2009 miles in 2009

Rachel at the BUPA Great Mini Run 2010

2010-05-04T16:42:00.001+01:00

BUPA Great Mini Run 2010
Originally uploaded by jammybilly

Rachel and I just after the start of the Bupa Great Edinburgh Mini Run - look at the concentration on the faces - and that's just on mine!

Marathon effort ...

2010-04-29T11:27:00.001+01:00

Well it’s now nearly 4 days after the first Virgin London Marathon (the 30^th overall but first with the new sponsors) and my first for 10 years. After such a long gap between marathons I did feel like a virgin marathoner again, so the title sponsor is an apt one! I had a target of between 3.30 and 3.45, I only got the place in mid January through Virgin Money and their chosen charity for their Edinburgh office, Fertility Scotland. When I was offered the place I was only running 5k events and was probably totalling around 10 miles a week so it was a steep progression to get to 26.2 miles in 3 months! However, after watching Eddie Izzard doing 43 marathons in 51 days with just 5 weeks preparation beforehand I had taken the view that anything was possible.

Sadly I had a bit of a tough second half - I was fine for 13 miles, going well and on for about 3.26 but then my quads started to tighten up and went into cramps and then spasms at 15 miles, from then on it was survival to the finish line with walking, jogging, stopping, stretching and a bit of massage thrown in just to get me to the end! It was only in the last mile and a half I was able to start running properly again and when I finished I was actually feeling fine! I even managed to help a struggler down the finishing straight, he was wobbling a bit and looking like he might not make it so I gave him some encouragement to get him going again and ran with him until I knew he was going to get to the line safely. Believe it or not some people make it all the way round the 26 miles and then the last 0.2 miles beats them! My split times of 1:42 for the first half and 2:35 for the second make for painful reading but really, apart from my legs going into spasms, the last half was actually fine – at one point I took my heart rate and it was 140, indicating that I was in the right zone for getting round! I won’t say ‘there’s always next time’ as I don’t know if there will be another marathon for me, but I am not saying 100% no ... for now though it’s 10ks and half marathons – maybe even a spot of track running to get the legs going a bit faster.

So anyway, that was that! My first marathon in 8 and a half years, my first London for 10 years and my first ever Virgin London Marathon! I finished, which I am proud of, and I also beat my fundraising target for Fertility Scotland, again something I am really pleased about.

There’s still time to sponsor me, if you haven’t had a chance before, go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/jogster and click on the ‘donate now’ button. A huge thank you to everyone who has sponsored me already.

Keep on running!

The jogster

With old buddie Terry Brennan from the Scottish Running Guide

2010-04-22T17:27:00.000+01:00

Track the jogster at the Marathon

2010-04-22T14:43:00.000+01:00

Follow the instructions on the photo and key in my number 28887 and you will get live updates on my progress throug the whole 26.2 miles on Sunday. Check whether your mobile is WAP enabled before you sign up.

Thanks to all my generous sponsors ...

2010-04-20T21:15:00.000+01:00

... today was the day for sending out ‘The’ fundraising email to friends, family, work colleagues, people I know or have known through work and probably a few other people who thought ‘who the bloody hell is that asking me for money!?’. Anyway, in just a short space of time my fundraising total has increased sharply, so a big thank you goes out to those who have already flexed the plastic and helped me towards my total, it is most appreciated! I hope to get over the original target of £500, so if anyone is reading this and wants to sponsor me there is still plenty of time, the page will be open for quite a while after the event so if you are a) waiting until pay day at the end of the month or b) waiting to hear whether I made it round or not (which barring being buried in Volcanic Ash will be the former) then you can still donate afterwards.

My running number is 28887 if you want to search for me in the results, which should go up on the marathon website at www.virginlondonmarathon.com on Sunday night or Monday morning. I am making no time predictions, but suffice to say there will probably be an Elvis or two, a Womble and a man in a tutu ahead of me ... my main aim is just to challenge myself to complete the distance for the first time in 8 and half years and to soak up the atmosphere from the other side of the fence, as I have been a spectator at the event for the past five years.

