March 2015

March: Running, Stein's, bucket shaking and cycling

Well this month certainly started with a bang! I completed my first challenge, running Bath Half Marathon in just over 2 hours. See my previous blog post for more information (see link on right).

Then a week later I held my first major fundraising event of the year at Rick Stein Porthleven and raised a massive £2,200. Again, see my previous blog post for more information (see link on right).

I had approached the West Briton newspaper about the event and they ran a story about it the following week. Fantastic!

On Saturday 14 March I did my first bike ride out with my mate Gary who is an experienced road biker. 

We cycled 10 miles to Marazion where we stopped to admire the view while sipping hot chocolate, before heading back through the villages. I rather like this cycling malarkey!

Sunday 15 March was the deadline for the balance of my Hadrian's Wall trek, so now I'm all paid up and looking forward to the challenge. We've actually recruited another trekker for our trip, my friend Jackie from Norwich. I used to work with Jackie many moons ago and after reading my 'Porthleven to Peru!' blog from last year (link on the right of this page), she decided that she'd also like to get out and do a challenge. It'll be great to spend a big chunk of time with her and Anne-Marie.

On Monday 16 March I put my thermals on again and stood in the foyer of Morrisons in Penzance. I met some lovely people including a lady called Sue (pictured) who thought I looked cold so she bought me a hot chocolate! What a lovely kind lady she is. I collected a total of £147.14.

Matt, Me, Holly, Pete & Oliver

On Saturday 21 March I loaded my bike onto the back of the car and headed to Fraddon where I met up with 4 of the London to Paris gang. We cycled a leisurely 15 miles and had a good natter. It was great to see Holly again. I think she is the only other person from our Peru trip doing the CAAT cycling challenge. Hopefully we'll be able to do another practice ride together soon.

The next day I got to meet some of the China gang for an 11 mile walk on Bodmin Moor.

The gang for the day, including 6 four-leggeds!

 The weather couldn't have been better. 

View from the top of Brown Willy Tor

Post-lunch photo call at the top with Sarah (my trip roomie!) 

Sarah's dog, Lucy, just couldn't resist the mud!

We finished the day with a carvery at The Old Inn at St Breward.

It was great to see Sarah and Di from my Peru trip again and to get out in my walking boots. My boots feel like two old friends! It was a good opportunity to start to get to know some of my new trekking buddies. There is a real range of ages and backgrounds which should create a good mix for the trip. It was a glorious day so there was a bit of sun- and wind-burn!

On 25 March I met another of my cycling gang, Anthony. He lives just round the corner from me so we went on a local ride. We just did 11 miles because it was dark, raining, windy and cold. I guess it's character building!

Not strictly challenge training but I'll include it anyway, on 28 March I went off to Dartmoor with my stepdaughter, Toni, for a day's bombing around Dartmoor on horse-back. My trusty steed was a huge 17.2hh thoroughbred cross appaloosa called Henry. He was fab! With us was a Horse Whisperer type chap called Dan (www.equinegentling.com) who was our guide, and two ladies, Claire from Dubai and Linda who lives locally. Both had been to these stables many times before because of the quality horses and riding. We rode for 17 miles around the moors, stopping only for a pub lunch. It was great!

Miles trekked in March: 11 miles

Miles run in March: 32 miles

Miles cycled in March: 88 miles

Current fundraising total: £3,173 (69% of my total)

An Evening at Rick Stein, Porthleven, Sunday 8 March 2015

Well, what can I say, other than a humongous THANK YOU to everyone involved with this awesome event. I am going to try to include everyone that I want to thank so please bear with me! 

First of all, I must thank the awesome Steins team: Rick, Jill and Jack for agreeing to the event, Lee Williams the Manager of Rick Stein, Porthleven, Sarah Collins at Padstow, Ian Fitzgerald Operations Director, and the kitchen and front of house team at the restaurant in Porthleven. You are all absolutely awesome. I had the pleasure of working with Ian and his team before at a Gala Dinner and they were so slick and professional, which is why I asked if I could have the event with Stein's. I knew they'd do an excellent job.

