The last post ...

Well this is it ... the last post of the blog that was 2009 miles. It’s New Year’s eve and we will soon be entering the 2^nd decade of the 21^st Century. 2009 miles started out as a challenge to run 2009 miles during 2009, it was always going to be a tall order and it became apparent to me as early as March that I was probably going to fall short of the distance. In the end I stopped counting by about June as by then I had taken several months out of activity through various injury niggles. Finally by about August I got proper treatment for my nagging old Achilles tendon and by October I was probably recuperated enough to start running properly again, the only thing was that by then I had seriously got out of the habit of regular running so have only run sporadically since then.

However I do view 2009 as a good year and it has given me renewed enthusiasm to head into 2010 with optimism and belief that it will be a great year ahead.

Highlights of 2009 are many and varied, ranging from doing my first ever hill race at the Berwick Law event to running a mile on the track for the first time since 1992 but the undoubted highlight of the year was running the Bupa Great North Run with my mum and my brother, it was the first time since I took up running in 1974 that all three of us have run even a step together and this time we ran around 15,000 during the 13.1 miles pilgrimage to the coast at South Shields from Newcastle.

So what lies ahead in 2010? Well, first up is the Bupa Great Winter Run 5k on Saturday 9^th January, I will be tackling that off little or no training and carrying the extra half stone or so that I have put on over the festive season, so it will be challenge but also a benchmark for improvement. After that I am not sure but I am keen to go back to the Deerstalker event in the Borders in March, the madcap event that takes you through rivers and bogs, over hay bales, up some serious hills and all done in the name of fun and adventure! I have also signed up to do the new Scottish half marathon, which takes place a couple of hours ahead of the Edinburgh Marathon on Sunday May 23^rd and finishes in the same place down at Musselburgh Racecourse. I also want to do a hill race or two and possibly some track running – variety is what I am after – every event needs to be different and offer its own unique challenge and experience.

So that’s it for 2009 Miles, I hope those that have followed the journey are not too disappointed that I fell short of the original aim because I am not, I had a great time and experienced new things and places along the way. I will be back with a new blog sometime in the New Year, which will be linked or forwarded from here so all that is left for me to say is thanks for reading and have a happy and prosperous 2010!

Cheers

The jogster

2012 blog

Photos by Steve Lindridge, Ideal Images www.idealimages.co.uk

I wrote this blog for the 2012 website but here it is on 2009miles in case you haven’t seen it on there! To see it on the 2012 site click here.

968 are significant numbers, they are the 3 numbers that represent Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt’s 100m time at the Olympics in Beijing, officially it was 9.683 seconds and then rounded up to 9.69 but I am sticking with 968 for a reason, as that is the number of days to go before the flame lights up over London’s new Olympic Stadium. So it was today (December 2nd), with 968 days to go, that I got to meet Paul Deighton, the LOCOG CEO in the Renfrewshire town of Paisley.

We had been asked as part of Paul’s visit up to Scotland to bring together one of our jogscotland groups to meet him and share a little bit of the story behind the jogscotland initiative.

What better place then for us to go than to our award winning Group of the Year for 2009, the force that is the Renfrewshire Jogging Buddies?

I’m not sure what he was expecting but when he was asked to do some running on the spot with the, mostly, female group for the assembled press pack the laughs and whoops of encouragement seemed to spur him on to even greater heights. One of the ladies reckoned that he was practising his ‘Highland Fling’! He was made an honorary ‘Buddy’ (the name given to the people of Paisley) for the day for being such a good sport!

The jogscotland vision of changing behaviour and mobilising the population through physical activity is shared by the team at London 2012 and also at Government level in both Westminster and Holyrood. We relished the opportunity to be involved, in some small way, in the great opportunity that London 2012 has given for everyone in the UK.

To have the greatest sporting spectacle in the world on our shores is amazing and for me will almost certainly be a once-in-my-working-lifetime chance to be connected to a home Olympics.

Munich 1972 was my earliest memory of the games and I recall watching on TV the great Soviet sprinter Valeri Borzov, 100m and 200m winner, who I found out years later was reputed to have had a shot of vodka as part of his preparation before each of his Olympic triumphs.

Ever since then the Olympics have held a special magic about them for me. I never made it as a competitor, (the closest I got was competing at the GB trials in ‘84 and ‘88, when Britain ruled the world in my chosen middle distance events and to make the GB team entailed being in the top 3 or 4 in the world!) but I really hope to make it to London 2012 as a spectator.

Launched in 2002, jogscotland has seen over 20,000 people benefit from the accessible and beginner-friendly programmes that we operate in around 350 groups in local communities all over the 32 local authority areas in Scotland.
As we say, ‘If you can walk you can jog and if you can jog you can run’. By taking things gradually and progressively we have encouraged and supported literally thousands of people into adopting a healthier lifestyle.

And it is not just about the physical benefits of being active it is also the mental and emotional wellbeing that comes from being part of a group supported by our trained Jog Leaders.

As well as our community programme, we also have junior jogscotland groups in around 1,200 primary schools and 5k events around Scotland that cater for all ages and backgrounds. We know that as 2012 approaches more and more people will see being active as an important part of their everyday life.

On a personal note I am looking forward immensely to visiting the emerging Olympic Park as it is near my old running territory in East London, where I lived for 5 years. I spent many an hour running along the banks of the River Lea where the Olympic Park is coming to life and past the old disused Hackney Dog Track, close to where the stadium is now rising up in all its glory.

Walking the walk, or in our case ‘jogging the jog’, is something that is really important to the success of our work. With that in mind I was delighted that the London 2012 visit to Scotland also gave me the opportunity to catch up for a run and chat with Chris Daniels, the Head of London 2012 Activation for Lloyds Banking Group, who was up for the business conference that also formed part of Paul’s itinerary for the day.

I was also pleased to hear that Paul incorporates running into his keep-fit regime, some of the Jogging Buddies were keen to take him on over 10k - let’s see if he takes them up on the challenge!

Brownlee snubbed as Giggs triumphs

At 21 Alistair Brownlee might have won the World title and dominated many of the major triathlon events throughout 2009 but it wasn’t enough to even get him shortlisted for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. I have nothing against Ryan Giggs, he is a superb player and deserves recognition after such a long and illustrious career with one of the most successful teams in the world, but to even make the top 10 as an individual was surely the most that a team sport player could (or should) achieve. But then that does not take into account the incredible bias in the media towards all things football related and in particular the English Premiership. Little wonder then that a World Champion from a sport the BBC only covers during the Olympics would not get a look in.

The influential sports website www.insidethegames.biz ran a poll to see who should win, Giggs scored just 3.3% of the votes compared to 66% for Brownlee. I guess the real sports enthusiasts know the magnitude of his performance, perhaps by 2012 the public will know him too …

With former Olympic champion, Gabi Szabo at the mass participation conference in Frankfurt

London 2012 makes buddies with jogscotland

This is was me (in the shirt and tie) running for the cameras in Paisley with our local jogscotland group, Jogging Buddies and Paul Deighton (next to me in the blue shirt), CEO of the London 2012 organising team.