Crawley

So, it was a small sporting event but for me a big one too - the first ever run I'd done with more than four other runners, even though the length was less than I would do for a training run.

The longest run I've ever done was 9.5 miles, which I did with two other runners from our club. That took 1 hour 44 minutes, a pace of 10.99 minutes per mile. This one was only 3.106856 miles (5km). I was aiming to finish it in 30 minutes, which would have been 9 minutes 40 seconds per mile. I made 26.49 minutes - 8m 31s per mile, a lot better than I'd hoped. The extra time came from competitiveness with my brother - he went off quicker than i would have done it by myself at the start, and of course I had to keep up, that's what siblings are for. The start was fun, as we weaved rapidly through the crowd of much slower runners and walkers

I dropped back a bit towards the end - no shame there, guys usually run faster than women, and I finished about two minutes behind my brother. I think I could have done better if I'd rested more beforehand - I didn't get enough sleep on Friday or Saturday, or the whole week before. I'm not worried as it was only a 5k race, but I have another three races this year, so an important lesson learned!

The run was definitely a Birmingham affair. I studied for my masters at Aston University in Birmingham, and the run was from Villa Park (by the Aston Villa stadium) to Perry Barr. It was a bit of a walk (or run, ho ho) down memory lane.... and there were loads of Brummy celebrities there (yes, there are such people), including legendary footballer Stan Collymore. Dear old Stanley Victor played for Aston Villa, Liverpool and England. I was in the last kilometre of the run when Mr Collimore overtook me, in fact. I felt a bit bad about not putting more effort into the last kilometre and keeping up with Stan, but then I realised that Collymore beats most of his women*, so again, no shame there......

I finished pretty well placed among the runners - there were a heck of a lot more after me than there were before. More important is that I have also raised £100 for Macmillan Cancer Care, and got a funky little medal as well

£20 per kilometre. £2 for 100 metres. 2 pence per meter - a penny for running 50 centimetres. The next sponsored race I have in in October, and is the Great North Run, a half marathon. I'm aiming to raise £300 for that - in fact, I have to raise a minimum of £275. That works out at 1.4 pence per meter, which is a figure that doesn't really mean anything. I'm not really keen on the whole idea of charity running - I run for myself, not to make money for other people. They may well be worthy causes, but booking all the places in a sports event and then forcing people to raise money for them just doesn't seem fair. That being said, there are plenty of smaller half marathons which don't have any charity hijacking in them at all. I'd rather have run in a smaller event: I'm entering the GNR because my brother really wants to do the GNR, and not some more sensible race. After all, say 'Great North Run' to anyone in the UK, and they will probably know what it is. I guess that's a difference between myself and my brother though - he needs people to know he has done something and achieves that by doing something people have heard of. I'm happy to do something obscure and then write about it on the internet.

Talking of t'internet, I had this 'date' with this girl I'd met on the internet on Saturday while in Brum. I say 'date' (as opposed to date) because she is only 17, waaaay too young for me, and there wasn't anything romantic about it, it was just purely friendship. I was worried that she'd be expecting a date (not a 'date'), but I'm relieved to say that she thinks I'm waaaay too old for her, too. I do like this girl, she's funny and clever and good company. It was weird though - she looked nothing like I expected her to. We'd been chatting for an hour or so before I realised that actually that's because I'd gotten totally confused about who I was even seeing, and she was actually a different person. So, who spends too much time flirting on the internet? I need to get out and talk to real people more....

Me crossing the finishing line. I always wear knee-length socks while I am running, and most of my running socks are white. Our 'support team' said that they could see me from right the way across the field because of these white socks, which was cool. I had tried to get some green socks to match the shirts, but as it is the end of the football season there aren't that many 'team socks' (as they are known) in the shops, so I stuck with white. I couldn't improve on the picture, but I'm the one in the vest crossing the finish line: number 223.



*It's an Aston Villa joke: Stan Collymore famously beat his wife, and also dated (and beat) Ulrika Johnson, amongst others. But don't judge him on that - he's come clean and worked on it, and is a reformed character, and an asset to the City of Birmingham.