Sefton park

Hello everyone.

 Today marks the day of it being 2 weeks until my first 10k, and am I ready! Defiantly not! Hoping the crowd will pull me along! The problem? Well in the last run I did as part of this challenge I hurt my ankle, during the race I thought it was down to new trainers,  but then couldn't run on it probably for a week and has taken time to get back into training again..  still not back up to doing the 5k in 30mins but I’m still going to go for it, an hope that I will be able to do the next runs faster and better. 

Target for this 10k, less than 1hour 20mins, hoping the crowd will pull me along, but why this time? Will my app Nike plus, estimates it’ll take me 1 hour 30mins so probably going to be happy beating that!   

so today i went on a bit of an adventure / new route finder around Sefton park, seen as it was a rare nice day with sun! unfortunately the whole of Liverpool also seemed to be there so spent half the time dodging dogs and kids on bikes..  and perhaps i would have been a tad faster if i hadnt stopped to take pics! :) 

 spot the palm house

 doesnt this place just look magical? sisnt know it was hidden away back there. 

 lovely band stand, would have loved a closer look. 

spring has sprung! the park was littered all over with lovely iris's in purples and yellow! bliss!

muddy trainers at the end of the run! few blisters from this due to running in puddles! lesson learnt! 

Childflight

Hello everyone, I’ve had a slight poorly little week over here but now I’m back and off training again.

As most of you may know, [and if you don’t I’m about to tell you, ] I’m a children’s nurse who works on a local intensive care unit, i.e. I look after some very sick children and try and help make them better again.  However there are sad and hard times but I also get to see some amazing things and the most powerful thing in the world, a child smile again! And this is why I got involved with the chosen charity. 

Child fight provides once in a life time holiday’s for children with life limiting or life threatening conditions. [In other words these children are all poorly or disabled in some way.] Every other year they run a structured trip to Florida, visiting all the major theme parks and providing a little magic to these children’s lives, what make them special is that they also take the whole close family.  Making a perfect family holiday making amazing memories for everyone. Something which may not be possible for them to achieve without the support of this charity. Whilst there, the holiday is organised for them from the minute we arrive at the airport to the second we get back to the uk, no one has to worry about anything and there is medical support by the doctors and nurses who all volunteer and are constantly on call.   And the most important bit of the holiday? Well to see the children smile knowing everything they’ve been though, after all nothing matters in Florida!

Childflight also provides Santa flights every year for children to experience there first time flight and meet Santa as well as proving medical flights for children where treatment cannot be found in the uk.

So why run? Well I started doing a sponsored run in 2013 to raise funds and the running bug kicked in big style. So thought I would keep it up and get fit at the same time. So far since May 2013 when I started it’s been hard work but slowly managing to pick up pace etc. Looking at ways that are a bit novel to go with my running but we will see. 

So far I have raised around £600 pounds for child flight from august to Dec in 2013, and I am already at 10% of my target for this challenge. Every penny means the world to both me and this charity but especially the children so if you can, please donate or support in any way you can. 

Thankyou

helen xx

p.s... just something to make you smile as well!

Race for life, 2013

just realized i missed out my second race of 2013! so here is the race review if any one is interested! 

please support me if you can, every penny will go a long way in raising vital funds for childflight either click the button to the right >>>> or follow this link 

My second ever run was the race for life twilight on Liverpool waterfront. Another 5 k race from the ferry terminal along the front towards Otterspool and then back along the same route.  I finished this run in 38mins [ish] it was very very wet and very very cold. For those who don’t know Liverpool well the route is lined with cobbles and then paving slabs which became very slippery!  To the extent that the stewards were advising people not to sprint due to the slipping hazard. I had also broken my toe a few weeks before this race so wasn’t able to run to the same pace as usual.

This Race is aimed at raising money for cancer research, however I chose not to obtain any sponsor ship for this as I think there is a limit as to how many times you can ask people for money for charity etc. [I did make a donation out of my own pocket as I normally do when the race is organised ror a specific cause.]  however felt like they were constantly pushing for more donations rather than saying thank-you for what they had raised so far [£55000 the warm up guy said] and over all I didn’t like the way it was organised and didn’t enjoy the race as much because of this.   Would I do a race for life again? Maybe just to see if it is the same as this one, after all the twilight run was a first time event so perhaps a few teething problems were had. I’ll see if one fits into my shift pattern during this year and if I can I’ll do it but properly not. 

Top facts:-

Date:- 18^th October 2013.

Time:- 38mins

Surface:-  pavement/road

Distance:- 5k