£1 per day challenge - Days 1 & 2

According to Unicef 1.2 billion people live below the line every day and over a period of 5 days an average of 40,000 children will die from malnutrition.

The idea of the challenge is to live below the line for 5 days; so that's a food and drink budget of £5 for 5 days. I've chosen to start the challenge on Monday 18th August. Initially, I had wanted to push the challenge further and try 10 days on £10 but, due to training for Kilimanjaro, I can't really afford for my diet (in terms of nutrition rather than weight loss) to slip too much.

On my way to work on Monday morning I went to Tesco to "stock up" for the week. I started off at the reduced shelf where items due to go out of date or damaged items are sold at a fraction of their original price. I was able to find some cup-a-soups reduced to 50p as the box was damaged - that was all 5 lunches for the week sorted straight away! I also got a bag of porridge oats for 75p, two tins of spaghetti in tomato sauce for 20p each and a pack of 5 cereal bars for £1.

On Monday I had a cereal bar for breakfast and a cup-a-soup for lunch. By mid-afternoon I was quite hungry but after a dinner of 2 slices of toast (loaf of bread purchased on the way home from work for 75p) and half a tin of spaghetti, I had enough energy to go to the gym for an hour. Not being able to eat following a workout was very difficult and as I went to bed on Monday night I felt very hungry and a little light headed. I was however, proud that I made it through day one quite effortlessly.

Today (Tuesday) has been much more difficult. After a tough day at work all I've wanted to do is eat and go for a run/work out at the gym. The reality of the situation is that I've eat 2 slices of plain toast for my dinner and barely have the energy to type let alone go to the gym (ok, so that is a slight exaggeration but after having had a cereal bar for breakfast and cup-a-soup for lunch I am pretty tired right now).

Today I've really thought a lot about the meaning of this challenge and about the wonderful children in Ghana. I've thought about how little they have to eat and drink yet how energetic they are all the time whether it be at school, playing outdoors or working on the farm/helping out with their families and friends. I'm really not looking forward to the rest of the week, especially as Sean is eating all he wants, but knowing that any sponsorship money raised will be going towards the Child Care Centre and ensuring that they don't have to live below the line is making it worthwhile.

I would be really grateful if you could sponsor me just £1 per day that I complete this challenge to help me reach the 16 Month Challenge target of £3,000:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=danielleandsean&isTeam=true

An apology, an excuse and a Marathon

I'd like to start off by saying a huge sorry to all of our hundreds (maybe even thousands) of fans for being so completely and utterly rubbish on the Blogging front!

My excuse? I asked Sean to write the Blogs for the Marathon and Rat Race Dirty Weekend but, as you can tell, these never appeared!

So, sat in bed on a Saturday morning nursing a slight hangover, I've decided to take matters into my own hands and update you all on our recent adventures.

Training had been going well with both Sean and myself putting in the miles almost every evening in the lead up to our trip to Paris. We both invested in some new running shoes with plenty of time to wear them in (although mine were incredibly comfy from the first time I wore them) and I purchased new running clothes in the hope that, if all else failed, I'd still look ok whilst running! 

We flew out to Paris a couple of days before the Marathon, although we arrived quite late at night so the first day didn't really count. After a restless first night we decided that we are now both too old to be staying in Hostels (Sean is nearly 30 so it's hardly surprising!). We had signed up for the Paris Marathon Breakfast run which was a 5km run the morning before Marathon day. 

The weather was brilliant for the Breakfast Run and the atmosphere was great too. There were people from all over the world signed up for the warm up run and some people who were signed up to the Marathon were running the Breakfast Run with family members who had come along to support the main event. There was a couple there from South Africa, both of whom were in their 70s and ran a Marathon together every year - at that point, I thought that would be us when we were older but I quickly changed my mind the next day at about 10km in!!! 

The Breakfast Run took in some of the main sights in Paris ending just next to the Eiffel Tower where we got breakfast of croissants, fruit and tea in the sunshine. As the run ended at around 9.30am we had the rest of the day to head down to the Expo, register and take in the full Marathon experience. 

The Expo was brilliant and definitely formed a big part of the Marathon experience as a whole. We both spent a lot of money on overpriced running clothes because they had "Paris Marathon 2014" printed on them and we convinced each other that we HAD to buy some sort of memorabilia - so why not buy it all? We collected our running packs from the Expo which had our running numbers and important information in. This turned out to be more educational than I initially anticipated. Previously I had no idea that I needed to bring bandages for this reason:

We spent the afternoon of the first day wandering around close to our Hostel. We visited La Sacre Coeur and explored some of the smaller side streets but were conscious of not doing anything too strenuous the day before the big run. 

