Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. Updates will be added to the bottom of the page so please return to keep up with the progress :@)

 

'RACE-4-MORE'

OCTOBER CHARITY FITNESS CHALLENGE 2011

This coming October I will be looking to raise money for St Michael’s Hospice. I have designed a 'fitness challenge' which will incorporate 4 National Fitness Events, compresses into a 2week period between 02 October 2011 & 16 October 2011.

Saint Michael’s exists to ensure local people get the end of life care they want, need and deserve.  It costs £3.9million every year to help Saint Michael’s continue their work, but the difference it makes to people who are living with terminal illness and bereavement in the Harrogate district is invaluable.

More than 80 per cent of the running costs are covered by events and activities completed by fundraisers in the local community.

As someone who has been touched by Saint Michaels, I have decided to race in 4 of the Toughest Race Challenges across the UK, all in the space of 14 days!

1)      MensHealth SOTF - Cardiff - Wales (October - 2nd 2011)

2)      MensHealth SOTF - Nottingham - England (October - 8th 2011)

3)      Kielder Marathon - Kielder - England (October - 9th 2011)

4)      MensHealth SOTF - Edinburgh (October - 16th 2011)

In 2009 I attempted JUST ONE RACE - just as a taster, a line in the sand and since then I've just added in a few more and trimmed back on the 'recovery' time.

2010 I completed 4 races in 21 days, earning over £600 for St Michaels Hospice.

So come October 2011 my plan this isn't to just complete 4 races in only 14 days -7 few recovery days- BUT to also rank higher in the overall results standings!

Thank you in advance for your support and every penny, cent and euro, I can confirm, will most certainly be 'earned' by me in my efforts at the races.

Please follow the link below if you would like to donate:

http://www.justgiving.com/Jonathan-Procter

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails.

Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Thanks for taking the time to read my page and....for those of you who do visit my page you will be able to view the 'photo story board' which I managed to collect from my attempted October Challenge last year, 2010....hopefully this will give a little insight into the 'challenge'.

(In addition, you can also view on 'YouTube' videos of the races from 2010 AND should you be interested/curious you'll be able to visit the 'individual' race web sites to locate my results and achievements from 2010)

RESULTS and UP DATES :

UP DATE Re: Jon Procter’s Race4More October Fitness Challenge 2011

Sunday 2 October 2011 – Race 1 Cardiff 12km Survival of the Fittest Welsh Nationals.

First race from the set of 4 races in 14 days occurred only on close to the hottest day ever in wales!! 26+ degrees.

 Well as close to 2500 competitors squared up to a longer, tougher and hotter event than in previous years the challenge was initially to safely make it round the course and over, under and through the various obstacles en route. After a 4 hour drive and on the back of limited sleep I took to the line in the my self designed costume (which ultimately acted as a ‘boiler-suit’ in the heat and a rather good sponge, absorbing possibly and extra 6kg of water on the water splash section…..just in case I wasn’t working hard enough in the first place!)  

The course was as immense as the organisers had said and most certainly longer and harder, twice on the course you had to be immersed in water, (and again back to my costume point above); it was like tougher than tough

BUT as promised I give it 110% and crossing the line in a time 01:07:04 was immense, close to 5 minutes FASTER than last year.

Result:

Now I was never about the result! The fact I'm doing it with 7 less days recover than last year is challenge enough BUT

Of course it’s a race n in life sometimes your the rabbit n other times your the fox and come race day I'm only ever in fox!

**Last year I ranked 130th in a smaller field on an easier course (no water hazard in 2010) n on a day when it was barely 15 degrees!**

This year – I was close to being 5 minutes faster and…………….   Believe it ………………..Or not ……………

CAME 25th from approximately 2300 competitors. (And actually less than 1 minute separated 19th thru 25th place – so I could even have hit top 20 ……maybe that’s 2012’s target.

So one race down and the challenge has most certainly started!!

Bring on next weeks challenge………… Sorry challenges??? Next week is the double up week, Its Nottingham Survival of the Fittest (Saturday) and The Kielder Cross Country Marathon (Sunday)  

Thanks once again for all your support and sponsorship, please pass on the link to my justgiving page (below) and hopefully I will be able to hit my sponsorship target.

JustGiving page:http://www.justgiving.com/Jonathan-Procter

Race 1 - Cardiff  - Race Time 01:07:04 - Ranked 25th FROM A FIELD OF 2300

Saturday 8th October 2011 – Race 2 Nottingham 12km Survival of the Fittest English Nationals.

 

Hello and here’s the Race Review and Update from Race 2 of the 4 which make up the Jon Procter 2011 October Race4More Fitness Challenge Series!

 

Race 2 Saturday 08 October 10am
 
Lining up on the start line I would have loved to not only beat my time but also rank higher than last year when I got just inside the top 50….BUT, I then heard the announcement that their were close to 4500 runners this year which is about 700 more than last!! So to beat my time n place from last year was now very much second in my mind to 'just' getting round safely n getting it completed!
 
Nottingham really raised the bar!

Course was actually12km in a monsoon n the weather wasn’t the only thing that changed from last year, they really went to town on the new layout!
 
