totally lame and will not run with me, he is such a fat lazy lump of a hound.
Last weekend, even after a night on the merlot I managed about 10 miles, got totally lost though accidentally ran all the way from town to forge dam and when I popped out of the woods there were no houses, just sheep and fields!  Eventually found my way back home without giving up and doubling back.

Got a BDMLR running vest through the post the other day, {Thanks guys!} I shall wear it with pride on the day!
Also I've been asked to design a series of T shirts for them to raise awarness of the problems marine mammals face and to raise funds for the charity, I can't wait to get started on some designs, got some great ideas already and will post them on here when I get them out of my head and down on paper...

ttfn
x

Its nice to be nice

Right then!
I've had a horrid cold and been skiving whilst its been raining horizontally in Sheffield but this weekend I AM going to smash it! On it like a car bonnet!
I'm planning 10 - 12 miles on Sunday and I have renewed motivation thanks to:

a) The lovely people at BDMLR especially Stephen whom I had a lovely chat with the other day
b) My wonderful Ma & Pa who are have booked to come along with me to Amsterdam and cheer me on, considering my mums rather scared of flying I'm quite impresses.  AND they're buying me some swish new running shoes for my Birthday!

So who else wants to be nice and ....sponsor me??
I would love to get another sponsor before my next long run this Sunday, so go on, go on, go on, you know you want to ;) http://www.justgiving.com/RunShelleyRun

p.s. British Divers Marine Life Rescue have been nominated for Scottish charity of the year, spare a sec (since you've already wasted a few reading this) and nip over here http://www.bdmlr.org.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=896&cntnt01origid=54&cntnt01returnid=54
to vote for them!

x

amazing...

I've just donated to the just giving page for Claire Squires who died running the London Marathon, can't believe its getting on for a million, so sad reading all the messages on her page, what an amazing response to such a tragedy.  Her family should be so proud,
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/claire-squires-justgiving-she-would-808530

If you can spare just a few quid heres the link to her just giving page...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article803642.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Claire+Squires

x

This is getting hard

Today I ran 11 miles in around 2 hours, for some reason I found it really really hard this week, I don't know why, the weather was great, I'd gotten up early and was feeling pretty up for it. Its really hard to keep up motivation to do something like this - especially when you have to train for such a long time because its just not something I (or my muscles) are used to doing.

I've been training now for about 3 months, and its been 9 months since the event that inspired me to do this... and the memory is starting to fade.

When I first signed up and decided to run a marathon I still had a very fresh memory in my head of not just the stranding but of the physical and mental pain it left me with the following few days, and I thought nothing could be as hard as that day. I was so exhausted and achy all over that a cup of tea felt like it weighed about 50lbs.

Now the memory of that has faded its hard to compare to the aches and pains of training and its really impacting on my motivation... I'm pretty sure my toe is broken and most of the time when I'm out running I'm just thinking about what I'd rather be doing.

To a certain extent I do find my weekend training runs enjoyable, but equally unenjoyable, I would definitely rather be at home with a cup of tea watching the Hollyoaks omnibus, and as the runs are getting longer I think its only going to get worse.

I need to keep reminding myself of the good cause I'm doing this for.

I'm hoping that I will be able to attend one of the training courses run by the BDMLR soon, to become an official Marine Mammal Medic and I do think that will help spur me on.

I'll be watching the London Marathon tomorrow imagining myself in 6 months time, hoping that I'll have made it to the start line.

I'll leave this post with a link to the blog of a fellow artist and past colleague from Sheffield Paul Evans who has been exploring cetations in his work for some time now and eloquently comments on human interaction with these mammals
http://origin011.wordpress.com/category/away-from-the-pod/
and an image of his which is currently on display at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield until June 10th

10 miles in 1hr46 BOSH!

Considering I have a cold, this is exceptionally fast for me, obviously eating a massive pie the night before a run is the key to speed and success!
I'm looking forward to payday this month, I think I'll buy myself some nice new running shoes, any reccomendations running friends??
Its been a little quite on the sponsorship front recently, but just wanted to say thanks to Aunty Mags for her cheque the other day, spurred me on this morning :)
I know the marathon is still ages away but I'd be truly grateful (if you're considering sponsoring me) for some sponsorship over the next few weeks to help motivate me in my training. 
http://www.justgiving.com/RunShelleyRun
To be honest, its starting to get a little boring...

past 2 weeks

Took a bit of a shortcut last week, went for a run in the countryside and only did about 7 miles as I had a very important birthday party to attend and didn't want to end up running miles and miles by accident and being late.  Got back up to standard last Sunday though, I've decided, or rather my left hip has decided, that I'm upping my mileage too quickly.  So I'm going to stick to 10 mile runs through April rather than pushing up to 12.  10 milers are starting to feel ok now, but I'll admit there is a bit of walking involved (only up some pretty steep hills mind) but there are a fair few in Sheffield!  Got a pretty nice route now- multi tasking by house hunting on my way round the nicest areas of the city :)

Double Figures & in the papers!