We got up early on the morning of the Marathon and got the metro over to the start area. We were in an early wave but the streets were packed. It was a lovely sunny day and the atmosphere was amazing. I must admit that, standing in the crowds at the start line, I was actually excited. The start line was well managed and once our wave moved forwards, the approach to the start line wasn't too crowded and it didn't take long at all for us to cross over the line once our wave started. 

Rather surprisingly there's not too much to say about the running part of the Marathon. We ran. And ran. And then we ran some more. After that, we ran a bit more and then we were roughly halfway so we kept running. We ran for around 5 and a half hours and it was really difficult! 

We had both agreed beforehand that we were just going to run at a slow pace and try and run for as long as we could before we walked or took a break. This tactic seemed to work well and we only paused to pick up water and orange slices at the designated refreshment points for a while. The atmosphere and support was brilliant throughout the route with various live bands and a constant crowd of people lining the streets. 

I really started to struggle at around 25-30km and from that point I had to walk quite a bit. My feet and ankles hurt a lot and every single step was painful. Over the last 10km or so a lot of people were dropping out and sat at the side of the road but we kept going and crossed the line in just over 5 hours 30 minutes to be greeted by a guy throwing up right next to my feet!

The first thing I did, pretty much immediately after we crossed the line was call my mum. I was so tired and proud of myself for actually finishing that I cried, mumbled something about finishing the Marathon and then hung up.

The walk back to the Metro station was extremely painful and took a hundred times longer than it should have done but it wasn't as painful as climbing the Eiffel Tower stairs the day after (clearly, we are always full of good ideas!)

Between us we raised a lot of money from you guys sponsoring us for this event so a huge thank you. 

I have put together a video from the Marathon but don't worry it's not 5 and a half hours of us just running.

Iron Run - The Marathon warm up

Deciding to do a mud run/obstacle course the weekend before our first ever Marathon probably wasn't the best idea we've ever had but I have to admit, this challenge was a fun one!

This was Sean's first ever obstacle course and (obviously) the first time I'd done an obstacle course with someone by my side.

We travelled down to my Aunty and Uncle's house on Friday night after work which turned out to be a mini adventure in itself. At some point in the last few weeks the words "take the exit" have somehow changed their meaning to "please keep driving straight ahead and whatever you do, DO NOT TAKE THIS EXIT!" After several U-turns and goodness knows how many missed exits we eventually arrived to a beautiful meal cooked by Uncle David (Thanks again!). We ended up going to bed much later than planned but were comforted by the fact that the event was less than 30 minutes drive away in the morning so there was no need for an early wake up call.

In contrast to Chase the Yeti back at the start of February the weather was glorious and we woke up to glorious sunshine pouring in through the window. After some confusion over petrol, lawnmowers and the art of grass cutting we had some breakfast and set off in the sun to our destination.

The event site itself was stunning and we got a chance to look around Cranford Hall, Kettering, before we started.

The event itself was brilliant and very well run (I would definitely recommend Iron Run to anyone looking for a medium difficultly obstacle run). The marshals were fantastic too.

The run started off as....well.... a run basically! After the initial two obstacles we then ran for quite a while through some pretty muddy, uneven fields. After that the obstacles were pretty evenly spaced out - some were fairly easy, others, such as the steep hills, were much more of a challenge.

The week of the Iron Run we had purchased a GoPro Cam for the marathon and used this event to test it. We got some great footage but unfortunately, we got the setting wrong which meant that we only managed to film nine-tenths of the run (sorry guys, no footage of us crossing the finish line but I promise you we did!).

Please have a look at some of the exciting obstacles and challenges we were faced with en-route accompanied by some epic Ghanaian music to remind you what this is all for!

Chasing the Yeti - The toughest challenge yet(i)

When we arrived at our destination on Saturday morning it was extremely cold and very, very windy. Just to make the event even more fun, as I stepped out of the car it started to hail. I knew it wasn't going to be a great day at that moment but my heart sank when we reached the registration desk - it had been moved from it's usual place due to flooding in the nearby fields!

I had been told that registration opened at 9 am and that we needed to be there as close to 9 am as possible. Needless to say, after registering at 9.30, we then had to stand around in gale force winds and hail for almost two hours. I wasn't impressed at all and with every minute that passed, I dreaded the start of the run even more. What didn't help was that everyone else there seemed to be thinking exactly the same as me!

Waiting for the race to begin - start line behind me!!

As we all walked miserably to the start line, we saw the Yeti skip across the field and then quickly run back to his van to hide from the elements.....it's alright for some people!!! 

The run itself was the muddiest 10k that I have ever experienced. The mud was, at it's lowest points, ankle-deep. The start of the run consisted of running through "The Quarry" which was very hilly and extremely muddy. Shortly after that was the first main water obstacle which was knee deep and absolutely freezing. So, from about 1.5-2km in everybody was soaking wet and freezing. 

