No more weekends left!! Daaaaargh!!
This is the point of no return:

I feel a bit sick. Whose stupid idea was this?
I did an hour at the weekend, five and a half miles. I should have done a bit more really but everything hurts now. Plus I had a run-in with a heron. Honestly, running in Regent's Park is like going on bleeding safari. I was quietly congratulating myself on successfully negotiating pockets of pigeons, gaggles of snaffling geese, waddling swans that were hissing like billio and a spaniel that clearly needed to be medicated when I turned a corner and there it was, standing in the middle of the path, blocking my way - a large, straggle-feathered heron. All it needed was a little pointy hat and a staff and it would have been Gandalph of the avian world: You. Shall Not. Pass.
It eyed me with its beady eye (they have got quite long, sharp beaks, herons, haven't they?) and waggled its neck at me (I'm not entirely sure what neck-waggling actually means, in Heron-speak, but I don't think it was inviting me to breakfast). It was only when it opened both of its wings and took a step towards me that I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated.

I did see four Royal Parks Half runners, though, identifiable by their gold Royal Parks running tops, going through their paces (I have one, too, but will be wearing my team bones one).

So. Two little gentle jogs this week, an hour with Katie untrapping trapped things and untightening tight things and I can do no more til race day. Friends and colleagues have been saying it's no disgrace to walk some of it if I have to ( I'm horribly undertrained and I've no idea if my muscles/joints will go the distance), but I would see that as a failure, even though the point of the whole thing is to remember Bridget and Paul and raise money for BCRT, so they can work to try to make sure that people like James don't have to live with the tragedy of loosing  young family members before they've had time to live.

So thanks to all you out there for supporting me and donating to BCRT, especially those renegades in Seattle who actually figured out how to sponsor me in Sterling. Whohoo indeed!!!

Watch this space....

11 days to go!!
Just had another sports massage this evening. Oh God it was still excrutiating especially the quads! I was practically crying and I swear when she was digging her thumbs into my calf my kidneys moved an inch and a half. To add to the agony I have trapped nerves in my neck, so next week they are going to be untrapped in my last massage before The Big Day.
Am getting nervous now - have done very little since my 9 miles when I should have done a couple of 5-6 mile runs at least. Think I will have to get up early tomorrow amd get some miles in before work.....
I did invest in a foam roller, though. Honestly, you wouldn't believe how painful it is rolling on a piece of foam!  I'm sure I saw something very similar at the Tower of London torture room when I took my niece there a few months ago.....

15 days to go!
Guess what, blogfollowers?
9 miles!! Little old asthmatic,not-very-fit, perennially injured me ran 9 miles today. NINE!
Paula Radcliffe, eat my shorts!
I can scarce believe it. Mind you, I can't actually walk now, my feet look like they've been transplanted from a hobbit and I think I'll have to put my dancing pumps up on eBay. But 9 miles! Thanks once more to my stalwart friends who gave up their Saturday morning to push/pull me round Hampstead Heath (and with a hangover! Not mine, I hasten to add).
And thanks to the person/persons unknown who sponsored me on Friday a very generous amount, taking me passed my total for bone cancer research.  Whoever you are, thank you so much.
So there is a meteor shower of hope streaking across the dark skies above Running HQ. And with it, belief at last. OK the last 4 miles will be in the lap of the Gods, but I am hopeful.

God if Quins don't win I shall cry. What are they doing? I could have bloody well scored that with my eyes closed.

