Day 18-The snow was the uninvited visitor today!!!

Day 18 started with disappointment. When I woke up to a blanket of snow and skidded all the way to the hairdressers in my car at 8am, I knew Jill and Leanne would not be able to come over from Bradford to join me on day 18. We have been looking forward to it all week, Jill and Leanne had the deely boppers and two pair of fresh legs ready!! And I had the Christmas tunes and some relatively flat routes planned but the snow, spoiled the fun!! I know they both feel bad but unfortunately, we can't control the weather  and I had them on my shoulder the whole way round helping me along. Thank you for saying you would come and support me, it did mean a lot to me!!

Chris therefore stepped into help. After standing in the freezing cold for over an hour putting xmas lights on the house, I talked myself out of going running until I could feel my fingers again!! Even though I could tell Chris didn't really want to fight the freeze, he said he would come and join me to help me along. And oh it was cold but you can see that he is smiling in the pic,  I think as soon as he made that smile, he was stuck with it for the whole run because his face had frozen in that position!!

As you can see, as hard and cold as the run was, the scenery was actually quite pretty, that's the snowy hills not the tango girl!

I once again felt really good and pleased with myself that I had completed another run. It was so difficult to get out of the house but then when we got out (Chris might say different!!) we both enjoyed it!! Tomorrow, I need to tell myself not to have the same argument and just get myself out there and do it!!!

Here is confirmation that we did complete the run in the very cold and tough conditions and that I have now clocked up 180km , only 6 more to , that's less than a week, yipeeeee!!!!

Check the pic below, I think I need to go buy some Daz , my trainers are looking a bit poorly next to the nice clean snow, they were white once!!! They have certainly taken a battering with the distance the weather conditions!!

Due to the weather conditions, we also missed out on sampling a few mulled wines and roast pork and apple sandwich at the manchester xmas market with some good friends :( !!! This also means my running partner for tomorrow has been cancelled. Maggiee (blog- magathon) who lives in Manchester has still suggested we run together across the pennines and take pictures for each others blog, so watch out for the story tomorrow!!

Day 17- Only a week to go!!!

Today was a great run because I ran with my brother in law Rob. It was a very cold run and slippery in places but it felt much easier for me and was much more enjoyable when you have someone to run with. Rob hasn't run for a while and considering he got a stitch half way through, he did great!! Thank you Rob. Here is a pic of us at the highest point of our run, it was definitely the toughest hill we climbed(well 2nd one!!). I am not sure he believed me when I kept saying these are the last steps we will climb!

17 runs now complete and it feels really good to know I have only 7 more to go & it's only 7 days to Xmas too, what can be more exciting than that!!! I am really looking forward to running along side Leanne & Jill in their deely boppers on the bikes tomorrow, I must try and avoid the hills we climbed today, otherwise they may not stay friends with me!! I've got all the top xmas tunes ready to help us through!! Please snow stay away so they can make it over!!!  Off now on my second xmas party looking forward to a few fizzy pops and nice food with good company!!

Current running total £1709.00 for Martin House, many thanks everyone for keeping me going!!x

Day 16- Uninvited running visitors & a whole lot more!!

Day 16 was met by some unwanted visitors, wind, rain, tired old legs and a duff iphone!! I did my local route this morning and as I passed what should have been 2km, I looked at my phone and it said I had only completed 0.87km but it took me 13 mins, I knew my legs were tiring but surely I wasn't that slow, I battled on and finished my run on the hour which at first I was a little disheartened but when I reviewed the map later, I knew I had at run at least another 3/4 km. Not what I needed on day 16, when the legs are getting heavy!!Damn technology!!

Even though it let me down with the tracking, I do love it when I am sent cheers messages from friends who have put encouraging notes or xmas tunes on facebook.  A friend also saw me whilst driving to work this morning and gave me a number of toots on his horn, it is amazing feeling when someone is showing appreciation and "egging you on"". Thank you to everyone who has added a message or tooted, you don't know how great it feels to know someone is there supporting you!!

I have also received fantastic support with my sponsors, my current total is £1703 which is an unbelievable amount. It has been topped up by the generous people at Aviva. One of my close friends John, suggested creating a xmas display highlighting Xmas messages from the teams within Aviva and then donating the money normally spent on Xmas cards to my "claus"!  This has generated another £102!!  Here is John together with Kate and Suzanne who created a beautiful Xmas display!! Thank you guys,xx

If you look carefully on the pic, you can see my first photograph in the Batley news, well I am in the paper again today and have taken a photograph below!! I am just grateful the photographer used this picture and not the one where he had me laid in a lump of snow that was two weeks old and full of dirt!!

 I also want to say a massive thanks to my friends and family who have volunteered(can I call it volunteer when they were drunk when they agreed to do it???) to come and run/cycle with me.   I am so looking forward to running with the bro in law tomorrow and  (if the snow stays away!!)Jill, Leanne on Saturday and Maggie on Sunday. I have the festive tunes ready and I am sure I will forget about my tired legs with their support!!!

Finally, my mum is always telling me how proud she is off me(and I know Dad is too) but she is forever telling me to take it easy and get my feet up and rest, well mum, today I did, at 5.30pm, I decided to have a cheeky nap and slept for 1.5hours to recharge my batteries!! Bring on day 17!! xx

Day 15-Single numbers all the way to Xmas, ho ho ho!

Not much to report from my run today, the highlight was completing a fantastic 150km in 15 days and knowing I only have 9 more until I have completed my challenge. I can then tuck into my Christmas dinner knowing my friends and family have raised a fantastic amount of money for Martin House.   My total amount of sponsors is still increasing which is fantastic and this is helping me get out and run the 10k each day.