I’ll update this again before Sunday but once again thanks for all your kind words and support everyone!

The jogster

a new dawn ...

2010-04-08T16:23:00.001+01:00

I finished this blog at the end of 2009, partly as it was the end of the year and blog started out as being all about running 2009 miles in 2009, which due to injuries and other factors I didn’t achieve, but what occurred last year reignited something in me to run more and to challenge myself more with my running. So when I was offered a place in the Virgin London Marathon back in January I was tempted by the offer and provisionally put my name down. Through February and into March my fitness has increased and my long runs have progressed first to about 10 miles, then 12, then a leap to 17.5 (by accident as I was meaning to do 15 but took a wrong turning!), then at the end of March up to almost 20 miles. What seemed impossible in mid January now is reality as I write this on the 8^th of April … I am doing the marathon and there are just over 2 weeks to go!!

It’s 8 and a half years since my last one, in New York, just 2 months after the horrific events of 9/11, a lot has happened since then, both in the world and in my own life. I was living and working in London with my wife of just 9 months, Ali … it was just the two of us then, life revolved around work and enjoying the London life. Then in late 2002, with an impending war in Iraq, a tube crash on the line we used every day and a jogger murdered in Victoria Park just next to our flat, we made the best decision ever in our 6 and half years together (at that time) we decided to sell up in London and move to Edinburgh, where we had recently spent a weekend and had loved everything about it. Ali got a transfer from her job at Peter Jones on Sloane Square up to John Lewis in Edinburgh and I secured 3 days a week consultancy work for the national charity Help the Hospices. The move was set for March 2003 and just weeks before Ali left to come up (I was staying on until mid April as I was looking after a team of runners in the London Marathon for the hospice I worked for in London) we found out that Ali was pregnant, everything was coming together all at the same time for our new life away from London. Once up here the role as jogscotland Manager was advertised on the scottishathletics website and I applied thinking that it ‘had my name written on it’ – so around 5 months after moving to Edinburgh I was offered the job. I started at the beginning of November 2003, although my first week was actually paternity leave as Rachel was born the day before I was due to start!

jogscotland has been an amazing experience for me, the way the programme has grown gives me immense satisfaction and shows that there is a real passion within the Scottish population to change behaviour and improve health through being more active and eating healthier. From a starting point in November 2003 of around 20 groups and less than 700 members we now have around 400 groups and about 15,000 people in jogscotland and have got big plans to increase that still further.

With another baby on the way in July and Rachel now nearly 6 and a half, life couldn’t be better. Having a balanced and fulfilling home and work life I think is so important for everyone and I am really fortunate to be able to say I have both. Running in the Virgin London Marathon this year and raising funds for Fertility Scotland is a big challenge and I am working hard on the running side of it, if you are reading this and can help me in any small way with the fundraising side of things it would be much appreciated. Many couples who really want to have children are not as fortunate as I have been. The research work that Fertility Scotland undertakes is already helping and can help many more couples to become parents and to enjoy the unique wonder and fulfilment that comes with bringing a new life into the world. To sponsor me go to my page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/jogster

Thanks in advance, the jogster

The last post ...

2009-12-31T19:26:00.000Z

Well this is it ... the last post of the blog that was 2009 miles. It’s New Year’s eve and we will soon be entering the 2^nd decade of the 21^st Century. 2009 miles started out as a challenge to run 2009 miles during 2009, it was always going to be a tall order and it became apparent to me as early as March that I was probably going to fall short of the distance. In the end I stopped counting by about June as by then I had taken several months out of activity through various injury niggles. Finally by about August I got proper treatment for my nagging old Achilles tendon and by October I was probably recuperated enough to start running properly again, the only thing was that by then I had seriously got out of the habit of regular running so have only run sporadically since then.

