The Walker With Heart

Countdowns tick on and on... 12 days to my 20 miler (I'm doing 2 x 18 and 1 x 20) 13 days to the Nun Run - 5k dressed as Nun 16 days to my annual check up 20 days until the Great North Run - the world's largest Half marathon, just me and 54,000 friends out for a jog;-) 40 days until the Liverpool Marathon - running from one side of the Mersey to the other, with about 12,000 of my friends - through the tunnel, past the brewery and a finish next to a world heritage site... Just hope they don't run out of T-shirts... 62 days until I'm 40... Deary me, 40, how did that happen! Seriously, given the chances I've been given at various points in my life to reach 1 year, 16, 21, 30 reaching 40 is a little strange... and doing it while being as fit as I've ever been is making me grin like a loon! More than one of my friends has asked what insane stunt I'm going to be doing during my 40 th year, and to be honest I'm not sure... As I've d...

Video tracking... <a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/46821514">Imported Garmin Route (17/08/2011)</a> and more runs in on MapMyRUN. <a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com">Find run</a>

Running is at its core very simple - you put one foot in front of the other, at a pace faster than walking... Which is why it gets so complicated in my head... Have I set off too fast, or too slow? Is that twinge a twinge I can run off or something I can ignore, if I ignore it for how long? How many miles have my shoes done, do I need a new pair? what flavour are these energy sweets meant to be? What's for tea? Why didn't that pair of cyclists go into single file, it meant I had to run through the puddle? What meetings have I got this week at work? How's my heart rate? Hail!!! Bloody hell that hurt! Am I going too fast, or too slow? That twinge has moved... where's it going next? What time do John Lewis ' stop doing Sunday lunch? Someones texted , it can wait for my next minutes walking... How many sweets have I got left? Definitely new shoes for the GNR & Marathon, that stone hurt... Bugger the sun's come out, take jacket off or leave it on? And then fo...

This blog will never be read by the people who should read it... I gave a talk on CHD on Wednesday night, and the topic of bullying came up... I don't like bullies... I never have I never will... Bullies don't have discussions, or even arguments, they make statements and if you don't agree with them you are either frozen out of the group or attacked. Bullies attack people, they don't discuss ideas and come to a consensus or an agreement to disagree, they just attack. Some are trolls (in the online sense) who are trying to get a reaction, others are just dogmatic and so convinced they are right no other argument has the right to be heard. Bullies will cite the rules, but not even consider what they're claiming applies equally to them. Bullies come in all sizes and shapes, some use emotional blackmail, some try to threaten, some are just unpleasant ... The best way of handling bullies, in my experience, is first realising what they are and then employing whatever ran...

There a couple of similarities between the Norfolk Coastal Path and the Coast 2 Coast... They have the word coast in... And my luck with the weather seemed to stay set to "Wet"... The main similarity is that walking any reasonable distance day after day has a cumulative effect on your body, its in some ways harder to walk (with a days food water and gear) 2 half marathons on consecutive days than it is to run a marathon in a day. Day 1 - Cromer to Weybourne A blustery, wet day... An inspired route out of Cromer , but went into interesting woodlands and pretty much the only hills of the walk... A day for testing waterproofs and finding decent tea shops in Sheringham (to drip in and drink tea!) Day 2 - Weybourne to Stiffkey SHINGLE!!!!! And Sausages... It's a long story... But Cley Next the Sea wins the best named, and accurate, bus stop name - Delicatessen . Day 3 - Skiffkey to Burnham Overy Staithe Finishing with a long hard section on the sand, with the wind ho...

Where to start... Awareness raising? Sleeping at the Science Museum? Running in the heat with 25,000 of my friends? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm .... I'll start with the pure joy, of seeing a whole bunch of kids, kids with heart conditions and their brothers or sisters and occasional best friend firing rockets, checking out what makes us us, trying to send action man into space, watching at IMAX movie... or my favourite bit sleeping at the museum, right next to the Apollo lander... I also ended up promising the kids that my snoring kept the ninga trained giant rats at bay... (Thank you Museum Usher Person!!!!) Also for reasons best known to themselves, the kids decided I was super-adult... Resulting in my ritual humiliation in front of a room full of people as I was presented with my prizes - a Galileo thermometer and a science museum mug! Both of which will be on my desk in the morning:-D To use the jargon, hopefully Friday night broke down the isolation that many kids with heart condit...

I've been asked a question... From a mate at work... They've been thinking about doing a direct debit donation to a charity and were just curious on my views on what sort of charity to give to... In the interests of fairness, to them, I should point out that they've got personal interest in a number areas other than this crazy dicky ticker world of mine - so I wasn't going to give them any of the details for Children's Heart Federation... Unless they asked;-) Which they didn't, but they have supported me in the past... So, how would I decide... 1) Check it's a charity... If it brings in more that £5000 a year they should have a charity number, and you should be able to find them on the charity commission website (of which more later)... If its smaller than that, then I'd probably ask if they've a constitution (there are plenty of model ones out there if they haven't you may be helping them). That may sound paranoid, but there's unscrupulou...