I've been meaning to post this since Jan 01! A reminder of what this is all about...

Everyone at Kith & Kids would like to wish you a very happy festive season and wonderful 2009 .

 

It has been an incredible year, which we have enjoyed immensely.  Our projects, summer camp, weekend clubs and friendship outings have been some of our best yet and we are busy putting the final touches to our Christmas project! On behalf of all of the staff and families involved in Kith & Kids thank you for your contribution.  Like most organisations we face tough challenges for the coming year and we look forward to being in touch in 2009.  But for now this is a great opportunity to reflect on our most recent successes. 

 

 New opportunities for over 18's   

Our new Employment, Life skills and Education Project started this year for a group of young adults who have autism.  On a Monday and a Wednesday the ELSEP group learn and develop skills that will help them to achieve either employment or further education.  Importantly they explore many of the issues related to this that most of us take for granted including developing better social skills in order to build relationships and successfully interact with others, budgeting and life skills including independent travel and confidence building, numeracy and literacy.  The group are working fabulously together and some have already started work experience placements which will help them achieve their long term career aims. We wish them luck for the new year!

 

New support for sons and daughters when parents are no longer around  

New staff member Sarah Samuel started this year as coordinator for the brand new Kith & Kids Lifetime Advocacy Support Project.  This is an extremely important project for parents and carers as Sarah's role is to advocate for people with a disability when their parents are no longer able to, making sure that they are ok and accessing the services they need most. Sarah has been getting to know the families involved with KLASP over the past few months and looks forward to meeting more people in 2009.

 A bumper London Marathon and challenge events team!

This year we had 30 runners in our London Marathon team.  These included super band Coldplay's guitarist Guy Berryman.  In total we raised over £70,000 which is absolutely amazing.  We have 29 guaranteed places for the 2009 London Marathon and we are hoping to increase this to 40 as it is our 40th anniversary year through recruiting people who have secured their own place through the ballot system.  We thank all of the participants in our challenge events team who helped us to raise over £100,000.

 

Getting ready to celebrate

 

2009 is Kith & Kids 40th Anniversary year.  From our very humble beginnings we have grown into a successful organisation that eases some of the pressures of having a family member with a learning disability.  All of our birthday plans will be posted on our website www.kithandkids.org.uk so keep in touch and join us in celebrating a great achievement.

 

Best wishes from everyone at Kith & Kids

 

Love moose but antlers are no use for running.

BTW: "Love moose" in the heading is as in "I love moose" not "I am a Love Moose". Be clear on that if nothing else.

Yes, so no obvious link between the photo and the story today, but hey, what are you gonna do? 

I've had 4 runs since coming back from skiing and I'm not sure I'm altogether happy about how heavy my legs are feeling. They are the kind of heavy that makes driving to work, rather than cycling, seem attractive - even though it'll mean being in rush-hour traffic. And just for the hell of it, I'm on for a little run later today; schedule says a mile jogging, 2 miles brisk and another mile jogging. 

"Brisk"? Excuse me! Since when was that a running term? Makes me feel like I should do that session with a suit on and a briefcase in hand, with that purposeful though pointlessly stressy walk/skip/run action of someone slightly late for a very important meeting. 

Maybe I will.

And I'll leave the antlers at home.

J'aime Faire Du Ski

Week 4: Day 1

Week 3 was a week off from the running schedule. A week skiing. And one of the best weeks ever. How have I never skied before? What was I thinking? What have I been doing all these years?

Skiing on the Austrian slopes was the most fun. 

And now it's back to business. 

I crunched some numbers, did some calculations, got some figures, and here's the deal. I'm following a five-times-a-week schedule for 16 weeks, which gives me 80 runs to do. Even with a complete week off that's still 75. 2 weeks are run already, so going into week 4 today, I have 65 runs left to do between now and April 26th. And, of course, the last one will be 26.2 miles long. 

Joyful.

65 runs of increasing distance and pace.

Bring it on.