However I do view 2009 as a good year and it has given me renewed enthusiasm to head into 2010 with optimism and belief that it will be a great year ahead.

Highlights of 2009 are many and varied, ranging from doing my first ever hill race at the Berwick Law event to running a mile on the track for the first time since 1992 but the undoubted highlight of the year was running the Bupa Great North Run with my mum and my brother, it was the first time since I took up running in 1974 that all three of us have run even a step together and this time we ran around 15,000 during the 13.1 miles pilgrimage to the coast at South Shields from Newcastle.

So what lies ahead in 2010? Well, first up is the Bupa Great Winter Run 5k on Saturday 9^th January, I will be tackling that off little or no training and carrying the extra half stone or so that I have put on over the festive season, so it will be challenge but also a benchmark for improvement. After that I am not sure but I am keen to go back to the Deerstalker event in the Borders in March, the madcap event that takes you through rivers and bogs, over hay bales, up some serious hills and all done in the name of fun and adventure! I have also signed up to do the new Scottish half marathon, which takes place a couple of hours ahead of the Edinburgh Marathon on Sunday May 23^rd and finishes in the same place down at Musselburgh Racecourse. I also want to do a hill race or two and possibly some track running – variety is what I am after – every event needs to be different and offer its own unique challenge and experience.

So that’s it for 2009 Miles, I hope those that have followed the journey are not too disappointed that I fell short of the original aim because I am not, I had a great time and experienced new things and places along the way. I will be back with a new blog sometime in the New Year, which will be linked or forwarded from here so all that is left for me to say is thanks for reading and have a happy and prosperous 2010!

Cheers

The jogster

2012 blog

2009-12-14T16:05:00.002Z

Photos by Steve Lindridge, Ideal Images www.idealimages.co.uk

I wrote this blog for the 2012 website but here it is on 2009miles in case you haven’t seen it on there! To see it on the 2012 site click here.

968 are significant numbers, they are the 3 numbers that represent Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt’s 100m time at the Olympics in Beijing, officially it was 9.683 seconds and then rounded up to 9.69 but I am sticking with 968 for a reason, as that is the number of days to go before the flame lights up over London’s new Olympic Stadium. So it was today (December 2nd), with 968 days to go, that I got to meet Paul Deighton, the LOCOG CEO in the Renfrewshire town of Paisley.

We had been asked as part of Paul’s visit up to Scotland to bring together one of our jogscotland groups to meet him and share a little bit of the story behind the jogscotland initiative.

What better place then for us to go than to our award winning Group of the Year for 2009, the force that is the Renfrewshire Jogging Buddies?

I’m not sure what he was expecting but when he was asked to do some running on the spot with the, mostly, female group for the assembled press pack the laughs and whoops of encouragement seemed to spur him on to even greater heights. One of the ladies reckoned that he was practising his ‘Highland Fling’! He was made an honorary ‘Buddy’ (the name given to the people of Paisley) for the day for being such a good sport!

The jogscotland vision of changing behaviour and mobilising the population through physical activity is shared by the team at London 2012 and also at Government level in both Westminster and Holyrood. We relished the opportunity to be involved, in some small way, in the great opportunity that London 2012 has given for everyone in the UK.

To have the greatest sporting spectacle in the world on our shores is amazing and for me will almost certainly be a once-in-my-working-lifetime chance to be connected to a home Olympics.

Munich 1972 was my earliest memory of the games and I recall watching on TV the great Soviet sprinter Valeri Borzov, 100m and 200m winner, who I found out years later was reputed to have had a shot of vodka as part of his preparation before each of his Olympic triumphs.

Ever since then the Olympics have held a special magic about them for me. I never made it as a competitor, (the closest I got was competing at the GB trials in ‘84 and ‘88, when Britain ruled the world in my chosen middle distance events and to make the GB team entailed being in the top 3 or 4 in the world!) but I really hope to make it to London 2012 as a spectator.

