Generosity
My JustGiving page has been set up since my last blog
and the generosity and alacrity of people's sponsorship has been
quite overwhelming. In just the first week, your donations raised
£1,000, and the total figure is now up to £2,000. I cannot thank
you all enough for your kindness. It is of course especially
gratefully received when the sterling work of Street Child means
that this money has such an impact on people's lives. When the
construction of a basic school costs £1,000, a month's provision of
essential medical care for 250 children costs £500, and £40 sends a
child to school for a whole year, your sponsorship really is going
to a fantastic cause in a country where the need is very great
indeed.
Your generosity has also been a great help to me when
training. I'm not sure if this is normal but I often get
quite emotional on runs after about 10 miles - perhaps this is my
Italian blood coming to the surface, but I like to think of it as a
passionate Lawrence Dallaglio moment (...I'm going to get ridiculed
for writing that!) Anyway, your sponsorship is very motivating and
it means a lot to me, so thank you.
Charity
Above is a video clip which I emailed around touting
for further sponsorship in exchange for my very deep
embarrassment. In the clip I don't think that I mention
'charity' once - but I promise that I did in the interview as a
whole but those bits didn't make the cut!
Charity is obviously on my mind more than usual as
I'm training for the marathon, but also because I am seeing the
need for it more frequently as I run around London's parks and
streets. I am ashamed to say that recently I passed a man sitting
at a garden table in a park face down in his own vomit. As I
approached he lifted his head slightly to moan, and so, knowing he
was alive, thinking someone else might help, and not wanting to
break my running stride, I carried on past him and didn't do a
thing. Which just isn't good enough.
I think that a lot of Londoners are very unsure about
what to do when a beggar asks them for money on the street. There's
immediately the argument that they might be addicted to drugs or
drink and so it would be better not to fund their habit and run the
risk of doing more harm than good. Others might argue that it's up
to them what they spend the money on and it's better not to
penalise those who will genuinely spend the money on food and
shelter.
A very good friend of mine who is an extremely good
person buys a sandwich for homeless people who ask him for help and
takes them for a coffee. My brother is part of a charity committee
of friends from uni who raise a lot of money for charity by putting
on fantastic parties, and they also volunteer at The Passage soup
kitchen in Victoria which does very good work.
Through Kiln's participation I have more direct
experience of the Whitechapel shelter which is run by a
tireless and endlessly jolly couple. What really impresses me
about them is their practical approach to the problems of the
homeless - as well as offering breakfast, showers and fresh
clothes, they offer assistance with finding accommodation,
obtaining birth certificates, referrals to drug/alcohol programmes,
providing an address for post, IT skills, legal issues, writing CVs
and applying for jobs.
It is extremely sad to see a number of homeless
people at the shelter from Eastern European countries who, by the
way they divide their food and the few practical possessions on
their person, have a real demeanour of resourcefulness, education
and nobility. It must be truly awful to emigrate as a skilled
worker with hopes of making more money to send back to your family,
just at the wrong time economically, which leaves you stranded.
Whitechapel has a volunteer programme to enable getting involved
and helping these people, and to support a very practical
charity.
Street Child's operations are similarly impressive
for their practical nature. And the challenges they face are of
course in one of the most deprived countries in the world rather
than one of the most developed. It must be hard to know where to
begin helping a child who has lost his/her family during the civil
war, has been driven onto the street to survive, perhaps into
prostitution, has no prospects or education, receives regular
beatings and lives in fear, and has to resort to petty crime to get
by.
Street Child's response of providing counselling and
medical care, reuniting children with their families and getting
them back into education is supplemented by its work on
sustainability, which involves establishing commercial ventures
such as bars and restaurants to provide employment, and by
contracting local carpenters for the building of schools to boost
the local economy. For me, this approach goes beyond just providing
aid; it aims to create more enduring and empowering solutions.
Races and Bristol
If anybody's still reading, I'll update you quickly
on my running! I've entered a couple of races which I was
told would be good practice, and they've proved useful and good
fun. The first race was 10km around Bushy Park, which is right next
to my parents' house and a route I've run hundreds of times before.
It was pretty exciting to race amongst 500 people on home turf,
amazing to have my family supporting me, and very useful to learn
to swallow my pride when a feather-light whippet / wraith glides
past me effortlessly and not to try immediately to catch them /
cover tackle them, but to run at my own pace. Extremely chuffed
that I came 13th and ran it in
41 minutes.
The next race was the Hastings half marathon on a
gloriously sunny day along the sea and through the very pretty Old
Town. There were 5,000 runners, something I hadn't experienced
before, and the support of the crowd was incredible with live
bands, marching bag pipers and lots of families (again including my
own) en route. It was a tremendous event but no-one told me
before signing up that the first 5 miles were uphill and seriously
tough. Bloody knackered but pleased with my run: 321st in 1 hour 36 minutes.
My confidence from these 2 races has been dented
somewhat since however: as my longer distance runs are now lasting
more than 2 hours, I'm suffering from boredom, exhaustion, slower
times (now not sure I'll be able to achieve my aim of sub-4 hours),
and hunger. Indeed, the money I'm saving on boozing less I'm now
spending on obscene amounts of food. And stash. I'm sure I don't
need all my new kit but my iPhone app has been playing up
unfortunately and so I've bought a new Garmin watch which tells me my speed and
distance via satellites, as well as my heart rate. It's
absolutely amazing.
To stave off boredom, I've started going for runs
further afield for a change of scene. Today I started in
Cliftonwood Crescent in Bristol, ran around a lot of old university
haunts (God, it's a fantastic place), very nostalgic, past the York
Cafe which is now a snazzy-looking Italian restaurant, and then to
Bath. 18 miles in total, along the old railway line with disused
platforms occasionally either side, lots of very green bits, a
great trip. I then ate a large quarter pounder meal, an extra
milkshake, 9 nuggets, a sugar donut, and 1kg of Galaxy
chocolate.
My next blog will be from on holiday in Zambia - the
start of my training on the continent!
https://www.justgiving.com/SimonBianco
