Thank you to all of you who have donated to me so far… I am really grateful to all of you for your kind words and support for this great charity. Thanks to your donations I have raised nearly £100 for the charity – which would be a nice target to beat, so if you haven’t donated already please click here as it’s for such a worthwhile cause.

Raising awareness for men’s health is a big issue as a lot of the diseases men don’t get checked out for are easily treatable if caught early enough, yet us blokes always wait far too long and suffer as a consequence. Don’t let that be you!

Finally, here’s the latest Movember pic – enjoy and I’ll wrap this up at the weekend with a finally tally and some thoughts.  How has it gone for you so far, my fellow Mo-Bro’s?

So please click here if you want to donate to me – and a big thank you to those who have donated already

I have taken a pic once a week, so I’ll introduce each week with a pic and then describe some of my mo-experiences for you:

Week 1:

Yeah, so this pic was taken after the first proper shave since October.  The beard stubble itched like mad, so I just went and shaved all but the mo area.  As you can see, it wasn’t too much to show off and was bloody prickly.  It was funny seeing so many of my colleagues in the office like this though – and even the ladies got in on the act by wearing fake mo’s!

Week 2:

Well it started looking more respectable in week 2 – still not totally visible but enough that I started subconsciously grooming it.  Mrs Goat really didn’t like it though as it was too prickly to kiss, apparently!

Week 3:

Well now it’s starting to look like something!  It’s still a little weak, but it’s nicely softened out now.  One person even commented I have a little bit of a Graham Hill look about me – nice!

Having said that, I really really dislike having the mo – I don’t think it’s a good look on me, it itches like mad and when I meet new people, they think this is what I normally look like.  But it’s all good fun and I really think it’s for a great cause.

REMEMBER::::: Men health doesn’t get better all on its MOwn. Check your bad self once in a while. http://uk.movember.com/mens-health/

Studies show that many men don’t get regular health checks for the following reasons:

• Fear it will lead to a hospital visit
• Embarrassed to discuss their health issues
• Find it too hard to see a doctor because they just can’t fit it into their schedule
• Just can’t be bothered making an appointment

Statistics show that, on average, men die at a younger age than women – the average life expectancy for men is five years less than women (presently 78 compared to 82). That said, despite trailing the women’s health movement, things are beginning to change, but much more progress needs to be made to close the gap between the state of men and women’s health. Established taboos and barriers relating to men’s health are gradually being broken down.

Movember aims to change the face of men’s health and reverse this way of thinking by putting a fun twist on this serious issue. Using the moustache as a catalyst, we want to bring about change and give men the opportunity and confidence to talk about their health more openly.

Movember’s primary campaign objective is to raise awareness of men’s health issues, specifically cancers affecting men. We want everyone to know that most cancers are highly curable if caught in the early stages – including prostate and testicular cancer.

Movember aims to increase early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment, as this will ultimately reduce the number of deaths from cancer. It’s time men face the startling health facts.

So please donate and get yourself checked out by your doctor, as prostate and testicular cancers are not nice diseases to suffer through – and they can be very easily treated if caught early enough.

Anyway, to end on the right note, the plan is to keep the mo as it is and take some more pics near December 1st.  I’ll update you on my progress next week and also have a final reminder to donate

Are any of you growing a mo?  How is it going and how much money have you raised so far?

The Movember website has some very good reasons why this should be so:

Why should we care about men’s health?

• 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime
• This year, in the UK, 37,000 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed
• 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime
• 26% of men are less likely to go the doctor compared to women

Is Movember Making a Difference?

The answer is yes, absolutely. Recent research carried out by Movember highlighted that the campaign is working successfully in terms of raising awareness whilst having a positive impact on making men think about their health. Movember participants were shown to spend more time thinking about health issues or reflecting on them than non-participants (the general population). To be specific, in the UK, the research revealed:

• 89% of participants spent time thinking about improving their general health
• 57% of participants have had a general check-up
• 70% discussed men’s health with their family, friends or colleagues during Movember
• 58% carried out personal research on men’s health issues during Movember
• 51% worried about their general health
• 77% understood that their health depends on how well they take care of themselves

These reasons alone should make you want to get up and grow that ‘tache, so please do so and help raise money and awareness for a great cause.  Here are the rules of Movember to help you grow that super ‘stache:

