Lessons Learned

1. Never underestimate yourself or your audience

I never thought I would get more than £100 donated to the cause. I thought that since we were in tough times people would be less likely to donate. I was clearly wrong as I was able to get well over £2000.

2. Do something different.

I decided to do a 10km a day, as a challenge, but could easily have done something else. Be creative and get outside of your comfort zone. For me, one of my goals is to try and get to 300km a month; not consistently but it was a goal and I leveraged this opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone, keep up my fitness plus help with a cause that means a lot to me. It got me out of my normal training and has pushed my barriers.

3. Persevere

Its hard to keep doing this day in and day out, but if you have a bit of mental strength you will be able to overcome any obstacle in your way. In my case the obstacles are not distance running, they were waking up every morning and going out running even if it is pouring with rain, extremely cold or I just don't feel like it. If you need a little push, try and find someone who can help motivate you. I tended to use my running friends to keep me company on days where I found it hard to go out. Thanks Andy and Ravi

4. Have an optimistic goal.

Without a goal, you may get some donations and buying from a small group of friends and co-workers, but a challenge with an optimistic goal will drive up the buy-in from a wider audience.

5. Market yourself

I've never been one to seek out the limelight, but what I have learned from this, is that over the years, I've worked with loads of people and made loads of friend. I am leveraging this to get my message out and through showing my friends and co-workers a bit of the limelight through callouts has helped me tap into their networks and I'm now seeing additional people outside of my network connect with me and even add to the donation effort. You never know who is watching / listening to you, and you could touch someone's life indirectly and that is an amazing feeling especially when they reach out to you and let you know what it means to them.