Last minute yet again

I really do seem to have lost the blog-love at the moment which is a shame as I do enjoy looking back over the years and remembering how everything has developed. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose (with apologies for the lack of accents!). There was another marathon on Remembrance day, that was number 202, and it was especially poignant as some of our regular men from the armed forces were missing - 2 suffering from PTSD and 1 who sadly took his own life. It made the 2 minutes silence even more poignant looking out over the Channel at Samphire Hoe on what was a very dreary grey day but when the sea was the calmest I'd ever seen it. I found out later that 1200 desperate people had made the crossing from France to Dover on that day in ridiculously flimsy boats.

The amazing clouds and skies I saw have encouraged me to start taking photos of the sky at home each day so there will be lots more sky photos in future. I'm currently plotting my next fund-raising plans for 2022 and top of the list so far is another 100 mile event with the possibility of attempting 10 marathons in 10 days (gulp!). I'll keep on turning the ideas over in my mind and the solution will appear eventually. Of course, if Covid is still a major issue then all plans will go on hold yet again. Around the garden the colours of Autumn have been stunning and now all but the oak trees have shed their leaves.

I've nearly finished the Skog sweater and I've really enjoyed the gentle flow of plain stockinette punctuated by the pattern on the sleeves. I did a small swatch to see how the Kid Silk Haze worked when doubled for the motif:

Here's the 2nd sleeve part way through the pattern and below it is what the stretchy cast-on looks like:

Oddly enough I haven't felt the urge to crochet at all this year which is most unusual and needs to be rectified and I am definitely going to try harder to keep up to date on my blog as it's amazing how much I forget if I don't write about it as things happen.

Big badda catch-up time!

Oh my goodness, I've been so lax in my updates and now there's too much to go in one post so I'll have to split into bite-sized chunks (and not necessarily in the right order).

First we have the long-awaited ballot results from the London marathon:

Oh no, I hear you cry!  You haven't got a place and it's all about dementia charities in 2019.

But fear not dear friends, the lovely people at The Dementia Revolution (the partnership for 12 months between Alzheimer's Research UK, the charity I've been supporting for the last 13 years, and the Alzheimer's Society) have offered me a Gold Bond place so I will be there - well I could hardly not be there could I!

This of course means that I have to raise £2000 for the cause which is going to be jolly hard work as everyone I know has supported me at least once and some many times more.

I've raised over £54,000 for research already but I'm going to have to be super-creative to find new ways to reach my fund-raising target this time - as usual I have a plan brewing inside my head and it's  a very scary and suitably testing challenge for 2019 which I can't share just yet.  Suffice to say it will be tough and will take me right out of my comfort zone (yet again), especially since I will be 62 when I undertake the really tough part of it (gulp!).

My fund-raising page is now up and running and full details of my challenge will be revealed in due course.  I might also do something special at the London marathon just for old times' sake..................

A short while ago Dame Barbara Windsor very bravely announced that she is living with dementia and she sent this lovely message:

Now what else is there to catch up with?  There have been a couple of marathons:

The Tolkien Challenge

Back to beautiful Samphire Hoe again for my 4th running of the Tolkien Challenge.  I wasn't sure whether to do marathon or ultra distance at the start but settled for marathon in the end as the motorway traffic was bad due to roadworks and I wanted to get home at a decent time.

It was the perfect weather for a little jaunt by the sea and I'll let the photos do the talking:

The Highland cattle and sheep were sharing the grazing in different areas.

I always love seeing the cliffs.  They make me feel small and humble.

Traviss made the usual announcements but this one for Nick, my favourite nutty American, was extra special and I need to give him his own post.  Suffice to say he is shattering and setting so many World Records and is absolutely amazing (note to self - don't forget to write about Nick asap!)

I tried to be really good and only took photos on my last lap (although I did spend about 10 minutes chatting with a bird watcher at one stage.  He was watching a Peregrin Falcon on top of the cliffs but was interrupted when someone flew a drone overhead which scared it off.

