Saturday 31 March 2012

Your gonna love this one...

The new video is out! Well not mine but my car and myself make a cameo! It's done by a friend of mine running for tommys filmed using Ron Howard's film crew! Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ9z6mrOH9E Maverick out

Friday 23 March 2012

Marathon Distractions

Soooooo don’t judge me…… please. This is my running play list. Its very eclectic, and slightly all over the place but that describes me quite well on a good day. It’s a mix of heavy metal, rock, dance, tv theme tunes and various other items. I wont bother breaking them down but here we go in alphabetical order-

The A team original theme
American heartbeat (rocky)
Around the World, Daft punk
Back to the future soundtrack
The power of love, Back to the future sound track
Bad romance, lady Gaga
Hold me kill me kiss me thrill me U2….batman sound track
Battle of Britain theme tune
Beat it, Michael Jackson
Bellissima, DJ quicksilver
Black, Trivium
Blade runner theme tune
Born Slippy
Born this way, lady gaga
Buried alive, Avenge sevenfold
Burning heart, Rocky
Can I play with madness, Iron Maiden
Can you feel it, the Jackson 5
Chakalaka, wippenberg
Crazy Train, The oz master ozzy osbourne
Derezzed, Daft punk, tron sound track
Everyday I love you les and less, Kaiser chiefs
Eye of the tiger, Rock
Fame…..ok don’t know how that got on there…honest
Fear of the dark, iron maiden
For whom the bell tolls, metallica
Ghostbusters theme tune
Gladiators the tv competition series theme tune (most inspirational)
Gonna fly now, rock Again!!!
Hollowed be thy name, iron maiden
Hearts on fire…..holy crap how many rocky tunes are there!!
Holding out for a hero, Bonnie tyler
In da club, 50 cent
Its my life, Dr alban
Jump, Madonna
Kenny loggins, danger zone……top gun had to be in there somewhere
Killing in the name of, rage against the machine
Lonely is the night, billy squire
Never miss a beat, Kaiser chiefs
Nightmare, avenge sevenfold
No one knows, Queens of the stone age
No tomorrow, Orson
Nothing gonna stand in our way……the transformers the movie sound track, oh dear
Orion, Metallica
Rock the night, Europe
Timewarp, rocky horror picture show
Saturday night fever, beejees
Running on empty, Jackson brown
Separate ways, journey
Seven days and one week, bbe
Seven nation army, the white stripes
Shut up and let me go, the ting tings
Superstition, stevie wonder
Sweat, snoop dogg and david guetta
Sweet child of mine, guns and roses
Theme from shaft….Oh yes, if you like funky guitar rifts this is for you
Thunderstruck, ACDC
The touch, transformers
You’re the best, karate kid
633 Squadron
Dare, transformers
Hunger transformers
Your love lifts me higher and higher, Ghostbusters
What can you do for me, utah saints
Icarus, Madeon
Atomic, Blondie
Oops upside your head……family parties!!!

Yes that is it, strange but true.

Thursday 8 March 2012

Kony, charity or not?

If you know me you know I research absolutely everything I spend money on. I look for a bargain but will pay the money if it is needed. I have always been a huge contributor to charities in monetary form or helping out personally any way I can. There is a trend going on, a trend which intrigued me. Normally theses things pass me by but I decided to do some research. My Business studies and economics A-levels taught me where to research business accounts and how to look in the right place. It showed me how to dig a little deeper into what people do. The reason why this charity sparked a light in my research brain was because its based in Africa, a good proportion of our family lived there for many years and in fact my father was brought up there for most of his life. I know a little, not a lot ut enough to know who is talking out of their arse and who has a grasp of the politics over there. I had a rare night to myself last night so started some digging. I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes: Stop sending me that video. The organization behind Kony 2012 ,Invisible Children Inc. ,is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign office manipulating facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards. Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going. By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone . The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known. And as far as what they do with that money: The group is in favor of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending. Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it. The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. Placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger. Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to. The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention. There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible. If you want to give money to a charity, give it to St Georges hospital. I can personally guarantee everything you get wont go to an African dictator and will go to helping sick people to get better.    

Monday 5 March 2012

In the words of Charlie Sheen WINNING

Yesterday was my first ever competitive duathlon which I did as a team event with my best man Iain. It was a horrendous day, 30mph winds, honking it down with sideways rain. Totally crap! Dorney lake had never looked so miserable!

A duathlon consists of a run, followed by a cycle then a run. You have to be quick on these things so I did the running and Iain did the cycling. We knew that in training we were fast but you never know what the day is going to throw at you, rain wind and a ball bustlingly cold temperature.

I was up first, it went ok, I was 20 seconds off pace but I blame that on the wind! I finished the first run in 10:31, Iain then took over on the cycle and put in a stonking time of 19:59. I was up again and went faster in the second run. 10:30 with the transitions our time was 41: 40………………..

We Won!! We actually won the Team event!

Overall there were only 3 people who went faster than Iain and myself, this was in the individual event. All 3 run for Great Britain and will probably be Olympic hopefuls. We were only 1 minute behind Olympic pace….would you believe it! To celebrate our amazing win im going for an 18 mile run this afternoon but I did allow myself a pizza for lunch. Have to beast the calories out now.

Friday 2 March 2012

Not long now.....

My fundraising page has just reminded me that there are only 50 days to go - EEEEK!!

Had a great day at the Full Potential training day last Saturday, the concept of threshold running was fairly new to me, and I'm definately going to incorporate it into my training, I just hope its not too late to have an effect....

I've also started to do some core strength training, can only hold a 'plank' for about 45 seconds at the moment so I'm really hoping that will improve too!

This Sunday I'm running the Milton Keynes half, swiftly followed by the Liverpool half on the 18th march.  Conscious that I need to get my mileage up too so will try for a 15 mile plus the weekend in between.

Just been told about a 16 mile run in Kingston on the 1st April (the 'Breakfast Run').  Considering entering that too.......

Happy running everyone :-)

Jenny x