Sportrelief

Hi I'm running again! This time for Sportrelief's Mile in Colchester town. Click on the meter above to visit the relevant page. Your support will be much appreciated :)

Thanks!

Beres

I ran the race, flew the flight, and I'm now back at home in Malaysia. It's nice to be home. I'm always having to wait to use the PC because both my brothers are back at home now and with my dad retired, that's one extra person doing 'nothing' :p

I'm quite happy with my timing. I finished the 10km in only 47 minutes and 55 seconds, waayy ahead of my 1 hour target. I must admit it was quite an experience running with so many other people (there were at least 20 thousand runners there) and with so many people cheering you on. The streets were lined with people cheering, shouting, clapping, waving banners, playing music, singing, taking photos... It really was a sight.

I have a few people I'd like to thank - the guy in the yellow and black running vest who I tailed behind for the first 6km before giving up and running at my own pace, Geri Halliwell ("It's Raining Men" was blaring from the speakers about 2km from the finish when I wanted to give up running), the hostel staff who allowed me to use the shower even though I had already checked out, Suzy for writing the cheque for £48.78 raised offline, and every one of you who supported me as I ran for CARE.

THANK YOU : )

p.s. "beres" translates to "done" or "finished" in Malay.

Running the Hour

Blogging is so much tougher than running. Apologies to all for this.

Well training has been going on fine. I've been running about an hour every other day of the week and playing football in between.

I'm still getting increasing marginal returns on the training I put in. Just Tuesday, I broke all three of the benchmarks I've set on my regular route to around Alresford from uni. Uni - Wivenhoe Railway Station (9min 52 sec), Ford Ln (end of route) - Uni (29 min 10 sec), Uni - Ford Ln - Uni (1 hr 1 min 54 sec). If it weren't for the slow run at the beginning I could've broke the 1 hour barrier too. I'm really glad about finishing the uni -wivenhoe trail below 10 minutes though. Been trying to pass that for some time already.

I think I'm prepared for the run this Sunday. I'm not too sure though about the distance. I was using my ruler and measuring the distance along the river to a scale on a map I found on the internet and it came up to only about 5.25km, which I think is ridiculous. If I remember correctly, one round around SS20 back home took me about 13 minutes (if I remember correctly) and that was already 2.5km or something of the sort. It'd be impossible for me to be running at half the speed I used to. Then again my methodology could've been at fault - using a ruler on the laptop screen :p

Ok let's do a bit more math - I used to clock about 5 min 30 sec for 1500metres. So I'm running at a speed of about 272m/min. Let's say I can keep that up for 10km, it would take me only +-36 minutes to complete the run. But realistically, I probably wouldn't be able to keep that up for 10km, so let's say (in the worst case scenario) I reduce my average speed by about 50% to 136m/min. At that speed it would take me 1 hour and 13 mins to run 10km.

I'm aiming to finish the run under 1 hour. I think it's realistic. We'll see on Sunday :)

Top Ten Facts about CARE

1. Care is one of the top three aid agencies in the world. They work in 70 countries with more than 48 million poor and marginalised people.
   
   
2. Worldwide, they run 156 HIV and AIDS projects helping 12 million people live with the disease and its consequences as well as preventing its spread through information and education campaigns.
   
   
3. They are working with more than 600,000 people across the tsunami-affected region to help rebuild their lives through new homes, jobs, healthcare, water and sanitation and psychosocial support.
   
   
4. Since the 1950s, an estimated 10 million people in 30 countries have gained access to safe drinking water through their water and sanitation programmes. In 2005 alone, they provided safe water for some 730,000 people and improved sanitation for more than 600,000.
   
   
5. They support more than 800,000 people in 39 countries to set up small business activities, for example by giving small loans or running village savings projects. In 2005, they helped individuals and poor communities around the world to save approximately £53 million and generated loans worth £65 million.
   
   
6. They built or repaired 62,000 kilometres of road in 2005.
   
   
7. They help more than 1,400,000 children get a good education. Nearly 70,000 children around the world are in schools directly supported by CARE. And in 2005, they trained more than 3,000 teachers.
   
   
8. CARE's child health projects reach nearly 7 million children to help reduce their vulnerability to disease. And in 2005, they helped more than 100,000 women around the world to give birth safely.
   
   
9. They run programmes in more than 100 cities around the world aimed at improving quality of life and access to services for people living in slums.
   
   
10. CARE has provided emergency shelter and safety in camps for nearly 300,000 people.

The Shopping List

Ever wondered what impact your donations could have on the lives of the needy?

Here’s a list of items you could buy to help a family out of poverty.

£5 provide a set of agricultural tools for a family in Myanmar to establish a home garden.

£10 could supply a child with materials required for learning, including a school bag, pen, pencil, notebook and painting kit.

£20 could enable a family of 5 to access approximately 15 litres of fresh drinking water for one day.

£80 could provide a small grant to a primary school to purchase equipment such as blackboards, books and desks.

£150 could install a toilet in a school to help improve sanitation.

£200 could install one well and water pump in a school to provide up to 160 students with fresh drinking water.

£200 could provide a poor family with one of the largest assets a small farming household can acquire, a cow.

£500 buys 70 impregnated mosquito nets to distribute to families living in Angola and other malarial zones.

£1000 could set up a village school in India, including teacher training and materials.
£5000 could purchase home care kits to restore cleanliness and dignity to 100 chronically ill AIDS patients for up to 3 years.

£10000 builds one haffir, a man-made reservoir that collects water in the rainy season. Just one haffir can collect and supply water to 4500 people for the entire 7 months of the dry season in Sudan.

Here’s another list of items you could buy to assist in responding to emergencies/disasters.

90p can provide a family with a “Safe Water System” to ensure that they have clean drinking water for a month.

£3.50 buys a fishing-net to replace those lost in natural disasters.

£5 could buy an emergency hygiene kit including shampoo, laundry soap, bath soap, sanitary napkins, towel, pail, lid, toothpaste and toothbrush.

£12 could pay for 8 shovels for people to rebuild a road.

£15 could provide a one-month food package that could feed a family of five for a whole month.

£36 can provide the materials necessary to reconstruct a family’s house.

£64 can provide 1000 pounds of rice.

£136 can provide lifesaving milk, cheese, sugar and high energy biscuits for 350 malnourished children in critically under-resourced hospitals.

£1000 buys with enough essential drugs and pharmaceutical equipment to treat 10000 people for a month in emergency zones.

£2500 can supply a day’s supply of emergency ready-to-eat food to 1500 families of five.

Both lists were sourced from CARE USA’s Finance Department and from CARE’s gift catalogue – 2005.