I am fortunate enough to have been awarded a charity place in the 2011 London Marathon sponsored by Virgin. The charity that I will be running for is RNID: Action on Hearing Loss (RNID is the Royal National Institute for the Deaf). Participating in this event has been one of my ambitions: it is one of the largest fundraising events in the world and takes place in my favorite city! I thank RNID for providing this opportunity.
I am also fortunate enough to have normal hearing. Not so for thirty six million people in the United States (17%) and 9 million people in the UK (15%) who suffer from hearing loss. Your hearing should be screened regularly just like eyesight, dental health and blood pressure, and yet it is generally something that people do not like to talk about-I hope to help change that.
My fundraising target is £1750 GBP (about $2600). I am not really a fan of blogs so it will be a real challenge for me to keep this going. My intention is to use this site as a vehicle to share information on RNID and hearing loss, and share a bit about the challenges of training for a marathon in the Scottish winter, which has arrived early and with a vengeance! I hope you enjoy my posts: I will try to keep them brief!
If this is your first time visiting my site, please consider making a donation using the link to my Virgin Money Giving site.
My training is under way, albeit a bit late. Sinuses acted up all through November and I recovered just in time for a 2 foot snowfall that stuck around for over 2 weeks. I have been learning to enjoy the treadmill, or at least to accept the treadmill as a training tool. Having done an 8 mile long run and a 9 mile run the following week, the anticipation of 10 miles on it this weekend makes me thankful that Santa brought me an ipod shuffle last Christmas!
Hey Kathleen! Glad to hear about your training. Our group has training underway as well, although the crazy girls I am training with have convinced me to do a marathon in Arizona in January. So we are headed to Phoenix to do the Rock'n'roll Marathon on Jan 16. We have been suffering through the long miles here, 18 miler last week. But at least the weather is cooperating, sometimes. It was 60-70 degrees part of the week and snowing and below freezing the rest of the week. Guess I can not complain, since I am not having to resort to the treadmill yet. Sounds like weather all across Europe is a nightmare right now. I am hoping that is the worst of it for you and that there are many sunny days ahead for your outdoor training. If not - hope Santa brings you some new fleece!!! Cheers, Terri
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the training!
ReplyDeleteHere's a Web site your US contributors can use to figure out how much they're giving in American dollars: http://www.xe.com/
I don't think Ben Bernanke has anything against helping the RNID, but his quantitative easing program is working against you!
Best wishes,
The Sanfords