Getting up this morning was a struggle as always, although heading towards the Scottish Border certainly helps, especially when it comes slap, bang in the middle of a running session. I even managed to get a cup of tea there too, lovely. Hills on the other hand are not so lovely. In fact if you asked my legs what they thought of hills, i’m not sure I could publish their answer. Eventually though I did reach the Scottish border, which was an amazing feeling. It hasn’t begun to get too emotional yet, although I imagine when I reach the finish and family and friends are throwing old fruit at me; then it will hammer it home! It has begun to dawn on me over the last few days quite how epic this has been though. Even if a man who has been fully fit all his life had attempted this, it would be immense, but for me - with my relatively recent health and fitness problems - it is an even bigger achievement; i’m beginning to feel quite proud!

Whilst on the border crossing we got a donation from two older ladies, which was fantastic. Well done CVS for getting stuff put on the van, it has really helped with donations and interest up and down the country. We regulalrly see people reading the side of the van with interest and the hope is that this reading turns in to donations!

Even though I am in a battle against the elements, the roads and my mental and physical fitness, my mother is still helping me with washing and cooking, d’oh!! Mother and Father Dobie dropped by in their campervan today (much better than the RunDobieRunmobile) en route to Edinburgh. Mother came armed with an abundance of foodstuffs (Mickey G will know what I mean especially!) and lots of clean washing for me. My Dad stood there and probably wondered what he had done wrong with me!

My running was good today and was really the last full and proper day of running I will end up doing as my legs are now deader than some doodoo. Yes I do mean a Dodo. That joke comes courtesy of Private Baldrick. In all seriousness though, getting to Edinburgh is the main aim now and as long as I use my body to get there, I do not care how I do it, be it running, walking or hopping.

Day 22

This morning marks my first morning in Scotland - regardless of the feat I did the same as every other day and forgot where I was; good lad! I ofte nget asked by people about where I have been and what I have seen and it has all merged in to one. For anyone who has seen Groundhog Day; it feels a bit like that. Today was also a good running day because I only had to do two runs; happy days! Although tomorrow I am back to a full day; damnation!

Whilst resting between runs we did some fundraising in Newton St. Boswells and ended up raising £120ish which is fabulous bearing in mind the size of the place - thank you everyone who donated. As you can see on the home page, the money raised is changing every day now and we are heading towards £4500 which is fantastic. My target is £5000, so hopefully with a bit more help, we can make it there!

So, thats about it for today. Oh yeah, unless you count meeting, chatting and having a cup of tea with Eddie Izzard in the back of your campervan! Most of you will be aware that I hate the celebrity culture and all that goes with it and pretend not to be at all exicted by any of that kind of stuff. Well today I was a hypocrite, pure and simple. Meeting Eddie was one of those amazing experiences that you will never forget. It was not just that he was a famous guy, but mainly because he was in the middle of doing a fantastic and tough event himself and yet he made the time to talk to me and share stories about running and discovery; it really was awesome so thank you Eddie.

Not only did I meet Eddie Izzard; his film crew also wanted to interview me and were extremely complimentary on my skills in front of the camera. I have no job plans for when I get home, so maybe a future T.V career!? I might even be on Comic Relief in March. Riccardo, if you are reading this, I expect you to start getting the ball rolling!!

I finished the day with my fastest (its a relative term) run for a while, spurred on by the meeting with Eddie Izzard. Just thinking about that meeting and what he was doing made me think of the reasons why I was doing it which then spurred me on even more. Today was easily one of the best days in my life so far and I reckon Wednesday should be too. Two of the greatest days of my life in one week? It has been wonderful.

Day 19 starts in familiar fashion; I cannot get my body to move out of bed. A) its too cosy in there and B) i’m pooped. Eventually I get up and the running is not too bad, although my body feels useless. I know what old age is going to be like already. And i’m just waiting for one of my uni friends to comment on the fact i’m there already…

Bizarrely Ian and I have climate control problems. Whenever I am hot, Ian is cold and vice-versa. This can prove problematic, so we often segregate the van using the useful partition so that I can have the heating on and he can sit next to a window, crazy eh?

Sleeping is tricky when next to roads. Not only is there the noise that vehicles make on the road next to us, but whenever anything goes past the van shakes. Half the night you are cursing the noise and the other half you curse the fact that the van pitches more than a P & O ferry.

