The power of social media: over 1M pound raised after death

In last week Londons Marathon Claire Squires died in the final mile of the race. Aged only 30. It could have been just one of the new items that pop up every now and then. A runner who dies while out on the track.

However, as most runners in the London Marathon, Claire was running to raise money. In this case for the Samaritans. She had just raised around 500 pounds on the morning of the race. Nothing out of the ordinary there as well.

But now the story takes of. After her death donations came streaming in, mainly as the news spread due to social media. Up to this moment the figure is up to 1,000,000 pound. Including a contribution of Richard Branson of Virgin. The sponsor of the marathon.

Wanna help? Here is the link to her fundraising site.

Wanna read more? Here are just two flavours of the news as brought by the Daily Mail and the BBC (or just hit google news).

Organized by one of the UN organizations and as part of the summergames for children: a marathon in Gaza strip.
The children ran it as a relay and 9 adults completed the entire marathon. Winner of this first ever marathon in Gaza strip is Nader al-Misri in 2:42:47. He is in training for the olympic marathon of London 2012.
Check out the numbers on the runners shirts. Looks like everyone brought his own number along.

Background on this UN initiative on the UN website.

Sorry but the video is partly in Dutch but it gives a nice impression of the event.

50 marathons in 50 days

It has been done before. Running a lot to raise a lot of money. This time it is Hugh Williams-Preece from the UK. He started last week in Portugal and will finish in 50 days in downtown London after 50 marathons.
His aim? Raising 30.000 Pound for Marie Curie Cancer Care.
Wanna know more?: click here for the site.
And here to donate your cash.

Running for Peace: Funny Commercial

In the Netherland there is an initiative called "the week of peace". As the programm does not reach enough young people the organizers came up with the idea of "the night of peace" with a programm that should appeal to younger people.

Below you see the commercial for this night featuring Jan Pronk. A Dutch politician who was always fighting for equal rights, peace, the under develloped countries. Etc. He is internationaly well known for his UN work and was recently the special UN representative for Darfur.

For those who do not speak dutch...the only lines spoken are at the end and are translated underneath the embedded clip. Read them afterwards otherwise it is to much of a give away:

The spoken lines are:
His Wife: "Did you have a nice run, Jan?"
He: "Yes but I feel I'm getting older."
The pay off, of the commercial is "Wanted; Next generation of Peacefighters"

Charity: please contribute with a click a day

This time a post that is not realy related to running. As I had to update the layout of my blog I added a link to Polska Akcja Humanitarna. I promote them where possible since I got to know them 15 years ago travelling trough Poland. By know they are actively involved in humanitarian aid to children all over the world including for example Birma.

Everyone can contribute to their work with very little effort by going to their Pajacyk site. Press the green button on the belly of the wooden puppet and PAH will receive a small contribution from one of their sponsors. You can only click once a day.

TIP: You can of course make the pajacyk page your homepage so you are reminded to click every time you open your browser.
BETTER TIP: I can imagine you want to hold on to your current homepage. Than you might consider using a scheduled task. Open control panel > scheduled tasks and use the wizzard to make a task. This will enable you the have your browser open automatically at, for example, a fixed time.
After using the wizard you have to don one thing manually. Open teh task and you will see the following text in the run field: "C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore.exe". (or something similar if you have a different browser).
Add a blank space and the link to the so you end up with: "C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore.exe http://www.pajacyk.pl" (see screendump below). Otherwise you browser will open with you usual homepage.
My tasks opens the site every day around noon, a fitting and useful reminder for my lunch.

If you want to test if the string is correct. Go to start > run and past the string in the text field and click OK.
Good luck and thanks for helping with a click a day....

Runnerscookbook

Not written by runners but with recipes from runners: The Runners Cookbook With for example a recipee from Sebastian Coe. The subtitle "Winning Recipes from Some of the World's Best Athletes" makes you hope to find THE wonderrecipee that makes you run well but as everybody knows; it doesn't exist.

Nevertheless a nice idea for a good cause. The proceeds go to:

1. Ryan Shay Memorial Fund: Ryan Shay died last year NOvember app. 5 miles into the Olympic Team Trial.


2. Jenny Crain "Make It Happen" Fund: Jenny was hit by a car while training and is currently working on her recovery.

Special events: VUmc run

In my mailbox I received an e-mail with the notification for a very nice event. The 'VUmc gebouwenloop', best translated as the Free University Medical Center indoorrun. A run taking you trough the buildings of the hospital of the university, over stairs, trough hallways and corridors. For kids there is a run of 1,2 km but as an adult you can choose: either 5 or 10k! A nice fartlek training.
One euro of the six euro subscription fee is for the Alzheimer research centre of the university. A very good cause.
For more information and images I refer tot the site of the VUmc which is, of course in Dutch but you can translate it using babelfish (see underneath) or other translators

Translate this the VU mc site

Dutch to English Dutch to French

Thanks to Babelfish

Fundraising event with a twist

My attention was drawn to a very special run organized by ZOA-Vluchtelingenzorg (ZOA-refrugycare)(with CBF a kind of warranty for charity organisations). They organise a walk aand run (15k) on Saturday the 29th of March 2008 called Walk4Water. Please promote!

The walkers and runners should get themselve sponsored to raise money for a drinkingwater proejct in Uganda. The walkers and runners carry a jerrycan with them to experience what it is like to have to wlka for water. Imagine running 15k with a jerrycan filled with water! But then again, this makes it more interesting to sponsor the runners for this good cause. More information (in Dutch) onhttp://www.walk4water.nl/.

The scenery for this event is the dike between Lelystad and Enkhuizen.

Roparun: Rasing money for cancer

Last weekend was the weekend of the Roparun. An estafette run with eigth runners per team from Paris to Rotterdam. Over 400 kilometer, with eight runners is one and a half marathon for each runner! Last year the event raisen over 3.000.000 euro's. The results for this year will be presented on June the 15th.

This year saw 209 teams participating, a record. Lets hope that tihs will help the set a record for the amount of money raised!