training

I never thought there would be a moment in my life that I would miss my universal sink plug. I hadn’t heard of such a thing before my deployment to India, and I felt a bit awkward when I bought it last-minute in a London outdoor shop. However, since a couple of weeks ago, all the water pipes in the Kashmiri region Ladakh froze, I’m dealing with buckets of water to wash, flush the toilet and shower. My sink plug has proven to be a crucial tool in my daily washing ritual. And now that I miss it I can conclude that it’s one of the best gadgets ever.

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Our Children’s Emergency Fund, which I’m raising money for is massively important at the moment. Whether it in emergency situations in Kyrgyzstan, Niger or Pakistan, the children are the most vulnerable and the most at risk.

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I suffered a mini ethical dilemma yesterday morning when I found a £10 note on the floor whilst walking from the Tube to work, but fear not it went to a good cause.

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Save the Children have confirmed that I can run the 2011 Virigin London Marathon under their banner, and I’m pretty psyched about that.

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It’s been about three weeks since I returned to the cool northern highlands but I’m still not taking my escape from the heat for granted. I spent nearly two weeks wilting in the extreme heat of Ethiopia’s Afar region, home to the Danakil Depression – the hottest place on earth at 100m below sea level. I’d never experienced heat like this before. When our car broke down in the desert we ventured out with a thermometer and weren’t surprised to see it read 43°C.

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If a mother who was nine months pregnant walked for an hour to take her child to a Save the Children feeding centre, I am sure going to try and make sure Save the Children can help her when she gets there. We need money for this. The time is now.

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I went to the British 10K on Sunday cheering on our Save the Children runners. Great work by everyone who took part. I was worried that it was going to be so hot people would start melting but luckily it was cooler than it had been.

Helen and Caroline storming through the British 10K for Save the Children

I think a few people did the 10K in preparation for a half marathon later in the year. People do say that you should have a go at a shorter race before doing the big race. Can anyone recommend good 10K runs near London around the August/September time?

Anyway, it’s been another week, and how many runs? Not enough!

I did go for one run that ended up being a bit longer than I had planned because I got a bit lost — I was trying to cross over a big A road and kept searching for an underpass which didn’t materialise so I had to turn around. I need to find some new routes! I also wasn’t breaking any land speed records — at one point a bug flew into my mouth… Does that mean that you’re going so slowly they think you’re a tree?

My sporting activites this week have been a bit random. I ended up playing in a cricket tournament all day on Saturday which was really fun, but I am still not sure that my cricketing skills are anything to write home about. I only batted in one game and the other team kept me in on purpose because they knew I wasn’t going to score enough runs!

I also played netball this week — two matches in one evening, as I played for my team and then another team were short on numbers. But I’m not sure that netball is going to get me round 13.1 miles… I did feel a little twinge in my ankle which wasn’t good. If I can’t last 80 mins playing netball, then I’m worried!

I’ve started receiving donations on my JustGiving page which is exciting! I need to decide when I should do the big push of asking all my friends and family. It is still three months to go until the day, so I’m thinking I should wait until it’s nearer the time. Does anyone have any experience on this?

Tonight I am DEFINITELY going for a run….

We still have places left in the Royal Parks Half Marathon if anyone is interested…

Things I have learnt this week:
1. Running up hills is really difficult
2. I need to train a LOT before October
3. Running in the real life *countryside* feels lots harder than running in the gym
4. I can’t start dreading going for runs

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Having worked at Save the Children for almost two years now, I’m still amazed at the work that we do. There are so many children out there who have nothing to eat, are scared and alone or who have few opportunities. I can change this. I’ve got four months to get fit and reach my fundraising target of £600.

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My day to day job is very office based, sitting in front of a computer, sending emails, making phone calls, coordinating the team, persuading people, fixing things and coming up with new ideas to talk about age old issues.

Sometimes it’s easy to feel very distanced from the families we’re working to support, based the other side of the world, in places like Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.

Last year a chance came up to get much closer to the ‘action’.

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