As we stood chatting this small murmuration of Starlings took flight and flew down the side of the cliff right over my head - the noise of their wings was amazing!  They performed some fabulous  acrobatics before settling back on the cliff-face.

Dungeness power station in the distance

For some unknown reason, I was captivated by receding lines that day.

Jon striding out along the sea wall.  His mum & dad were there too.  He's got his whole family into marathon running and his mum has been an absolute treasure during races, handing out ice-lollies and sweeties when needed (more receding lines).

The day-glo orange Sea Buckthorn berries look unreal don't they!

There was lots of Sea Lavender along the sea wall

I don't recognise this plant and must look it up

The obligatory lichen shot!

The rust-coloured reeds against the green water drew my eye

Sea meets clouds, meets multi-coloured sky

Bye-bye sea.  See you again soon.

Another fab Tolkien medal

My finish time was around the usual taking into account chatting and taking photos - 5:39:44.  That was number 157.

The Kanga-Roo Kanter

Back to Ashdown Forest for another challenge event in Traviss and Rachel's Winnie the Pooh series - for the past 2 years I've done both days and earned suitably themed medals at the Winnie the pooh Wander, Eeyore Expedition, Tigger Bounceathon & Piglet Plod.

This year it was the Kanga-Roo Kanter and the Owl Amble but I could only do the first day as life got in the way.  The other issue is that I had a camera malfunction and so all the photos I took were lost.  I couldn't work out why until I remembered the start when we were all setting out.  I was going over a short, sharp grassy mound when Dee was taking photos and I waved to her - a man behind me pushed into me and I stumbled and fell flat on the grass.  The rude man didn't even say sorry, nor did he stop to check that I was OK!  I think the memory chip in the camera must have been dislodged in my fall hence non of my photos were saved.  Ho hum.

So this is the only photo I have, taken right at the start by someone else.  I'm on the right, wearing my pink flamingo crochet cap, chatting with James and plotting adventures for 2019 (as you do!).

I had a very pleasant run despite the tumble and the weather was perfect with a gentle breeze to cool us down.  Everywhere looked wonderful as the bracken was changing colour to shades of rust and lemon.  There were lots of dog walkers and horse riders out and I had some lovely chats with fellow runners en-route.

I hadn't decided whether to stick at marathon distance until my last lap when I decided I wanted to get back home for Strictly come dancing (Mike and I have become strangely addicted to this programme which is odd because we are rubbish dancers!).  For those of you who watch this I was sad to see Katie Piper leave this week as she is such a lovely lady but sadly she wasn't the best at dancing.  I met her years ago on the This Morning programme and I was humbled by her amazing attitude to what had happened to her (she had acid thrown in her face by an ex-boyfriend).

Sorry, I digress.

Before I set out for my last lap I paid a visit to the aid station for the first time as my water bottles were empty.  They're those soft, squishy bottles which fit into my ultra-running vest.  I topped one of them up and tried to get it back into its pocket but I couldn't get it back in so Kirsty very kindly took pity on me and came to help.  This resulted in much hilarity and squirting of my drink and I must have wasted about 5 minutes there for no real reason!

Never mind, I trotted around my last lap without falling over so that was a bonus and even better I finished faster than day 1 last year so was very happy with that.  So that was marathon 158, completed in 6:04:09 which is a couple of minutes faster than last year and would have been more if it hadn't been for the squishy bottle debacle (oh and the chatting and photos)!

To finish here's quick showing of my completed Allie Shawl which has been blocked and just needs a few finishing touches (I'm feeling the need for pompoms for some reason) before I do a write-up about it unless of course I get distracted by something else as is my wont!

My 60th Birthday Challenge is complete, or is it? (this is a bit long and rambling, sorry!)

How can that be, you're not 60 for another 18 months are you?

Oops!

What started out as one of my usual 'it's got something to do with my age' challenges for ARUK has morphed into something I really did not expect. I was supposed to be running 13 marathons to celebrate 13 years of running and it just so happened that 13 is the sum of the digits in my age this year, 58, so 5+8=13. I also set myself the task of only running events in Kent, Sussex and Surrey (with the exception of London marathon) to help publicise Join dementia research in those regions. At the time I was choosing my marathons I'd only just met the lovely people from Saxons Vikings & Normans but their venues fitted the bill perfectly.

