Yesterday I attended the London Marathon Expo at the ExCeL Centre (whoops, that's tautology, I think the "Ce" in "ExCeL" stands for "centre" but don't quote me on that) just as I did last year. It was much the same - I came to register my place in the race, collect my running number (this year it's 33743 for those who wish to follow my progress on their diePhones or Blackcurrants or whatever gadgets the cool kids are using these days), collect my kit bag, and collect the chip that records my official finishing time. I also had my name printed on my running vest, so again, spectators on Sunday can cheer or jeer when they see me, whatever they prefer.
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| Running vest with my name on it. |
There were hundreds of stands with different people selling different products, much of it all overpriced and rather unnecessary (certainly for the marathon as it's only a few days away and won't be of much use to me now) but each to their own, I guess.
Again, as I did last year, I helped myself to tons of freebies, and I made sure to wear a coat with deep pockets. I must have put dozens of sweets inside those pockets. They're not just any old sweets though - they are energy sweets, that help keep you going, and those will come in handy around 13 or 14 miles when fatigue begins to set in.
The fundraising has been going well. I've raised almost £1500 online so far (see http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/martinpampel) and the sweepstake that I did at work, in which my colleagues have to guess my finishing time, with £1 per guess, has raised about £110. Minus a prize of £26 from the kitty for the closest guess, that's roughly £80-£85, which is very impressive indeed, as there were about 80 participants, most of them making one guess. To be fair, a number of them had already sponsored me online, so I could not expect them to donate substantially more than they already had. Some colleagues decided to hedge their bets and make five guesses, which was great. Overall there's a lot of similar times there, obviously based on my previous finishing time of 4:47:47 and most of these guesses are roughly 1-30 minutes faster, which seems reasonable. A few have guessed completion times in the 3:30-3:50 region. I have to admire their confidence in me, but those times are somewhat unrealistic, though not exactly unattainable. I'm just grateful that they were good sports and happy to give a minute of their time and a pound of their money. A few colleagues (not so much colleagues, as I don't know their names but see them around) didn't want to participate and made a few poor excuses to try to get out of taking part, but they were very much in the minority. The rest of them were good sports.
The wheels are in motion for the charity quiz. I have got the hall booked, posters have been distributed, and the questions have been written by me and a friend. I wrote 100 questions, he wrote 100 questions, then we chose an equal number of the best ones that each of us had written for each round. It will be on the 13th May in a local hall in Manchester where I live when I'm not back in Essex to see the family, and I hope that the people that attend will have an enjoyable evening that is entertaining and informative. I have also planned a raffle. I've managed to get hold of some merchandise from work and a few complimentary tickets from businesses in town. I did try some bigger corporations in Manchester about the possibility of them being able to donate a prize that could be raffled off, but unfortunately they turned down my request. Still, if you don't ask, you don't get. I asked, and still didn't get. But hey, I tried.
Right, well, this is it. Time to consume some more pasta.
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