Run Dobie Run :: London to Scotland - August 2009

Apologies for this being a little late. A combination of many factors prevented me from finding the time to blog. So here we go.

Day 13

Whilst today was similar to many other days in that it included me running 20 miles, it was also refreshingly different as I managed to catch up with some family I had not seen for years. The last time I saw them was at my Grandads funeral, so I guess in many ways it was appropriate to see them again on this run as it is taking place partly to celebrate his life. My Mums cousin Roger and his wife Zelda were really accomodating and picked us up from Easingwolde and took us back to their house for home made food of the finest variety - quiche and cake, yippeeee! I love anythnig with a crust.

We managed to raise a fair amount of money in Easingwolde too which was remarkable as we picked the wrong Co-Op (the smaller of the two) and the customers were not in and out that frequently. We have now raised over £1000, hurrah and huzzah.

Obviously having home made, beautifully prepared food gave me even more ammunition to pound Chris with and I duly did that in todays video. Whilst I can not give too much away in todays blog, he has returned and his cooking has been exemplary so far!

Anyone that knows me really well, will know this already - but l;et me just say that the number of times tea features in the videos is relative to the number of times tea features in my day; tea is my saviour!

I said in todays video that I was not sure if the energy drinks and supplements I was taking would make any difference (I was feeling that drained!) but they did! I even killed a rabbit.

OK I didnt actually kill that rabbit. If anyone believed that I did, then I should not feel stupid for not knowing that you can pierce foil lids with the pointy bit on lids of things!

Another note from todays video, and this happens every day - I get to the next place I am running too (in terms of reaching the town sign) and then think, “yes i’ve made it” to find that my actual finishing point is some random roundabout the other side of town; its blooming annoying and even after 2 weeks of it, I still have not taught myself to expect it!

To finish off, I hope that you all caught the Naked Gun reference at the end of todays video. James Dobie. If you did not notice, you have the intellect of a boiled potato.

Day 14

Now I know what you are all expecting. Lots of chatter about girls and waxing my legs. I hate to disappoint you. So I won’t. If you have not seen todays video, I did get my legs waxed and then torn apart by some machine pertaining to be various pairs of tweezers.

Lets start at the start of the day though.

Today was the day that big Jan departed the camper o’ Dobie. In all honesty we didn’t part on the best of terms. Spending so much time alone with close relatives is not going to be that good for either party and I probably did her head in just as much as she did mine. What is most important though is the fact that I really appreciated what she did. Mum did a sterling job with the fundraising and looking after me (which lets be honest I did not complain about one bit) and it really was only the odd occasion that she lost it. If it had not been for Mum we certainly would not have over £1000 raised on this trip. Well done mum and thanks again!

Once mother departed the mayhem began. Jenny always manages to get me in to some sort of trouble. Normally she’ll just take the mick out of me in front of everyone which is moderately embarassing or she’ll persuade me to do something stupid. Well today was a bit of both. Jenny and Kate offered me £40 to wax my legs. Now it is all about raising money for charity as far as i am concerned and who could turn down £40? Also I like the new sheen my legs have. That is a joke.

The whole episode took forever and hurt like nothing had hurt before. And let me explain that none of the facial expressions expressed in this film were at all faked. I was in pain. That machine is made to remove the odd hair that a girl has missed. Now bare in mind that these hairs tend to be short and the skin used to such rigours. My hair is long and probably wondered what the hell w3as going on. This resulted in my leg going red and transmitting many pain signals to my brain which resulted in me making stupid faces and screaming a lot.

Whilst I like to complain about it, it was a fun day and let me take this opportunity to thank both Jenny and Kate for popping by to visit us a couple of times; it was great to see you and we had a lot of laughs!

Day 11

Running around Selby!

There have been occasions over the last two weeks (that long already!?) where I have emphasised that I have been measuring my distances in kilometers not miles. Thats all well and good, but many people without looking on the internwt would know how miles and kilometers are converted. It is quite simple (let me look at google….); 10 kilometers is equal to just over 6.2 miles. So there we go. I’m running slightly over 30k a day, which equates to somewhere around 19 - 20 miles dependiong on the day.

As I mentioned in a video this week, the Selby Times were supposed to send a photographer to take some pictures, but this did not happen in the end, partly because I had to inform them I was somewhere different and partly because they did not manage to call me back. Whether or not I am going to be in the Selby Times or not, I am still  waiting to see.

As you will have noticed in some of my videos, I do not always edit out mistakes that I make. Partly this is because I do not spot them but mainly this is because they  make me chuckle. Admittedly I should have cut the bit where I suggested that thje 82 year old woman had nice legs, but it made me laugh so I hoped it would make you laugh.  What a fool I am. Peoplue now think I am some sort of OAP predator, especially after the Big Jan Swingometergate incident. Let me assure any OAP’s out there, I am a lovely,  genial gentleman. The rest of you may know this to be lies; shhhh.

Another benefit to having your mother with you is that a) she does the shopping b) invariably she’ll buy better stuff than I would normally and c) She’ll cook it. Today we had steak and salad and it was rather lovely too.

I made another mistake today: Socks and sandals. Fasion disaster? CLearly it was because I could not be bothered to try to get my back to move enough to stretch to get my  socks off as oppossed to any belief that socks really do look good with socks.