I had already intended doing London again so I selected lots more marathons from their list plus I added a couple more in case of injury and saved my favourite, Beachy Head, to finish off the year.

What I hadn't banked on was meeting so many inspirational and supportive people at these marathons and little by little I felt less like the silly old woman at the back who runs marathons for charity and more like a real runner. It was a good feeling I can tell you!

During the year Traviss and Rachel introduced more and more marathons to seduce me and so one week in April I found myself entered into the St. George's Day marathon, the Wonderland Caucus Race & the London marathon meaning I had to run 3 marathons in 4 days. Mike was worried that I'd taken on too much as I'd only done a double weekend once before in Dover last year. I felt great during the first 2 marathons, on Thursday & Friday, had a rest day on Saturday and then went to London with no expectations of finishing in a decent time. London is the one marathon Mike comes to and we agreed that I'd probably be finishing in 6 hours+ so imagine his surprise when I phoned him to say I'd just run a pb of 4:42:17 - he was sitting in a pub watching football and enjoying a pint thinking he'd got at least another hour to wait!!!

Slowly I began to believe in myself more, well apart from a couple of blips when the gremlins got inside my head, and I realised that I'd been running well so it would be a good idea to take advantage of it and finish off my 60 marathons this year. So that's exactly what I've done, with only one slight blip when asthma forced me to abandon Beachy Head but all was not lost as Traviss came to the rescue with a spare place at an event the week after.

OK, enough of the waffle, let's get on with the race report.

Marathon 60 of 60 - The Usual Suspects Challenge

Regular runners on the long distance circuit are known as 'the usual suspects' as they are the people that you see time and time again at different events. Little by little I seem to have become one of them so I was excited to have entered this event as my final marathon of the year. Traviss had promised us a very special medal with all our names engraved on it and he didn't give us a sneaky peak at it beforehand which is most unusual!

This was another event held at the beautiful Samphire Hoe which has appeared on my blog 4 times this year so I won't link to all the pages. I'd decided I was going to wear my Christmas Tree outfit which I will also be wearing for my run on Christmas Day. For those of you who don't know already, this was created to celebrate the Christmas Tree Festival in our village for which I'd created a 'Memory Tree' but I was running the Christmas Pudding Dash on that day so I wore my costume for the run then went along later wearing it to the delight of everyone there.

As the day of the event was supposed to be the start of the great Christmas getaway I thought the M20 might be busy so gave myself plenty of time for my journey. It certainly was busy up until the exit for the Channel Tunnel but then the traffic thinned out until 6 miles before Dover when the lorries in front started flashing their hazard warnings lights and moving over to the lefthand lane. 'Operation Stack' was in place.

Thankfully it didn't slow other traffic down and I found myself in Dover with time for a coffee at the Service Station. Note the classy tights.

As I sipped my coffee and looked at the rather dull view I realised something I'd been putting out of my mind - it was the 30th anniversary of my dad's death. Sometimes dates come and go with just happy memories but this time it brought a lump to my throat and I wished he could have seen what I've been doing in mum's memory.

After I'd slurped my coffee I decided to take a couple of shots of the view around there for completeness. Sorry they aren't exotic but sometimes the mundane can be interesting too:

The Port of Dover

Dover Castle high up on the hill

Then it was time to double back up the motorway for a short way to reach the turning for Samphire Hoe. Don't worry, I wasn't driving when I took these photos, there is a 3 minute waiting time at the traffic lights as you have to go through a narrow, single track tunnel to reach it.

You can see the row of lorries on the motorway on the right

It was just getting light when I parked up.

Rachel and Janet were dressed in their Christmas finery as they handed out our numbers

Some of The Usual Suspects were gathering, so many of them I see at every marathon

I headed back to my car to get changed and there was also a Christmas card from Traviss and Rachel with my number which was a lovely surprise

Fancy dress was optional of course but many people dressed for the occasion:

Trisha looking fab in her outfit. She was there supporting her hubby Karl and she took loads of photos throughout the day (thanks Trisha)

Karl looking suitably festive

Kat always looks colourful!

