Go!

On Boxing Day, I managed to park run in Brueton Park (Solihull) to keep the Christmas food and drink impact to manageable levels! I was a good run where I managed to grab a Personal Best of 26m 5s. Holidays also means I can usually fit in a few solo runs, which gives me a chance to catch up on episodes of Zombies, Run! Most of the time I'm with my club mates, so don't get to play the app as much these days.

My first race of 2016 is now only one week away. Sunday mornings I'm at church, so it's going to feel a bit odd missing some of them to run. But I'm happy to be helping to put food on the table for children in a strange land - it's just another, more practical form of spiritual exercise. I'll be thinking of them as I run the 5 miles of Stockport trail.

Tune in next week as I post my first set of results. I'll also add a photo's page at that point, as there will no doubt be some pictures and selfies through the year :)

Get set...

Now that this blog and the MyDonate page is set up, I've started telling people about my aspirations for next year. I've started telling people, but only a few as it's the run up to Christmas and people have a lot of other things on their mind right now. I've also started booking races, as you'll see on the results page.

I now have 3 booked in and will book a few more soon. I've gone with Hit the Trail 5 as the first race - it's in Reddish Vale, which is just under half an hour from home. It's trail, which I quite like and shouldn't be too hilly. There are also quite a few Greenfield Greyhounds taking part already, so it feels like a good way to start the year with intent.

I also managed to get a small group of Greyhounds together to join me in running the Lyme Park night run (just under an hour away from home, south of Manchester). This sounds like a lot of fun - running in the dark is a frequent occurrence at this time of year and trail running in the dark is something I'm also used to. I've not been to Lyme Park that often, but I know it's pretty... it'll be interesting to see it at night, lit by all the runners. Some of us are planning to go to the Lyme Park park run mid January to get a hint of the terrain.

Finally, the success of the recent inaugural Zombies, Run! Virtual Race has meant that Six to Start have decided to continue with them and keep the momentum. As such, they have launched the Spring virtual race and I've jumped on it quickly before it gets booked up. I've selected an entry price that include a technical t-shirt, so while this is one of the more expensive entries (ironic given I run it myself, with no defined course, marshals, etc) I'm really looking forward to it and get some lovely running clobber as a memento.

So I'm all set - blog up, donation portal up, races booked. Very excited!

On your marks...

Thanks for coming over to have a look at the blog - take some time to look through the static pages (you can access them from the menu at the top). They tell you more about who I am, what I'm doing and why; they tell you about the projects I'm raising funds for; finally, they also summarise the races I've thought about as well as my progress through those I book.

I'll use the blog to talk about my experiences and how the fund raising is going. I'll also give you news about race bookings and provide some brief reports of the races I complete.

I hope you find the challenge interesting and will keep coming back for more updates. I'm looking forward to the year ahead and to sharing my journey with you. Most of all, please donate generously to Horizons International and the projects I'm sponsoring - thank you in anticipation :)