Hello

I'm having a year off from playing hockey to spend more time with my young family, and what better way to do that than spending hours and hours off on my own? Marathon training = top parenting!

This is my first attempt at running a marathon, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask my lovely family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, local pets, basically anyone really, if they would like to show how impressed they are by throwing a few of their hard-earned beans the way of a fantastic charity that is close to my heart.

I am raising funds for the UK-registered charity The International Medical Education Trust 2000 (IMET2000) (www.imet2000.org). IMET2000 has worked in many countries in Africa but right now their most urgent need is for funding in Uganda for a new Eye Clinic (staffed and equipped to international standards) in Herona Hospital (www.herona.org). The clinic is in a rural area where most of the population subsist on less than a US dollar a day. Once fully operational it will be the only such clinical service for a population of over 200,000. Sadly many children in this region become visually impaired and blind at a young age from entirely preventable causes. IMET2000 has already raised £37,000 toward the total needed of £58,000. It would be wonderful if we could raise a significant amount toward the final £21,000 needed for completion.

If anyone would like to follow my training (yawn), all of my runs will be logged on Strava - https://www.strava.com/athletes/16853175 

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Paul

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Update - 4 March 2019.

Just under 6 weeks until race day and starting to get a bit excited! I'm just coming out of a difficult few weeks during which I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run at all.

Rewind a month, I recorded a pretty fast 15.2 miles but had a bit of pain in my right knee for the last 20min. Rested up for a week with just one slow mid week run and went for a 9 mile slow pace the following Sunday. Started sore and just got worse, to the point where I had to cut short and walk back. So I went to the physio, who told me a) I'd been overloading with the number of miles I'm covering and b) I have weak glutes (standard hockey issue).

Two weeks of no running, plenty of glute strengthening work, and loads of stretching, and I've managed two lots of 5 miles in the last 3 days with little to no knee pain. That means I've not done any lasting damage and with luck I'll still be able to make my target 3.5hr time. 

I need to build up again over the next two weeks, then Fleet half marathon on 17th March, then 4 weeks to try and get distance and pace up before the big day.

Whatever happens, I'm determined to cross the finish line in Paris with a smile on my face.

Wish me luck!

Cheers

Paul

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Update 18th March

Completed Fleet half marathon yesterday in a time of 1.34.27, which puts me on track for a 3.30 in Paris. More importantly, knee feels fine today. Muscles are a bit sore, but just fatigue rather than injury I'm fairly certain.

Two long runs coming up on the next two Sundays, 16 and then 20 miles. 

4 weeks to go, getting a bit excited now.

Paul

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. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.