In the video you can see that I run past Ian shouting “it hurts”; it really does hurt. I’m now running on some sort of subconcious ability - if I start to think about the fact it hurts, I stop - so I basically have to turn up the rock and pretend it doesn’t.

The first run of the morning takes me to Corbridge. I phoned ahead to a Co-Op to ask if I could fundraise there and yet again they said yes; Co-Op are the way forward. Not only was this great news, bearing in mind that Corbridge is quite a small town, we managed to raise around £120 - which is pretty much the 2nd best day we have had yet, awesome stuff. It just goes to show that in some circumstances, the smaller places can be more succesful than the more populated areas.

The A68 is dangerous. Not as dangerous as Dangerous Brian though. For anyone that does not know who Dangerous Brian is, a) your a fool and b) go and look at YouTube. The biggest problem with the A68 is that the road and verge changes frquently. The road can go from being wide to narrow and the verge can go from being solid and flat to being soft and bumpy. This makes running hard and a lot slower.

Today also brought my next radio interview. Lorna gets my name right. Hurrah. For some reason people want to refer to me as a house elf as opposed to my real name. Damn them! The interview went well again although it has not resulted in any random sponsorships yet. I am hoping that people are waiting until I get to Edinburgh in order to sponsor me and help get me towards that £5000 target.

Whilst between runs on the A68 we got set upon by some cows. Maybe they ‘herd’ the radio interview (thanks Laura) or maybe they thought we were an ice-cream van, noone is quite sure. But they hung around for blooming ages staring at us. We made various animal noises, but instead of getting rid of them, we probably turned them on.

Ian cooks a curry for dinner and it is yummy.

Day 20

The wind is outrageously strong today, which makes running much harder. Crosswinds mean you constantly have to adjust where you are running - especially on verges - and any wind against makes things much harder. Obviously when the wind is behind it makes thyings much easier, but God didn’t want to help me today it seems! Darn it.

We have struggled recently to find places to fill the camper up with water. This is a problem for many reasons. Firstly it means we cannot shower. This is bad. Secondly it means I can’t wash-up; this is good actually. Thirdly it means that I do not have any water to take with me when running, which is really bad. As Dave kept telling me (bless him)keeping hydrated is vital. And fourthly and almost most importantly, it means I can’t have tea, which I can’t function without!

Vauxhall corsa offence by not letting us fill up with water at one of their garages. The tap was just sitting there and there was nobody anywhere near the showroom (I don’t blame them) yet Mr. Poxhall would not let us use any water, what a joker.

Oxford win again!! hurrah and huzzah. I genuinely did not know that was coming and was pleasantly suprised. I get to go home this week and prepare myself for the Oxford v Luton match on the 8th; should be a good game. None of this small club, rubbish football malarky. Oh. actually it is Luton not Mansfield. Never mind. Jokes aside, Luton and Oxford are probably the two best footballing sides in the league, so it should be a good game.

I end the day absolutely shattered, but our parking space for the night offers delightful views, which will help with the waking up in the morning.

Day 17

Day 17 starts with me again in one of those rubbish moods. I am genuinely trying to keep on top of my emotions (by telling rubbish jokes) but it is getting pretty tough now. The first running session today took me absolutely ages as the weather was a nightmare. The fog meant I could not see further than 100 feet in front of me, there was no verge and many lorry drivers seemed to have a vested interest in killing me painfully. So I have the right to be moody!

As I am sure you could see from my running gait, my running is now getting slower. But it still is technically running and i’m getting closer and closer which is the key. I made it to Kiln Pit Hill, which consisted of barely anything, but provided lovely views. I managed to run the vast majority of that session too which was good and encouyragement was provided by my first Edinburgh sign - less than 100 miles now! Woohoo! The next run started with me sticking my bum in the cameras ‘face’. You cannot tell from the video, but I had sat on some chocolate and had brown stains on my arse. Good times.

Dinner tonight was not cooking with Chris, we got award winning fish and chips instead, and by golly it was lovely.

After dinner we calculated out fundraising totales, coming out at £3199.50. There are some more pledges to add on to this along with other collection money, so we are heading nicely towards £4000, good stuff.

