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1 Marathon - 1 Month - 1 Muppet

  • The Muppet Diaries - Ep 4 - The Fairy Has Landed

      2 November 2014

    After two nights and no sleeps on planes I have finally arrived into a cold and wet NY city. There is a big snow storm mauling the coast that means tomorrow morning (early Monday morning NZ time) on the start line the 'Real Feel' temperature as they call it here, will be below freezing, with a strong cold northerly blast thatfs definitely going to put a tilt in my tutu. Did someone say tutu? Thatfs right! Your kind donations to Give-a-little have kept coming in so (with the matching funds) the total is now $7104!!! Which, if you consult the Menu of Mockery, means that the hot pink Ego-Slaying Tutu of Death is now officially part of my race equipment! A big congratulations everyone ? thank you so much for all of your kindness and generosity and for making my humiliation complete! Last night I was wandering around the Greenwich Village enjoying watching people out in their Halloween costumes. I spoke to an Ogre and Friar Tuck who told me that they were going to join the huge Halloween Parade, and in fact anyone could come if they had a costume. eIf only a had a fancy dress!f sighed this Cinderella. eAha but you do!f says this Fairy Godmother. So in a flash of my metro card I was back at the apartment pulling out the hot pink Scary Fairy outfit. I gave myself a quick look in the mirror before I left and was suddenly doubtful. The other costumes I had seen on the street were all mutilated mummies and putrefying corpses and other typical variations on your relatively traditional and wholesome Halloween themes. The hot pink fairy outfit looked a bit too c perverse. I thought I should get the opinion of the doorman. eWill I be arrested?f I asked. He winced. eProbablyf. I went anyway and it was great! People kindly said I was the Tooth Fairy. Nice.

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  • Muppet Diaries Ep 3 - The Colonoscopy

      28 October 2014

    UPDATE: An extraordinarily generous donor has offered to match the next $5k of donations! Every dollar you put in will be matched by the same amount. So those of you waiting to deliver the killer blow and get me into the tutu now is your chance! We can get there twice as fast. This is an incredibly generous offer but you have to act now! Only the next $5k will be doubled! The Colonoscopy There comes a time in every manfs (and womanfs) life where he/she could do with a telescope up their bum. On Friday that time came for me. You see most colon cancers start life as a polyp, sometimes taking 10-15 years to grow. Sometimes these polyps give clues that something is awry but in a few cases, like my poor old Mum, there don't and grow into a large mass without you knowing. There are various ways of trying to detect what is going on down there but the gold standard is a colonoscopy. The procedure starts two days before when you begin a low fibre diet which is mostly rice bubbles and plain pasta. Then 24 hours before you stop all solid foods. After that you are only allowed to drink eclear fluidf. The point of all this is of course to start (ahem) decluttering the colon. The night before your procedure you then take a sachet of a mysterious substance called ePicoprepf, which tastes like electrocuted chalk - bitter, stale and slightly tangy. The instructions say to ecremain within an easy reach of toilet facilitiesf but my iron constitution apparently was not fazed, the only indication of the battle raging below were strange hydraulic gurglings and rumblings. Eventually though unusual pressures could be felt and I was reminded of Billy Connollyfs advice to men over a certain age ? enever trust a fartf. Although I went to bed normally at some point in the middle of the night I woke with the enemy at the gate, and not long after I was pink and shiny. If youfre going through this yourself I recommend reading eUnbrokenf the riveting story of a starving POW suffering from dysentery which I found vividly sprang to life. I weighed myself before and after the proceedings and discovered that I had jettisoned over 2kgs - which happily means Ifm usually only 3% shit. At the clinic I was, along with the other inmates, given a knee length striped shirt, which led me to suggest that we all put on a nativity play. Before rehearsals could begin, however I was wheeled in to the telescoping room. The combination of anaesthetics puts you into a happy twilight, conscious but comfortable. So I only remember some judderings as they wrangled the slender tube through several feet of colon and being asked to hold my breath - to help steady my innards - while they snipped off a single benign polyp. All watched on the large flat screen tv. Then it is done and you are wheeled away to have a pleasant sleep. Shortly after, while still in this happy obliging state, you are asked to pay the bill. If you are paying for this yourself, you will be lucky to get any change out of $2500. As a friend commented, eSo you were shafted both literally AND figuratively then?f. Which is why we need a nationwide bowel cancer screening program, so donate to Beat Bowel Cancer Aotearoa now! Background Ifm running the NY marathon on Nov 2, 2014 to help reduce the number of people who needlessly die of bowel cancer in NZ every year. As the total of donations to eBeat Bowel Cancer Aotearoaf increases the more things from a eHot Pink Hawaiian Fairy Princessf outfit I will wear as I run.

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  • Update at 8pm on Tuesday 28/10/2014

      28 October 2014

    Although the current balance is $3935 - Once you do the matching maths it turns out that current total is $4500! That means the wand is gone - next up is the pink skin tight top! Only $250 more of donations required!

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  • Your next donation will be doubled!

      23 October 2014

    A very generous donor has offered to match the next $5000 of donations! That is for every dollar donated he will chip in another dollar! So donate now and double your money!

