As you may know i set a challenge at the beginning of the year to run 2,010 mile through 2010 up to the Ultra Marathon de Mont Blanc in August 2011 to raise £20,000 for a range of charities.

My first challenge was a solo event, 3 grueling marathons in 3 days across the Jurassic coast, i completed the event in march and only to find that i had been mis-informed that this event didn’t count towards my qualification points!

So…this is where Trailwalker UK comes in, it’s 100 km Trekking event along the South Downs Way with over 2,500 feet of climbs from Petersfield to Brighton.

Sound hard? Well to give you an idea we need to leave at 6am on the 17th July and we should finish 6am on the 18th July, so that’s a full 24 hours with no sleep walking through the night!

Just to make this challenge even harder, training hasn’t gone well since march, , with injury, illness, grueling work schedule and a recent family illness. In additional for this event i have brought in some help from some friends, there was 4 of us, but now we are down to 3, just to put even more pressure on us! Trust me this is going to really HURT!

Thank-you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page, I have been so grateful for all the generous donations so far, but really need all your support to help me raise this next target in just a few weeks! Please help spread the word for me!!

Here are just a few examples of what fundraising efforts for Oxfam achieve:

£100 could buy essential medicines for a whole village for 6 months.

£250 could buy 10 teaching kits providing essential educational equipment.

£500 could pay for the care of 10 orphans or vulnerable children.

£1,700 could pay for a whole classroom.

So please dig deep and donate now..

http://www.justgiving.com/Spencer-Gallagher-100K

Finished 3 Marathons in 3 days, my first event for 2010, running 2,010 miles to raise 20K for 10 great causes to donate please see the list of charities below..!

Day 3 the first mile took me 17 minutes, it was up that hill in the background!

Yes my feet were in a bad way!

Day 2 miles 25 to 28, beautiful views

No ordinary first marathon, it was really muddy, swampy conditions…

So its been just over a week since i successfully completed the Jurassic coast run.

The jurassic coast run was tough first ultra event for me, it was the first time i had run over 26 miles, and day 2 the marathon was more like 28 miles, and the event led me for the first time to run over 5 hours, my longest run now being almost 7 hours in one stint.

I completed the event in 18h43m28 and came 85th out of 176 that finished. a 5h46, 6h07, and a blister busting 6h49.

No question i underestimated the terrain, so much for a gentle coastal 3 marathons in 3 days, the Golden Cap on the first day was a real eye opener for me! My heart rate didn’t recover really.

The conditions where muddy, i mean really muddy, my feet where a mess and i lost at least 40 minutes to blisters over the three days, so i need to really work on keeping my feet in better shape!

But lets be positive, i managed to pretty run the whole way, of course bar the steep walking hills, I’ve learnt i’m pretty good running on down hills, and rubbish at going up hills!

So onwards and upwards, im going to thank a lot of people for the sponsorship so far..

327 miles in to 2010, and now is time to up my mileage, im resting my ankle for the next couple of days!

And once i’ve updated everyone on the sponsorship and donations and said my thank-you’s i’ll move onto letting you all know about my next event on August Bank Holiday’s - 85 mile run in one day! with 8,000 meters of climb…

All the running so far this year has been pretty lonely, solitary, fell runs for hours at a time alone is tough, actually, training for extreme runs, hasn’t been so much about the miles, more about training for running for long periods of time…

Today was fun, i got to not only run with other people, but to test out my current fitness and speed, by running a cheeky half-marathon in Fleet.

Despite starting some 5 minutes after everyone else, no-one over took me from 5 miles onwards and somehow I manged my fastest time for 10 years or so with 1h 41:45s.

It felt really great, i ran the last 6 miles, quicker that the first 6 and my fastest 2 miles where the 12th and 13th??, to be honest i would have nailed a 3h45 marathon today for sure, i could have just kept on running…..

5 days to go and i really need a sponsorship drive, i’ll finish the week on over 300 miles run so far this year thats 15% of my target…and the need to book in the next Extreme Event, although, i have already managed to book myself in for Hellrunner.co.uk 2010 in November..want to join me?

a reminder of the charities…

The Ten Charities

1. Supporting bereaved children and their families
http://www.daisysdream.org.uk
Nominated by David Marlow
To support me raising money for Daisy’s Dream please click here

———-»»» Number 2 is the one i would like to Focus on at the moment!

2. Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust
http://braintumourtrust.co.uk/
Nominated by Isabella Gallagher
To support me raising money for SDBTT please click here


3. Services for children with disabilities

http://www.sparkleappeal.org
Nominated by Chris Love
To support me raising money for The Sparkle Appeal please click here


4. Type 1 Diabetes
http://www.jdrf.org.uk/
Nominated by Peter Carter
To support me raising money for JDRF please click here


5. Cancer Charity
http://www.tenovus.org.uk/
Nominated by Hayley Grigor
To support me raising money for Tenovus please click here


6. Children’s Charity

http://www.postpals.co.uk
Nominated by Lisa Green
To Support me raising money for PostPals please click here


7. Youth Charity - Princes Trust
http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/
Nominated by Syd Nadim
To support me raising money for The Princes Trust please click here


8. The Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association

http://www.mndassociation.org
Nominated by Spencer Gallagher as indirect support for www.burstmyblister.com
To support me raising money for the Motor Neurone Association please click here

9. The Ellen MacArthur Trust Cancer and Leukaemia Recoveryhttp://www.ellenmacarthurtrust.org/
Nominated by @wez and with Karen Whittingham’s ideas
To support me raising money for the Ellen MacArthur Trust please click here


10. Cancer Research
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/
Nominated by Jill Thater and the team at Bluhalo
To support me raising money for Cancer Research please click here

Thanks everyone £2,250 an incredible amount raised so far, thats the equivalent of one of the 10 charities, targets being hit just 9 to go to get my £20,000 target

I cant say how much the sponsorship is helping me with the long runs and personal circumstances over the past week has made me more determined to help raise money for the cancer charities….

