You will recall one of my new year’s resolutions was to run a 10K for charity, an effort of such clichéd lameness I may as well have joined Weight Watchers while downing a pack of Jammie Dodgers. Since then I have been absolutely bombarded by one request for an update, and only a fool would deny the wishes of his entire audience.

As discussed in earlier entries, I am not entirely cut out for a 10K, my legs having been blessed with the structural soundness of a thousand foot high tower of jelly. Having spent a while carting myself around in a sort of wheeled chair, running a 10K was about as likely as Davros having a shot at the 100 metres hurdles. However, I’m now up and about and out of excuses and my training has begun.

I’ve started a running programme that claims to take people from sitting still to running a 10K in just six weeks. I’ve given myself five months. I started with ten sets of run-a-minute/walk-a-minute and following my subsequent discharge from a specialist lung collapse hospital have gradually built up to Tuesday’s effort of two 15-minute sets. It’d be like one of those heroic, inspirational triumph over adversity stories if I wasn’t otherwise such a contemptible prick.

All of which brings us to my first ever road race, a 4K along an as-yet unopened stretch of the M74 in Glasgow. And I know what you’re thinking there. But just because a lot of the things I do happen to take place in Glasgow doesn’t mean you’re any closer to figuring out where I live. After all, Glasgow is where Abba were calling from in Super Trouper and no one would accuse them of failing to come from Sweden. My secret identity remains intact! But I digress. I survived and managed to run the whole 4K, breaking my previous record by about 4K. I was terribly proud. I’ve now signed up for a second 10K, running one in Glasgow in September and another in Edinburgh in October, to bring in a bit more sponsorship.
I’m running for a small, as-yet undisclosed charity that supports street children in Nepal. The plan is to recruit 25 runners to bring in about £4,000; enough to keep their two children’s homes running for about four months. We’re up to about 16 runners with hopes for the remaining nine. More on that and your inevitable sponsorship of me in future updates.

And apologies for the blurred photo up top. I stand still so rarely these days it’s hard to get anything like a clear picture.

Photo credit: The Zero