Today got off to a great start with some very kind donations from my colleagues at work. It didn't stop there as I decided to hijack a work Teams call with hundreds in attendance. That added £250 to the total for St. Benedict's Hospice via www.justgiving.com/page/rungeordierun2025. I also received a lot of good luck messages. Which was nice.
I paid The Big Optician a visit in Ouseburn today. As was the case for the big runs in 2013, 2016 and 2018, they kindly offered to supply me with some sunglasses. There were a lot to choose from but I soon arrived at a pair that I liked the look of. I tried them on outside the shop and I was blown away at just how good the lenses were in daylight.
A huge thank you to Karen and her staff at The Big Optician for looking after me.
I paid a visit to my long time sponsor
D-Line in North Shields this afternoon. They had moved to larger premises since the last time I visited. I had a tour around the shop floor which was hugely impressive. I was in my element with fork lift trucks driving by and workers on the benches looking very busy indeed. A large shipment, destined for South Africa, had just departed the warehouse. One thing is for sure, the company has grown significantly since they first sponsored my 2016 run.
It was a pleasure to talk to the staff about my running. Many of them I recognised from the last time I was there. That's probably as a result of recruiting a hardworking and loyal Geordie workforce. I was keen to stress, without the sponsorship of D-Line, that the run wouldn't be possible.
After a few photos outside the D-Line premises, I was presented with a donation of £101.20 which has been paid to St. Benedict's Hospice via
Justgiving.
A huge thank you is due to Paul and all of the staff at D-Line for their amazing support. I'm looking forward to paying them another visit once the run is over. I'm sure I'll have some great stories to tell.
Regular readers will know all about the "secret weapon" that I've been using for recovery since the first run across the USA in 2011. I am, of course, referring to Cherry Active which is supplied by my sponsor Active Edge.
A huge parcel arrived today containing 240 sachets of Cherry Active. That's more than enough for the USA so I think I'll be using some for competition prizes this summer.
Cherry Active is a product that I've come to rely on to reduce the aches and pains associated with running long distances. If you search their website you'll find my testimonial from 2015. It's as true now as it was then.
"I always call Cherry Active my “secret weapon”. It was recommended to me by staff at the University of Northumbria when I used their heat chamber training for the run across the USA.
CherryActive made a huge difference to the runs across the USA and Australia.
When you run up to 60 miles per day for 100 days you tend to ache a bit! I used CherryActive on a daily basis in the USA and Australia and the aches and pains in my legs were kept to an absolute minimum. I can’t imagine running without it now."
Thanks to Active Edge for their continued support. Please visit their website
here to find out more. PS. It's not just for running/sport. If you do your research, you'll find that it was originally used to treat gout.
Finally, on this day of saying thank you to many people, I'll finish off by showing my gratitude to all of those kind folk who have made a donation. Over £500 has been added to the USA 2025 charity total for St. Benedict's Hospice today which means that the fund has smashed through the £11,000 barrier. The current total is £11,351. That's a fantastic amount at this stage.