Great 10 mile run this morning, if not a little slow and leisurely, got round in 1 hour 55, there are some pretty epic hills in there though, but thats true of running anywhere in Sheffield!
Heres the route, its quite a nice one actually, well worth a go if you live anywhere along it...

Also this week I was interviewed by a lovely reporter who had originally covered the stranding up in Durness, he'd seen the message that the BDMLR had put on their site and wanted to interview me for an article, so heres a link  http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Woman-recalls-whale-drama-at-Durness-7713385.htm (thats not me in the picture btw...I was too slow getting one to him...oops!)

Nearly managed to convince Paul and the dog to come along in the run this morning but the duvet won in the end, maybe next weekend...

Better!

Got back out again at the weekend, hurt the wrist a little but its nowhere near as painful now, managed 8 miles but having not run for a few weeks I was definitely a little slower.  This week I've also started a mid week mini run before work for 30 - 40 mins (between 3 & 4 miles)

I've also been featured on the BDMLR website this week which has given me loads of motivation and made me think about why I wanted to do this in the first place. 
http://www.bdmlr.org.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=887&cntnt01pagelimit=15&cntnt01returnid=54
Please sponsor me if you can!
x

Dispraxic Fantastic

Whilst trying to carry an oven down a spiral staircase I fell and have fractured my wrist... so I wont be hitting the streets for a few weeks, just when it was all going so well!!

Dispraxic Fantastic

Back on track

Got back out today after last weekends fail, and I managed much further than I thought I would, I'd aimed for 8 miles, but managed 8.6 in 87 minutes.  Very pleased with this! and I ran past the new house I want to buy on the way.  Heres the new extended route, sort of a combination of my two 6 milers, pretty hilly (one massive uphill and one epic down hill as well as a few smaller inclines) not a bad route if anyone else fancies joining me next weekend for the same?

Good effort

Just watched this clip that popped up on reddit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tcXU7G6zhjU#!
A family out on a boat that free a humpback whale that was massively tangled in a load of abandoned fishing nets using only a snorkle and a pen knife!  Good effort... though it all gets a bit mushy and American at the end... but still, well done that man!

February: So far so crap

Foiled by the snow and subsequent minging head cold last weekends planned 8 mile run simply didnt happen.  Although I was pleased not to have to go outside in these Baltic temperatures I was geniunely dissapointed and really hope to be back on track by this weekend.  So to remind myself why I'm doing this I made a clay whale at work today! Well it was a whale but then it became a Narwal because Narwals are AWSOME...

last 6 miler

Yesterday I finished my last 6 mile run before stepping it up to 8 throughout February, got round in 63 minutes which isn't too bad.  I'm going to have to get some new shoes soon though my decrepit £10 decathlon specials are almost done for.

I was reminded this week about why I'm doing this after reading about another mass stranding in New Zealand last week, around 100 of the same species of whale stranded on golden bay and only a few (around 17) were saved.  Many had to be shot after re-stranding several days in a row.  There is so much research to be done into this bizarre phenomenon, though there are many things that people can do or rather not do to the marine environment to help protect marine mammals like the pilot whale.  It is often suggested that noise pollution may affect their sonar and cause them to become disorientated (such was the suggestion at Durness where the Navy were detonating bombs off the coast just before the stranding last July) but no one really knows if that was a contributing factor.  What people do know however from the autopsy of stranded animals that don't make it back into the water is that humans are having a huge impact; from reports of dead whales being found with dozens of plastic bags in their stomach to seals and sea birds caught up in packaging, it is the responsibility of all of us to stop this from happening...