Also, I would really really appreciate it if you could donate to my MoSpace here.  As I said before, I am part of a team that plans to raise £3000 for charity – so I would be grateful for every donation you guys make…

I will be updating my picture and this blog every few days, so you can follow my progress and see what kind of mo I can grow

For reference, here is a recent clean-shaven pic of me:

I really enjoyed the last proper shave for a while this morning and I am really excited for what mo I will end up growing – I have no idea what style I will take (any ideas)?  So why not take part – it’s great fun and you will help a great cause out

What a race – I was so nervous beforehand that I was shaking while I was running… I started off really well, but the route was quite challenging with a lot of people around. The ground was very soft and spongy because of the rain too. So I fell behind on my pace and realised at the 4km Mark that I may not make my goal. My average pace was just over 6 min/km.

Luckily this is where my interval training kicked in. With half a kilometre to go, I decided to really go for it. Loads of other people were slowing down, but I felt I could push it to the finish. But boy, was that tough! As soon as I reached the finish line, I stopped the clock and could not believe that I had beat my target by TWO SECONDS!

You couldn’t have scripted that but it’s absolutely honest!

I was so happy after the race that I could barely breathe. I walked over to my wife, gave her a massive hug, and in between gasps of air, just said the words “I did it…” which is nice, because without her support I wouldn’t have been able to.

The DHL Relay was a big success, we managed to field two full teams wearing lovely shirts and everyone ran well. But the best part was that everyone came to thank me for organising our teams after the race.

So a great evening and well worth the effort. Gonna have to think of a new running target now

1. World Cup Winner
2. Top Scorer
3. Best Player
4. Biggest Surprise (Team and Player)
5. Biggest Disappointment (Team and Player)

(Note: 4 and 5 need not be the same for both player and team, it’s entirely up to you…)

I went with:

1. Spain
2. Kaka
3. Messi
4. Team - New Zealand scoring a goal. Player – Landon Donovan (USA)
5. Team – England, as always – they’ll get to the quarter finals, play well and then fall apart. Player - Ronaldo (POR) – I think he’ll be relied upon too much by his team mates…

I’d love to know yours, so please leave me a comment with your predictions and we’ll see how you do

A volcano in Iceland erupted, spewing ash into the atmosphere and the whole of Northern Europe’s airspace has been closed down because of this.  Yet when I look outside my window, the skies seem pretty clear to me.  I’m not an expert or anything on the subject but I have had firsthand experience with volcanoes erupting and getting my flight disrupted…

That’s because today’s shenanigans reminded me of a similar incident involving me and my family over 15 years ago.  We were emigrating from the UK to NZ and to fly from Heathrow to Wellington back in 1996 involved a stop in LA and then a transfer in Auckland to another plane bound for Wellington.  This means a journey time of between 30-36 hours, plus you have to put your clocks forward 12 hours when you land.  So not a short journey by any stretch and one which is physically and emotionally draining…

Now, for those of you who do not know, like Iceland, New Zealand also straddles a fault line, meaning that there are a few active volcanoes.  One of the most active in recent years has been Mt. Ruapehu, which lies in between Wellington and Auckland.

Now, it had erupted in 1995, but it was also quiet for a few months.  Little did we know that when we departed from Heathrow on the 4th of July 1996 that it had started again.  When we landed in LAX we were informed of this, so we sat around in the holding lounge for about 4 hours, munching on coffee and Danish while waiting to take off again.  It didn’t help that the local TV news had stories like ‘flight of terror’ for sure!

We finally set off on the second 12-hour stint from LAX to Auckland, only to be told that we needed to land in Fiji to take on fuel in case we were diverted or delayed further.  We stayed on the plane, which did not seem to take too long from memory.  The trouble started when we approached Auckland.  Now, the fog from the ash was so thick, that when we tried to land, the pilot had to abort.  He made a second attempt and felt like he had got really close to the ground, but aborted again (really gunning the throttles too).  He announced he was going to land in Christchurch instead – which meant somehow flying around the volcano over the North Island to get there.

We actually flew near the volcano while it was erupting!  Now, not through the ash cloud or anything, but even though I was jet lagged I clearly remember what I saw.  The whole horizon was covered in a low cloud (which we were flying above), and I saw what looked like a giant hyperactive smoke stack in the distance.  It was the volcano erupting!  Sadly I didn’t get a pic, but man it was an awesome sight to see!

