Running Scared!

It seemed like a good idea at the time. And back in March, the 20th May seemed ages away. It’s now less than three weeks away! What’s happening on Sunday 20th May? The Great Manchester 10K Run, that’s what! And what worries me about that is that I’m supposed to be running all ten of of those K’s…

Perhaps I should explain. Late one evening in March, I was looking at a charity’s website (www.bliss.org.uk for those of you who are interested), and clicked on the link that said “fundraise for BLISS”. Next thing I know, I’d gone and registered to take part in the Great Manchester Run on 20th May. How did that happen?!

As you may know, if you’ve been following the story so far, or may not know, I have been travelling across the United States in a car for almost 4 of the last 6 weeks. So I have not been exactly in “training”. And, between you and me, this is now a worry.

This week, after finally purchasing a pair of half-price running shoes I ventured out the front door to go for what I believe is called a “run”, in an attempt to begin my preparations for May 20th. I use the word “run” in a fairly loose way as running was only one of the behaviours I was engaged in for the 15 minutes that followed… Others included walking, bending, panting, gasping, sitting and crawling (well, perhaps not crawling but you get the picture). I covered perhaps a mile and a half in this time, but it wasn’t pretty. 10K is about 6 miles. The sudden realization that this is going to be harder than I thought came over me.

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is that on that evening I foolishly clicked the fundraising button on the BLISS website, I kind of said that I would aim to raise £500 for BLISS (a charity for premature babies). Crazy I know. But these things happen…

And this is where you come in. Yes, I’m asking for money. But only a small donation, and it is for a good cause after all. If you could donate any small amount, that would be great. And I mean any amount. 50p, £1, £5, anything. You can do this really easily by going to www.justgiving.com/spiritualjunkie. Or you can click on the link to the right of this page. It would also be a great help if you did anything you could to publicize my justgiving.com page.

Who knows, maybe karma will have a little reward for your good deed waiting for you round the corner. Or maybe not. Either way, you’ll be helping premature babies, and you’ll feel better for it. Go on. And think of those 10 K’s that you don’t have to run!