18 days to go (nooooo!)
Another 3 and a half miles in bank before work yesterday. Had a second sports massage this morning and I think it may actually have been marginally more excrutiating than last week. So much so that I had to seek solace in an Eccles cake. Well, not that much solace as I had to fight Fibonaccithecat for most of it.
I now have Arnica for my bruises, which tells you how tough it is. Katie the Magnificent went to town on my dodgy hip and my ILB (or is that ILT?Or BLT - oooh yes please). Anyway, its that big flat tendon that runs down the outside of your thigh and seems to go on for ever. Anyway, tight, tight, tight! She advised foam rolling (not rolling foam, obviously, but rolling on foam). She said " that will loosen it up, but in the meantime I'll just do it for you". Oh my life!! I was practically weeping it was soooo painful. She actually used the point of her elbow at one point - the point where back to back NSB video conferences suddenly seemed rather attractive......(just kidding. I love it all really.... )
So. 18 days left to get from 6 miles to 13 and raise my target of £500 for BRCT (I'm still not quite there so if you are reading this and haven't sponsored me and suddenly feel the urge then do not resist it!)
As long as I don't hear those dreaded words before then "Come in, number 13,923, your time is up"

21 Days to go.
I ran 6 miles today!!! SIX!! Up hill and down dale, zig-zagging across Hampstead Heath with my friends (thank you, friends, for giving up your Sunday morning to help me train). Bloody fantastic it was, there is hope for me yet. Ok it wasn't particularly  quick, but do I care? Non. And I didn't even have to use my Sigourney sleeves (although I did see a chap in them - his, not mine, obviously - and interestingly he had the arrows at the front.....which means one of us is a bit wierd; or a bit dim)!
I do believe if I can just stay injury free for the next three weeks I will make it....
Katie's going to have another go at my muscles this week, too, so fingers crossed....

Oh my Life! It's really happening - I got this this morning

I am officially Number 13, 923!! I guess the challenge is not to finish 13, 923rd (that's assuming that there are more than 13,923 runners and I am not already last)! I also got a very snazzy Royal Parks running vest.
The training workshop was disappointing really, just reminding me of all of the things I should have done by now and haven't and telling us all that we should now be winding down our training...Winding down? Er, hello? It's cranking up for me!!
The best thing about it was meeting James, whose training has been dogged by more serious pain and anguish than mine and he has so far only managed 7 miles. This makes my 5 and a bit seem not so bad and at least I know I am not the only one horribly underprepared and doubtful about finishing before the sun sets. And, he too is running for BCRT, having lost his 9 year old cousin to bone cancer (which makes me all the more glad that I'm doing it and puts life into perspective really).
Am running on Hampstead Heath tomorrow with friends, which needs to be for an hour at least...
But I'm feeling positive, and the All Blacks won this morning and Richie was fabulous as ever. Is there ever more glorious a sight in the international theatre of sport than a Haka with its hackles up?  No. There is not. Unless you count me winning the Royal Parks Half Marathon.....arf!

22 days to go
Well. Did I have a teensy weensy little rant about my sports massage yesterday? I think I may have.
I take it all back. I am bruised from top to toe, but I just ran for 45 minutes, no stopping,  a little over 3 miles - and without my Sigourney Sleeves!!! Weh-hey!! Katie Scott, masseuse to the wrestling fraternity, I don't know what you did to me yesterday but I now love and adore you!! You have gone right up there into the firmament of People I Love And Adore (you would have gone straight to the top were that spot not occupied by Richie Mccaw who, in short, is a God, and cannot be dislodged for love nor money).
So there remains hope...
I also signed up for the Royal Parks Half training  workshop this Saturday morning which seemd like a good idea at the time - until I got a confirmation email with an attachment that was headed "Military Fitness Training". Oh dear. I think I may have just signed myself into some kind of boot camp....

....ow.....

23 days to go
Oh My Sainted Aunt! Have just had first sports massage  (one hour long) and can honestly say I'd rather be tied to a tree and have my heart pecked out by blackbirds. It was excruciating!! Never have I felt such pain. I think I'm going to need a glass of wine to dull my nerve ends; and none of that crisp, pale,frivolous Orvieto; oh no, this is a job for a stonking OysterBay Merlot at the very least....
I don't honestly think I'll be able to stand up (wine drinking aside), let alone walk to work tomorrow - and I've got a 9.00 am meeting.
Apparently, there was a lot of scar tissue to tease out and my running muscles (it seems I do have some) are all bunched up and tight. Well they're bloody well not any more. The lovely Katie (she who ministers to the World Wrestling Stars - there was a clue there) says no running today but she is optimistic that training can resume and that I will make it....We shall see what tomorrow brings.....

