I'm in the Real Relay!

Whoopee! Having missed out on my home town and various other places where I've lived or spent meaningful time, I'm now down for the Waltham Cross to Hertford stage of the Real Relay on 10 July, which will take me past the house where my daughter spent the first couple of years of her life. 

The Real Relay is a grassroots alternative to that other relay carrying a torch around the UK at the moment. It's not allowed to use that word beginning with 'O' and ending with 'c' because the corporates have copyrighted it. But it's a lot closer to the original Olympic ideal than the Coca Cola version, involving hundreds of people passing on our own torch from person to person and actually running the entire 8,000 miles of the official route, finishing in London in time for the Olympic opening ceremony on 27 July.

It's great to be a part of a non-commercial celebration of all that's good about running and the people who do it. And as well as raising money for the CHICKS charity, it will be another 11 miles towards my '2012 in 2012' Olympic-year charity challenge.