I’ve been commenting through the month about getting back into my running and fitness more and more.

After purchasing a Nike+ sensor and band right at the end of April, I was looking forward to logging my runs and keeping tabs of my progress. To put it simply, this is a pedometer that fits into your trainers and then it links to either of the new versions of iPhone or iPod to record your stats as you pound the pavement, if you don’t have the new equipment then the rubber band with USB reader on is a cheaper alternative. Having got one for Michelle and seeing how it pushed her to take part in a few races, I was then contacted by Danny J Lewis who in turn put me in touch with a friend of his who added me to their May Madness challenge on the Nike+ website.

The challenge consisted of 14 people who would all log their runs and see who could run the furthest in the month, 1st – 31st. I obliged and signed up and immediately recruited Michelle to join us. To begin I ran my normal runs, averaging anything between 8-10km a time, with a steady pace. It was fun seeing the graph of where I sped up or slowed down each time. I took part in a fun run with Michelle, her first official race of 10km, as well as her doing one before this of 6km. I have been very impressed with how she has developed now and totally transformed her shape.. Good on you !!

If you have been following my reports through the month you’ll also know I’ve been hard at work at home, so I tried my best to fit the runs in around the hard labour, I never really took the challenge too serious (to begin with), even taking 4 days off from running at one point. Then one day, I recall Danny coming onto the challenge board and commenting how much he was having to run to keep up with a few of us in the lead, I think Michelle was actually first and me second, with Danny bringing up the rear. The positions then changed back and forth over the next few days and Danny stormed ahead. That’s when something clicked in my head and I decided to give it a shot to win the thing, but I was way behind now. I put on my trainers and my music and I ran… middle of the day in the blazing sunshine I ran almost 18km to bring me more or less neck and neck with Danny. It killed me.
We then spent the next days having some friendly banter on line about the challenge, every day I was having to run at least 10km and every day it got harder and harder as the days got hotter and hotter.
I kept pushing and pushing and because Danny had to save himself for a 10km charity run on Bank Holiday Monday, I was able to amass a large lead and in the end, yes, I was victorious !  Take a look at all those calories burned !!!

I love a good challenge. I actually don’t mind being pushed to the limit and I am a very gracious loser in whatever it is I participate in. I have to admit, this challenge almost broke me a few times and I was on the brink of giving up, seeing as there was no prize or anything, but on the odd occasion where I didn’t think I could carry on, something inside me wanted to make all the pain worthwhile.. so back on went the trainers.

I am very proud of the distances I achieved, with a few over 17km and many around 15km. I burned so many calories that the beer and good food I amassed in Australia has almost gone and despite my legs being in bits, I feel really great now. There is no way I could have done this if I had any gigs in the month and the decision to miss Southport definitely helped me. My first challenge and most definitely the last for a long, long time !  I had intended on finishing on 200km but it appears the challenge finished already as opposed to tonight, at least I don’t have to run today now !

Thanks to everyone that took part, thanks to Yvonne for pushing me on that first 15km and again well done to Michelle for all her efforts. I’ve already ran a half marathon a few years ago which nearly killed me, but this little episode has enabled me to be able to run one of those again fairly easy now if I wanted… bring on my first full marathon !!

Here are a few of the comments back and forth throughout the month (from first to last), if you want to donate to Danny for his Bupa run against gun and knife crime, click here

I put this little report together while I wait for my man to arrive to help me put the cables in on the terrace, if you have read this far then you’ll probably have seen the secret page about that, right ?

I hope May was kind to you and all the bank holidays didn’t break you, I am now looking forward to my summer beginning as the kids start their half days at school this week and my tours of Europe kick in with two parties in Estonia next weekend.