A new Personal Best ;) February 12, 2011

Today I acheived a new personal best at Brueton Parkrun http://www.parkrun.org.uk/brueton/Results/LatestResults.aspx and am pretty chuffed! I definately felt faster at the time, and was really hopeful that id beaten my previous result of 32.25, but I actually shaved off a massive 1 minute 31 seconds, coming in with a result of 30 minutes and 54 seconds. I am now a very happy bunny!

Today was perfect weather for running, a really sunny morning, and quite mild – around 6 degrees, so definately felt good to be out in the sunshine and blow away the cobwebs!! I have been for 3 runs in the past week, 3 miles on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, so the extra training must really be starting to pay off.  This afternoon its time to get back out the walking boots as seems a shame to waste the nice weather when 2moro’s forecast is rubbish! I’ve been running more than walking at the moment, and need to make sure im doing a bit of both, as whilst the running might be helping build up my general fitness, the walking is what iv actually got to train for - approx 8-9 hours of it a day in fact!!

I have been logging my training on Dailymile.com here http://www.dailymile.com/people/loosea#ref=tophd so please feel free to befriend me and follow my progress, having people to motivate and support me really helps my competitive streak so Im grateful for all help received!

The fundraising is going well, having now reached 70% of the target I set at the beginning of January. Tomorrow I am baking valentines cakes to sell to my friends and colleagues at Talis, hoping to raise some extra money to add to my total. Thanks again to everyone who has supported me thus far, if you havent already done so and would like to help, you can donate on my fundraising page here – www.justgiving.com/lccotterill

Lucy xxx

Trek Iceland – Support me for FREE!!!! :) February 5, 2011

A couple of days ago, I was lucky enough to be introduced to the website www.easyfundraising.org.uk – a website that allows people to support various different causes of their choice, whilst doing their normal shopping online.

The site is a completely free service and allows you to shop with your favourite online stores and at no extra cost to you, raising money for any charity, good cause, or group you choose to support. Simply by clicking on the links on the easy fundraising website first, you then continue to shop as you normally would, and a percentage is given by the retailer to the cause you nominate. 

For example, fellow Talisians that buy a lot of books, if you make any purchase from Amazon – 2.5% of your purchase price can be added to my fundraising total completely free of charge. This will help my totaliser ramp up in no time!

I have set up a cause at Easy Fundraising called British Heart Foundation Trek Iceland – Lucy Cotterill -  http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/bhflucycotterill and urge all my friends to please use easyfundraising.org.uk when making their online purchases as every penny helps me to reach my fundraising total! Simply register, select my cause as the cause you would like to support, and then start shopping!!

There are MANY MANY retailers on the site, so to name but a few that I think would appeal to my friends-  

Amazon, Accessorize, All Saints, Apple Store, Argos, Asda, Benefit Cosmetics, Blacks, Boots, Buyagift.com, Clothing at Tesco, Coast, Comet, Cotswold Outdoor, Currys, Debenhams, Dixons, Dominos Pizza, eBay, First Choice,  French Connection, Game, Getting Personal.co.uk, Graze, Halfords, Hallmark Cards, HMV, Homebase, House of Fraser, Interflora, Itunes, IWOOT, JD Sports, John Lewis, Kurt Geiger, La Senza, Lastminute.com, Laura Ashley, Littlewoods, Marks and Spencer, Oasis, PC World, Photobox, Play.com, rBooks, Sainsburys, Staples, Superdrug, Tesco, Thomsons, Ticketmaster, Waterstones, WHSmiths. Phew – what a list!!

Please register, and then check the site before making any purchases on line!

Thanks for your help all!!

Lucy

PS – Just got back from my 2nd Brueton Park run – have no idea of the results yet, but as opposed to -1 temperatures, this week was running against what felt like gale force winds!! Feel fab for doing it though so fingers crossed my time reflects that! x

Brueton Parkrun – 5k January 29, 2011

Good morning!!! Just got back from my first ever Brueton Parkrun and I’m shattered!!!

The Brueton Park run is a timed 5km run around Brueton Park in Solihull. It takes place every Saturday morning at 9am (Yes 9AM!!!) and is completely free to join. It is entirely run by volunteers, yet looks and feels exactly like any other professional 5k run. You register once, in advance at www.parkrun.org.uk , print of your personalised barcode, and then you can simply turn up at any park run around the country (they take place all over the UK) and get involved!!!

I heard about the parkrun at the BHF Santa Jog at the beginning of the year, a board was advertising the run and I thought it sounded a great way of getting fit and doing some of my training for Trek Iceland. I find that when I run on my own I get bored very easily, as I only have myself to egg me on and not all the other runners around me. To run as a group really appealed to me, as well as having my time recorded. The website also advises that the group celebrate personal bests, regardless of your speed, which I felt was a really positive approach. I have never been a fast runner, but the fact that I can track my progress and see if I’m improving is definately something that appeals! A 5k in under 30 minutes is one of the items on my bucketlist – www.bucketlist.org/loosea (among many others!) so hopefully if I do this reguarly I’ll be able to tick that one off soon!

When my alarm went off at half 7 to “Baby You’re a Firework” by Katy Perry I was like “Urgh what am I doing!!” – the temperature was -1, hardly what I would call perfect running conditions. Even so, I got dressed, attempted to wrap up warm and got my self out there. There were about 80 runners there, some of whom were obviously regular runners, aiming to complete the course in under 20 minutes. Others decided to walk the route, and I was probably one of the slowest runners in the group, but wasnt made to feel at all inadequate – everyone was very supportive.

I found the first half of the course particuarly hard, my fingers were cold, my ears were cold, and the freezing wind sent my breathing all to pot, so felt like I wasnt doing very well at all! I bailed a bit in parts and had to slow to down to a fast walk, but I kept moving, and as a parkrun virgin, Im allowing myself a slow first attempt; at least it gives me something to improve upon eh!

At the finish line I was given a small token, recording my place (No.71 – told you id be near the back!) and took this to the registration desk where they noted my position and scanned my barcode. Times are recorded at the finish line and are emailed out to all participants later on the same day. I have no real idea what my time was, although id imagine it would be somewhere between 35- 40 minutes as I did walk a few times. I’ll let you know what the results say later! There was also a photographer, not looking forward toseeing those quite so much!!!!

Overall I really enjoyed the run, and hope to become a bit of a regular! Big thanks to all the volunteers who helped with registration, marshalling and time recording today, you ran a great event!!   If you are interested in doing a parkrun event near you, please check out the website www.parkrun.org.uk for a full list of events around the country. If local, why not sign up to the Solihull one, and I may see you there!

Lucy x