Journal Entries
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Marathon II
Posted May 2, 2002
So, I’d found a charity to run for, and the secretaries at work had promised to sponsor me.
I set up a small website through the charity, so that I could get sponsors online. The site included a picture of a homeless woman and child, which was strange because you couldn’t tell that was who they were. I emailed everyone I could think of and waited while the responses, pledges and donations came in. Some of the responses were pretty amusing, including the ones about the picture of the homeless woman.
"who's the woman with the kid?"
"Congrats for trying to run 26 miles. You will feel the collective effect of 15 years of smoking all at once... P.S. You should hookup with the homeless chick in the picture."
Plenty of people commented on trying to run a marathon given my lifestyle.
"that's f*****g great! i hope yr not smoking as much."
"You know you're crazy right?! Not that I'm not impressed or that I hope to discourage you, I just don't know what's up with all the psycho marathon runners I am "running" across lately!...Why do you people think that it would be fun to run 26?! IN A ROW! Are you just trying to make me feel really lazy and non goal oriented!? Anyways, as long as you know that you are totally crazy... Are you going to quit smoking?"
"I still think you are insane Josh, and have duly donated to the idiot fund." "Thanks ...!” I wrote back. “You rock. Insane idiots everywhere appreciate it."
"I think you're very brave!!!!" To which I replied "I think I'm very nuts!!!!"
The money came in.
I raised about 500 pounds, including a couple of donations from h2g2 people (thanks purplejenny! thanks agirlcalledBen!). Not bad for a first time runner, and its especially impressive given that most of my friends are nothing close to wealthy. I didn't get much from work though. The secretary sent out another email.
"Well, what a Scrooge lot you are. Only two people so far have offered sponsorship! Josh – if I were you at 50p a mile sponsorship so far, I wouldn’t even get out of bed next Sunday! Mind you, only doing 11 miles so far and still smoking, those 26 miles are going to be so horrendous it will take you a month to recover!"
As for training, I’d been doing a fair amountbut nothing close to what you need to be ready. My initial goal for the Marathon was 4 hours, then I scaled it back to 4 and a 1/2.
About a week before the Marathon I did a very long run. It was a loop around north east london, along the canals from Finsbury Park to Victoria Park then up through Hackney Marshes. It was beautiful, but I was in trouble because it was only about 12 miles and I had to walk a lot of it. So, I decided that for the Marathon, I’d run to the halfway point and then see how I felt.
The big day arrived and by 10am I was one of 30,000 plus people who was running across London.
In a way, that was a bit of a letdown. It doesn’t seem like such a unique achievement when 30,000 people are doing it with you, some with incredible handicaps, and some in ridiculous outfits.
There were moments along the course that were great. Running past the Cutty Sark at 6 miles, crossing Tower Bridge at 12 miles, running through the City... I decided halfway that I would run as much as possible. But once I got to about 18 miles, my legs fell off!
My whole body just locked up. I didn’t feel like I was running so much as waddling. Towards the end I slowed down to a virtual crawl. The costumed runners started passing me! I spent 3 miles running next to a guy in a rhinoceros costume, and 2 miles racing the pantomime horse.
But I finished!! Five hours and 1 minute was my official time. If I’d known that, I would have run a minute faster just so I could say I did it in under five hours.
A couple of friends met me afterwards for drinks. The postrace congratulations was great!
We went to a pub full of drunken Marathon runners.
The next day I could barely move. Can’t wait to run it next year. 
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: May 2, 2002
Marathon II
Posted May 2, 2002
So, I’d found a charity to run for, and the secretaries at work had promised to sponsor me.
I set up a small website through the charity, so that I could get sponsors online. The site included a picture of a homeless woman and child, which was strange because you couldn’t tell that was who they were. I emailed everyone I could think of and waited while the responses, pledges and donations came in. Some of the responses were pretty amusing, including the ones about the picture of the homeless woman.
"who's the woman with the kid?"
