6 days to go.....

Where did the time go?  Getting very worried now that there is a missing link the size of Lancashire in the preparations.  Hopefully the information booklet I have prepared is sufficiently readable and detailed for everyone to follow, but I guess we'll find out along the way......

Anyway, many important decisions to be made during the week none more so than the team selecting their starters, mains and desserts for the celebration meals in Inverness and Penzance.  Here's hoping for some serious downpours this week for the air to clear for a perfectly dry 9 days thereafter.

Below is one of the pitcures taken after Bushy parkrun yesterday.  A more capable bunch of runners for a 1,000 mile relay event you could not have selected!

PS  Thanks to Bushy parkrun for the support, particularly Ray Coward for announcing the Stragglers Jogle event and allowing us to start Bushy parkrun and hand out leaflets at the end advertising our event!

SMS to donate - Accepting Text donations now!

Fundraising has gone through the £ 5,000 mark now and we have just set up a text donation service through Just Giving (Virgin Money Giving don't support this currently).  100% of all SMS donations will go to Macmillan Cancer Care.

Separately we're finalising the car livery designs and the cars will be seriously pimped up with Stragglers JOGLE livery.  Evan sent through the designs yesterday and I measured them on my car and I don't even have large enough side panels for the versions we were proposing.  Scaled down versions are being marked up, but that just gives us more space for our 2sq m of printed stickers to go elsewhere on the cars.  We'll certainly be noticed for the 10 days of the trip!!

Flyer below for the SMS donation information.

Just over 2 weeks to go......

I'm sure I've forgotten something, just can't put my finger on what yet.....

Really beginning to feel that this is actually going to happen now with only 2 weeks to go.  Running tops are supposed to be arriving tomorrow and Evan has done a great job with the proposed vehicle livery for the trip (images below).  Should look good for the 10 hour trip up to Inverness (although pretty much anything would improve the looks of my Nissan Note......).

Beating Bushy Bounds on Saturday evening when hopefully we'll get a good JOGLE team turnout all in the resplendent new kit.......

Feels a bit more real now......

Just back from another JOGLE meeting and it feels distinctly more real now with most of the group in attendance and having gone through the route in detail together with the scheduling of teams, accommodation etc.  Fortunately no-one with any major injury scares at the moment - fingers crossed it stays that way for the next 7 weeks.....

Lastly, some more nice artwork from Evan below - get fundraising everyone!

VLM results for JOGLErs - 6 finishers

So here they are in their full glory - all 6 of them in addition to the 3 other marathon finishers that we have had already this year from the JOGLE team.  Peter Kennedy must have had a tough second half looking at the splits. Meanwhile this must have been a breeze for Ingrid and David with all of their training at the moment:  This wasn't even half way for their Comrades Marathon next month.................

                             Half                         Full
Allan Barrie           1:23:17                    2:55:46
Vince Howley       1:36:46                    3:14:57
Peter Dry              1:38:41                    3:20:20

Peter Kennedy      1:30:11                    3:24:46

David Venter         1:46:36                    3:55:54

Ingrid Wagner       2:01:11                    4:11:57

Marathon Results - with more to come at the weekend

Prior to this weekend's London Marathon where we have Peter Dry, Allan Barrie (I think??) Ingrid Wagner & David Venter all (unofficially) representing the Stragglers JOGLE relay team, we have so far (as far as I am aware) had two marathon finishers for 2011 in Andrew Lane (Brighton) and Kristin Simmers (Sussex).  

Andrew Lane - Brighton - (3:16:11)

Peter Wedderburn - Brighton - (4:05:15)
Kristin Simmers - Sussex Coastal Trail Series - (5:31:57)

Go JOGLE!

Perfect weather for first official team photo roll call

The motley crew is shaping up now and we even managed to get most of the team out for the Stragglers / Ranelagh Harriers mob match at Kingston parkrun.  The sun was up and there were some great runs by the team with Roy, Ingrid, Allan and me all recording our best ever age graded parkrun performances.  Unfortunately we'll be running more than 5k each in July.......

15 of the team below:

And this time with a somewhat reluctant Peter Dry who was picked summonsed from the coffee queue.....

Just need to cross our collective fingers for the team to stay injury free for the next three months which, given the schedule for the likes of David and Ingrid who (before July) are taking in the London Marathon, the Comrades ultra 56 miler and a 'warmup' 50km event sandwiched between the two, is more of a challenge than your average group of 20 people........