One great thing about running is the more you run the more you can eat!! It's great, if you love your food(particularly naughty treats like me) then I recommend running. Everyone keeps asking if I am loosing weight, which I am not but I am not gaining any weight either on the run up to Xmas and I am letting myself eat lots of treats knowing that I will burn the calories the following day!!  For those of you who like facts, I have burnt 9717 calories in 15 days just by running!!! How many pieces of cheesecake is that???

Also, for anyone who entered the competition to guess my overall finishing time, to give you an idea of my progress, my current recording is 13hours and 46 mins in 15 days. Sorry Maggie, Lisa and Linda who had very high expectations of me, I don't think you will be winning any prizes!!   I will post my overall time in the last few days so that you can keep a check to find out if you are going to be a winner!!

Day 13 & Day 14- Two completely different runs!

If you are following my blog closely, you will have noticed I didn't complete my blog for day 13. Do not worry, I did complete day 13 run but it was definitely an unlucky day for me. I ran to work early and felt reasonably well considering my legs had already carried me 120km so far and I actually enjoyed running on the paths to work. This was the first run to work where the paths had been free of ice or snow, it was actually a bit weird!! Anyway, I got to work and it started to go down hill, I had a shower and the water was cold and I just couldn't warm up no matter how many tea's I had with friendly colleagues! I started to get really tired as the day went on. I tried everything to try and boost my energy, eating nuts, chocolate, crisps, biscuits you name it, I had it, I even bought a can of coke and I rarely drink pop!! Nothing really made a difference until my bed at 9pm!!

Today, day 14,  I woke up before my alarm and was having a little argument with myself about getting out of bed. I read my friends blog (The magathon) and I was inspired by her and her friends efforts and knew I had to get out there and get running and I would feel better. As I was getting ready, I decided to get over my "off" day yesterday, I needed to set myself a challenge. So I set my GPS to challenge me to beat my fastest 10k festive challenge and oh did it work!! I was too busy trying to keep my pace at each kilometre to even think about completing 10!! When I arrived at 10k and Lance Armstrong spoke to me(through my nikeplus app, unfortunately not in person) and told me I had beaten my pb for 10k and I had been sent a gold medal on my iphone, it was the best feeling in the world and I wanted to turn round and do it again!!

So if you ever need a little motivation on a difficult day, challenge yourself to a realistic target and I guarantee it will push you and make you feel on top of the world!! Sorry I couldn't find any pictures of Lance with clothes on!x

I am so looking forward to the weekend, I only have a couple more days to get through on my own then  I have some friends joining me to help support me on the way, watch out for the pics! They are worried how tough it is going to be for them but they will be fine and they don't realise how much they are going to lift me, thank you girls :)

Day 12-Half way home!

There were two reasons today why I really enjoyed my run, one because I had a running partner( my husband Chris) by my side and the other because I have hit the half way point for my challenge.

 It was a tough run for both of us, as you can see from Chris's finishing pic, he he!!Not sure it helped his dodgy back but he definitely helped me along, x

The pic below was an hour after he had recovered!!!

 It was a tough run for us both because we had a difficult time last night with our son, Noah. He had a disturbing night due to a very high temperature so we were both a little tired this morning!!  In part of the night, we were both seriously worried about Noah but thankfully, when he woke this morning he was 100% better. It did however, make me think about all the children and their families in Martin House that probably have the same kind of night every night. It made me realise how lucky we are to have a healthy son and family and how important it is to raise as much money as I can to make the lives of those poorly children more comfortable.  If you haven't sponsored me, please log into www.virginmoneygiving.com/dianechapman or catch my running bug and get out there helping all the great charities that need our help!!  

I finished the run today and my day, feeling really pleased that I had reached the half way point of my challenge. Can I do it all again??? Yes of course I can, with the fantastic support I have got from my family and friends and knowing that I am raising so much money, I am ready for it, bring it on with any willing running/cycling partners!!! Let's just hope the weather is kinder to me in the other half of my challenge!!!

Day 11-Running on red bull!

Another different experience today!! The weather conditions were perfect for running, dry, no wind, and a much warmer 6C, it's just a shame my body wasn't in the same condition otherwise I am sure I would have got another festive challenge pb.

It was my first Xmas party last night and it started to go badly for my running when the pub we were in were selling double vodka's for £3.80 and a single for £5.20??? Then this morning when I woke up, running was the last thing I wanted to do. After an hour of trying to talk myself into it, I got myself out there, thinking about the children I was raising the money for. I set off and found it tough going for the first couple of kilometres then found my stride and actually started to feel so much better and was glad I made the effort to go early.  No soggy feet, no frozen cheeks, instead, nice blue sky, some warm sunshine and red bull wings to carry me round!!

I managed to complete the run in just over 53 minutes so I was proud of myself achieving the distance and the mileage when I had felt so bad when I first woke up!!

What has also made day 11 different is that I had a running partner with me. The only problem was he was on the other side of the world. My brother ran 10k to support my cause in the southerly most city in the WORLD!!!It beats running in Batley!!

Even though he wasn't running by my side, I was thinking about him when I was out this morning, hoping that he was running in sync with me!! Here is a picture of him tackling one of the many hills in Argentina!

Well done and thank you David, you did great considering you were on holiday and had also consumed an awful lot of red wine and steak!! Looking forward to hearing about your running experience only 700 miles from the Antartic when you return!Enjoy the rest of your holiday and bring a penguin home for us, xx