The rest of the flight?  We landed safely in Christchurch, which was chock full of planes, people and all the food had ran out so we were starving.  We were delayed another 8 hours and then finally got on a rickety old propeller plane to Wellington.  were were probably over 12 hours late when we finally landed, and luckily my parents’ friends were there to pick us up.  But we were exhausted!  What a way to start your new life in a country you knew almost nothing about eh?

My final thought is this: the Ruapehu eruptions caused widespread fog, heavy rains and bad cloud conditions.  Yet today’s eruption in Iceland doesn’t seem to have done that (and is a lot further away).  So why close down all of Europe’s airports?  I understand the concern for safety, but have we been over cautious?

Perhaps the eruption I saw wasn’t a typical one – or that ash is quite fine and harder to see.  Who knows?  But if you are affected by the delays or cancellations or know someone who is, then I hope that you are being looked after and that you are able to make your journey as soon as possible…

The Towering Inferno – one of my absolute favourite Disaster Movies

One of my favourite things I like to do while watching these is to play a great game called ‘Spot The Stiff’.  It’s a game invented by the brilliantly funny comedy duo of Punt and Dennis – and I think it came from their TV show they had a while ago.

It’s a fun game you can play with all the family and it’s very easy to play.  As you might have guessed from the name, all you have to do is try and guess which characters are going to live or die before the end of the movie.  There seems to be a few simple generalisations that can help you, but I’m not going to spoil any movies by giving you examples   Here is the list of ‘rules’ which these films seem to follow:

The Hero

The hero of the movie hardly ever dies.  He has more chance of kicking the bucket in a war movie, but in general he will do something death-defying and still survive.

The Fish Out Of Water

You’ll know this character as soon as you see them – they’re the useless, pathetic one that would have no chance of surviving in the real world, yet miraculously survive the movie (often at the expense of another, however).  May be a person with a disability, which will be portrayed in a condescending and demeaning manner…

The Last Mission/Turning Point

This person normally will say something like “This will be my last mission” or “Let’s do this one more time” (if it’s a War Movie), or “When I get back, we’ll get married/start a family/things will be different”.  These people are almost guaranteed dead meat and therefore, easy points can be had here!

The American President

Hollywood loves to make it’s films from the perspective of the Good ol’ USA, and with disaster movies being on the national scale at the minimum, this means the leader of the free world gets a good part in the film.  Sadly, they usually die heroically, often ‘going down with the ship’ in some way.  If they’re Black, you may as well not bother scoring points as they are guaranteed to expire before the movie does

As a consequence of this, the president always seems to be replaced with a bureaucrat from the White House who is so hard-nosed he decides to sacrifice lives of ordinary people to keep his evacuation plan running.  But don’t worry, the hero always stands up to him and manages to convince everyone else the hardnose is wrong and they should try and save the people.  This often will put the hero into life-threatening danger, but he pulls through saving their lives and his own   The hardnose then apologises and admits he was wrong, and all is sweet again!

Pets and Children

Ah the cute little blighters.  What would we do without them?  Well we’d be without a plot device, for sure!

Pets and children are only in the film to get into danger and therefore need to be rescued.  It seems that Hollywood has decided that we cannot tolerate the emotional distress of seeing little Timmy or Snuggles the Cat kick the bucket – so they always survive.  However, their owners/parents (delete as appropriate) don’t usually share the same fate, often perishing to save them.

The Bad Guy

They can be crooks, Thieves, Fat Cats, or just generally mean and nasty types.  They will be built up during the film as a hate character who you will boo and hiss at, yet they often end up dying to redeem themselves before the end of the movie to become the Anti-Hero.  In a war movie this is often a spy or an enemy soldier.  Hard to spot, so worth good points here!

The ‘Other Lover’

In some movies, a plot device involving a main character and two lovers is used to try and inject a bit of plot around the special effects.  You can be almost certain that one of the lovers will meet a grisly end before the film does.  The trouble is that it’s very difficult to figure out which one it’s gonna be!

The “He’s not that bad you know” Type

Otherwise known as “I promise to get to know him after all this is over”.  ‘He’ is a dead-cert, quite literally speaking!