For more information on what i’m doing please read the blog below and please sponsor me by clicking on one of the TEN CHARITY LINKS at the bottom of this page…

Once you watched the intro, skip to 3 minutes onward will give and idea of my first challenge!

I owe a ton of thank-you’s, a mileage update and a sponsorship update, this will come over the next couple of days, as i ramp up communications for the last two weeks before my first major event of my 2,010 miles to raise £20,000

So hows the training you ask? Well not great, with the Snow in Jan and a trip to Orkney in Feb, where it snowed, mixed with a Snowboard (yet more Snow) and Bronchitis…as well as always a hectic work schedule, hasn’t put in a place i would want to be by now, but, i’ve been plugging away!

My longest run so far is 20 miles and i hope to nail another 20 mile run in the next three days.

Yes i feel scared, to be honest the only thing that’s going to get me through this is the sponsorship and the thought of raising money for Charity, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE support me by selecting one of the 10 charities below…

A reminder of what i’m doing….

Dorset’s Jurassic Coast - 78.6 miles from Lyme Regis to Studland over three days (that’s a marathon a day) 95% off-road and with an ankle-busting 4,500+ meters of vertical climb – the height on Mont Blanc!

Basically i have to “Keep the sea onmy right, land on my left,” and, “If it looks like I have to go over a hill, I do!”

With gift aid added £1,400 after first two weeks…that’s amazing!

Thank-you! Thank-you! Thank-you! I am so great-full for everyone’s support, cant tell you all how much the sponsorship is keeping me going, especially on the long runs.

Despite the snow, i have now run 65 miles in my first two weeks training including 2 runs over 2 hours, and the miles are starting to increase as time goes on, it’s just 10 weeks until my first event - http://www.votwo.co.uk/votwo2007/events-and-adventure/race_view.php?i=42

Please note i am paying all the entry and travel fees personally as my donations which will be a minimum 2-3K when i have completed, these are not coming out of the individual donations!

Please take some time to check out some of the people who have sponsored me so far, where possible i will plug all the people that sponsor me… Firstly to the two Anonymous donators, thank-you so much in no particular order!

Craig Anstey www.restoremyfloor.com - best floor company in the world

Simon Campbell of www.viapost.com (check it out!)

Simon Melaniphy of www.refreshedmedia.com - Digital Marketing Agency

Rob Marshall of www.BlueFort.com - IT Security

Tom Miller www.northstar.co.uk - Financial Services and Mortgages

Dan Wagner of Venda www.venda.com - eCommerce

Alan & Jenny - http://alan-jenny-lejog2010.blogspot.com/2009/11/goodbye-summer-hello-winter.html - raising money too please help and support if you can!

Michael Flynn of http://www.fastwebmedia.com/ - Sports and Digital

Dan McGuire – www.broadbean.co.uk - online recruitment

From Bluhalo - www.bluhalo.com ;-)

Jill Thater, Romain Barissat, Paul Windust, Dan Steele

From GyroHSR - www.gyrohsr.com :0)

David Smith (alone so far :-( ! ) - Thanks David, one out of 500 people!

Mike Case of http://www.red-top.co.uk/ IT Recruitment

Chris Gannon of www.gannon.tv – Flash Designer & Developer

James Frost of www.coastdigital.com - Digital Marketing Agency

Hayley Grigor , Eric and team - www.ecdesignltd.co.uk - Design and Marketing

Syd Nadim – www.clock.co.uk and Princes Trust

Special Mention to some other Friends… David Marlow, Apexa Patel, Theresa Austin and Karen Whittingham

Thanks everyone! Please sponsor at the bottom of this page or help me spread the word!

Just got back in from 15.5 very hilly miles in pooring rain, base endurance run no speed records, only second week of training - 2h30m.

It’s been a great week for sponsorship, I’ll do a proper update tomorrow, still have lots of direct thank-yous to do, there is still time to keep me on track with sponsorship this week, charities are listed below!

Thanks to all those who have sponsored so far, it really helped to keep me going now off for a hot bath!or should it be an ice cold one?

Well despite the snow i’ve managed another run 7 miles today, the good news for you all is this blog won’t be a complete countdown of every mile!

…but that’s 12miles so far in my first week of runs and well put it another way that’s 1,998 miles to go! So that’s one psychological barrier gone!

Just received the 12 week training plan (thanks to votwo, the guys who organise the Jurassic Coast Challenge), slightly concerned with the 20th and 21st of February where i have to do roughly a 3 hour run each day back to back…

Lots of support emails coming in from the charities i’m running for, wanting to help with publicity, which is great….

To check out info on the run and the training schedule click here, i know you really secretly want to do this event next year ;-)