5 Weeks to go!

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all well, enjoying a lovely Sunday and have all treated your Mum's to at the very least a Mothers Day phone call!!!

Today I'm swapping running for a nice walk with my Mum :-). Don't worry folks I'm not cheating as I ran the best part of 18 miles yesterday - one of the toughest training runs I'll have to do.

Anyone who lives in the West London area will know that yesterday was not exactly a sunny day, in fact as soon as i tied up my shoe laces and got out the door the heavens opened, and I had to run almost 3 hours drenched through and thoroughly miserable!!! I must have looked it too as I had a fair few friendly van men yelling 'go on you can do it' rather than the usual horn tooting and wolf whistles so i must have been looking particularly low.

Two things made my run even harder.

1. The Six Nations Rugby meant running past lots of crowded pubs with people enjoying themselves far too much.

2. A UK University rowing competition made for a very overcrowded riverbank all the way from Barnes to Putney which made the mid section of my run very stop start - a nightmare when you're already tired.

Still, I'm pretty proud of myself for managing to do that kind of distance, I couldn't have imagined it even a few weeks ago! There is so much you learn about places, people and things when you start running which I've found interesting, scary and depressing in equal measure.

On the upside, improving how far you can run whether your starting from scratch or like me are covering hefty distances gives you a massive sense of achievement and is a definite natural high.

I've also found, whilst running alongside the canal in Slough (never alone I promise!) that small rats can run extremely fast over short distances.  Just when I thought I  had quite a good pace on on the home stretch a little rat popped up and totally out ran me, gutted!!! So can small children, I have found little boys find it amusing to try and race you which gets really embarrassing. And final gripe, it turns out small dogs get quite intimidated when they see a massive neon pink thing (aka me) running towards them and can get quite aggressive - luckily I'm getting better at avoiding these obstacles!

At this point when the training is pretty tough, quite frankly really hurts and takes over much of your free time, its good to have a goal like raising money for a great cause to keep you motivated as you really don't want to let people down. Thanks so much to all who have already kindly supported me and The Outward Bound Trust already. I've had lots of people pledge their support and ask where they can sponsor me, if you'd like to donate simply go to the Virgin Money Giving site and search for my name - or you can use the link in the side bar of my blog. http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RachelToolan

I've had some great fundraising help in the office over the past week - a bake sale raising over £200 pounds which i'll get paid into Guy & I's fundraising pages this week. Also my fabulous team mate Jo McMullen has been auctioning off props from our latest Colour Guide photoshoot to raise money for the Outward Bound Trust. So far I've bought for a Picasso (print!) for my flat. If anyone would be interested in some IKEA dark wood effect flooring please let me or Jo know, you could pick it up for just a donation to a great cause so its an absolute bargain.

Thanks very much and have a great day

Rachel xxx