The Early Runnings!

Hooray *cue fanfares* let me introduce you to our justgiving page:

http://www.justgiving.com/RunningRNLI

Here you can support our cause and donate your hard earned money to a valiant cause and also enter the chance to win a fantastic prize!

But now onto the point of this post and where the big money lies.....

On a sunny day in South West London, at a ridiculously close hour to dawn, an elite team of athletes gathered for Park 1 of the Challenging Runs Across Parks Training Plan. Early, so as to avoid the prying eyes of the press and bookies clamouring to get insider knowledge on who may be the possible front runners and who would be challenging Rik Waller for the final sprint!

This site being the official sponsor of Team S.O.S. is of course the place to be to get the lowdown on the current standings of the members. So to save yourself the trouble of hiding in bushes with telescopes and stopwatches at the ready you can read all the latest news right here.

Under the guidance of motivational coach and cramp avoidance advisor Mark a route was planned:



Of course this magnificent occasion was marked by the taking of many pictures (also to serve as proof that we are doing something). Here you can see the team fully assembled for the official picture to mark the start of our training regime:



With the pace set, the starter gun being shot, hottest out of the blocks and living up to her name as "The Ace" was Stacie who demolished the course, stamping on leaves, twigs, squirrels, small children and possibly one deer in her pursuit of the chequered flag and the vanilla ice cream! Definitely one to watch in the future, she is attracting the early investment.

With a pace that can be described as more leisurely than a disgruntled snail slithering to snail school to sit an exam in advanced snailomics, and with a lot more heavy breathing than an asthmatic Darth Vader pogoing to Peru, came the much more exciting battle for last place and the coveted best view of the running technique (bottoms) of the lead athletes (I use that word in its loosest form) came Rosie and Andy. On this occasion I think Rosie pipped it but with such a long way to go it is still any ones battle!

After the renowned warm down involving some squirting, heavy lifting and stuck in tree nightmares





we assembled for a final team picture and can consider Richmond well and truly ticked off in our quest to run all the London parks before the race!



Join us again soon for a new update, and finally a word of thanks to Helena Smith our first donatee and first entrant to our guess the time competition.

The Cause and The Effect

So now you know who we are I guess it is time to let you know what this is all about... Despite all of my waffling this is the most important post on this blog so pay attention.

We will be running together for the RNLI, now for you not down with acronyms that stands for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Why are three land lubbers running for a charity like that? Well there are numerous reasons, but here are a select few;

"The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea" This is the motto of the RNLI and pretty much sums up exactly what they do! Now to be pedantic and sum it up mathematically in 2008 the RNLI rescued an average of 21 people a day, they saved 288 lives in that year alone, and since its conception has saved over 137,000 lives and rescued many more.


The RNLI receives no UK Government funding and relies on donations from the public and the support of events such as the Great South Run to maintain its maritime search and rescue service. Its volunteer crew members are on call 24 hours a day and are willing to risk their own lives to save others at sea around the coast of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.


The RNLI's running costs average around £378,000 a day. For every £1 raised, 84p is spent on operations and 16p is spent on generating income. With boats costing up to £2.7m and equipment costs over £1,000 every penny raised is vitally important. Every lifeboat launch costs the RNLI money in fuel and service payments. Individual crew members also lose time and working hours when they are called out. If they can give up their time to help then surely we can do the same to allow them to carry out their amazing work

I hope we can all appreciate the fine work the RNLI undertake and you guys can know a little bit more about the cause we are running for. If you have any questions just ask and I will endeavour to find out, and if you guys want to know a bit more for yourselves here is a really good place to start.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope we will recieve your support for this great cause.

Andy

Meet and Greet!

Right now it would be rude to carry on if you didn't know who we are properly so I will use this post to introduce us to you.

Me, Stacie and Rosie met in the deepest darkest parts of Berkshire, where we bonded over a love for nozzles, Disney song trivia and Lebanese people. Since then we have moved on into the scary wide world to pursue "careers" which will make meeting up as a group to train slightly more difficult... but we will persevere (mainly so they get the pleasure of mocking my efforts to keep up!)

The idea of running started off with Stacie, (so there we have the official documentation of who to blame) who is our current gym addict! Hailing from the North she brings with her the fitness regime, the experience (via her father) and the deep-heat soaked trousers! Being the brains behind the operation she is also in charge of logistics and so will be fully responsible if we are left stranded in Portsmouth in October...

Next comes in Rosalind, she is the dark horse being an ex-rower. Notorious for her tough approach to team training she has been nominated as "Miss Motivator" and will expend half her energy running and the other half shouting encouragement/abuse at us to get us through training and round the course.

Lastly (and this could easily be in the same order as the Pompey finish line!) comes me, Andy. I bring nothing but boundless enthusiasm to the team... which after my second training run today I have found will be of no use in getting me to the finish line! However by donning sweat-bands and leg warmers I hope to transform into a running machine whilst also bringing a spot of glamour to the team!

So there you have it, I hope you feel a little more introduced. Don't feel you cant say hello or any words of encouragement along the way!

Andy

The First Post

Ah the social awkwardness that comes with introductions.... well let's break the ice.... Hello, how are you?

I suppose I better introduce who we are and why you are bothering to read this. We are a group of unfit, well I suppose I am speaking for myself here, people with aspirations above our station who are going to attempt to battle through 10 miles of blood, sweat and tears in Portsmouth on the 24th of October in order to say that we have completed the Great South Run!

Now why is this of interest to you, well we aren't the kind of people to bother you for charity fundraising money for something we are going to enjoy doing.... We understand that if you are going to donate your hard earned moolah to a great cause then you want to know we suffered. This blog will be proof of the hours of training we are going to put in, the intrinsic details of my blisters, how we deal with Stacie's athletes foot, the verbal abuse we will get from Rosie to complete another mile of training....

So hopefully you will get more from this than the warm satisfaction of donating to charity, you will also get the even warmer, some may say boiling, satisfaction of sitting back in a comfortable chair and reading about the journey that will hopefully end up with us taking the finish line in Portsmouth on the 24th of October (maybe the 25th depending on speed!)

Right I have whittled on for long enough, to keep the excitement building the charity (there is a clue hidden away) and the team will be revealed in full detail in subsequent posts so keep your eyes peeled good people.

Adios for now,

Andrew