HarryMonkey

I drove in from Bedford yesterday and Heart FM were doing a name and shame type announcements (eg ... the red golf in Bletchley outside ASDA, turn your lights on).

Absolutely brilliant!

This is an email I sent a couple of years ago ...

Depending on your policy, you are probably covered (third party only), to drive any car, provided that car is insured (by someone else), so you would probably be covered say, to take it for a test drive. However, if you chose to then buy the car, the current owner is within his rights to cancel his insurance and you may get flagged up on your way home and cop for ten points. So it would be worth maybe, arranging to either collect the car on a different day when you've arranged insurance or phone your insurance company on the day and arrange to insure it there and then.

Smashed it !!!! Had an initial target of 40 mins, came in on 29:59. I was over the moon. Thanks for all the support from everyone (moral and financial).10k next year?? ... Maybe

Well, here it is at last. The culmination of all of the hard work ... Week 9 Run 3. The final run in the program and my first race for 40 years ... The MK Festival of Running 5k race. I'm actually looking forward to it as a test of how far I've come in the last 9 weeks. If anyone would like to sponsor me, you can do by clicking on the link below or text SNMK55 and either £5 £10 £15 £20 etc to 70070. Thanks for all of the support over the last 9 weeks. http://t.co/CTR6BseCgz

Many thanks for your donations and good wishes.

Well, here we are at last. The race is tomorrow so anyone wanting to take this opportunity to sponsor me can do so via the link in the first post. Thanks.

Just finished week 8 and decided to go out with a bang. Only got a week to go now until my 5k race so from now on it's all about distance for me rather than minutes. I've just completed my first 5k run in over 40 years in just 36 minutes (my target was 40 - 45). If someone had told me just a few weeks ago that I would be capable of running 5 kilometres I would have laughed at them. I'm looking forward to my race now next Sunday with a renewed confidence. If anyone is reading this thread thinking they'll never be able to run, think again. This plan has been fantastic for me and I will be keeping up with the running once its finished. Right then, lets bring on Week 9.

I had my race number come today which has suddenly made it a whole lot more real. A week on Sunday, my first bit of competitive running for 40 years ... <>

Nice one. I know exactly how you feel. Mine passed three weeks before Christmas. Very relieved.

MoTest in Newport Pagnell. Cant recommend them highly enough.

Took mine for its test just before Christmas. I was a bit apprehensive as I hadn't had the car long so knew little of its history. (54 plate Mondeo). I knew there was a sidelight bulb out and so there was a failure point there but I just wanted to know what else it was going to fail on. I also knew a tyre was getting low. They passed the car after replacing the side light and rear number plate light (free of charge), an advisory on the tyre and charged me £35 . I will definitely be going back there again and have recommended them to my colleagues. A good mechanic is worth his weight in gold.

Cheeky I know, but <>

Sorry to here that @hawc I had a problem with my knee but I bought some proper running shoes and that has made a huge difference. I've also been running with a double thickness of tubigrip on my knee for support and that has helped as does the ice pack afterwards and a liberal application of Volterol prior to my run. Don't worry, that 3 months will soon go and you'll be back up and running again, just don't lose sight of your goals.

I was dreading it a bit ... no longer the luxury of a recovery walk but I was pleasantly surprised. R1 was just a complete buzz, I didn't want to stop, I upped the pace for the last minute and actually got a minute or two into the warmdown walk and just found that I had to start running again!!! R2 was much harder as I was away for a few days and whilst I had a lovely park to run in (Bradgate Park in Leics), it was an "out and back" run and the second half was hard as I had the wind in my face and it was slightly uphill, there were points when it was all I could do to battle against the wind and keep going. R3 was on Sunday and I was back on home ground and I found it much better, it's strange because I seem to get stronger as the run goes on, the last minute I was able to really stride out and was much more relaxed. I start W8 tonight and can't believe it's less than two weeks before my race, I'm nervous but really looking forward to it at the same time. I had my Macmillan race top arrive last week and that really brought it home. If someone had told me that in just 9 weeks I would be capable of running a 5k race I would have laughed them out of the room, now I can't wait.

I had the text as well, unfortunately I don't live anywhere near a 4G area

Start Week 7 today. That's it now, no more recovery walks, it's all straight running. I did W6R3 on Sunday and that wasn't too bad, just a straight 25 minute run, but from here on in it's going to be tough I think. Three 25 minute runs this week. I just hope and pray that my knee holds out although, it does appear to be improving. How is everyone else getting on?

I had my Mondeo written off last year, even though it was only a cracked bumper and foglight. The guilty party's insurance company wrote to me, with the cheque and a statement that they had relinquished all interest in the vehicle. I then sold it on ebay for £25 less than I'd paid for it 3 years previously, no CAT D, nothing ... Result!

White short sleeved shirt, no tie, black trousers and shoes. No scruffs are allowed during term time.

This morning I've connected 16 ipads to a MacBook to put an app onto all of them using the configurator. Every single one failed because it was unable to install IOS 6 and all the ipads had the "connect to iTunes" message. I've just had to reconfigure every single one of them.

We are using VirtualBox (albeit via an RM Blueprint). I have Windows 7 workstations using XP on the VM. It produces a folder in their home directory which appears as a mapped drive on the VM. The documentation that goes with it is quite comprehensive and if we were running a vanilla network would probably still have gone with VirtuialBox (not least of which because it's free).

Personally I found the BBC commentary very good. It reflected the whole spirit of the event and the enthusiasm shown by Amiee Fuller in support of her team mate was very infectious and captured how so many of us felt when watching it. For far too long we have suffered that stiff upper lip jolly well done half hearted support from our national broadcaster and this made a welcome and refreshing change. Far from making me feel old (I'm 55) and out of touch, I found the enthusiasm very refreshing.

I thought that Yulia Lipnitskaya the 15yo Russian girl was just spellbinding. I've also enjoyed most of what's been on so far (including Amiee Fuller's enthusiasm for her team mate). Watched the women's curling this morning.

As some of you may know, I decided in January that it was time that I started to get some sort of exercise and embarked on the "Couch To 5k" program. This is designed to get you from no exercise at all to running 5k in 30 minutes. Now bear in mind that I have done no running of any sort since I was at school. In order to provide a bit of extra motivation and to set myself a target I have entered the Milton Keynes Festival of Running 5k race on the 9th of March, and rather than just do it for personal satisfaction I am using it as a fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support. If you would like to support me and Macmillan please click on the Just Giving link below and make a donation. Please remember to Gift Aid your donations as this raises more. Many thanks Steve Steve Newman is fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support (Mods, could this be stickied until after the race?)