Launched in 2002, jogscotland has seen over 20,000 people benefit from the accessible and beginner-friendly programmes that we operate in around 350 groups in local communities all over the 32 local authority areas in Scotland.
As we say, ‘If you can walk you can jog and if you can jog you can run’. By taking things gradually and progressively we have encouraged and supported literally thousands of people into adopting a healthier lifestyle.

And it is not just about the physical benefits of being active it is also the mental and emotional wellbeing that comes from being part of a group supported by our trained Jog Leaders.

As well as our community programme, we also have junior jogscotland groups in around 1,200 primary schools and 5k events around Scotland that cater for all ages and backgrounds. We know that as 2012 approaches more and more people will see being active as an important part of their everyday life.

On a personal note I am looking forward immensely to visiting the emerging Olympic Park as it is near my old running territory in East London, where I lived for 5 years. I spent many an hour running along the banks of the River Lea where the Olympic Park is coming to life and past the old disused Hackney Dog Track, close to where the stadium is now rising up in all its glory.

Walking the walk, or in our case ‘jogging the jog’, is something that is really important to the success of our work. With that in mind I was delighted that the London 2012 visit to Scotland also gave me the opportunity to catch up for a run and chat with Chris Daniels, the Head of London 2012 Activation for Lloyds Banking Group, who was up for the business conference that also formed part of Paul’s itinerary for the day.

I was also pleased to hear that Paul incorporates running into his keep-fit regime, some of the Jogging Buddies were keen to take him on over 10k - let’s see if he takes them up on the challenge!

Brownlee snubbed as Giggs triumphs

2009-12-14T11:35:00.001Z

At 21 Alistair Brownlee might have won the World title and dominated many of the major triathlon events throughout 2009 but it wasn’t enough to even get him shortlisted for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. I have nothing against Ryan Giggs, he is a superb player and deserves recognition after such a long and illustrious career with one of the most successful teams in the world, but to even make the top 10 as an individual was surely the most that a team sport player could (or should) achieve. But then that does not take into account the incredible bias in the media towards all things football related and in particular the English Premiership. Little wonder then that a World Champion from a sport the BBC only covers during the Olympics would not get a look in.

The influential sports website www.insidethegames.biz ran a poll to see who should win, Giggs scored just 3.3% of the votes compared to 66% for Brownlee. I guess the real sports enthusiasts know the magnitude of his performance, perhaps by 2012 the public will know him too …

With former Olympic champion, Gabi Szabo at the mass participation conference in Frankfurt

2009-12-08T13:24:00.000Z

London 2012 makes buddies with jogscotland

2009-12-04T14:00:00.001Z

This is was me (in the shirt and tie) running for the cameras in Paisley with our local jogscotland group, Jogging Buddies and Paul Deighton (next to me in the blue shirt), CEO of the London 2012 organising team.

The McQueens at the NYC Marathon 2009

2009-11-06T12:57:00.000Z

Paula Radcliffe might have struggled through adversity to complete the New York City Marathon on Sunday but her suffering is nothing compared to that of the participants that my aunt and uncle, Anne and Davie McQueen, assisted around the 26.2 mile, 5 borough race. Each year Anne and Davie run with the Achilles Track Club team who have linked up with Odyssey House, a treatment centre for people struggling with substance abuse problems. They work with adolescents to senior citizens, parents and mentally ill chemically abusing individuals, they take care to see that all these individuals get the best treatment available to overcome their drug problems.

Anne and Davie both took part to assist people who have come through Odyssey House treatment programmes in their goal of taking part and completing the marathon. Considering the struggle that they have come through to conquer drug and alcohol problems, doing the marathon is an amazing achievement and without the support of experienced guides they would probably not make it to the finish line. You can read more about their team here.

Davie ran with a guy called Frankie Rivera, who is pictured above with Davie (no 55985) and they completed the marathon in a respectable 5 hours and 29 minutes. Anne helped three people round who, in the words of Davie “would never have made it without her, they were all very grateful to Anne when they received their medals” and although it took them over 8 hours it was a truly remarkable performance.

