Smiles...

Still smiling, though there's fourteen miles to go (taken just after the small video clip below). Over £800 so far on the JustGiving site!

Here we are, not quite yet halfway and still able to jog somewhat. It's not entirely obvious that this is a Great Big Hill that gently slopes up for four miles or so and rises about 350ft.


Of course, the field had thinned out a little at this point.

Construction tools
I made the vest over seven or so months, starting with a lot of 2mm steel fencing wire. Coil it round an 8mm metal rod, cut into lots of rings, join rings together, close rings up.

Lots more on making mail can be found on the web, my original inspiration was a simple page here.

2 days to go

Vest all tidied up, sleeves trimmed and so forth. Final weight, 11.3 kg or 25 lb (and possibly an kilo or two if I finish a coif by Monday).

The mail tries to saw its way through my shoulders, so running needs some padding - two small sections from one end of an exercise mat. I've tried a selection of soft materials, and so far this is the best, though it makes the remaining exercise mat slightly less useful.

Something is niggling in my mind that I should be eating lots of pasta. Or maybe that's tomorrow.

It's a good day today, so picking up the race pack will be a great excuse for a gentle dander round Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon park in Belfast; recommended if you ever have the chance to pass by.

4 days to go

Rain, rain, rain. Hopefully by this evening when I'll get to go out it'll have stopped.

As you can see, my brother Ivan (who's running with me, as he puts it, to call the ambulance when needed) now has his costume sorted. At least on the day we'll be noticeable.

Of course, there's a small fan to keep the horse inflated which, with a fully charged set of batteries, operates for about 2 hours. So we'll have the odd spectacle of a battery change at least twice, and that raises the question of where to carry the spares.

7 days to go

I'm going for a rest day today.

The weekend didn't generate many photos, as I mostly slept after the run on Sunday. But there was this one of me looking silly, which I've also put up on the JustGiving page.

It's amazingly easy to annoy your wife by heading out on runs. Only a week more of patience required.