So there you have it.  Not a definitive list by any means, but a good base nonetheless.  One final word of warning is that sometimes these boundaries get muddled and you can often get characters in the movie that display a combination of traits listed above.  Be warned that this makes it more difficult to pick if they’ll survive and should be rewarded accordingly

I hope you enjoyed this post – let me know if I have missed any categories and how you got on when you tried playing this game, eh?

I have been able to explore all the streets around where I live (mostly by getting lost ) and have found loads of cool ‘Easter Eggs’ – for example a hidden wood with a duck pond and some lovely streets with some houses I wouldn’t mind living in – and some cool cars too.

So Wednesday is ‘Run Day’ (which will be expanded to twice a week this week) and I have managed to go for a run without fail. Whether it has rained, been cold, or dark, I have gone for a run. The cold does not even bother me because once you find a rhythm you can keep yourself warm.

Today was the biggest test though. I walked to the local tube/subway station to find out that all trains to Copenhagen Central Station were cancelled. As I needed to get there to catch my Intercity train home, this presented a problem. The only solution that DSB offered was to provide a replacement bus – which meant that I would have to wait for an hour in the cold and rain only to be packed like a sardine in a hot damp bus for another hour.

So I thought to myself: “Well it’s not too far to Central Station, I’ve walked it before, so why not do my run now?” I laughed in a crazy manner – it was both a stroke of genius and madness in one idea, because I was carrying a bag full of books and wearing a heavy ski jacket. But what the heck, I could just stop running and walk if it went wrong, so I had to try it. It sounded like lots of fun. I certainly wouldn’t let the incompetent fools at DSB spoil my day because they were too cheap to maintain the lines properly!  Right then, the only thing I could think of was the phrase “When life deals you lemons, then you make lemonade out of them…”

I packed my scarf and gloves into my bag, put on my iPod and started the timer. I had started another challenge. Surprisingly, I was able to run with a good rhythm, and I mentally thought out my route. There were lots of people to dodge and I did get some funny looks, but I was determined to make it. I passed the royal palace, around a large public space called ‘Kongens Nytorv’, I was making good progress, but the biggest challenge still lay ahead. I had to run the majority of the route down the busiest, pedestrian-only shopping street called ‘Strøget’.

So I pressed on – but things suddenly got a lot more difficult. I guess it’s my fault for running down there, but it was the quickest and most familiar route I could think of. However, there were so many people that it was difficult to find a way to run around them. This wasn’t helped by the fact that people seem to have problems walking in a straight line – the extreme cut across in front of you was a speciality! So I had to keep my wits about me and be careful when avoiding people.

At this point, my legs are burning and my feet are hurting. It started to get harder to run, and there seemed to be more people around. But my goal was getting closer and I didn’t want to stop now… I wanted to get home! Finally I got to Rådhuspladsen (Town Hall) and there was just too many people -and besides, I was almost at the railway station. So I warmed down by walking the last block to the railway station. I had made it!

Naturally the railway station was packed full of commuters who were also keen to get home – but I got a train quite quickly and was only an hour late getting home. I was a little hot and sweaty, but I felt great in the knowledge that after all the challenges, I had run 4km instead of 3, and I had done it in about 30 minutes, which was quicker than usual.

Sometimes when life serves you lemons, you have to make lemonade out of them

Mrs Goat: “What Topping do you want on your Pizza? We got ham, pepperoni, capsicum, onions and tomatoes”

Me: “sounds good”

Mrs Goat: “All of them? are you sure?”

Me: “Well, just pepperoni then…”

Mrs Goat: “No ham? you can’t have a pizza without ham…”

Me: “Well… ok, some ham then”

Mrs Goat: “Some onions too?  I thought you liked onions?  They would be nice too”

Me: “Eh?  Hang on, you just said that I can’t have everything, so I chose one thing and now you want me to have more toppings?”

Mrs Goat: “Yeah go on…it’ll be nice!”

Me: “Oh alright then!”

Mrs. Goat: “And you should have some capsicums too – it will be really nice!”

Me: “Hang on, that’s all of the toppings isn’t it? “

Mrs. Goat: “Nah, you don’t want tomatoes, they’d make the pizza all soggy!”

So I ended up having a home-made ham, pepperoni, capsicum, onions and chillies (found later) pizza – and it was lovely.  We actually spent more time discussing the toppings than making the pizzas though!