The event started for me at 4pm when I went to the restaurant with Toni Shaw and Marie Tomlinson to make up the lovely goody bags that each guest would be taking home. I must thank them both for their help. I had contacted about 20 Cornish companies asking if they would donate a sample of their product and amazingly a few said that they would! So, I must thank the Rebel Brewery in Penryn for the bottles of Sail Ale, Cornish Orchards for the bottles of Cornish Gold cider, Proper Cornish for the Furniss ginger cookies and Cornish Sea Salt for their sea salt samples. The tables looked fab!

The guests started to arrive about 6.30pm and were greeted with a red welcome drink to fit in with the Cornwall Air Ambulance colour scheme. Everyone then took their seats and the starter and main course were served.

While enjoying their food, guests were able to check out the list of auction lots that they would have the opportunity to bid on later.

Just after the main course I asked the Head Chef to pick a number between 1 and 66 to select which lucky guest would win a bottle of champagne. He chose 54 and Richard collected his prize!

After the delicious chocolate and peanut pudding, the auction began. It was quite raucous but great fun. Fireman, Writer, Actor and all-round excellent chap, David Carlisle, did a fantastic job as Master of Ceremonies and Auctioneer.

At this point I must thank everyone who donated prizes for the auction: Seasalt Cornwall, St Austell Brewery, Slate of the Art, Sally and Hugh at Methleigh Farm, Halzephron Herb Farm, Rick Stein's Padstow Seafood School, Customs House Gallery, Cornishware, Origin Coffee, Bespoke Window Cleaning Services, House of Colour Cornwall, Roland's Happy Plaice, The Bottle Bank, Who Gives a Rock, Vertical Blue SUP, Trevaskis Farm Shop, Four Crows Gallery and Harbour View Gift Shop.

During the evening there was a phone call to the restaurant from a chap called Anthony who lives in Yorkshire but has a holiday apartment in Porthleven. He was taken ill with a heart attack on a visit here last year and the Air Ambulance had been called. He had seen that the event was happening on Twitter and wanted to show his support. He bid £300 for the Rick Stein's prize of 2 places on a cookery course at the Padstow Seafood School and he ended up being the highest bidder so won this fantastic prize. Isn't social media great!!

One of the guests was eagerly bidding on lots of auction prizes and to stop him bidding against other family members elsewhere in the restaurant his wife sat on him and friend gagged him!

The auction itself raised a total of £1,003 which far exceeded what I had hoped for so I'm absolutely thrilled. I must thank Mary McCarron and Suz Cunliffe who used their contacts to help me gather prizes. I'd also like to thank Sally Dawson for helping me spread the word about the tickets and encouraging her friends to come along and also to Naomi Belert and Toni Shaw for helping spot bids and taking money during the auction itself. You're all awesome!

When I was preparing the goody bags during the afternoon I asked one of the Stein's staff to pick a chair anywhere in the restaurant as the 'lucky chair'. I then stuck a "Congratulations, you have won a prize just for picking this seat" label underneath it. After the auction, guests were asked to look under their seats and the lucky person who had chosen the special chair was Naomi Belert and she won a bottle of wine. 

At the beginning of the evening I had placed envelopes on the tables which guests could write their name on and place £5 inside to be in with a chance to win a St Michael's Spa family voucher. Fantastically 27 people did this and the winner was Tony Woodhams. Enjoy your swim/sauna/steam Tony and Karen!

To finish the evening we played a 'heads and tails' game to win Sunday Lunch for 2 at Merchant's Manor Hotel in Falmouth, and my step-daughter Toni Shaw won. Wonder if she'll take me or her Dad with her!

I wanted to ensure that everyone would go home with something to show my appreciation for their support and the goody bags seemed to go down very well! I am so grateful to everyone who made the event possible and to Miguel Belert for taking these fab photos for me. I must also thank Darren who puts up with me during all my mad escapades. I couldn't do all that I do without his support. 

The final photo of this perfect night. Thank you one and all ...

Click here to see more photos of the night courtesy of Rick Stein, Porthleven.


Total profit on the night: £2,200.