My mum would like me to point out that she doesnt really hate the north and that I like to play on it for fun. There, I have told you. I would not believe a word she says!

I’m guessing you got the wit/sarcasm - I do wash up really! Although the bit about it being the worst thing in the world was not sarcasm, I hate it. It spoils eating and drinking.

Day 12

On my final run yesterday, I ran my quickest 10k time. “Well done” I hear you cry with pride and impending boredom. But actually, that was bad. I woke up today the most tired  I have been in years. And my legs did not work. I was basically running on automatic pilot; Which - thinking out loud now - would have been funny if it was like the automatic  pilot in Airplane. Although technically that would mean I had a horny inflatable man growing out of my knee. For those of you who have never seen it, please watch it before  passing  judgement!

As you may have guessed or heard about in my videos, I am running relatively slowly. Some of you will work out the reasons why, others of you might not. I am running slowly for a number of reasons: some sessions, I am purely knackered; some of the roads I run on make running 100% difficult because of their nature; thirdly, I could run much faster but then I run the risk of being overly tired for my next run and it also increases the chance of injury and soreness, which I really want to avoid as much as possible.

Another thing that is detrimental, not only to my running but also to every facet of life, is my singing. Many questions could be levelled at me here: Why are you singing  along to 80’s pap? Why do you sing like a girl? Why did you put it on video? These are all valid and important questions. Basically, I am not going to asnwer them. What I will say though, is that I will not be signing live again!

Today was another good fundraising day. Yesterday was our best and today was pretty good. At this rate we should get to £1000 raised in bucket collections alone, by the end of  the weekend - thats really good going!

Apologies again for the Three COunties radio debacle. If you missed it, I can only apologise, although you can listen again here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0041y9m/Lorna_Milton_21_08_2009/  and if you try and get the ticker to about 1:49:00, it starts somewhere around there!

My memory is rubbish and I always drive off leaving something in the wrong place or a door open. This lapse of brain power resulted in a broken kettle! D’oh. An even bigger D’oh when you consider than tea plays a vital part in my life!

I know that Peeenwee booair I (see yesterdays video) is not how the French say it, that was merely for effect. Saying that I don’t know how they DO say it, but hey, GCSE French was 10 years ago.

That is all for now. Heading to Thirsk tomorrow and got a day off on Sunday.

Bye

Day 9

Day 9 started well, with a lovely run to Tickhill - which is a really long town, I arrived at the start and thought “hurrah” but it took me another 5 minutes to reach my mum, darn it! We raised loads! I say we; I slept a lot, mum worked hard and ended up raising lots of money, good girl:) Mum is takingthe fundraising personally; when it goes well she is delighted and when it goes bad she gets depressed! She also really wants to beat the boys fundraising total.

I reached Doncaster in the afternoon, thinking that we would continue with our brilliant fundraising this week. How wrong I was. None of the supermarkets would allow us to fundraise and there were no other obvious places to do it. It was all a bit rubbish. So we sat in the camper in the car pakr and drank tea and ate for the rest of the time until my final run of the day. Miscreants is a great word which suitably sums up the younger generations of Doncaster!.

As you may have seen, I tried to film some running footage - it was a bit boring, I run quite slowly, but at least you get to see what I do and the dangers I face!!

Day 10

Day 10 started well and my first run was fine so we decided to drive up to Pontefract which was the largest town near to where I had finished running. We parked up in a big Asda hopeful of a big fundraising day, but Asda, they say no! boo! We ventured in to the main town and for the first time on this run, Tesco agreed to help us; better late than never. Sadly their help did not result in lots of donations and my mum was thoroughly depressed by the end of the day. We could not really work out why it had gone so badly, but hey-ho; any money raised is better than nothing. Also, because we did so well on most of the other days, we have set our sights quite high, so anything bad will be a bit of a blow.

If you haven’t noticed (your blind, you don’t care or my sweat flattens my hair THAT much) I got my hair cut today. I look pretty fresh; shame my beard spoils the illusions of grandeur every time I look in the mirror. If you noticed the hair, no doubt you will have noticed the fact that I use the word fantastic far too much for a normal person. So much so that I had to pay money from my own (my mums) pocket in to the buckets.

The definate highlight of today was the lunch, which was beautiful home-made fair. They may not like donating money in Pontefract but they certainly know how to make pies and cheesecakes. And it my book, that is almost as good. ALMOST.

In looking on the internet the other day I found that two local (to home) newspapers had run articles on me which is great. Sadly only one of them was accurate. The Advertiser thought I lived in Australia and that three of us were running. D’oh! Still it is all better than nothing at all I suppose.

Apologies to Chris, I love you really. On a serious note for a second, whilst I take the mickey out of CVS, 18 months ago I was in the same boat; I could not run for further than a mile without being absolutely shattered. So I have every faith that Chris can do it and I look forward to him running alongside me; it gets a bit lonely!

My mum got so depressed today and go even more annoyed with the campervan, she booked us in to a Travelodge for the night. This ordinarily  would have been fab, apart from the fact that mum snored! D’oh! The one time I woke up, it was like a flock of wilderbeast had just savaged some prey for lunch. No, I am not saying that my mum is a wilderbeast. She just snores. Loudly.

Hopefully, tonight will be a little bit better!

Tin Tin - out.