Another little victory this morning in the battle to run the Royal Parks! To add to my 23 mins on Sunday, another 30 - and this time no walking, jogging all the way. Only just over 2 miles but better than nothing. So just another 11 miles to find in the next 24 days then!!
Have got a one hour sports massage tomorrow to see if this will help, but have  just noticed  in the small sprint that this lady is sports masseuse to the World Wrestling Stars, so it may  finish me off altogether.  At the very least I think it might actually hurt.....

Well, blogfollowers, you stalwart few, a little ray of sunshine has penetrated the thickening cloud that has been hanging over Running HQ.
This morning I went for a jog!! Oh yes, after 10 days of enforced idelness, and not much activity for the previous two weeks, I decided to bite the bullet and get back out there. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and Regents Park was calling to me...
OK, it was only 23 minutes and 1.8 miles, and a mix of fast walking and jogging bimbling, but I am chuffed. No pain to speak of.
You see, desperate times have called for desperate measures, and on Friday I bought some 2XU calf skins from those lovely people at Parkway Runners Need. Admittedly, they make me look like a cross between Sigourney Weaver in Alien and Nora Batty, but do I care? No. If they keep my muscles working and me running then I'm happy.
God I've missed running. The park was busy - why are you out running, all of you Running People? Have you picked up a gaunlet thrown down? Are you running towards a goal that might just be achieved? Are you running from a sorrow that can never be outrun? Or are you just running - because you can?

Matt and I, I have to tell you, have parted company (sorry, Matt, I tried but you were just too much for me) and I have consigned him to Second Bookcase, in between "Running a Half Marathon - Whose Stupid Idea Was This?" and "Is Your Cat Cleverer Than You Are?" (with regard to this last, I hope not, as I have to try to get a urine sample out of him tomorrow. Let battle commence.....).

Today's challenge - how to get a urine sample from a cat. Jeez. Life at Running HQ just gets better and better.....

Have been doing my exercises and stretching my hamstrings, which you could bounce a billiard ball off they're so bleeding tight, and now my leg is screaming from top to toe. I think I need a glass chilled Orvieto to numb the pain...
...and remind me of those halcyon days, of sipping fresh Italian coffee in the early stillness of morning; watching Georgio quietly tend his fruit trees; and smiling at the sounds of the household within, gradually uncurling its various selves, pulled long and lazy by the warm smell of coffee and the first touches of sun....
Crap. Is it really less than a week ago? I think I may need two.

Dark clouds are gathering over running HQ, which is now back in London. Have been to see the physio today and the news is not good. All inflamed from calf to hip and am to do no running for another week. None! There are only 5 left until the big day and now another one is lost! And I haven't even run half the distance yet.
Crap!
Have got battery of execises to do morning and night in  the meantime and physio is recommending some kind of gel insert for my shoes. She is not hugely optimistic about my chances for the race; if (if?) I do make it to the start she says I am likely to be doing far more walking than running. I'm so gutted and fed up. I think I'm going to eat some chocolate and pull the wings of the sodding bluebottle that is buzzing around the flat to cheer myself up (don't worry, you members of the Bluebottle Protection Society, I'm going to beat it to death with my Matt Roberts' 'Get Running' book first. It won't feel a thing....)

Do you know what? Sod it. I will be on the start line on the 7th of October and I will cross the finish line (hopefully also on the 7th October) even if I have to crawl over it, which is looking more and more likely. So there.

On a brighter note Fibonaccithecat went to see VetJanet this morning and he has put on weight, tipping the scales at 4.8kg! So that's good. Must be all the custard tarts the Old Matriarch has been sharing with him.....