The One With The London Marathon

Regular readers of this website may remember that last year, my youngest siblings – adorable twinnies Rona & Keith – ran the London and Chicago marathons respectively to raise money for Autism research (Rona’s beautiful wee son Tommy, pictured right, was diagnosed as autistic in 2007) and in doing so, selfishly left me as the only Sutherland child not to have achieved such a feat; my other brother Stuart ran the Glasgow marathon in the 1980s in some ridiculous time of an hour and a half. Or something.

Incredibly, and much to my eternal surprise, their efforts have inspired me to get off the couch, quit smoking, join a gym, give up drinking and do my bit to regain my rightful place as Sutherland ‘golden child’… um.. I mean help the National Autistic Society (NAS) who’ve been a wonderful source of support and guidance to Rona and her husband Al since Tommy’s diagnosis. Accordingly, I have started “training” and will be “running” the London Marathon on April 26th this year after securing a place in support of the NAS.

To give me support on the day Rona will also be running once again (she knows the route and the short cuts) and together we’ve pledged to raise as much money as we can for this fantastic charity.

I’m getting some corporate sponsorship from my company and I’m hoping to organise a big fundraising gig with The Signals during March but every donation counts, no matter how big or small. So before I start annoying you with emails later in the week (and you know that I will), why not get in early and sponsor me online now at…

www.justgiving.com/neilsutherland

Any support you can offer will be very much appreciated. If you are an available, supple, unrelated female, let’s talk about how my personal appreciation may manifest itself. The larger your donation… ;)

In return for your anticipated kindness and generosity, I have a little gift for you in the form of a BRAND NEW BLOG, in case you’d like to keep up with how my “training” is going. The site itself is still undergoing a little “construction” work (check out the complete dogs breakfast I made of the header) but the powers-that-be at neilwritestheworld want to press ahead with the launch so you can now find it open for business at…

www.neilrunstheblog.blogspot.com

Rest assured, I will still be maintaining my regular bi-monthly updates of this site so you’ll not miss a single solitary second of the action when I perform my annual alphabetisation of soup tins in the kitchen cupboard at the end of January, followed by my top ten list of 2008 naps which will be unveiled around the time of the Oscars in February. A full-on schedule, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Thank you for reading this far down and have a great week.

Neil x