Ian Hart arrives; woo. Good old Harty, one of my bestest buddies! He also manages to transport Matthews third cake offering without messing it up; within 2 minutes of CVS seeing it however, he almost sat on it…twice.

Day 18

Chris didnt bake, liar! He’s no Matthew Bolton. Thank you very much AGGIE for the Brownies, they were awesome. I’m talking about the edible variety obviously.

For some reason there has been a lot of banterous, slightly gay footage on this trip. I’d like to say it ended today, but it did not. Chris filmed Ian doing a wee wee to which I shouted pee pee, like a lunatic. For those who wondered why I shouted “pee pee”; it’s from Bruce Almighty and it made me chuckle; is that alright!?

Matthew bakes another lovely cake. Chris is very critical though; probably jealousy. Instead of criticising everyone elses work Chris, why not have a go yourself? is it because you can’t? Mwahahaha I love to use these blogs to take the mickey out of Chrissy. I really do like him, he just makes himself an easy target. You wait until this run is over, Chris will get me back, and some I imagine!

Today also marked Chris’s departure. He did not leave because I keep ribbing him because of his baking but because he had to go to a wedding in Scotland. It could have been anywhere, but Scotland?! Damnit! He just mosies on up to Scotland in a couple of hours to make me feel bad. Right, enough messing around!

Ian and I visited Newcastle today, which was good as I used to visit it a lot a few years ago when my Gran was alive, as she lived just down the road. My Dad - Geordie Dave - was from these parts originally and is most definately a true Geordie. We visited St. James’ Park where we ran in to a few thugs; that was just some of the playing staff - Joey Barton anyone? Talented footballer, absolute idiot. We hung around in Starbucks for a bit trying to look cool and intellectual.  Sadly I looked like I had ran a few hundred miles recently without a bath. Which is true.

Cook with Chris is replaced with Ian’s ‘A la Hart kitchen’ - see what I did there? Yeah - its been a long day. Ian starts off well, bringing back memories of Food Tech at Sir John Lawes school, Harpenden. Yes thats right, instead of being ‘cool’ and doing something manly, Ian and I, with the help of Eddie Pitcher took on the girls in the kitchens. And probably lost.

Ciao for now brown cows.

Day 15 sets t he trend for the following few days; namely I can not get out of bed. Whereas this is not that bad, being heckled by cyclists is pretty bad! Eventually I set off with Jeff Beck - “it gets us all in the end” erupting in to my ears. Contrary to my lazy start to the day, I managed a good 10k, which is good. We headed in to Northallerton to do some fundraising, but everywhere said no. Damn these big conglomorates. So instead, we went to the bank to deposit  our fundraising totals; I must say I am very pleased with how we have done with the fundraising on this trip.

As you saw in the video, our camper continues to fall apart; the electric windows have now bust themselves. I would like to apologise to any Spanish fans for my comments on the video. I’m not retracting them, just apologising. Just kidding;)

Cooking with Chris. Sounds camper, than a night in a pink tent with Julian Clary. What resulted from this was in fact a lovely meal. I don’t think John Motson has any immediate concerns over his job though. Just how many times do you need to say “its lookinjg good”? Having said that, how many times do I have to say “fantastic”? We  are both silly sausages.

I also really need to stop laughing at my own jokes - bad times. Al Dente is not a friend of mine; dear god.

Eventually I gave Chris a 10 out of 10 for his cooking. But that involved punches, kicks and arguing. For the record, I give it a firm 9. That’ll be a first for Chris.

Day 16.

“By far the worst session yet”. Admittedly I say this regularly, but to this point it was the worst run yet. Still, I made it through it and that of course is they key. There is no chance whatsoever of me not making it to Edinburgh, but it may involve less running than I originally planned.

The first fundraising of the day took place in Newton Highcliffe. Eventually I managed to persuade the Tesco manager to let us fundraise there. Whilst I can understand that all these companies have insurance things to worry about and policies and so on. But the Co-Op - whilst not as big as Tesco - do not seem to have any of these issues. We turn up, have a short conversation and then they let us fundraise, also often with the donation of tea and toilets (use of). So I am very thankful to the Co-Op. Tesco could certainly learn a thing or two from you.