Monsoon rain topped off with repeated swimming sections in the Lake……ahhh nice?
 
It was that wet that the intended 'mud section' (under the 30 foot crawl net) ended up being a 1 foot deep mud bath for 30feet.

 
THE RESULT
Now in the harsh conditions, and extended race group of approximately 4500 runners, to hit the top 100 in Nottingham would have blown me away!
 
Well .., (and its math’s time!) What are the chances that I don't just smash top 100 or top 50…..?
 
But actually rank  25th !? AGAIN!

Yes 25th Again!! But from twice the field size!
 
(And the spread of results from 18 thru 25 was actually only 40 seconds!! )

And I was only 7 minutes behind the winner (In Cardiff I was closer to being 14/15 minutes off 1st place)!
 
Wooooooo woooooop race 3 report to follow! Kielder Cross Country Marathon Sunday 09 Octobers 11am……just hope there’s enough in the tank to get me round!

  

 

Sunday 9th October 2011 – Race 3 Kielder Cross Country Marathon 2011 -26.6 miles.

 monsoon marathon madness!
Firstly I'd like to underline the fact that the weather was that bad over 150 people didn't even finish or pushed too hard! N 1 I think took the buss?

On a course like kielder its very much a juggling act between time pace hydration fuel terraine and weather

(N I'm trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about when I very much don't as I'm hardly a seasoned marathon runner -or cross coubtry marathon runner for that fact-)

This is in fact only my 2nd ever marathon n leading up to this event the  furthest I've run was the 12km survival of the fittest assualt courses!

Well after getting up at about 0630am n slowly making my way northward it became apparant that this would in fact be a rather wet race as the closer I got the faster the wipper blades on the car had to work!! - almost to the point that I thought I'd need a snorkle n flippers !!

Well there were over 600 people more than last year which was going to play into me trying to rank better than 96th! N with the weather seriously looking like ending my chances of beating my time of 3 hours 36 all I could realistically do was go for it from the start n try drag my legs round as I would be lying if I said they weren't a tad heavy from the 12km SOTF in nottingham the day before!

The weather the early drive the heavy legs! The vagely trans gender costume -  10am came allong very quickly n The kielder marathon Was now very much a real thing!!

Hitting the start line and running into a wind n sideways rain was a rather unique feeling! --- which then lead too a rather memorable experiance!

Like something which full on tests you on every level!

THE RACE - well It was as tough as anything I've done running wise n the harsh rain was only beaten to the prize of 'worst' factor by the wind! like running in a flippin hurricane! Which was always infront of you! Or ON YOU!
(And I don't mind running in the rain- as in light rain! BUT Taking a fully clothed jog in a shower isn't actually that much fun I've discovered )

Well I never run to a 'watch' or time n just run as hard and well as possible and leave nothing in the tank N believe me there was very little left in the legs n I had to slow the pace of the last third as I could feel them tightening up as I was very much on borrowed time! Well I did make it round but as I glanced up at the clock I knew that this year had missed my time!

Although I knew I crossed the start line towards the back of the pack (as it was a bit of a bottle neck n tripping over before you start is never a good look!)  so knew  the clock was not 'my exact' time
But I also knew that it was not out by more than 2 minutes!

So yes that did get me a little emotional at end (but that's also the rush from just completing 26.6 miles n  coz I gave it 110% but it just wasnt good enough!)

In this weather n all in all with my costume n race saturday I think I know I did my best I just ran out of legs!  N to miss out By possibly only a handfull of minutes was tough - for that split second! Very tough to take!!

Ohh but then that was gone rather quickly when the announcer called out that I was the fastest person in non running kit / fancy dresss! 

A prize I didn't even know was on offer! So that was a shock! :_) n kinda like in cardiff its rather amazing how revatilising a 'cheerer' from a crowd can be ! Very humbling too!  No idea how many people were in the finishing zone but it was kinda like the worlds largest congratulations hand shake when they cheered!! 

26.6 miles of cross country trails! The result from cardiff n nottingham; well it all spun my head round! Big time!!

Now in hardcore conditions THE RESULT

The web site actually shows you split (half way) and believe it or not! Even with all the factors I was BANG on the money at half way!! AND with no watch just straight effort n 'pace'

Thru half way I was on  1 hour 48 mins which is exactlt 3 hours 36 - quite how I managed to do that with no watch is something I'm still trying to work out?

Well end result was 3 hours 41 minutes -which is about 4-5 minutes off my time n  134th pace - 38 paces shy of my target of 96th which ain to bad considering there was like over 500 extra runners this year!!

Ohh n news flash xxx I'm now acrually 133rd! the guy who came 4th at kielder -disqualified for catching a bus! ,!! That's how bad the weather was !

So 133rd!
Overalll
1st placed fancy dress n well all this just means I gotta go back next year n smash it again!!

Any one wanna join me! 

Jp

Thanks once again for all your support and sponsorship, please pass on the link to my justgiving page (below) and hopefully I will be able to hit my sponsorship target.

JustGiving page:http://www.justgiving.com/Jonathan-Procter

Cheers and thanks once again

JP