* contents of a Minkie whales gut washed up in the English channel, the animal starved to death after being unable to digest the plastic and debris that had accumulated in its intestines

sing along

Why has no one told me how much better it is running with music?!  I got some amazing wooly earmuff headphones for christmas and finaly got round to testing them out this morning, they were brilliant.  It was so windy today and they kept my ears nice and snug whilst amusing me with some lovely tunes.  I'd always been scared I wouldn't be able to hear the car that was about to run me over if I ran around Sheffield with headphones on but glady that didn't pose a problem...  I'm officially a convert.  So I need some new tunes, mellow accoustic stuff is not helping me get faster and neither is the fact that I just can't help but try and sing along, which a) makes me look mental, and b) means I cant breathe

why oh why?

I should probably mention why I'm doing this, surprisingly its not just for fun...
Last July whilst driving in the far North West of Scotland me and my other half stumbled upon what we thought was a pod of dolphins in the Kyle of Durness, after taking a few photos we realised that they were actually pretty big and the water was pretty shallow, soon after the coastguard arrived and a crowd started to gather.  This turned out to be the largest mass stranding of Pilot Whales in Scotland ever.

The initial response from the coastguard was not promising - estimating that the tide would be out in a few hours and most if not all would die.  Determined not to just sit back and let this happed a ramshackled band of helpers including Navy bomb disposal divers, fishermen, local lads and me and Paul donned wetsuits and went out in some of the local fishermans boats to try to herd those still in the deeper channel back out along the 4 or 5 kilometers to open sea.  Others were already beached or very nearly beached, so for the next 11 hours we were in the water literally heaving the 2 tonne animals off the sand and into the water, with no specialist equipment we dug with our hands and attempted to swim the animals back out to sea, two people per whale.  Paul spent hours propping up the largest whale with his back so it didn't roll over and suffocate.  This was by far the hardest day of my life.
Within hours people from the BDMLR strted to arrive to help, they knew how to deal with the situation and how to keep those that had stranded alive until the tide returned.  Exhaustion and darkness meant that we had to give up and leave but the BDMLR were thre the next day and the next right through to the end.  We saved 45 out of around 70.
Since 1988, BDMLR have been involved in the rescue of marine wildlife after every major marine disaster, including the Braer shipwreck in Shetland and the Sea Empress grounding in Milford Haven. The Marine Mamal Medics are all volunteers trained by the BDMLR they are the primary marine animal rescue organisation in the country and are not only called upon by the other emergency services, but also train their staff.  They are a registered charity funded only through donations.
Before the 23rd of July I'd never heard of them, but the work they do is absolutely brilliant.  I want to raise money for them to help buy more equipment, like pontoons for refloating.  Pontoons were deployed at the rescue at Durness but it was too late to use them as they had to come from so far away.  If they had easier acces to them we would have been able to save more.
In short you should sponsor me if; you like me/ like what I'm doing, you like marine mammals/ want to help them, you disslike me and want to see me suffer.

This will be hard I'm sure but not as hard as that day in Scotland.

Please sponsor me here if you can... http://www.justgiving.com/RunShelleyRun

New route

Thought I'd try out a new route last weekend for my 2nd 6 mile run, starting from my house in Heeley hitting the ring road and then out down Ecclesall Road past Hunters Bar Roundabout (this bringing back memories of the 6 mile point in last years Sheffield Half Marathon and the associated pain...) What I didn't realise however was how steeply the road climbed after Hunters Bar, just never seems that steep in a car...

I did have to walk a way up that part of the route but by the time I hit Carter Knowle Road theres a massive downhill to make up some time.  All in all I got round in 62 min, not too bad considering it was -3 on Sunday and I think the fluid in my joints froze after about 20.

The evil curse of insomnia darkened my door again last night so I missed my speedy 30 min run this morning.  Need sleep to train... hope this isn't like last time when I was awake for 84 hours and hallucinating about the little people...

1st run of the New Year

went out at 8.30 this morning and did my first 6 miler - not too bad but I think the half pint of ice cream based banana and chocolate milkshake Paul made me last night didn't really help.  Just over an hour. Must try harder.

In the beginning

At the moment I can jog along at a bout a 10 minute/ mile pace, granted this is pretty slow but I can do 10k in just over 60 mins.  The plan over the next 10 months is to up the mileage for one 'long' weekend run by 2 miles per month so January = 6 miles, February = 8 miles, March = 10 miles and so on taking me to 22 miles in October.  The marathon is on the 21st and the last 4 miles will just have to be blind determination/ adrenalin.  There is a course time limit of 6 hours but my only goal is this:
NOT TO BE LAST!