...definitely out the bag.

“Running Man & Marathon Man” have been the newspapers headlines for my challenge of running 10k-everyday through 2010 for Cancer Research UK.

Friday 4th Dec on my way to drop my daughter at Nursery School, I first stopped at my local newsagents to buy the our local paper, intrigued to know if The Grantham Journal had printed my challenge and story this week.
I was greeted with, “Here he is, the man on the front page, our own Running Man” by the shop keeper as I stepped into the shop; quickly followed by “What did you pay them to get that?” from a solemn man in the corner.

“Nothing” I replied handing the money to shop keeper, who smiled.
I'd never imagined to reach the front cover. Over the week the challenge had become a medium conversation point, the front page meant the Cat was most definitely out of the bag.

Friday went as expected at work with a scheduled interview at lunch time with Lincolnshire Echo, the regional newspaper. Nothing seemed to have changed until I got home, I found messages on different social media networks from missed friends, old friends and 10k-everyday friend requests everyone identifying preferred method for following; each with comments of support and sponsorship had started coming in. I'd planned to test one of the 10k runs Friday night and whilst out Penny told me I'd missed a call from the BBC Lincolnshire; but he'd catchup next week.

Saturday too seemed to start as usual, breakfast with the girls and getting them dressed so we could all go into town. Then the phone range, for those who don't have kids at this stage in the logistics of a family morning the kids might be ready but I certainly wasn't, I picked up the phone in the bedroom with one sock on to find Gravity FM was on the other end wanting a Live Radio Interview as soon as the song finished – the hyperlink to the interview is on the Media Coverage area, blog side column.

The Radio interview managed to drum up a verbal £110 for Cancer Research UK and look forward to reading the email notifications of those donations; Fridays total donations reached £70.

Saturday afternoon I received another call (this time was fully dressed!) from HeLovesMeUK.net (they're Wedding Stationary designers) offering to design the running kit & 10k-everyday look.

It's the 9th day since the conception of the challenge, I'm really pleased with how the pre-challenge activity has gone and I'm sure more interest will develop closer to the start date.

At this stage the best idea has been to “blog” the event and set up the right story before going public. Its enabled me to control the gossip and capture the interest of corporates and community.

Please spread the word and help get people to follow this challenge either at this blogsite or:
www.facebook.com/tbridle, www.linkedin.com/in/tbridle, www.twitter.com/timbridle,
www.twitter.com/sphereinnovat & www.facebook.com/sphere.innovations

Send a friend request with 10k-everyday in it and I'll accept.

Thanks to everyone so far.
Be well, Tim