There were then a few obstacles including a few climbing fences, at which point, there was a bit of queue of people and apparently I thought it was a good time to do a thumbs up lunge pose for Sean

For anyone who has ever run in an organised obstacle course/mud run, you will know that one of the best things about these events is the team spirit. I've always been very aware of and involved in this team spirit however, I certainly could not have completed this race without the support of the strangers I met on Saturday, in particular, a couple I met on the cargo nets. 

Those of you who know me will know that I'm not great with heights. This hasn't been a problem on any of my events to date however, on this occasion I managed to get myself to the top of the cargo net at which point I froze with fear. I literally could not move and was physically shaking with one leg on each side of the wooden beam at the top with my arms wrapped around the tree that the net was suspended from. Luckily for me there was couple who were running just behind me who literally saved my life (ok, well I probably wasn't going to die up there but I certainly felt like it)

To those who then ran past us, the following scene must have looked strange but what happened did result in me being able to complete the run and for that I am grateful. The lady (and I apologise for being so vague but we didn't exchange names) climbed up one side and the man climbed up the side that I was trying to get down. Between them they managed to get me over the beam and down the net, still a quivering wreck. 

A few deep breaths and a good old laugh at how stupid I was fixed the problem and I was able to continue running......for about 500m when I came across another cargo net obstacle. Luckily for me, the couple were still right next to me and between the three of us (yes I am going to take some credit for the second net) we managed to overcome the obstacle. 

Following those few obstacles there was then a long run across a number of fields, up and down some hills and through a forest, through a few rivers, lots of deep puddles and plenty of mud. 

It became very difficult at around 7km when, after carrying a tyre up and down a long hill, came the lake wade which is exactly what it sounds like. I've done this a few times on other runs that I have been on but nothing compares to how icy cold this water was - it was actually painful, it was that cold. The last few kilometres were then hell as, no matter what I did, I could not warm up at all. 

The final few obstacles consisted of crawling under a cargo net under water and crawling through a very small, muddy tunnel. Luckily for me Sean was there to capture the magic and take some very flattering pictures of me.

The end of the run consisted of running through the quarry again, climbing over some hay bales and being covered in more icy cold water by some bloke in a high-vis jacket with a hose pipe. Shortly after the finish line we were ushered into a tent where we received our goody bag - the best goody bag I've received from any of these events - which consisted of a t-shirt, a bottle of water, a sports bottle and 5 sports drink mixes, as many cereal bars and bananas as you wanted and a beer. 

The run had been a huge challenge but the drama didn't end there with possibly the biggest challenge of the day still ahead of me........

As we slowly made our way back to the car which was parked in a field about a mile away, my fingers began to swell up and became increasingly painful. My body temperature fell very quickly as well. By the time we got back to the car, I couldn't feel any part of my body except for my fingers which were absolute agony. Sean then had the role of carer and had to take off my soaking wet, muddy running gear whilst I stood in the middle of a muddy field full of people in my underwear crying in pain - on the scale of embarrassing moments this came in just above being stuck on the top of a cargo net! But I was too cold to care.

I've now got over being cold (although I think I actually had hypothermia and it did take me several hours to even start warming up) and I'm fully recovered, apart from some very bruised knees. Whilst yesterday was absolute hell, I feel very proud of myself for not just getting back in the car and driving away the moment we arrived at the event. Chasing the Yeti (or not, as he buggered off back into his van at the very start of the event!) has definitely stepped up my motivation for marathon training and also showed me that my determination can overcome physical pain. 

A New Year with less alcohol, less caffeine and less toenails

With January being a month where no-one has any money, Sean and I decided that rather than doing a physical challenge, we would both give up alcohol and caffeine.

It's been a long, long month but with only 5 hours left of January it looks like we're going to complete the challenge! It really hasn't been easy. Work has been extra busy, we've both stepped up the training in preparation for the marathon and caffeine has been greatly missed.

Before Christmas I'd definitely become quite dependant on coffee. With dark mornings, early starts and dark evenings finding the motivation to work out, do a long day in the office and then work out again was difficult and only possible with lots of coffee. I had been drinking about 5-6 cups of coffee each day. The first few days were difficult and i had a constant headache but after that, things became much easier and I feel much better now. I'm sleeping much better which actually means I'm more awake than when I was drinking coffee.

A month without alcohol hasn't been as bad as I had initially anticipated as we haven't been out other than for a dinner a couple of times and when neither of you orders wine with dinner, it doesn't seem as difficult. Having said this, I'm currently sat looking longingly at my sister's glass of wine!

January has been a good month for training and we've both signed up to a new gym. We're both trying to put in as many miles as we can every week but the weeks seem to be flying by and the marathon is getting ever closer.

