A tough weeks training but corporate sponsorship on the horizon!!

This last week has certainly been the most frustrating week of my training to date. During my ‘3 parks run’ last Friday I felt a twinge behind my right knee so I rested for 24 hours and bought a nice big tub of deep heat, that would surely work? I then tried to run through the Chantries woods in Guilford last Sunday but the pain in my knee got even worse. With my huge 26 miler with Rory Coleman coming up on the 11th Feb I couldn’t take the risk of doing myself anymore damage so I’ve had a frustrating week, mostly in the gym doing stretching and upper body work, both equally as important as getting the miles in but with only 8 weeks to go it’s slightly unnerving not being able to run. I am going to have a rest weekend this weekend and then build up a little before my big one on Saturday...fingers crossed the knee holds out! On more positive news the race seems to be becoming far more ‘real’ now, having spent the last 2 years day dreaming about running in the desert it really is now finally right around the corner, both unbelievably terrifying and exciting at the same time. Last week I received my race number: 426, and an itinerary for our time out in the desert, I will let you all know the details of this nearer the time. However, the most exciting news this week was certainly on the sponsorship front! Michael Wilson, the headmaster of Cranleigh prep school (and my head of house when I was at Cranleigh), has agreed to let the school sponsor my challenge and has asked me to come in after the race and give a talk to the school on my ‘tales from the desert’, I was seriously chuffed and spent the rest of the day feeling like a real adventurer! I have also heard that a firm is willing to become a corporate sponsor for my race, this is all still to be rubber stamped and I will hopefully be in a position to let you know more about it midweek but I’m incredibly grateful for their interest. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those that have sponsored me to date, your generosity is very much appreciated, and for those that would still like to sponsor me, you can do so through the link on this website. I want to finish by wishing my good mate Tommy, and Holly good luck! Tommy is about 13 days into his solo attempt to row across the Atlantic - a truly inspirational effort, and Holly is just about to leave on her own adventure, into Peru to do some volunteer teaching for the next month - thoughts are with you! These next 7 days should be key and I will post up another entry to let you all know how I’m getting on.