Now the naked video. The video told you all you needed to know; since then we have had 7 donations I think, so we need another 23 in order for naked me to be on the world wide interweb. Otherwise, Chris will add it to his personal collection. So come on kids, donate to see me making a huge fool of myself. In the video after I say “donate now to see the naked bits of me”, the laughter was because a group of young children walked passed as I said that next to an open window. Oops.

Again its Cook With Chris. Slightly less adqventurous than last night, it involved a cooking sauce and a lack of a cheese grater. But very similarly to last night, it  tasted great, so well done Chrissy Vernony Smithy.

Even though the final run of the night was painful and sore, the evening ended on a high. I cannot thank the National Police Improvement Agency, specifically Chris Johnson who got us a place to park, shower and computer facilities to use and a cooked breakfast in the morning. Thank you very much Chris and to the security guards who looked after us.

Whilst my videos are a bit depressing now, I really cannot help it! The videos are supposed to reflect (At least when the banter bus has parked up for the night) how I am doing and how the running is going. Genuinely I do not really look forward to the walking/running anymore! Walking takes ages and running hurts. But what is great - and constantly keeps me going, is the support I am getting from you all, it really is touching, moving and much appreciated and will get me to Edinburgh, so thank you very much all of you.

Night Night.

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!

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 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.

Waking fresh from party action and a decent nights sleep at 11:30, made a lovely change to waking up in an awkward and uncomfortabke position at 6am. After I got out of my place of slumber, I set about finding some breakfast. Aggie offered to cook us breakfast, but on inspecting the fridge decided that we needed to go and buy some more food. On returning, Aggie cooked us up scrambled eggs (Poland style - central not eastern Europe, if you are in her company) sausages, toats and tomatoes along with a couple of cups of tea. She can definately come again. Something like that.

After breakfast, Chris made some additions to the van; adding a few posters around so people can see what I am doing more easily. Since putting them on on Sunday, lots of people have commented and knocked on the van to talk and find out more, good work Chris.

After this, we went to Mansfield to pick up mother. Mansfield itself was a bit odd and the station design must have been commissioned by a man who only ever wanted to use one side of the station. It took us ages to meet up with mother/Janet once we had got to the station. Sort it out Mansfield. You may have seen me refer to my mother as ‘Big Jan’. Now whilst she wouldn’t argue she was Elle MacPherson I do not use that term in a derogatory way. Big simply refers to her personaility and status in my world! she has  done sterling service so far and Chris is going to have a lot to live up to when he gets back!

Matthew may have a go at me for mentioning this as he does not want anyone to think he is a softy (Most of us know he is hard almost all of the time) but I must draw attention to the gifts my mother brought with her. Matthew kindly baked me a Victoria Sponge and some flapjacks, and wrote me a charming letter detailing how amazing I was. Well, alright he wrote me a letter basically wishing me luck and encouragin me to keep going. It really was very moving.

If anyone else wishes to send me gifts of the cake variety, please do. Anyone in Nottingham can take them to Chris’s house for his return and HArpenden folk can drop them off at Ian’s who will be joining me very soon. Wishful thinking on my behalf I think!

Day 8

Today, I arrived in Robin Hood terrority; a little town called Edwinstowe. Flags were out to welcome us and also to celebrate this place being where Robind Hood and Marian got  married. We started fundraising immediately. Well I say we, my mum started fundraising immediately and I sat down to have some tea and cake!

It turns out that everyone else I have asked knew that there was a spikey thing on the end of lids to pierce metal caps. I now pronounce myself officially stupid and ask how  it is I never knew?

In other, more interesting news; a girl liked me. This would have been fabulous news, although when I saw her I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. So I did both. As I stated  in my video; it’s a start. The queue of model like girls will be forming shortly and I need to be ready!

In sadder news; my body is starting to fall apart a bit. My left foot is about as effective at supporting the leg above as a chocolate teapot is at holding a couple of pints of  hot tea. Still, in classic Dobie style, it has not failed me yet. My calves - whilst pretty sexy - are almost always sore.  But without sounding like the line that didn’t make it  in to a Rocky film for being too cheesey, I have no doubts i’ll finish and will carry on regardless - my heart is still strong! RAR!

Depending on where you stand on my bear, this will be good or bad news: My beard will not be removed until I finish my run. Yes, I am copying the great man himself; Forest Gump. But thats no bad thing. It’ll also make me like a tree. You can tell the age of a tree by the number of rings in the bark, with me you can tell how long and far I have run by the  length of my beard. Admittedly this is not an exact science, but at least you’ll know if you are watching the wrong video!