Our next event is only 2 weeks away so for now it's back to training and we'll update you all again once we've completed the Avalanche Run in February.

Oh and in case you were wondering about the name of the blog, I lost a toenail after doing the Brutal 10 in December.

HellRunner and Brutal 10

Since I wrote my last blog entry the above challenges have been completed. So far, so good.

Tackling HellRunner first, it was just as bad as it sounded. The terrain was tough, the water deep and the mud like quicksand, however, it was my worst fear, the bottlenecking of people, that caused the most problems. Unfortunately, as I've seen with events like this before, there are certain segments of the course that necessitate a single file policy and there's nothing you can do but (at least appear to be) patient and wait for your turn to enter whatever it is that's awaiting, usually a muddy pool. The major downside with this, other than the negative impact it has on your time, is that all this waiting around in cold and wet clothes doesn't really help you to get and/or keep warm. In serious cases, experienced by one of our crew, is that this can lead to mild hypothermia setting in. I don't think this was helped by this particular runner's choice of attire...not mentioning any names.

              You wouldn't have been able to tell who's trainer was who's after the race!

It didn't help that we didn't know the actual distance of the race (the official line was that the course would be 10-12 miles but no actual distance could be confirmed. Lucky us, it turned out to be closer to 12 miles). Importantly, all 4 of us that took this one on completed it and money was brought into the coffers for RHF. Job done.

Training for HellRunner had gone pretty well, even if it was only started a couple of weeks before the event. Sadly, the same can't be said for Brutal10. Although i did get an initial urge after HellRunner to really take my training seriously, this lasted all of one week before I reverted to type, type being not a lot. The timing of Brutal10 didn't help either, with this event taking place a mere 3 days after Christmas. With all the traditional food and drink flying around, I was never going to be in tip top shape no matter how well I trained (or so I kept telling myself) and therefore the lazy side of my brain got the better of me. I can safely say Danni was much the same.

Nevertheless, Danni and myself rocked up to Brutal10 armed with not a lot of fitness but a lot of determination. While we all ran separately for HellRunner to allow each of us to get the best time possible for the individual, with only 2 of us running this one we agreed to run the course together to keep each other company and motivation high, much needed it turned out.

While the Brutal10 course itself was not as difficult or as long as HellRunner, the lack of training made it feel not far off it. Still, we made it as fun as we could and both crossed the line together at around 2 hours 15 minutes, despite Danni trying to cheekily outsprint me (evidenced below) at the end for personal glory. I wasn't having any of that!

So all in all, the events I've done so far have been challenging like I wanted but achievable. There is bigger and tougher stuff ahead but that's 2 down for me now and God knows how many for Danni (I think 6. Actually I know 6, she's just confirmed). 

Next up is Chase the Yeti (how fun does that sound?!) followed by a night race. The Paris Marathon and a 20 mile assault course will follow hard on the heels of these so training really will need to be stepped up in the near future.

We are both extremely grateful for the generous support shown so far and extend our thanks to those of you who have sponsored all of us, some multiple times, who have contributed to the cause. I know Christmas has gone but keep the generosity up!

Sean

A long overdue update (and an apology to Ash!)

Firstly, we need to say a huge "sorry" to our friend Ash who has recently pointed out that we haven't blogged for a long, long time!! Sorry Ash, we will try much, much harder to keep these posts up to date from now on!

Since the last time we blogged, I have completed a half marathon in Birmingham and we have both completed HellRunner: Hell up North and Brutal 10 at Longmoor.

I think the last time I blogged, I was training for the half marathon and moaning about the epic cold I had. Needless to say the half marathon was a massive challenge. In the week leading up to the run my cold moved onto my chest and by race day I sounded like a 70 year old smoker. 13.1 miles is the furthest I had run and running it alone was not easy but the atmosphere was brilliant. I had tactfully worn my Raising Hope Foundation T-Shirt which has my name on the back so I got lots of people shouting encouragement to me personally which was much needed at certain points.

At around 4 miles, the course sort of looped round so as I was running between miles 4 and 5 I could see people on the other side of the road heading in the opposite direction running between miles 8 and 9. I'm not going to lie, this was very demoralising however, I felt hugely proud of myself when I was eventually running back down the other side of the road heading for mile marker 9 (at which point I was running along side a man in just a pair of shorts - no T-Shirt, no shoes and no socks!!!!)

With the chest infection and cough, I did have to walk at a few points throughout the course but I was determined not to stop completely at any point. Despite this, I managed to find some energy to "sprint" over the finish line and completed the run in 2 hours 29 minutes. The feeling of crossing the line was amazing but the next few days were quite painful.

(Unfortunately, my usual photographer was on strike on the day of the race so the only photo I have is from the official website and very unflattering even for an action shot!)