Ruth's leggings were positively luminous!

The lovely Dee who always adds a touch of glamour to these events

His jacket didn't stay on very long as it was warm but I think he kept the trousers on!

Paul had a Christmas pudding on his head & on his right you can just spot Philip with his cap and elf ears

You can get a feel for the height of the cliffs from how small the cars and people seem

We all gathered around for the usual announcements but there were some extra special awards for people who'd run the most miles at Traviss and Rachels' events this year and for those who had done lots of baking at each events so that their fellow runners were well supplied with cake and nibbles (a special thank you to them).

On the podium below you may recognise Brenda from an earlier post. That day was her 100th marathon……..for the year! That wasn't it for her though as she has another 4 marathons planned. Inspirational and amazing in equal measures.

So what did I look like? Very silly indeed!

When I met up with Maryanne I was really jealous of her red and green tights and must update mine as these red/white ones are the ones I use with my Mrs Santa outfit (yes, I do have several Christmas outfits!).

Little and Large (thanks to Scotty for the photo)

When we started off it was unseasonably warm at around 14 degrees so it wasn't long before I was feeling rather hot in my cosy felt costume. You can see I was wearing a long-sleeved top underneath so after the first lap I decided to bite the bullet and take it off (with apologies to anyone in the vicinity who had to witness me taking off my tree to remove it!).

Traviss had warned us that there cows and sheep grazing so we had to make sure we shut a gate behind us.

This little chap was having a jolly good scratch against the bridge and he let me stroke his nose until someone else tried to touch him and he backed off - you can just see her hand in the right of the photo. I grew up with cows around so am quite happy in their presence although I know some people are rather nervous about them.

It was a roiling sea and there were some big waves crashing against the seawall section. On one occasion I got well and truly soaked by one even though I was well away from the edge! I didn't mind at all as I was very hot and it helped cool me down. Jono, who was running just behind me at the time, said it looked really pretty with the sunlight gleaming in the spray as it drenched the poor wet Christmas tree!

As always there was loads of banter between runners and my costume caused much laughter which was nice. Quite a few people took photos and this one, taken by Mel, sums up the day for me - I just loved it and really enjoyed running with so many fab people.

Posing for Philip the queue jumper (tee hee!) on my last lap. I've always wondered what that blue structure in the background is and so I emailed the Visitor Centre at the Hoe and they said it is the Samphire Tower. It used to have a telescope in it but the glass disappeared and so now it's mainly used for observation. Mystery solved. 

The low light really set this small pond alight with interesting patterns and shapes. I loved the rust-coloured reeds which have grown in a pattern echoing its shape

This is the cinder incline we had to go up on each lap. I always try not to walk up it until my 4th lap at the earliest.

Heading for the finish line and still smiling!

I was running quite strongly and felt good throughout and I didn't loiter too long at the aid station (which is really difficult as there's always someone to chat with and scrummy things to eat!) and even though I took lots of photos I still got a course pb finishing in 5:29:45.

Now for the medal. Traviss had promised us something special and we weren't disappointed - I've put 2 of my other medals next to it for size comparison.  The figures in the centre have the names of the 5 people who have run the most miles at their events this year, which was a lovely touch, with the names of all the other runners around the edge. Mike spotted my name easily (underneath Greg's right foot as you look at it).

This was on the Saturday before Christmas and I was relieved that the Sunday was free as I still had several projects to complete. I had hoped to give Carolyn something for her little boy at the marathon but I still had some finishing touches to add so it had to be posted to her instead. I'll post photos of that in my next write-up.

So that's it. My challenge for 2015 and my 60th birthday challenge have been amalgamated and completed in the same year so next year I can sit back on my laurels. I think not!!!! My next challenge for Alzheimer's Research UK will be announced at the start of 2016 and it's going to be my toughest yet.