Countdown to the Great Manchester 10K run – 4 weeks to go

Welcome back! You reading this gives me extra incentive to keep at it. Not that I need a much greater incentive than the thoughts of Joy, my sister, who appears to be suffering more and more through the cancer yet along with husband Brian are remaining so positive. Brian is being an absolute rock to Joy he has stopped working to enable him to care for Joy, our thoughts and prayers go out to them both constantly. I’ll tell you a bit more about them later.

Training is still going very well, I am still following the pattern I described a few weeks back, but am now running at least 10k every session (with plenty of ‘Joy factors’ to keep me going). Consequently I am confident now of being able to complete the 10k running all the way. I am trying to do one run a week on the road now, but I have to admit both the weather and the indoor comfort of the gym make this difficult.

When I started off on this campaign back in February, in my mind, I set myself a target of completing in 75 minutes. Now I have reduced that to 65 minutes, I would love to break the 60-minute mark, but feel I may be being a bit ambitious, given the number of people running – however the most important thing is to complete the run, which I am determined to do.

The other good news is that my dear wife Cath has decided to do the race for life run, (5k), in June. I have put together a training plan for her based on my experiences so far, and have no doubt she will be ready for it on the day – well done Cath, I’m proud of you. Well done also to my daughters Louise and Jan who will also be doing the race for life down in London in June.

My weight has gone down again and I am delighted to say I reached the 12 1/2 stone mark, my target; this has taken a lot of effort and discipline to do and in fact is a loss of 23lbs since mid- January. I am sure I’ll maintain this now until the run on the 18th, especially with all the calories I burn off with each run, the main test will be to see if I can maintain it afterwards!

Now I said I’d tell you a bit more about Joy. A very clever girl who qualified as a teacher in home economics (not sure what they call it nowadays), she made great progress in her teaching career. Then in 1980 went off for a 5-week holiday to Canada and on her return announced she’d met the ‘man of her dreams’ and was going to marry him and settle down in Canada.

The family were delighted for her but also heartbroken to think she’d be moving so far away. They had a wonderful wedding in 1981 (crowned by Spurs winning the cup a few weeks later!). Then off they went to set up home ending up, after several moves, in Vancouver.

They have two sons, CJ and Devon; both are really great young men and are a real credit to them.

Seven years back for Joy’s 50th, brothers Tony, Brian and I, plus wives and mum all went over to Vancouver, as a surprise for her birthday party BBQ. All worked out well and the secret was maintained; she got blindfolded whilst her birthday surprise was ‘prepared’, and then the blindfold was removed to reveal us to greet her - you can imagine the look of disbelief and delight on her face, the picture (and the screaming in my ears) will remain with us forever.

You can see just what she means to us all, and it really is beyond me why someone who has led a good healthy life has been dealt such a cruel card. However we remain positive, even though her decline is worsening to the extent that she is having great difficulty walking now. The steroids may be having some sort of control on the brain tumour, but having detrimental effect on muscles and bone structure.

Sorry if I’ve gone on but you can see what she means to all the family and me.

She is the reason I am running to raise funds for Macmillan cancer support, who do such a wonderful job to care for those affected by cancer. I am now getting close to the £900 mark, and you could help get me up to the £1000 target all you have to do is visit the following site then donate any amount you feel able to, every little helps:

• www.justgiving.com/keithtrinnaman

If there is any more information you want to know, or indeed if there are any tips you can give me, get in touch with Rochdale Online – they will forward any messages on to me.

Thanks for reading, and keep thinking exercise (it is good for you).

Trinni

Date article online: 21/04/2008