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  • The Muppet Diaries - Ep 2 - The first training run

      16 October 2014

    After lunch last weekend I am paying enraptured attention to my lovely wifefs conversation as she discusses how we might sellotape the spine of a Dr Seuss book that baby Tom has partly eaten. I figure the more I can keep her distracted the more chance there is that she will forget that I smugly informed her over breakfast that I was going to do my first training in the middle of the day. The chatter stops abruptly - eIsnft it time you went for your run?f smiles the Venomous Witch. My training program says I should pound at 12 lazy kilometres. No problem. I step out onto the sunny street with my head full of tunes and my shoes full of feet, and then very quickly I realise that something is wrong. I almost always do my jogging while pushing two year Tom in his pushchair. Normally he suffers in silence flicking through one of his books. Only speaking up when he wants a snack or if the pace slows, as it often does pushing a 20kg weight up a hill. eWhatfs Daddy doing?f eDaddyfs (puff puff) runningf eNo Daddyfs walking!f Then if the pace doesnft improve. eCan I walk?f Finally the little monkey starts giving a slow clap. Until a few months ago running with a stroller was difficult because my feet got tangled up in it. More recently that hasnft been a problem and now today, as I take my first unfettered steps, I finally realise why. The heavier Tom has got the more I have been able to lean on the handle of the stroller and transfer much of my 100kgs onto the wheels. Now without that support my plodding feels very heavy. I had been running on the moon, now Ifm on Jupiter. I had hoped to run 12k. I ran just 8. I had to stop twice in parks and (ahem) estretchf. But mostly lie back and cough at the clouds. I hope they have parks in Brooklyn. News flash Whoop Whoop! We have raised more than $2k so far for eBeat Bowel Cancer' Next piece of pinkness of the ranks is the fairy wings so get in there and donate!!!! New! Embarrassingly pink calf tights have been added - gifted by the kind people at Brandex. These will not only accelerate bloodflow and aid recovery they will maximise mockery. See the new menu below To donate please go here To see previous blogs click here Please share this link and spread the pink! Background Ifm running the NY marathon on Nov 2, 2014 to help reduce the number of people who needlessly die of bowel cancer every year. As the total of donations to eBeat Bowel Cancer Aotearoaf increases the more things from a eHot Pink Hawaiian Fairy Princessf outfit I will wear. So far you have raised $2,000 ? which means shoes, socks, pink headband and lei. Next up is the fairy wings! Go now to https://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/BeatBowelCancerNYC2014 and help turn the two million people who line the streets of this race into a howling, jeering 26 mile Tunnel of Ridicule - oh and help rid the world of bowel cancer! ? Click on http://eepurl.com/4Z7gn and sign up to get emailed a more or less weekly blog about how this mess unfolds Please share this with your friends!

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  • Not my first training run

      10 October 2014

    You would think that the first thing you would do after deciding to run a marathon in 4 ? weeks would be to go for a training run. Actually the first thing you do after entering a marathon is to think about going for a training run and the second thing you do is search for funny cat videos. Us marathon runners need to pace ourselves. It was after the second night of waking up with a start realising that Ifm not 25 and pounding out 42.195 kilomotres might turn into a very big owie that my conscience was pricked enough to decide once and for all that my training should start immediately right away in two days on Sunday. So I go online and download four marathon training plans, and find immediately that they disagree with each other. Weaker souls would have been dismayed, instead I determine that the situation should be resolved by each day examining the workout each plan suggests c and then choosing the least taxing. This means my first run would be a modest 12 miles, or 18 km. No problem. Saturday finds me down in Christchurch presenting at the Icefest, but I had thrown in my running gear determined to get up the following morning in the pre dawn and explore the garden city at a leisurely trot before catching my flight. Back at the hotel in between presentations I realise that I hadnft brought my running shoes. I know that your subconscious mind is fiendishly cunning and will do anything its power to resist motion and so it seems like it had struck itfs first blow. I strike back, I will just buy another pair, the old ones were seriously munted anyway. It turns out that the shopping utopia of Riccarton Mall is just on the other side of Hagley park which in turn is right outside the hotel. My stroll through the park is exceptionally pretty but somewhat longer than the one kilometer it looked on Google maps. In fact by the time I reached the other side my knees are getting a little achey. So when a bus stops beside me, I take it as a providential sign, and hop on and pay the fare. Us marathon runners need to rest our precious assets. When the bus doesnft move after 10 min I make polite enquiries with the driver who says he is waiting for another driver and it may or may not be some time - and yes he is going to keep my money. Comforting myself that it was after all only half a kilometre to the shopping centre, I set off walking again and make it a full 100m before my bus roars past me. After buying some new running shoes, I am running late. Thatfs the only running I decided that I should do and instead take a taxi back to the hotel. That night the presentation goes well, and the festivities continue for some time. At 9pm I make my heartfelt excuses and so only two hours later I finally crawl into bed. I wake up at 3am realising that my subconscious brain has been picking apart my running plans like a vulture squatting on a zebra carcass. It points out to me that along with my running shoes it transpires that I hadnft brought my running shorts. Fine, says I, it will be dark I will just run in my lycra bike pant things. Then it reminds me that my digital watch is on single digit power and would be flat by the morning. Doesnft matter, says I, I will get the time from my iPhone. Hmmm, my iphone is nearly flat as well (no didnft bring the charger cord either) and would also be flat shortly. Now this is bad news. I can live without the music (just) but without shorts, watch and iphone I would be left running around Hagley in the dark in my undies until the sun came up. Clearly I should postpone this session. Us marathon runners need to conserve our energy.

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