Fusiliers help to raise money for Breast Cancer Care
On Saturday the 28th November 2009 both my brother and I attended the annual Past & Present Dinner of our former regiment (The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers). By kind permission of Mr Bland (RSM), he allowed us to announce to the attending WOs & Sgts Mess Members that we where both running the 2010 Virgin London Marathon and the Edinburgh Marathon a month later to raise money for our respective charities. 

We would both like to thank all those who attended for their kind support and words of encouragement. Especially the ones who parted with some of their beer tokens (CASH), money  that they managed to sneak past the wife, I am sure many of you have received the familiar cry of “why do you need to take so much money, you said you where only going to have a few pints“,  this is often the statement made by our lovely ladies as we depart for a regimental dinner or function.  At least you now have an excuse when she asks “you spent how much”, you can always say I made a donation to the moonies (not the religious cult, those two nutters running the Marathon). 

 So a big thank you to all those who donated that extra cash to us, those who didn’t manage to sneak any extra money plus any who are reading this post you can still offer your support by following the links below, anything you can give will be much appreciated.

PLAY THE VIDEO to find out a little more about FAST@50. Simply click on the arrow in the centre of the picture opposite, please note that it may take sometime to download depending on your connection speed.Thanks for visiting, and I would welcome your support.

[View with PicLens]

If you would like to also support our kid’s chosen charity for the Marathon:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/paddyMooney

If you could support us both that would be fantastic, thanks to you all. Nice to see you home guys well done.

The pack contains everything I need, the only problem I seem to have at the moment is logging on to the JUSTGIVING website. It just won’t load in the browser (anyone else had problems with this). JustGiving offers you the opportunity to set up a webpage so that people can make donations online, I have set up my donation page at www.justgiving.com/fastat50 is seems a little temperamental at the moment, if you do have problems making a donation please keep trying I think it’s just a technical hitch.

JustGiving is a safe way to make a donation online, when you arrive at my page you will see that the money you donate will on this occasion be going to the Breast Cancer Care Charity, please give generously I would love your support, if you have any comments please submit them below.

I will be running to raise money for Breast Cancer Care, just waiting for my fund raising pack. Would like also to take this opportunity to thank Harriet Farrow (sporting events assistant), for letting me know all about it and also allocating me a place. I did try to register for the run earlier but found that the ballot had closed.

So here is a message to all you would-be Marathon & Half Marathon Runners, register your interest with charities, subscribe to their Newsletters, they will do their best to help secure you a place.

One of those reasons is to raise money for Breast Cancer Care.

Around 46,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, according to figures published, that’s one person every 11 minutes. Around 80% are women over the age of 50. Approximately 12,400 people die from breast cancer each year in the UK, my stepsister Dilys is one of the latest to be added to this years statistics. (sadly she lost her fight against cancer today).

When she was diagnosed  just before Christmas 2008, the doctors gave her 12 months, turned out to be just six months, this just goes to show that every day we spend on this earth we simply must make the most of it, the old saying of treating each day as if it was your last could not be any further from the truth. Quite often when people are given the news that they are terminally ill they do live everyday as if it was their last, and Dilys did exactly that. (above all with a smile on her face).

The sad thing is I failed to do that, (I failed to take advantage of the time Dilys had left), although we only lived just over 5 miles apart, we had not seen each other for months, I never even got to tell her that I was planning on running in the London Marathon to help raise money for Breast Cancer Care. I was  going to wait until I had a confirmed place, confirmation I would not get until mid October.

What I would like to say to those of you who are reading this post is this.. please  remember that if you are ever given the news that one of your friends or relatives receives that devastating blow of terminal illness, then please make the effort and spend sometime with them, don’t wait for that so called right moment, because that moment is now!!

But as I reflect on this, was the real reason I entered the London Marathon purely an ego trip, was it that I wanted people to think that I was doing this out of pity, was I doing it to make myself feel good about me, “look at me I’m running the Marathon because My Stepsister has Cancer“,  I now know that if I ever did get the chance to tell Dilys before she died she would have said “don’t run for me you soft sod, run for yourself“.

My question now is.. “why do we need a reason to run”, or “why do we wait for an excuse”, millions of people all over the world only decide to run for charity after the event, why don’t we run simply because we can.

Just think about this for a moment, if you where being chased by a rabid angry dog do you think you would find the energy to  run?  Try running when there is no angry dog to chase you, I am sure you will agree it will be a lot harder.

If someone asks me why am I running, my answer will be…..
“it’s because I CAN and that’s why I AM“.. and the money I raise will go to charity.

Well today I started my training with a bang, but lets back track a little first, now as a former soldier running was something  I did for most of my military career. (and my 49 year old knees will agree with me on that one). However when I saw the training programmes I found online I thought they where a bit namby pamby (not a real word), they suggested some light jogging for a couple of weeks followed by some distance runs at least a couple of weeks into the training.

That was not for me I’m afraid, I wasn’t going to wait a couple of weeks before I tackle the long runs, so yesterday I drove a 13 mile circuit, and planned to run this every Sunday for a few weeks and then really start pushing it. (beast myself as we used to say), I know what you are thinking TO**ER.

So with my 13 mile circuit mapped out my little pack on my back, packed with two litres of water, a towel a waterproof jacket, my mobile phone, a banana my wife told me to take, plus my swimming goggles (didn’t mean to pack them they where just in there from the last time I went swimming), I was off.

See you in a couple of hours, I said to my wife…

Obviously I had simply forgot how much two litres of water weighs, I think I managed about half a mile before I was seriously thinking about stopping and just walking the route instead.  I managed to reach my first 5 mile stopping point and drink some water. I was glad of that not just the drink but that fact that it would weigh less on my back.

Well without boring you to death with all the details of the run, you know that  2 hour run well it actually took me over 3 hours, what a plonker I was, my wife almost called the police to report me as a missing person. Learned a valuable lesson today and that is one I should know all about “stick to the training programme”

If it wasn’t for the fact that I am determined to do it next year I would have just given up, how ironic for the new sponsors, one of the top media companies on the planet and they cant even provide ample bandwidth to their own website.