So the real stars of the show, in my belief, are not necessarily the Tulu’s and the Radcliffe’s at the front but the unsung heroes like the Odyssey House team and people like Anne and Davie that make the dream come true for them. Well done guys, you should be really proud of yourselves!

Seb and Wilson

2009-11-05T14:25:00.001Z

_BAA3622ABAL
Originally uploaded by Scottish Athletics

I wonder what Seb was saying? ... "Well he beat my record but I am better at Judo than he is."

Run in England launch

2009-11-05T09:34:00.001Z

This is the programme that has launched in England following discussions we (jogscotland) had with them back in 2007/08. Using the word 'run' instead of 'jog' I think is a mistake but I hope it works for them. Jog makes it much less intimidating and more accessible for complete beginners, those who are doing no physical activity at all as opposed to those who may already be a little bit active. It is the completely inactive that we as a nation need to get moving, as that is where the main health and obesity issues are.

Guess who's the world record holder? ... Here's a clue, it's not me!

2009-11-01T01:10:00.000Z

Group of the year, Jogging Buddies

2009-10-31T22:22:00.000Z

Achiever of the year

2009-10-31T22:19:00.000Z

More of Seb

2009-10-31T22:11:00.000Z

Seb Coe at the Scottish Athletics/jogscotland awards dinner

2009-10-31T22:10:00.001Z

Harvard Step Test

2009-10-25T19:41:00.001Z

If you don't mind the cheesy 80's music this is quite a useful tool to measure your fitness - if you have a 20" step at home!

Stride magazine from jogscotland - Autumn 2009 issue now online

2009-10-24T15:58:00.002+01:00

Stride is the official magazine of jogscotland, the recreational running programme that I manage. Here's the latest digital edition of our award winning magazine.

Click to launch the full edition in a new window.

Friends - Phoebe Runs

2009-10-22T14:41:00.001+01:00

How not to run in the park! Always find this clip hilarious - hope you do too!

The Day After ... guest blog from Ross (AKA Mountain Goat!)

2009-10-19T11:56:00.000+01:00

Here are a few words from Ross Cunningham, Events Manager at scottishathletics, but now known as ‘Mountain Goat’ after his hill climbing prowess yesterday:

“Well we did it! After agreeing to take part in the Men's Health Survival of the Fittest Challenge a few months back and having major concerns about some of the obstacles, we completed it! When I say 'we', I mean Alistair Currie (jogscotland Manager) and myself. Navigating through inflatable assault courses and over obstacles I actually felt like I was reliving my youth and at one point felt I was back in my street doing what we used to call 'Grand National’ ... I knew jumping over the neighbours fences would come in useful someday!!

I have competed in a few mass participation events over the years however this was the first with other challenges on route. My main concern pre race were the stairs at the building site and as predicted this challenge was probably the toughest, at this point we had covered 7k but after taking on the steps we were greeted by disco/aerobics which was fun. The overall set-up of the event was excellent and I enjoyed every minute of it.

We were followed on route by jogscotland's roving reporter Megan Hubbard who I have since recruited as our third jogscotland member for next year, so the challenge is on for 2010!

A big thank you must go to the event organisers and obviously to by jogging buddy for the day, Al 'The jogster' Currie who did extremely well after getting stuck in the bouncy castle! Sorry Al, it had to be mentioned!

Bring on 2010!”

Tired but elated!

2009-10-19T11:27:00.001+01:00

With Ross about to take on the wall ...

2009-10-19T11:24:00.001+01:00

This was the last obstacle and probably the toughest, when I got to the wall I didn't realise that Ross wasn't over so when I crossed the line I thought I was behind him and then turned round to see him finishing - he was very gallant in helping another competitor up the wall. We had run together the whole way round and I felt bad at not finishing together, sorry Ross, I really didn't mean it! What a challenge and well done to everyone who took it on and survived!