My next radio appearance is definately this friday. Many apologies for my false propoganda on this! I did not think of bringing the dates with me (Watch day 9’s video for self  deprication on this very point!) which meant I was guessing when my  appearances were. Having spoken to the Beeb, I can confirm it is THIS FRIDAY AT 4:03! I’m afraid I could not  get them to be any more precise than that…

When Chris and Dave were here, all I really had to do was run. Now they are not here, I am in charge of all the internet/video stuff! Whilst I am enjoying doing it and learning along the way, it does make my days even more ridiculously long and hard. Although some of the videos have been so good that it does not matter - apologies to Lucy for putting her on the other day, I couldn’t resist!

Last message is to Chris. I stayed at your house the other day and got made a beauty of a breakfast by your girlfriend. Dave had cooked a few times last week and my mum turns up with a home made Chilli. I challenge you sir - suprise me!!

Ciao for now, brown cows.

The work that goes in to making the videos! Finding internet etc!

As most of you know, I had ME for many years. Getting out of bed this morning was genuinely as hard as it was when my ME Was at its worst. Every time I tried to move,  I pretty much fell asleep. This trend continued whilst I was walking my first 10k of the day, I almost fell asleep twice. The route this morning was fantastic and the scenery great, but I really did feel awful. I hoped that this would not be the way of things to come and it was just a momentary blip. As has mecome increasingly evident, my calves dont like  mornings. On the other hand, Aggie likes my calves, so all is well (sorry CVS!). One quick point; it didnt really take 36 years, but it felt like it.

The day continued to follow a depressing and sad path as we had to say goodbye to Dave(id)! Although throwing David out of the van meant that there was more space for  the Melton Mowbray pies I was to collect later. I refuse to answer any questions on whether I would prefer David or pork pies in the camper…On a erious note, David was a rock this week. Whilst CVS would have loved to able to run with me, if we are all honest he might have died. David on the other hand came out with me every night to  help me through my final run and to keep me going. For that my friend, I am truly grateful.

So, David has gone; cooking duties over to CVS.

Hang on…cooking duties over to me it seems. Using the forzen veg I had been rubbing my legs down with (!) and various other bits and pieces I came up with a meal fit
for kings. Well alright, it was a couple of cups of tea and a cookie each, but I tried!

Day 6

Day 6 dawned and I was feeling a lot more positive. This was because of a number of things. Firstly, I only had to do two runs today. Secondly, I was going to a party in the evening. Thirdly I was going to get a bath at Chris’s house. Fourthly I got to sleep in a massive, comfy double bed for the night. It promised to be a fab day.  My first run of the day was quite good. My calves were not too bad and I did my distance in a decent time, well done me. The first stop off point of the day was Lowdham, a lovely little village. Again responsibility fell with Co-Op for our fundraising needs and again they did not fail us. They have been magnificent! Overall, Lowdham was hugely generous and we took over £80 in the morning - fantastic! One lady in particular was extremely generous. Not only did she give us as financial donation, she also  provided Chris and I with a packet of chocolate chip cookies.  In 30 seconds, the kind lady worked out what one of our (many?) vices was!

Not only was Lowdham generous, but I was too. Chris has worked hard all trip fundraising and this was the same in Lowdham. I took him out a cup of tea and some Soreen! Yum! Thats love for you. I keep having to remind Chris that the marriage laws in England have changed now and we do not have to spend a huge amount of money going to Vegas…

You may have noticed a recurring theme in the videos - actually there are a few: camp innuendo, calamities, eating cookies and cakes, breaking beds etc etc - but for the  point of this paragraph, I am focussing on my directional sense. Pidgeons are widely known to have GPS like directional sense. Andrew Dobie is widely known as having PS  directional sense: pretty ****.   Every running session begins by me asking Chris, “where am I going?” He still has not shouted at me. We’ll see what happens when my mum  takes over! But I did make it to Oxton - eventually.

