Playlists

I'm a huge fan of music and rarely work out without my iPod or some other portable music device to hand. When I was training for my half marathon I put together a playlist with loads of upbeat music and made a subset of that recently that focussed a lot more on powerful rock music. I'm fond of both and alternate between them these days and add to them as I get new music. In fact I make up quite a lot of playlists. And it got me thinking.

While the upbeat dance and rock music is all well and good for training, it'd be fun to put together something new for when I'm trekking, and for the event itself. My dad did something similar for when we drove from San Francisco to California some years back with every track having a reference in the lyrics or title. So I've started putting together a list. Some are inspirational, some set the mood but most are just a bit of fun.


Here's some of what I've got so far. Feel free to add your own suggestions :)

Jazz - The Only Way Is Up
Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
Miley Cyrus - The Climb
Linkin' Park - One Step Closer
Dire Straits - So Far Away
The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
Chris Rea - Road To Hell
Proclaimers - 500 Miles
M People - Moving On Up
Wagner - Ride Of The Valkyries
Diana Ross - Ain't No Mountain High Enough
The Who - I Can See For Miles

Normal service will be resumed shortly

JustGiving are messing around with their site and updating the look, feel and functionality so you may notice that the widget isn't working properly and also my page is temporarily unavailable. I've been assured that all will be back to normal soon. I can only apologise.

This week's fundraising update

I've been a little busy this week but not in terms of fundraising unfortunately. Nevertheless I have promise of a £20 donation from a friend and some friends of the family have said they'll sponsor me £70 between them. Another wonderful bit of news is that I got a phone message from the Parish magazine yesterday saying that at their meeting recently they decided to donate £200! This is just on the basis of me submitting an article which will be published in Septembers edition, not asking them for anything. How wonderfully kind.

Anyway if all these donations come good I'll have reached 75% of my target!

And I've just lined up a couple of dates to stand with collecting a tin outside my local supermarket so might get a few more pennies there too :)

I'm a lucozade convert

What a week last week was! Fundraising's been going extremely well, having reached 64% and £1240 left to raise. I've still got plenty of people to harrass for sponsorship and I'm hoping to squeeze in a few phonecalls to set up a stall in the local market and spots at supermarkets.

Did several runs last week and a couple of very short bike rides, culminating in the Bluewater 10k on Sunday 14th. It was a brilliantly organised event and I'm already looking forward to doing it next year. Lucozade were one of the main sponsors and were giving away loads of sports drinks, energy gels, bars and drink mixes as well as loads of advice on nutrition from their (dishy) Sports Scientists. I've probably got enough stuff to stock a small shop. Adidas were the other main sponsor and had provided everyone with a technical t-shirt. Red for the boys and garish day-glo orange for the girls. Nice. The weather was really far too hot, even at 8 in the morning when we started doing the warm up (well the girls did, the men just stood and watched us). However, it was a good course and I finished in 1:02:57. Bit gutted I didn't break the one hour mark but I'll do that next time for sure.

I had my first Hep B jab on Wednesday and was warned I might get flu-like symptoms but luckily I had no side effects whatsoever. I was worried it'd affect me enough that I'd feel groggy for the race.

I still want to keep running outdoors but I'm aware that won't prepare me enough for the trek so it's back to the gym this week. Only trouble is I'm crazy busy in the evenings so I might have to fit in some morning sessions, which I don't like because there's the hassle of showering at work. Still, Shruti and I have a long walk planned for the Solstice weekend and I'll get in a few more exercise sessions before middle of next week when I head off to Glastonbury. No chance of doing anything of use there :)

This week I have been mostly eating... junk

Firstly I'm completely blown away by the generosity of one of my donors.... thank you doesn't even begin to cover it. I cannot wait to get to the top of that mountain and take that video clip. Thank you for completely blowing my first target of £1k by end of July.

Last week I was pretty active, getting out for a couple of 4.5 mile runs and a 10 mile bike ride. I ate quite well too and lost a couple of pounds in weight, not that I'm trying to, it's just a side effect. At the weekend I was hoping to be clocking up the miles in the Peak District on a camping break but it rained about 60% of the time so instead of wandering over hill and dale more time was spent in Chatsworth house and some very nice pubs, drinking ale, eating bakewell tarts and consuming retro sweets like parma violets and sherbet fountains. We did get a bit active with a few hours at Go Ape! which was brilliant even in the rain. I ache a bit now but more from bruising than real exertion.

Spending time in a tent in the wet and cold has made me realise that my sleeping bag just won't do so I'm going to have to get a better one before the event. I've already got my eye on a couple that aren't too horrendously expensive.

I've got my 10k run this coming Saturday so I want to do at least two more runs before then. Should I get my assignment out of the way early on then I should be able to fit in either a gym session or a bike ride too. And it's back to eating properly. Considering signing up to a half marathon... would that be too much?

I'm still awaiting my collecting tins before I can start accosting people in the street but I'm going door to door and desk to desk until then. I've swapped a couple of emails with another girl who is going on the same event which has been lovely as we won't turn up on the day only knowing the people we signed up with.

Lastly, for this week's news, I'm getting the first on my Hep B jabs on Wednesday. Fun!