"Congrats for trying to run 26 miles. You will feel the collective effect of 15 years of smoking all at once... P.S. You should hookup with the homeless chick in the picture."
Plenty of people commented on trying to run a marathon given my lifestyle.
"that's f*****g great! i hope yr not smoking as much."
"You know you're crazy right?! Not that I'm not impressed or that I hope to discourage you, I just don't know what's up with all the psycho marathon runners I am "running" across lately!...Why do you people think that it would be fun to run 26?! IN A ROW! Are you just trying to make me feel really lazy and non goal oriented!? Anyways, as long as you know that you are totally crazy... Are you going to quit smoking?"
"I still think you are insane Josh, and have duly donated to the idiot fund." "Thanks ...!” I wrote back. “You rock. Insane idiots everywhere appreciate it."
"I think you're very brave!!!!" To which I replied "I think I'm very nuts!!!!"
The money came in. I raised about 500 pounds, including a couple of donations from h2g2 people (thanks purplejenny! thanks agirlcalledBen!). Not bad for a first time runner, and its especially impressive given that most of my friends are nothing close to wealthy. I didn't get much from work though. The secretary sent out another email.
"Well, what a Scrooge lot you are. Only two people so far have offered sponsorship! Josh – if I were you at 50p a mile sponsorship so far, I wouldn’t even get out of bed next Sunday! Mind you, only doing 11 miles so far and still smoking, those 26 miles are going to be so horrendous it will take you a month to recover!"
As for training, I’d been doing a fair amountbut nothing close to what you need to be ready. My initial goal for the Marathon was 4 hours, then I scaled it back to 4 and a 1/2.
About a week before the Marathon I did a very long run. It was a loop around north east london, along the canals from Finsbury Park to Victoria Park then up through Hackney Marshes. It was beautiful, but I was in trouble because it was only about 12 miles and I had to walk a lot of it. So, I decided that for the Marathon, I’d run to the halfway point and then see how I felt.
The big day arrived and by 10am I was one of 30,000 plus people who was running across London. In a way, that was a bit of a letdown. It doesn’t seem like such a unique achievement when 30,000 people are doing it with you, some with incredible handicaps, and some in ridiculous outfits.
There were moments along the course that were great. Running past the Cutty Sark at 6 miles, crossing Tower Bridge at 12 miles, running through the City... I decided halfway that I would run as much as possible. But once I got to about 18 miles, my legs fell off! My whole body just locked up. I didn’t feel like I was running so much as waddling. Towards the end I slowed down to a virtual crawl. The costumed runners started passing me! I spent 3 miles running next to a guy in a rhinoceros costume, and 2 miles racing the pantomime horse.
But I finished!! Five hours and 1 minute was my official time. If I’d known that, I would have run a minute faster just so I could say I did it in under five hours.
A couple of friends met me afterwards for drinks. The postrace congratulations was great! We went to a pub full of drunken Marathon runners.
The next day I could barely move. Can’t wait to run it next year.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: May 2, 2002
Marathon
Posted Mar 8, 2002
I've decided to run the London Marathon this year. This was a bit crazy because I smoke too much, drink too much, and don't exercise enough. What I didn't realise though, is that one of the hardest things about this Marathon is just registering to run it. You can't just pay an entrance fee and start running. Either you have to be a professional athlete, very young or very old, work for a big corporation that gets a block of tickets, or run for a charity.
Well, I found out about a leukemia charity and that sounded pretty good. So I sent them an application and two weeks later I got a rejection letter. They didn't want my money!
This was going to be tougher than I thought.
Then I found out about Shelter. They work with the homeless and poorly housed people. One of my friends gave them a glowing reference, so I sent them an application along with a fifty quid fee and a begging letter. They called me a week later to tell me I wasn't accepted but I was sixth on their waiting list.
"When you say sixth" I said, "Does that mean I have a very good chance of being accepted or virtually no chance?"
"Well" said the bored mystery voice from Shelter, "We can't really say. It all depends on how many people cancel. Some people might get injured training..."
