This past week, my preparations for the London Marathon have been dominated by technology. Before I go any further, let me assure those who know me that I have not spent $6million turning myself into the next world beater over 26 miles as, suffice to say, it would take much more than that to convert my lumbering frame for that purpose. No, my technical peaks and troughs have been caused by the storms of last Wednesday evening and my inability to design websites.
Living on the Mendips as I do, heavy snowfall and gale force winds are always a bad sign and when they combined last week the omens were not good. When I arrived home from work the phone lines were dead as a number of trees had been brought down by the wind and snapped through our cables. This meant I was without the internet and, as such, unable to contact any of the other runners who had contacted me asking to be included in this feature. But, let me assure all of them that I will be in touch in the very near future.
The cold weather did, however, give me a chance to test my running ability in very inclement conditions - all I can say is that I am already praying to the weather Gods to ensure it does not snow on April 18. So that was the technical trough of my week, but the peak was hearing from a professional website designed that he would like to help my fundraising effort.
Andrew Towner, known to many as the designer of the Shepton Mallet town website, called me to say he had had a look at the website I was designing and thought he could do a much better job. I hastily agreed because, as those of you who have checked the site will know, it was full of useless information that even I did not realise was there. Over the weekend, he has done a lot of work on a new site and it is now up and running. On there are details of why I am running the marathon, what the Cystic Fibrosis Trust (my chosen charity) does, how I am training, how much I have raised so far and how you can sponsor me. Please take the time to have a look and if you would like further details about my effort you can now e-mail me at alansmarathon@ukonline.co.uk