Current fundraising total: £3,006 (65% of my goal)

Bath Half Marathon, Sunday 1 March 2015

Well, the running training is complete and all for this!

I spent the whole weekend in Bath with Darren, Toni, Ani and Ian, and then we were joined on the Saturday by Miguel, Naomi, Gary and Jayne. We all met up on the Saturday afternoon and then had a meal in Cafe Rouge. The food and company were both excellent!

We got into Bath city centre for the race on the Sunday about 9.30am and retreated into a nearby pub when the heavens opened. We emerged an hour later into glorious sunshine.

We posed for pre-race photos and then Ani, Miguel and I joined our fellow thousands of runners in the 'orange' section of the start. The local air ambulance helicopter flew over a couple of times!

We just had time for a quick start line selfie and then we had a count down to the 11:00 start. It was 11:09 by the time we passed the start line, and then we were off!!

Also running were Radio 1 DJ Greg James, comedian Russell Howard and the woman who holds the UK record for the fastest female half marathon time. Sadly I didn't get to see Greg James, but I did see Paddington Bear, Iron Man, a group of soldiers running with a stretcher and a pair of Smurfs!

I really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was buzzing with crowds of people lining almost the entire route. It was so good to see our supporters Darren, Toni, Naomi, Jayne and Ian cheering as we passed by them on Queen's Square. I even spotted friends Suz and Chris who had travelled up to support a friend who was also running. There were a few live bands playing along the route and my favourite was a Blues Brothers type band who were brilliant.

My official race time says that I crossed the finish line after 2 hours 6 minutes 45 seconds, so I must have taken 6 seconds to turn off my Endomondo phone app! As I queued for my medal, t-shirt and goody bag with my legs feeling like jelly I chatted to a lovely lady the same age as me (an excellent vintage!) who, like me, had never run a half marathon before.

As soon as all 4 of us had finished, we got together and walked up to the cars because we were all driving straight home.

It was a fantastic day and I thoroughly enjoyed it, both because of the event itself and because I could share the experience with wonderful friends.

February 2015

February: Running, bucket shaking, more running & event prep

This month began with me paying the remainder of the deposits for my Air Ambulance organised London to Paris and Great Wall of China challenges. Yayyy, I'm definitely going!

On Saturday 7 February I had to do my longest run so far of 12 miles, so I decided to run The Mineral Tramway Trail which spans coast to coast across Cornwall. Darren dropped me in the car park at Devoran and off I set. 1 hour 54 minutes later I reached the beach at Portreath (average pace 9m 54sec per mile). I quite enjoyed the run as the landscape keeps changing. I did get lost a couple of times and had to ring a friend for directions!

I had this view of Portreath beach to enjoy as I stretched after my run. Isn't Cornwall great!!

On Monday 9th I went to the GP Surgery to have my second Hepatitis B vaccination. I think I'm becoming hardy to these jabs now (tough old boot!) as I hardly felt a thing & had no reaction afterwards (thank goodness).

On Friday 13th (my birthday) and Sunday 15th I put on my thermal underwear & stood in the foyer of Morrisons in Penzance with my collection jars and bucket. 

I decided to print out a little sign listing the challenges that I have set myself for this year. I think it helped because I collected £461 in total over the 2 days! I always enjoy supermarket collections because you get to meet lovely generous people.

On Saturday 14th I had to run 9 miles so I ran Porthleven - Helston - Culdrose - Loe Bar - Porthleven. It was a glorious day and this was my view as I stretched after the run.  

Plans for the evening at Rick Stein, Porthleven next month are going well. I have secret plans for the evening which are coming on a treat!

I've finally found a Line Dancing Group to come along to the Rodeo Night on Saturday 20 June. Yeeharr! I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be able to find one but a chap called Barry will be bringing a group from St Day. So, people coming to the event will be able to test their balance on the bucking bronco and/or have a go at line dancing. With a bar and disco going all night, it should be a good fun evening.

This month ended for me with a weekend in Bath for the Bath Half Marathon with a gang of friends.

Miles run in February: 55

Current fundraising total: £796 (17% of my goal)