On 16th September I shall be taking part in my second Great North Run. Since the London Marathon I have struggled with my running Mojo but having got my place for GNR I felt I owed it to myself to get on with it and so here I am. I am raising money in memory of my son, Ellis, who died almost 10 years ago from Cot Death, the Foundation for Study into Infant Death have been a constant in our lives since that time. They fund vital research into cot death so that other families don’t have to go through and live with the pain that we have.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Thank you so much for reading, every donation counts, even a pound is much appreciated.

Louise

http://www.justgiving.com/ljbgnr

A Twitter conversation this morning made me feel quite sad. Jeremy Vine posted that there was a Welsh flag flying in Downing Street. How fabulous is that? I think it is great to support one of the home nations who have done so well in the Rugby world cup.

An Englishman replied to Jeremy’s tweet ‘To have Welsh flag flying in Downing St is an absolute disgrace and insult to every English person’. What a mean thing to say, I replied saying that I was not insulted by it but proud!  Jeremy retweeted this and the response was overwhelmingly in agreement with me. Looking at the Englishman’s twitter timeline it was sad to see people saying that if England were playing that the Scots and Welsh would not be flying English flags and that they would be supporting the opposing team.

What a sorry state of affairs! If it were Scotland or Northern Ireland playing today, I would be supporting them too and that is what being from the ‘United’ Kingdom is all about. We should be united in our support of all the home nations.

This time last year my sparkly belt didn’t fit me. My trousers kept falling down but I couldn’t find a nice belt to fit. Earlier this summer I managed to squeeze back into my belt, Facebook friends may even remember
my status referring to this milestone. Well I have hit another milestone in beltgate(!), the belt still fits, but comfortably. I don’t feel like I am being cut in half. This exercise lark really is starting to give results!

I bimbled 9 miles with my friend Rachael on Saturday in training for the Great North Run in a few weeks. The Garmin suggests this burned 1261 calories. If I carry on like this I may be able to go in a notch on said belt by next month. Keep your fingers crossed.

I bet you laughed when you read the title? Well I am not laughing!

I started running to raise money for charity but I soon realised running was a great way to get fit and hopefully lose some weight along the way. It is great when other runners wave, smile or even just nod a greeting. There is a camaraderie between us, we are all running for different reasons but we all love it. So when some spotty oik that probably can’t even run to the end of the road shouts comments such as ‘run, fatty, run’ it really is not very nice, but do you know what I do? I laugh at them, yes, me, the girl in the 10k tshirt, or perhaps it was my half marathon tshirt I was wearing! Oh, perhaps I had my London Marathon tshirt on! I laugh at them because I know that I might be overweight but I am a fit fat bird, setting an example for other fat women.