Today we decided to tackle the steep hill on the opposite side of Cala Llonga bay to where where staying (Fiesta Cala Llonga). Except we couldn't find the steps that we can see from our hotel... so we turned back and did the Day 1 route backwards. Much better - tackling the steepest hill first and then gentle downhill (mostly) for the rest of the way. 3.1 miles overall.
Here's a pic I took of the empty beach as a jogged past...
It´s been quite a bit warmer the past two mornings than on Day 1. Maybe we´ve been slightly later setting off and those few minutes make all the difference.
We've seen quite a few people running in the midday heat over the past few days. They must be mad. Any later than 7.15 and I´d be collapsing I'm sure!
Might try a shorter run tomorrow because my shins are suffering a little bit.
Hola! Got up at the crack of dawn again today (well, 7am) and took a different road out to another bay.
I took a pic, which I´ll post when I get home. It was beautiful.
I did 2.6 miles and it was WARM! Very sweaty and much harder work than yesterday.
It does feel good to be out and about early, though (although we were still beaten to it by all the cheeky sunbed reservers and their pesky towels!)
Here's me on the start line. These are not the clothes I ran in, obviously (!) it's just to show where it all started.
My charity - Smile Train - has sent me a nice fundraising pack with some leaflets, booklets, posters, DVDs and a T-shirt.
When I get back I´ll post some of that stuff up here to give a better idea of the work they do and why it´s so important to me to make a big effort to support them... and why I´d love you to support me in doing that.
I watched the DVD - Smile Pinki - the other day.
It´s about a five-year-old girl from a village in the Mirzapur District, India, born with a cleft lip into a desperately poor family, and how Smile Train´s work helps to transform her life. It won an Oscar for Best Short Documentary in 2009 and is well worth a watch because it really demonstrates how cleft lip and palates affect children and their families in a society very different from ours.
The lack of awareness, the attitudes and experiences, not to mention the level of healthcare and opportunity, are world away from everything I experienced growing up with exactly the same thing as some of these children.
It is beyond belief the social isolation and stigmatisation these children - and adults - have to face because they have a facial deformity that is so simple to correct with the right skills and funding. It´s something that has never held me back and I would like to give others a tiny bit of the opportunity I have had.
Anyway, here´s a little bit of the film.
If you´re interested in watching the whole thing, let me know.
Well there are just two days to go until my birthday and the start of my big challenge.
At the moment I´m on holiday in Ibiza, so I´ll be doing the first five days of running in Cala Llonga, Ibiza.
I´m sure it´s going to be hot work, but I´m planning to get up early and beat the heat. There´s always the motivation of a a nice glass of sangria and a cooling dip in the pool when I get back to keep me going.
I get back to England on June 30th and have a week off work, so plenty of chance to put in a few miles in the rain (no doubt) if my holiday puts me a little behind schedule.
So I´m hoping to do two or three miles here each day for the first five days.
I won´t be able to track my routes on MapMyRun here (because I won´t have a 3G connection on my phone), but I will plot my routes on Google Maps and hopefully get a fairly accurate distance. I´ll round it down, just to be on the safe side... I don´t want to be seen to be cheating at all, now, do I?
I really want to make the most of any money I raise during my challenge, so I've given careful thought to how to do my fundraising.
A fundraising website is most probably the best way to do it. Here's the boring maths bit (feel free to skip and just be reassured that I've done some research)...
I looked at Virgin Money Giving - a not-for profit organisation, which takes 2% in charges and results in a £12.15 going to the nominated charity for every £10 donated (with Gift Aid).
I also looked at Just Giving - which takes 5% and £11.74 goes to the nominated charity for every £10 donated (with Gift Aid).
So Virgin Money Giving wins, right? Nope.
My charity, Smile Train UK, is not a member of Virgin Money Giving, but another similar charity, Operation Smile UK, is. They basically do the same thing - providing free corrective surgery for children with cleft lip and palate in developing countries. They were once the same organisation, but Smile Train separated from Operation Smile in 2009 for good reasons and OS, from what I can gather from reading the financial information, spends a larger percentage of its cash on running costs than ST.
So I've decided on Just Giving. And Smile Train.... and I'll post the link here soon.
Well tomorrow is June 1st, so that means it's not long at all until my one-year challenge starts.
So here are the rules:
I have to run every day from June 25, 2012, until June 25, 2013 - my 29th birthday.
I have to run at least one mile per day.
I have to run 1,000 miles in the year - 2.75 miles a day, almost 20 miles a week.
I've had this in my mind for a good five months or so, but I haven't told many people - mostly in case I realised I was a complete hopeless case once I actually got my trainers on and started running.
But as it turns out I can put one foot in front of the other ok, so that's a start.
As you might know it's all in aid of charity - so you can be sure I'll be one the sponsorship trail very soon. I'm in the process of sorting out an online giving account, so I'll be posting the details here as soon as I can.
Anyway, this is my challenge blog and I'll be posting here each day about my run and putting up a picture or even a video if I see anything interesting. I'll also be posting my running total (!) so we can all see whether I'm on track for my target.
