Kris Atomic archive

I think it was about 3 drinks in and mid-way through a burger at Meat Liquor that my friend Nicola suggested that we do Race For Life and my other friend Cara and I responded enthusiastically (drunkenly) that Yeah yeah yeah, totally, let's do it, it'll be great. But unlike most of the drunken nonsense that we spout, this stuck, we registered and in our excitement (you know when something is months away and you're totally in denial about having to actually do it?) ended up signing up for a 10k on the 7th of July.

Now, I think 10k is QUITE A LONG WAY. I went to buy some new running shoes the other day and the shop assistant was like "what kind of distances do you run?" and I said I was training for a 10k and she was like "ok, so only short distance". OH :'(

But lawd help us, none of us are particularly natural runners. Since the registration, we've been catching up on each others "training", which has involved a lot of whining about shin splints (me), dodgy knees (Cara) and why the hell we didn't just do a 5k like normal people (Nicola). But we wanted to challenge ourselves and I'll be DAMNED if I don't run the whole thing. I've been doing one of those couch-to-10k programs via an app on my iphone and I still feel like collapsing near the end of every run and I'm only on about 7k and very very s l o w l y. But I will run the bloody thing if it kills me (and the shin splints kinda feel like they might) because it's for a good cause and it means a lot to me.

I'm not going to lay it on with an overly earnest outpouring of emotion to try and guilt you into donating, because I know you're smarter than that. I'm sure we all agree that cancer sucks balls and unfortunately most people don't need me to tell them how awful and scary it is, because they have first hand experience within their own families or friendship groups. My stepdad was diagnosed when I was still a teenager which was a truly terrifying time for my family. We were incredibly lucky that he received treatment in time and is still with us and healthy today. But so many people are not so fortunate. Cancer Research is a charity I've been supporting since I was at school, they're one of the biggest, but they are also entirely funded by the public so donating is super important. You can see more information on Cancer Research, what they do and how they spend their donations here.

Now, my friends have proper grown up jobs and everyone knows that colleagues basically have to sponsor each other's charity endeavours. But my colleagues are you, internet, so I need your help. My blog has always been ad free so I make no money from it (in fact, I spend a significant amount every month on banging hosting to make sure that everything works great for you guys). If you enjoy what I post or have found something helpful, it would be really amazing if you could donate a little bit to Cancer Research via our Just Giving Page. Whatever you can give, just a £1, $1 or the price of a coffee would make a massive difference.

Thank you!