"Yeah, yeah I know. But what happened last year? Did no one cancel or did twenty people?"
"Well" repeated the bored mystery voice, "Every year's different. It all depends on how many people cancel. Some people might get injured training..."
I was getting nowhere. I did some more searching and found out that some religious and antidrug charities might still have places. Yeah right. Somehow I didn't feel inspired to run 26.2 miles for the Stop Smoking Pot for Jesus Crusade. This was quite discouraging.
Work intervened for a couple of weeks, and then I got a wake up call at 8:30 in the morning.
Ring! Ring!
"Yeah."
"This is bored mystery person from Shelter." [She didn't actually refer to herself like that by the way]
"Yeah?"
"Are you still interested in running the Marathon?"
"Yeah!"
"Can you get to our offices right away?"
"Yeah..."
By 10 am I had stopped saying yeah and just finished signing a bunch of forms that Shelter had to rush off to the Marathon people.
It was now official. Now all I had to do was train and raise tons of money.
The secretaries at work promised they'd get the department to fork over some hard earned cash. So I brought them the sponsorship forms and asked them to send a quick email out.
The next day everyone around me at work was laughing. All at once people started saying "Now everyone knows" and "Is that what you wanted it to say" and "Start running."
I checked my email.
--------------
From: Lynda ...
Sent: 06 March 2002 15:03
To: department@...
Subject: Josh ...
Josh has entered the London Marathon and is trying to raise money for SHELTER, the charity for homeless people.
I have the sponsorship forms on my desk.
He says he’s going to do it in four hours, but at the moment is only running 9 miles uphill! So he’s going to need any awful lot of encouragement as 26 miles is nearly three times he’s present average even if it’s on the flat. Ways of helping him are:
1 To pledge your money
2 If you see him having a quiet fag tell him that he’ll need all the puff he can get
3 If you see him walking, remind him to run!
Thanks
Lynda
------------------
Great. Now the whole department knew I was a slacker who'd bitten off more than I can chew!!
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Mar 8, 2002
December
Posted Dec 30, 2001
This is turning into a really amusing month.
At the beginning of the month I was in New York. I got to see some old friends, went to Strawberry Fields, Central Park, beatnik bars in the Village, and Ground Zero... got into a strange conversation with an investment banker who told me all that he saw and experienced September 11th and in the aftermath. Its not fit for print here. I don't want this Journal Entry moderated for graphic depictions of horror and trauma.
My big Three-Oh birthday was on the 13th and I was determined to make a big deal of it. I organised a pub crawl through Islington. It was great... I just wish I could remember it. I blame one of my workmates. Every time I stood up she put another tequila shot in my hand.
Over Christmas I visited my family in Miami. By far the most amusing moment was when I spent a night out in South Beach. I ended up meeting a few people who worked for the U.S. Coast Guard. At one point we were walking near the intracoastal (saltwater river near the ocean) when this one girl who did Search and Rescue missions for the Coast Guard drunkenly decided it would be neat to steal/borrow a small boat and row it across the river. I got in the boat but when she followed the boat started to capsize and sink. Of course, we both fell in the water. I jumped out and then had to do a Search and Rescue mission to save her! 
That was such obvious irony that it could have been a lyric in the Alannis Morrisette song.
And New Year's Eve is just around the corner.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Dec 30, 2001
Take a sad song and make it better
Posted Oct 14, 2001
Picture this-
2 am Saturday night, 20 people gathered in the living room of a north London flat, piano in the corner. Everyone is friendly, stylishly dressed and quite drunk, some in costumes. Someone plays "Hey Jude" and "Let it Be" on the piano. In unison and with big smiles on our faces, we all sing along. The neighbors must be able to hear us but no one comes to complain because they don't want to spoil it.
It was one of those magic moments that makes me really appreciate living here, and a perfect snapshot during a great night. I wish I could have bottled it and shown it to people later on just so I could get across how much fun it was.
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Oct 14, 2001
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AlienTourist
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