A slightly different tack - basically, myself and a work colleague are running the Flora London Marathon this year and want to raise as much money as possible for our two charities - The National Kidney Research Foundation and ARC (a charity which supports families who discover fetal problems during pregnancy)

With the advent of modern technology, this is very easily done online.

Please take a look at my sponsorship page or my buddy Suzanne's.

If you fancy giving anything at all, I'd be very grateful (and so will the charities) - all I need to do is beat last year's Edinburgh Marathon time (which you may be able to see in the pic on my page) to be happy.

Cheers folks

For those who were interested, the time shown in the pic was particularly bad. I got cramp at 11 miles and couldn't shift it, so it took me 5 hours 59 minutes to get round the course.

Ow! I was a little tired the next day.

A huge thank you to those folks who have sponsored me. Really made my day!

(sneaky bump of thread)

Had to bump this again to show off my new avatar - pic of me crossing the line at last year's Edinburgh Marathon. Large pic can be found at the link mentioned above.

Please visit - and please sponsor me. I will post pics here afterwards (from various sources I think)

*bump* - I saw your most recent signature, and thought this deserved a bump.

Thanks Paul -

Well, I'm doing not bad, I have raised £653.62 so far, and my firm has pledged a further £500 which will give me £1153.62!

With about 6 weeks to go, training is getting strenuous - managed about 14 miles in 2 hours on Sunday morning - a little 8 mile jaunt, followed my an amusing decision to run round Arthur's Seat. For those who don't know Edinburgh well, this is a large volcanic plug. The road round it is pretty steep and about 3 miles right round, but the views across Edinburgh, Fife and Midlothian are amazing. Anyway, all I can say is - I'm glad the London Marathon is all flat! I am so not designed to be a runner - and if it wasn't for Suzanne, I wouldn't motivate myself at all. She just runs forever at one constant pace without looking at all tired, which spurs me on not to look a bit of a wuss in front of her. That'll be that macho thing

Just to complete the day's training I then went for a 3 hour climbing session at the Ratho Adventure Centre which is Europe's biggest indoor climbing centre. Although I climbed a lot when younger, it was all on sea cliffs, so that there was no fear of falling - you just dropped in. I started at the Adventure Centre last year and am very impressed by how instantly rewarding it is - I get better/stronger every week. Just started lead roping two weeks ago, and boy is it something else. I know there are a few folks here who climb, but I never realised just how different lead roping was from bottom roping - psychologically. What a rush!

Guess what - aching all this week

Anyone else feel like this pain must be worth a wee donation to a good cause? Go on, visit Suzanne's page or my page to find out about our chosen charities or to donate or pledge money.

Cheers guys ('n gals)