Everything took a turn for the worst at the end of last week. I shouldn’t have been surprised – it was Friday 13th after all. I came down with a really bad cold that put me out of action for the whole weekend, and even today i’m still not really recovered. I probably picked it up from my family as they were all suffering the previous weekend when we met up at Chris and Maddy’s. If i’d come down with one this weekend – the week of the actual marathon – i’d have been really screwed as you definitely can’t run with a cold – you just have to have to drop out and try again next year. I’m hoping that having had one this weekend my body is full of anti-cold defence… stuff and that it means I definitely won’t get another one later this week. I’m not sure if biology actually works that way though.
The other problem – they’re kind of related – is that the weather has started getting real hot all of a sudden. What with the world rapidly turning into some sort of fire planet, we’re already getting the kind of temperatures that are good for sunbathing but horrible for running. If you know me, you know that I hate to be in direct sunlight (this trait pretty much lead me straight into a career in computing)
for any length of time, so if next sunday is anything like this sunday then its going to be hell from round about mile 2 rather than mile 20.
Still, on the plus side the donations continue to go really well. Ken Boy D, who i’ve known since small times, was the first of the Collective to send some money my way. Ken’s more of a sprinter than a marathon man, his ideal distance being the yard. The rest of the GC have been a bit slow on the uptake though… boys, if you switch to Imperial Vodka for just a couple of days you’ll have saved enough for a sizeable donation. Nat has already given me some cash but if he’d just donated what he spent on lap dancers this weekend then the grand total would be up almost an extra £600… tragically this isn’t even a joke.
Peter, Sally and James (Gemma’s Uncle, Aunt and Cousin) also made a big donation of £25 when they called this weekend – thank you so much, and I hope James has a great birthday this sunday! The sisters also came through: Emma-Lucia had also slipped a note in with Mum and Dads donation which came through in the post today, which was very generous as she could have paid for a good hooch binge in the Playhouse (or whatever it is young people do these days…) with that money. And Jenny gave a huge £25 which was super generous especially as I know how much you have to pay for rent in London!
Then this evening I opened my email account to get a really great email from Martin – who I played football with before he went travelling in Australia and before we started the new league this year. He donated £35!! I was actually pretty moved by both the amount and the message of support, and i’ll definitely try and get the casual football going again once I’m done with the marathon – let me know next time you’re heading to the Britannia to see a match and i’m definitely get you some beers in!
So after all that donating – less than £120 to go! So close! Big thanks again to everyone who’s donated so far and tomorrow i’ll be putting some information up for anyone who wants to come along on the actual day!
Also: random disturbing fact of the day. The average number of views for pictures in my Flickr account is around 6 or 7. The number of views for that picture of my bleeding nipples? Eighty one!