Are you rubbish at deciding what to have on your pizza?  What’s your favourite toppings and what would be your dream pizza?  What’s your funniest pizza story?  Let me know in the comments, as I think there are some stories out there just waiting to be told…

Anyway, we went over to Faelledparken and found our tent, collected our goodies, got into our gear etc…  I was running last in the fun team – ‘Deeper and Cheaper’, while the other team was called ‘Faster and Longer’.  While these names sound rude, they are innuendo based on the work I do – honest   Everybody had a funny name anyway…

Here is a pic of most of the guys in the two teams we entered – for some reason my size shirt was only available in Dark Blue, but that’s cool because it’s WilliamsF1 colours

Here is a picture of the starting gate, taken from an overbridge:

Yeah.  Lots of people – thousands of them!

Here is a pic of Andy running – with the corporate tents nearby:

He’s just run 4.5km and he is still smiling.  B*stard!

So I waited and waited for what seemed like forever, while  everyone else went running.  We cheered and took pictures of those who came before us, we hid in the tent when the rain came down (really hard) and we congratulated the runners when they returned.  Finally, after waiting at the starting gate and repeatedly stretching and warming up, it came around to 8 o’clock and Katrine (my colleague) jogged into view and handed the baton over to me.

So now it was finally happening… a journey that started 3 weeks ago was finally getting to the point… and I set off into my rhythm and started running.  I knew that I would be slow, but I was surprised at how slow I was compared to the others.  But hey, I’ve gone from nothing to this in 3 weeks and all I wanted to do was complete the course.

The thing is, we were running around a public park, so the course was very tight and kept doubling back on itself and seemingly went around in circles.  Here is a map of the route:

Here I am about a kilometre in – you can tell because I am still smiling!

It felt like I was running for ages when I saw the 2km board – and it was really starting to hurt – I hit the dreaded wall.  So I stopped for a quick stretch and set off again, running past Parken, by the Triangle, and turning back into the Park near Rigshospitalet.  I had set off at sunset and by now it had gotten dark, so it was also a little hard to see.  But although I was starting to hurt, I was getting a good rhythm, that is until some idiot walking and talking on his mobile (not in the race) kept blocking my path.  I got really annoyed with him and hit him on the arm with my baton shouting “GET THE F**K OFF THE COURSE YOU IDIOT!” to which he looked around and just said “wot???” to me.  I was so consumed with the run I got the ‘red mist’ and got angry at him, but it just sounds funny now

Next thing I know, I’m running into the final kilometre which means I am running around all the corporate tents.  Andy was really good at cheering me on at this point, but because of the backwards and forwards nature of the course it felt like I wasn’t going anywhere – not helped by Andy constantly appearing to take a photo

And yes, it hurts as much as my facial expression says it does

Getting closer though – even though it didn’t feel like it!

Andy messed up this shot – he’s got one of those proper bulky SLR cameras (very nice though!), but I kinda like the effect it gives – when you are running, you see clearly, but the information is sorta processed like this because you concentrate on your motion rather than what is around you.  So in a weird way this pic is kinda symbolic of my run

Andy called out 500m to go, and by this time I really wanted it to finish – my feet were numb and I was really tired.  But I had to finish – I owed it to myself to do it after all the effort!  Every corner I hoped was the last, but it seemed to go on forever until at last – the finish line!  I ran under the DHL bridge screaming like Mark Webber that I HAD ACTUALLY DONE IT!  I could not believe it!  I handed in my time chip and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – I was so full of so many different feelings it was unbelievable!

As I drank from a cup of water – the bestest tasting water in the world ever, I realised that I had achieved my goal.  I had gone from nothing to running a 5km run in 3 weeks – from a guy that used to hate running!  I walked back to our tent with a grin on my face and I felt so proud.

The rest of the night was spent eating BBQ, toasting each other and had a good few drinks before I crashed at Andy’s for the night.

Today?  Well, I slept like a log last night – and I’m not so sore today, just a little bit tired.  But I feel great about it and all the runners spent the day looking at the pictures and telling everyone the stories.  It turns out the other team (the serious one) was fastest in the company and fourth fastest in the group that our company is in – well done guys!

So far, the running has been a great journey and I am so happy I started this.  I think I will take a week off before my next run – Do you think I have earned it?

Have any of you guys done this sort of thing before?  How did you find it and did you keep it up after the event?  Should my next challenge be a 2km swim like Andy suggested?