Phil Packer

Phil Packer was in the military and ended up getting a severe spinal cord injury and told he would probably never walk again.  Phil went through a lot of stress and struggle after that happened but through it all he ended up being focused and committed to helping those people who also need assistance through what he calls “those dark days”.

Phil wanted to give focus on rehabilitation and raise money for charity which led to him taking part in the London Marathon 2009 and raising money for Help for Heroes.  Phil’s goal was to complete 2 miles a day until he completed the marathon and he achieved his goal!  He started the marathon on 26 April and finished it on 09 May.  He was presented with his finishing medal by Sir Steven Redgrave.

What an amazing achievement for someone who thought they would never walk again.

Now for 2010 Phil is at it again and it seems he’s much quicker!  No more 2 miles a day.  Phil intends to do the 26.2 miles of the London Marathon in 26 hours.  He’s also decided to do each mile for a different charity and the first mile is for Arthritis Research UK.

Arthritis Research UK

Arthritish Research UK is trying to make things better for all arthritis suffers by helping to relieve the pain and helping people to remain active.  They do this by funding research and providing information.

Because arthritis is affecting millions of people in the UK, Arthritis Research UK wants to raise its profile with everyone.  Arthritis Research UK has 10 goals which you can read about here:-

http://www.arthritisresearchuk.org/about_us/our_goals.aspx

If you’re interested in finding out more information about Phil Packer or Arthritis Research UK then you can follow one of the links below:-

http://www.philpacker.com/

http://www.arthritisresearchuk.org/

I hope you all take time to visit both sites and support a great guy doing great things.

Related posts:

1. Week 3 Done, 9 to go!
2. Full of Crap
3. 2nd Time Lucky?

The 405 is some pretty cool kit and I’m looking forward to giving it a go this weekend on my long run.  I was going to use it this evening for my interval training at the track but it was raining so hard that I didn’t go.  My friend and I decided that we were fairweather-runners and decided to stay in and chill-out instead.

Tomorrow morning and Friday morning I’ll be on the treadmill.  This is mainly because I go at 6am and it’s dark outside at that time so that means I would rather not run the roads around here.  Wed night running club sessions and Sunday long runs are out and about.  Remaining training sessions are at the gym.

I’ve updated my running log (up to 02 October 2009) and I’ve covered a total distance so far of 2529.83km on my virtual run across Canada.  I’ll map out where I am in Canada later on this week and I’ll update the location map as well.

On another note, I’ve been reading my list of blogs lately and I noticed that The Fat Runner has decided to run a half-marathon and is looking for sponsorship in exchange for a listing on his website as advertising space.  Obviously the advertising space won’t make a massive difference to your site (if you’ve got one) but I think it is a worthwile cause to raise money for and I’m also happy to encourage a fellow runner to achieve their goals.  I’m happy that he’s attempting a half marathon and I wish him all the best with his training.  Let’s just hope he keeps blogging and doesn’t be like me with huge gaps in posts!  (sorry)

If you’re interested in sponsoring The Fat Runner or finding out more then you can visit him here:-

http://thefatrunner.blogspot.com/2009/09/half-marathon-madness.html

When it comes to my own ambitions, you probably saw my previous post which was my rejection magazine from the Virgin London Marathon.  I should say my “first” rejection magazine because I’ll probably get others in my lifetime!  Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I have already registered for the Brighton Marathon and I’ve also booked my hotel so I’m all ready.  Just got to do that whole training thing….

It’s getting late now (10:30pm) and I’m sleepy.  I get up a 5:20am every weekday morning and it seems to come quicker every day!  Tomorrow I’m going to do some hill-work and mix it up with a bit of sprinting/intervals as well.

Related posts:

1. London Marathon Rejection
2. Points of (Un)Interest
3. London Marathon

Related posts:

1. Virgin London Marathon Ballot
2. Virgin London Marathon Ballot Update
3. Virgin London Marathon Site Update

I decided that I needed some sort of focus for the future and for training.  Also, the Brighton Marathon promises to reimburse a portion of the entry fee for those runners who have registered for the London Marathon (ballot).  This way, if I don’t get a ballot place for London I’ll still have my first marathon to train for!

I thought it was a fitting 2nd choice because it is Brighton’s 1st marathon and it will be my 1st marathon too!

I even get a lovely t-shirt that tells everyone what I’m training for!

I probably won’t really start focusing on marathon training until around October because that is when I’ll know for sure whether I’ll be running in Brighton or London.

The running is going okay at the moment and I’m still plodding along.  For example, I did the following recently:-

Today – 5.42km at at 05:32 min/km pace (did some weights and cycling as well)

04  Aug 2009 – 10.37km at a 05:47 min/km pace

02 Aug 2009 – 14.00km at a 05:44 min/km pace

28 Jul 2009 – 10.69km at a 05:36 min/km pace

I’m going to update my spreadsheet tonight after I’m done writing this post.  You’ll be able to see my total mileage to date as well as my total mileage covered on my virtual run across Canada.

Take care and happy running, walking, crawling….

Related posts:

1. Virgin London Marathon Ballot
2. London Marathon
3. Virgin London Marathon Site Update

Now I can relax until October when I’ll find out if I was successful.

Related posts:

1. Virgin London Marathon Ballot
2. Virgin London Marathon Site Update
3. London Marathon

Due to unprecedented demand for marathon places, this website is currently unavailable.
Please try again later today or tomorrow.

David Bedford
Race Director, London Marathon

What a load of crap. Didn’t the organisers consider last year when there was problems with the online registration systems and put things in place to avoid the problems this year? When it happens again next year (and I’m sure it will) will they say it is “unprecedented” again?  Probably.

If I remember correctly the Royal Parks website suffered the same sort of issues when they opened their registration.

Considering there was loads of talk about how there were about 150,000 ballot entries for 2009 and only about 36,000 runners AND they opened the ballot the day after the marathon when all the non-running sofa watchers will be trying to register for a ballot spot; what did they expect?  They must of known or suspected this would happen.

Sort yourselves and the site out Virgin.  Jeez…

Related posts:

1. Virgin London Marathon Ballot
2. Virgin London Marathon Ballot Update
3. London Marathon

The Virgin London Marathon ballot system this year is a complete and utter load of shit. What a fiasco.

The website for the Marathon said that the ballot would open today at 9am, however it seems that some bright spark at Virgin decided that it would actually open from midnight?!

This means that there are probably thousands of people (including me) who are attempting to get on to the site and enter a ballot for the 2010 London Marathon. It just isn’t happening.

I’ve looked on RunnersWorld.co.uk in the forums and there are pages and pages of discussion about how crap it is and how no one is able to get in.

The people who organise the event know from previous years that this is going to happen so why haven’t they put things in place to avoid these issues? Why is it so shit?

I’ll continue to hit F5 (refresh) throughout the day and I’ll let you know if I ever manage to enter a ballot…

Related posts:

1. Virgin London Marathon Ballot Update
2. Virgin London Marathon Site Update
3. London Marathon