Wednesday 2 May 2012

HELP - EVERY PENNY COUNTS!

A TOUGH CHALLEGE AHEAD
  EDINBURGH MARATHON

The heavy rain and cold strong winds affected us all last weekend in some way or another, but not for Catherine Cole who was out there training in readiness for the Edinburgh Marathon which takes place on 27 May 2012 .......

The last time we caught up with Catherine (who is based at ABD's Calne Office) was when she ran the Reading Half Marathon in March 2011 which was a tough one but, she still managed to complete it in good time.

Catherine decided to start running seriously just over 2 years ago.  She had some earlier attempts but failed dismally! She decided to take the "bull by the horns" and joined a local running club in Calne on a beginners running course.  There were 20 in the group to start with; finishing 10 weeks later with a 5k run around the town, followed by a well earned drink at the local pub! They had all completed the run and were very proud of their achievement!

Catherine knew at this stage that she wanted to continue with her running and so started to progress further.  She decided to join an intermediate running session and very quickly progressed to the main club session.  To her surprise she found herself entering local 10k races which she completed in relatively good times!

Catherine has gone on to complete 3 half marathons, the most recent being on 1 April 2012 in a time of 1 hour 52 minutes.

Her biggest challenge now is to complete the Edinburgh Marathon and she is DETERMINED to do it!

Catherine is currently following a 10 week training programme designed by club coach Amy Chalk, who is high calibre GBR international marathon runner.  Catherine trains 4 times a week, with her long runs on a Saturday morning.

Paul Radcliffe has given Catherine a huge amount of advice in her aptly named book "How To Run" regarding diet during training, and leading up to the race day, amongst loads of other useful information - all very technical stuff!

This race is Catherine's BIGGEST CHALLENGE YET, so she is taking this as an opportunity to raise funds for Wiltshire Air Ambulance.

The Air Ambulance is a unique charity whose sole aim is to save the lives of people living in Wiltshire.  Each year they need to find in excess of £700,000 in order to keep the helicopter flying.  This is one of the 7,000+ charities who rely on "JustGiving", an online fundraising business.  Every penny of every pound is donated through JustGiving will go straight to charity.

If you would like to help support Catherine, her fundraising page is;

www.justgiving.com/Catherine-Cole3

Catherine is training very hard, and as a result, she hopes to be able to give the proceeds to Air Ambulance - a very worthy cause.

We will catch up with Catherine after her race.

GOOD LUCK CATHERINE! RUN WELL!