Letter from Leukaemia CARE

This afternoon we are off to London for the big 10k run at the weekend, and are over the moon with the support that everyone has given Leukaemia CARE for the race. We plan to post our times and other information here on the blog next week, as well as hopefully having some photographs to show for our efforts.

The big thing to remember is that YOU CAN STILL SPONSOR US even now, even after the event, so if you haven't got a round to it yet, it doesn't matter!

But a huge thanks to everyone that has contributed already, we've nearly got to £800 between us at the moment, and hope to do better before the thing is done.

Here's the letter from Leukaemia CARE; I note you can't read it and this blog site won't display it any bigger. Anyway the point is, is says thank you everyone for contributing to a worthwhile cause!

Hope we have good news for you in our post-race posting next week.

How to donate to a good cause - Leukaemia CARE

This is a kind of test page containing a fund-raising widget - click on this to donate to Anna's running sponsorship.



And this is a similar widget for donating to Pete's running sponsorship (I should mention that this is not a competition between us!

And so to the sponsorship.......

Its hours since I sent an email round to all our friends, as well as some who we've not seen for ages but would love to. And already - thanks so much, people have put their hands up to give us a contribution!

First in there was my brother Anthony - thanks Ant you star, of course his job like mine does involve sitting in front of a computer ALL THE TIME! He was there withing minutes of my not-funny email. A special thanks already to Sarah in New Zealand - that is Sarah of the sailing in the Mediterranean post somewhere near the start of this blog. Fred, Angus, Simone and Adam another old sailing mate from New Zealand. Maybe we'll make it to £500 after all?

And on the subject here's a kind message from Adam, I'll just put it here and let you decide......

(FYI Ceasar's Palace in this context is a sailing boat)

Hey Pete

Very impressed you are going to run 10km, its been a few years since I managed to cover that distance, unfortunately I won’t be able to be there in person to throw things at you so was wondering if you could perhaps throw a few things for me… in fact if you could just arrange someone to flail you with a rubber chicken at appropriate times I would be greatful.

Will go on the website now and see if I can manage to donate a bit for you.

Have a good one

Adam from Ceasars Palace

In fact here's a nice picture of said boat skippered by said Kiwi that we took in one of our last races before leaving New Zealand, because no blog entry on any subject is complete without a picture of a yacht.

Ceasar's Palace in Auckland Harbour at sunset- possibly passing Motutapu Island (and unfortunately us on this occasion too!)

Running - OK this is a big one.

Anna and I put ourselves down to do a 10k race in London a few weeks ago, partly to help us keep fit, and partly as it was on much of the London Marathon course and it looked like fun. When we met 5 years ago we both trained for the Auckland half-marathon, and it was during some of those hyper-competitive training sessions that love blossomed!

At the time I got quite fit (and so was she - phwoarr!) and we made respectable-for first-timer times of 1.31ish on my part and 1.41ish on Anna's. So if you divide 22 km by 2 and alter the numbers a bit for our current level of fitness, I've said I'll do it in 44 minutes. I'm sure this was quite stupid of me as we're really not trained properly yet, and are relying on our general intermittent running / rowing to provide the base level of fitness required. Anna said she'll do it in 50 minutes: we're both highly concerned that we've made ourselves hostages to fortune with these bold and foolish claims.

To get in the run we had to join a charity, selected Leukaemia CARE from the list (for those that haven't already heard it to death I had Leukaemia 10 years ago and miraculously survived - Hurrah for the wonderkid!) [Some info on my old racing web site] So now we get to do the run and have committed to raise at least £150 each, which seems a bit pitiful so I put us down for 500 for starters. Eeek.

You will probably have recieved my emailed attempt at humour by now, begging for support for this fool hardy venture. It happens on Sunday July 1st starting at Picadilly, and takes us along the Embankment to the tower and back, roughly. ( Our thanks to those of you that may already have pointed out that the 1st is a Sunday, and kindly saved us from arriving on the wrong day). The race seems to be frequented by ex and current olympic champions, so be assured that we'll be nowhere near any of them. It was once won by Haile Gebreselassie, say no more.

So for more about the London 10k race please click on this link, and for more about Leukaemia CARE charity and its work please click on this one.

Sailing

I recently crossed the Channel with John Nicholas and his merry crew on JEBA - a nice new Benetau 40.7. She goes like a dream upwind (being Bruce Farr designed), and is mainly very well sailed by the experienced crew. John and his son Ben are both excellent Tasar sailors (a Tasar being one of the original fast planing dinghies which I think originated in Australia - as did they). John won some world championships I think and Ben is British Champion at the moment.

John's got a good blog going about JEBA's adventures which includes an account of the weekend's trip over to St Helier in Jersey, and shortly thereafter back from whence we came - Lymington.

I was so fried after we returned that I slept in the car in Dorset lay-by until ten the next morning, before rushing back to Cornwall to get on with some work.

Anyway please have a look at John's excellent JEBA blog here: http://jebasailing.wordpress.com/

OK I have been so slack - or busy, depending on how you view these things. Time for a burst of activity.

Burst 1 - Sailing
Burst 2 - Running

Please read on....