As has been the case here, I've had a mixed response to my proposed sponsored gym marathon, but I haven't been deterred and I'm going to go ahead with it. When I told the physio on Monday about my plan she dropped her jaw, lost the ability to speak for a minute or so and then said something along the lines of, 'Okaaaay ... that's an idea ... we can work with that, you crazy woman!' So she thinks I'm nuts (she's not alone in that), but it's great that she didn't dismiss it or veto it, and I feel confident now that I can do this because I have they physios' backing ... or at least she knows about it ;oP
Others have, as I said, had mixed reactions. Some have thought that perhaps I'm setting my goals too high; some have urged me to reconsider; but some have been fully supportive even if they do think I'm crazy. I know that the less than enthusiastic responses are because the people care about me and don't want me to put myself at risk, and all I can say about that is that living is a risk, but I promise not to be stupid about this. Part of the reason for setting the date for it at the end of October is to give me enough time to get fit enough for it, and to be realistic with the time-frame I'm giving myself. I guess the other thing to say is that although this is a marathon, it is a gym marathon so I won't just be doing walking (I have no intention of doing any running as that really would be stupid, because my lungs don't like running one bit). The idea of a gym marathon is that I use all the machines - treadmill, exercise bike, rowing machine and cross-trainer. I can cover a significant proportion of the distance on the bike, although I've have to think about setting a maximum for that or I'd feel as though I were cheating.
I still haven't worked out how to set up online sponsorship, and I can't use justgiving.co.uk because the ward's fund isn't registered with them. I'll have to see if I can use something like paypal, unless anyone has any other ideas. All help/advice appreciated.
So the next thing I think I need to do (other than set up online sponsorship) is to contact the Charge Nurse on the ward, let him know what I'm planning and ask if he has any blurb about the ward's fund that he'd like me to put at the top of sponsorship forms. I think it'd be useful to have so that people have a better idea of what they're supporting than just 'the ward that has a habit of saving my life.' I suspect that J (Charge Nurse) will exclaim my craziness, and will most likely worry about me doing it, but probably be supportive too. We'll see and I'll let you know.
Well I'm going to take myself off to bed now as I didn't sleep well last night and I'm pretty knacked. I'll keep you posted on the 'crazy idea' front as it develops/comes together. Off for a good sleep now I hope. Night.
5 comments:
when you said walking my heart sank as i thought 'that will actually take you about 8 hours and your limbs will ache afterwards' and it made me worried. then when you said exercise bike and stuff as well my heart rose again and i thought that splitting the effort between different muscle groups is a really good idea. you're not really doing a marathon though, you're doing a triathlon you do realise?!??!?!
crazy ideas aren't bad. the idea of building a flying machine was crazy, once, and look at planes today. i am really impressed and will send people in your general direction once you're accepting sponsorship :)
(word verification: splat. you couldn't make it up)
Wouldn't it be easiest if you could persuade your Ward charity to register with JustGiving (or Bmycharity or Smartgive)?
Good luck!
Hi B, I hadn't thought of it as a triathlon/quadrathlon, but I guess you're right. Oh my word, what am I doing?! ;o) It is a completely crazy idea, but I'm committed to it and I'm enjoying the training so far, although I'm only a week and a bit into it and I already have an *enormous* blister on my foot. I liked your comparison with the flying machine for crazy ideas that come good :o) and thank you for preparing to point people in my direction for sponsorship. I'm still working on how to do this. (Oh, and I loved the word verifaction - lol)
Kate, you're probably right that it'd be easiest if I could persuade the ward to register with justgiving, bmycharity or smartgive. It's just that they're such a busy ward already and I don't want to create more work for them. At the moment I'm thinking of opening a new bank account for my fundraising efforts and putting a paypal thingumy on here for that account, but I'm not sure if people would be wary of sponsorship through that. I'll have to keep thinking it through, but not take too long about it so that I actually get some sponsorship too.
does the hospital's charitable fund more generally have a justgiving account? if so, someone in charitable funds should be able to set up your event on there tagged with the right finance code so that the sponsorship is allocated to the ward fund.
if not, justgiving possibly isn't the best one for them to register with because there's a £15/month fee, smartgive or bmycharity would be more cost effective.
good luck with it!
Becky, thanks for the advice. I don't think the Freeman has it's own charitable account, although the Newcastle hospitals as a whole do. I may well get in touch with them and see if they can give me the right code, although I've also written to the Charge Nurse of Ward 29 asking him what he thinks the best plan is. So far I've had an email from him saying that he's 'just trying to process my idea.' LOL I'll see what he comes back with before I contact the Newcastle Hospital charity thingumy, but it's a very good idea indeed. Thanks again.
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