Brass Tacks...

It's been a short while since my last blog, and I'm sure you've been missing me. In truth, and as I predicted during one of the earlier blogs, there has been very little to report in last few weeks. One item of note was that I managed to complete the Billericay 10k in 47:53, not only smashing my previous personal best of 51:45, but also achieving the milestone target of a sub-50 minute 10K. I was especially pleased with this as the weather was bucketing felines and canines, and for much of the race we were running in poodles up to our ankles. Apart from that, my training has settled into quite a comfortable routine; In general, I'm running twice in the week, of distances between three and five miles, and then doing a longer one on a Sunday, normally around the eight-mile mark. I'll need to start building the miles up slightly more than this over the next 6 weeks, as I need to be running around 20 miles a week before starting the training proper, so I'll add in another midweek run to make up the shortfall.

It does seem to be creeping up fairly quickly though. What seems only a short time ago I was thinking to myself that I had ages before the training programme was due to start, but now that Christmas is only a sneeze away I am already starting to feel some pressure, and not just about the training, but about the fund-raising too. I won't try to pretend that my whole raison d'etre  for doing the marathon is to raise funds for Macmillan; there is also the fulfillment of a personal ambition, and the enforced target in order to keep up a fitness routine. But I won't lie, raising money by convincing people to hand over cash that they've earned has to be a major part of the my life for the next six months. So here goes.....

If you've watched the television or listened to the radio over the last five years then you already know the statistic: One In Three.

Think for a second about the two people in the world that are closest to you. If you're of a similar age to me then there's a good chance that those two people are your spouse and your child. Alternatively, the two people may be your mum and dad, or your siblings, or perhaps your best friends. Now imagine that it was mathematically defined that one of the three of you would contract a terrible disease that would affect your life in every way possible. It may cause you to give up work, and if you're self employed this means that you would be unable to provide for your family. It may make you so weak that you become unable to care for your children to an appropiate degree. It could cause you lose you hair, or become painfully and uncomfortably thin. Now imagine that there's an 80% chance that the disease you've contracted will slowly kill you until you are dead. And don't forget, that this is not neccesarily you; you may have to watch it happen to your husband, or your daughter, or your father, or your friend, and there's not a single thing you can do to save them.

And here's the thing: That One In Three statistic is actually bullshit.

It stems from a survey completed quite a few years ago, and since then the figure has risen considerably. The actual figure is now two in five people, or 40% (one in three equals 33.3%). The fact that this percentage has risen might seem fairly strange, considering how the amount of people smoking has dramatically fallen over the last ten years, but that is a naive attitude. Though firing up a Marlboro Light will indeed increase the chance of getting cancer, it is unfortunately not an exhaustive club. Other things that aid the onset of cancer include, but is not limited to: sunbathing, living near a road, being overweight, your genetic make-up, and......getting older.

How many of those things apply to you? Probably most, if not all.

Fortunately, we are lucky enough to live on a planet where people care enough to try and make life easier for people who suffer from deadly diseases. Some of this help involves researching into the disease in order to come up with cures and ways of catching the disease early. Other types of help involve trying to help those who already have the disease, by providing solutions and care that fill in the gaps in their life that cancer has caused.

Macmillan are a cancer charity of the latter type. For instance, they can provide clothes for sufferers that can no longer wear their clothes due the dramatic weight loss that cancer can cause, or they can also provide hair-pieces for those that have undergone chemotherapy. One of the major services they provide are the Macmillan nurses, who can sit with cancer victims and their families, giving advice, talking them through their options, or perhaps just lending a listening ear. Such as they did when my mum had cancer.


Now, the previous handful of paragraphs are, without doubt, pretty depressing. It's not nice to imagine your loved ones being ill from anything, let alone cancer, but I personally find it majorly uplifting that there are organisations out there that are set-up to help people. What's even more uplifting is that many of these organisations, such as Macmillan, are funded by the likes of you and I; Just normal people who are prepared to give up a small amount of money, and an even smaller amount of time, in order to help other people.

If you'd like to be one of these wonderful people, you can go to my Just Giving page (http://www.justgiving.com/james-blackshaw) and donate whatever you'd like. It genuinely only takes a few minutes, and I can assure you it will give you lift today.

Alternatively, you can text a donation by sending 'JIMB79' and the amount you'd like (eg, '£10') to 70070.

Many thanks for reading.

James