Once I had arrived in Oxton, it was off to Chris’s house to freshen up, eat and go to a party/BBQ thing. This meant that I got to have a bath. This meant that I was excited. This meant that I needed lots of bubbles. Ok enough now, I don’t have Chris here to censor me. The bath helped no end in my quest for less leg pain and it set me up for the night ahead. The BBQ was fab and I met lots of nice people. I also met one complete tool who had a go at me for literally 15 minutes in front of about 10 people about how I  should be running there quicker and that he could do it better, swearing at me and so on. I did manage to get £10 out of him though!

I have not mentioned or begged for fundraising too much in my videos or blogs so far and I know many of you have already donated, which is great - thank you very much.  Whilst I can not force you to give me money (because i’m all the way over here - not because I wouldn’t punch you) any donations that you could muster would be very much appreciated by myself, the charities and the people who benefit from the work that they do.

That is all from me for now. I will post another blog on Tuesday. Ciao kids.

Day 3 started in eventful fashion. Although we were all up on time and on route to the start point, I soon realised I was missing one very important ingredient to a succesful run; my shoes! I had put them outside the previous evening as they were a bit smelly and forgot to put them back in again, probably running them over as I left the car park - poor shoes!

Andrew enjoys a cup of tea now that the gas is working

Once I had my shoes on, I was off and running. The roads this morning were good and had wide cycle paths, which meant there was plenty of space for me! Whilst I was away running, David and Chris made an important discovery; the gas was working! The hire company had failed to tell us that there was a cut-off on the cooker worktop which meant unless it was pushed right back, the gas was automatically cut off. Now that we knew this, I was able to have a lovely sausage sandwich for lunch - the difference a hot lunch can make!

After my next run I met up with the guys and we went to Burton Latimer to do some fundraising at a local Sainsbury’s, which was very succesful again. This run has been great for many reasons, but local shops and communities have been supremely supportive and interested in what I have been doing, which has been lovely; it is those moments that hammer home how important things like this are and how much it can be appreciated by people.

This trend continued in the afternoons fundraising efforts. Even though Asda company policy (and the main manager) said we could not fundraiser, the duty manager allowed us on the understanding that we did not tell anyone. Now, admittedly I am telling you, but i’m not telling you which town it was in! This was another succesful fundraising effort and even the Asda staff donated some money, thanks guys!

The final run of the day took us to Rockingham. David - who was taking on the role of Appolo in Rocky 3 - ran with me and acted as my pace maker, making sure I pushed myself through the pain barrier. It certainly worked and I had one of my best runs of the week, ending in the lovely, quaint village of Rockingham. Chris unkindly pulled up outside a pub and in they went!! They both had beers and I had an orange juice.   The mental strength of a………….strong person.

Bed time.

Day 4

Route for Thursday

As you can see from todays video, poor David struggled all week with his bed, whether he was making it or taking it apart. The video is no act, David was geninely angry and Chris was genuinely laughing like a girl. See what I have to put up with?

The first run of the day was interesting; lots of lovely scenery and lots of hills. Even though running downhill is technically easier, it puts lots more pressure on your knees as they are in part controlling your movement and stopping you freewheeling in to a hedge. Going uphill puts a lot of pressure on my calves, which are now beginning to hurt constantly.  I got up the final hill to meet the boys in Uppingham, where the local Somerfield manager was lovely and let us do some fundraising. On top of that, he offered to bring us tea and check up on us every now and then. Well done Somerfield!

The afternoon run took me from Uppingham to Oakham, which was a good one because a) the ice helped my legs work better and b) the route included wide verges, footpaths (which I eventually spotted!) and the roads were not too busy! I got back to the van to find that Bedford has revoked our parking fine. Well done Bedford. Don’t let it happen again. Yes my tongue is firmly in my cheek.    Again co-op were pleased to let us fundraise even though the manager was running a store based out of a tent. It wasn’t a two man jobby from Argos, but it was a tent all the same! This evenings fundraising went well and David and I headed out for our final run of the day, pleased with the days progress. Even though the video shows me running in to an off-licence, I did not buy anything, I promise.

The final run was my hardest yet. Everything hurt and I felt like I was going to be physically sick many times, this was the first time I really wondered whether my body was going to give up on me! Luckily it didn’t and I made it to the van in the amazing village of Edmonthorpe where the Post Office was run out of the front of someones house, there was no pub and every house was a sight to beyhold.   The boy’s headed off to a pub in a nearby village whilst I showered and settled down for the night, feeling rather ill. Lets hope I feel better in the morning!