Sinodd - 15 Fizzy Fun Run

 Continued working on the background today..still looking to regain some sort of a regular routine which seems to elude me. School holidays will be over soon, and my eldest son will move out to new digs and a new year at Uni...my other son will return to college.

Last evening I joined with friends and family of Geoff Sims who as you may know sadly died in 2010. Geoff was in charge of the Edinburgh Marathon and all fund raising initiatives surrounding it, so after he'd passed away, it was decided to run an annual fun run to remember him and raise funds for the specific charities. this time we were raising funds for the Hospice in which eh spent his last few days. St Columba's in Edinburgh runs solely on donations from the public, so it seemed a perfect recipient for the money we'd raised.

Here's a photo taken last night at the starting line...there weren't many of us taking part, but it was a lovely time despite it being an extremely warm evening! Afterwards we gathered at a local rowing club with a number of others who had taken part in the race to drink a toast to our lost friend.

Viscount Bubbles - 12

A day spent working on the undergrowth behind the boy...the more I work on it, the darker it seems to need to be..don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the way it's developing, but I've begun sketching work on my dream picture from earlier in the week...still at a fairly rudimentary stage, I'm liking the way that is developing too.For the time being however, I'll continue to work on this one!

On the running front, I'm continuing to run on an almost daily basis. I have a regular 5 mile route which I don't have to plan, I know exactly where I'm going and the kind of effort needed at which point. The challenge is to improve my times and technique. Other than that I run a six mile route regularly and have completed two 10 mile runs in the last 3 weeks. I find that running takes my mind off the problems at home and allow me to think freely about my artwork. This is a good thing!

Sunday running!

Work is coming along well on preparation for the new picture...I've nearly decided on the elements that will compose what I'm going to call 'Bubbles'. I'm looking forward to getting started on the drawing work which should begin tomorrow.
I wanted to also share with you that today I managed to run 10.06 miles! It was such a beautiful day with bright sunshine..my regular running routine has become a little stale of late using the same routes...I try to set goals to challenge myself and see how far I can push myself...the furthest I've run in one go so far had been 8.50 miles...so today I planned my route and resolved to run the 10 miles. The route took me out of the city into the countryside which lit up in the late afternoon sunshine was wonderful...on return home I was almost sad to have finished and luckily for me still felt I have a couple more miles of gas in the tank ...I think the next goal is to complete a half marathon course which I guess will be 13 miles!
Here's a map of my run which was created using the tools on walkjogrun.net which is a wonderful resource for planning and measuring a route just about anywhere in the world!...it also goes so far as to tell you how many calories you can expect to burn in your run...apparently I used 1448.5 calories today!

I love my running...when I think back to this time last year when I was over 3 stone heavier and had never run more than 2 miles in my entire life...I can only be thankful that I am able to enjoy an active and fit body...not bad for a 50 year old eh?

10 mile run

10 miles / 16.09344 km

Created 01.10.12 by niallyoung

Fit Before 50!

As many of you will know..since early May this year , I've started a campaign to get myself into shape, lose weight and get fit. I've been using a web site which allows me to map and measure my walking/ running routes. walkjogrun.net is an easy to use site which not only gives information on distance run, but estimates the time to cover the course and the amount of calories that you'll burn. With a whole host of other info and details on routes that other site members have logged it's a brilliant (and totally free) tool to make your walking/running more satisfying where ever in the world you are!

Yesterday I was approached by Caitlin who monitors Tweets and Facebook communications. She asked me if she could write about me in  an entry to the site's blog. So below I've included a link to the blog post she kindly wrote about me...I'm really honoured to be recognised for my effort and I hope that you'll take some inspiration from my story!


http://www.walkjogrun.net/blog/index.cfm/2011/9/12/Fit-before-50-One-mans-weight-loss-and-fitness-journey