Which is easy to say today, because today is a rest day. Hooray ;o)

I'm loving the rest days.

Schedule: Love it or hate it. Or both?

I'm having a mixed relationship with my running schedule. I fear there may be turbulent times ahead for us both. The schedule sits on my desk telling me what to do and how to do it. And I'm not sure I like that. I get in from a busy day at work; I'm tired, I'm hungry, my head is full of this, that and the other, and Schedule (capital letter - it's developing personality) simply says, "Go out and run. Run 5 miles and take about 50 minutes over it". And I'm like, "But Schedule, it's late. It's cold. I'm tired." And Schedule just says, "Go out and run. Run 5 miles. Run today. Run tomorrow."

There's every danger of me deciding that Schedule is a bit of a bitch.

However, that said, about 5 minutes into my run last night, I felt fine. Better than fine, in fact. I felt great. And, goddammit, I felt grateful to Schedule for holding a line with me. For standing strong and not backing down. Without Schedule I'd never have made it out of the door. And I know that. 

There's every danger of Schedule being my greatest ally over the coming months!

Schedule is the child of Mike Gratton, who has won the London Marathon, so she knows what she's talking about. (eek - Schedule has gender now!)

As I said, I'm having a mixed relationship ;o)

Training Update Tuesday

Day 2 of Week 2

So, 7 consecutive days getting up at 7am has worn me out! The last two days I've bailed and gone back to sleep for a while. Failed to drag myself out of bed. And it's been milder - thought that would make things easier? How do regular people cope with it? I know 7am isn't even early by many people's standards. I can't fathom it. Really. 

Running 5 times in a week was a first too. Running 4 consecutive days felt surprisingly ok at the time, but has, I am sure, contributed to the fatigue I'm feeling this week. Up until last week I always had at least one day off between runs. That said, Week 1 is done, I'm alive and I'm feeling happy with it. 

Week 2 is underway. I'm moving the runs around a bit as I'm heading off to the Austrian mountains for my inaugural ski trip on Fri night/Sat morning. Trying to squeeze a bit more in between Mon and Fri, getting the long run done before I go. And then Week 3 won't have any running at all. I'm imagining it might have lots of falling over in snow and getting up again instead ;o) 

Day 1, Week 1 (of 16)

Woo-hoo! Yee-ha! Hooray! (etc...)

I woke at 7am, as planned. Set off running at 7.30am, as planned. Ran an easy 3.5miles and got home just after 8am, as planned. 

Can you imagine just how smug I am feeling now?! 

(Hmmm, you're close, just step up the smug a bit... yep, bit more,... that's it.)

And perhaps, maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to keep this going for another week or two. I'm not looking too far ahead, bite size chunks and all that. But I know for a fact that tomorrow is a REST DAY! Oh, life is sweet. 

Check out my schedule from this link.

The time for talking is over...

Happy New Year! 

Tis January. Tis 2009. And the time is now.

Final lace tying before the Hangover 10K on 1/1/09

Monday 5th January is Day One of the Flora London Marathon (FLM) 16 Week Training. All around the country, and across the globe, people are buying new trainers, treating themselves to an iPod Shuffle, taking a deep, deep, deep breath and accepting the fact that for the next four months they are going to become increasingly hungry and tired as they run, jog and perhaps crawl their way through hours of training and ultimately to the FLM finish line.

I was thinking I'd use the 3 Times A Week schedule that I used for the Copenhagen Marathon in 2007, but am now considering upping the stakes (and, no doubt, the steaks) a bit and going for something a little more full on. Jan 5th to 11th would then look like this:  

WEEK ONE

Mon 3M (miles) (approx 30 mins) slow 
Tue Rest 
Wed 4M (approx 40 mins) slow 
Thu 2M (approx 18 mins) steady 
Fri Rest 
Sat 3M (approx 30 mins) easy 
Sun 7M (approx 72 mins) slow

I reckon I'm gonna give it a go... and time will tell. 

And of course, I'll keep you posted.