A run do

The date of the London Marathon is (very slowly) getting closer; it's sixty days away and we're coming up to two months to D-Day. Or should that be M-Day?

The training is still going well and in the last few weekends I have run twenty miles. Adding this to my short midweek runs, I have already totalled more than eighty miles this month alone. Providing I stay injury-free, I think I'm on course to challenge my personal best set in last year's marathon. Whether I beat it or not is anybody's guess.

My last long run was a nice one. I decided to shake things up and try a new route for once. After running the six miles to Bury, instead of turning back towards home, I continued on to a nice little town called Ramsbottom, another four miles in a northerly direction, before then heading back ten miles to my apartment, making a nice round twenty miles, all in all. Ramsbottom, now my favourite place name, second only to Cockfosters. I have never run to Cockfosters before, nor have I ever been there, but there's always a first time for everything.

The weather has started to improve a little. We've actually had sun for four days in a row, which means something is bound to go horribly wrong soon. A snowstorm, with 25 inches of snow probably. The temperature has started to get a little warmer as well, although it was freezing cold when I went for a run at 7am today, and stupidly forgot to wear gloves, which meant that by the time I returned to my flat after running seven miles, my fingers felt like they were frostbitten.

Fundraising is going well, albeit slowly. So far I have been sponsored by 13 donors, for an amount not far off £300, about 13% of my £2000 target. I hope I get more sponsors and I'm not stuck on 13 donors and 13% as I'm extremely superstitious. Probably means it'll take me 13 hours to finish the marathon.
Anyway, the amount raised - so far, so good, but it could be a bit more. After running this race twice before, my friends are probably fed up of having to sponsor me again. My running tales about running from Manchester to Bury and back again, or even the fact that I'm doing my third marathon in three years are no longer impressing anybody. Nobody cares. It's getting so that I'd have to run it backwards or naked, in order to get a bit of interest and appreciation for what I'm doing!
No, I am not doing the Marathon naked. Over my dead body. Then again, the ancient Greeks ran naked, and if it's good enough for the ancient Greeks, who gave us the Olympic Games, democracy, science, the theatre, architecture, sculpture, philosophy, among other things, then it's good enough for me. Although I'm not sure if the original marathon run from the Battle of Marathon to Athens by Pheidippides was done in the nude. Perhaps I could be the first.

If anybody reading this would like to sponsor me, please do so at: http://www.justgiving.com/martinpampel - don't do it for me, do it for the kids! Help a very worthy cause. Please. Think of the children.