#RunTheDate is On!!

Or it at least will be from Friday! I’ve mentioned this a couple of times but here’s the run down of how Run The Date in May is going to work.

In contrary to its execution, the idea of #RunTheDate is really quite simple:

– Look at the date. Run that many kms. So…

May 1st – Run 1km

May 2nd – Run 2km

May 3rd – Run 3km

…

you don’t need me to go through all of these

…until…

May 31st – Run 31km

This is all summed up in the table below. Again, all very simple. Look at the date, run that many kilometres!

That’s right 343km in the last 2 weeks. 343! It doesn’t even sound any better saying it backwards.

Right now, with a day to go, it all seems very do-able. Of course I’d say that, I’ve only got to do 1km on Friday, with a follow-up 2km on Saturday. I’m obviously ignoring the fact that, from the 21st onwards, I’d have to do at least a half marathon of mileage every day until the end of the month! That’s ages away yet though.

There are three aspects of this that are worth mentioning. Firstly, and especially give the social distancing measures currently in place, I may not do all the mileage each day in one go. Some of it may get done on the treadmill at home before finishing it off on a run outside. Needless to say I will be doing the full mileage each day though, injury permitting.

Secondly, and for my peace of mind most importantly, the eagle eyed of you would notice that the total km for the month is 496km. If your brains are like mine, you’ll be thinking “oh come on, you’re not happy stopping it at 496 are you?” Of course not and similarly that the last week is 196km. It would not sit well with my OCD if I didn’t round that up to 500 and 200 respectively would it?! I’ll make sure that is seen to during that final week.

And no surprises, the third one. I’d be even more excited about doing this (as if I could be even more!) if I knew others were doing this as well. I appreciate not everyone has the time or, more than likely, the inclination to do a full month of running. However, I’d be delighted if you would walk, run, jog or even cycle one or more of the days of your choice, depending on how far you want to push yourself.

A final note goes to the main reason I want to put myself through this. Obviously, the country (and world) is going through a major upheaval and the challenge I’ll face doing this will be nothing compared with the challenge the NHS workers have to go through every day at the moment. Therefore, I’m doing this to try and raise money for the NHS Charities to give a little extra to those who overwhelmingly deserve it. If you happen to join me in #runthedate on any of the days then perhaps consider donating to this worthwhile cause? My page is below if you so desire:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/tomfanthorpe2

Failing that, I’ll be updating my progress on here frequently throughout the month, so by all means just tune in to track my suffering. The most I’ve run in a week before is 113km. The final two weeks are both longer than that so you can rest assured there will be some suffering to follow. And whether I manage to contain my rapidly wayward hair.