Hall of fame & injury update

I’ll give you an update on the injury front a bit lower down, but first things first. I have quite a few people to thank for their kindness over the past month. So, without further ado, I hereby enrol all of the following people into the Hall of Fame for either sponsorsing or being nice to me over the past month:

Those sponsoring me over the past month:

David Morton
You shall forever be known to me now as the first person to sponsor me. I don’t think I need to say any more than that, so thank you David!

Michelle Godwin
You are my staple ‘dispenser of sound advice’ at work. But better still – and as your actions reminded me on more than one occasion over this past month - you have provided me with many of my favourite comedy moments at Incisive Media (both accidental and deliberate).

Will Strauss
Will is the inspiration behind my new found fitness regime although probably not in the way that most people would think. By moving to Leeds he’s saved me countless ‘do you fancy a pint after work’ unnecessary trips to the pub. This has also consequently made me a better husband and father. So thank you Will from me, Clare and Evie.

Clare Wood
I’d better make this a good tribute… Clare is my long suffering wife and the mother of my child (the best child in the world by the way, although I am slightly biased). Not only do you tolerate that I disappear for endless hours running, playing cricket and socialising, you somehow manage to retain a liking for me too. I’m not entirely sure why at times, but I’m extremely grateful that you do.

Anonymous from Hong Kong
I know you put yourself down as an anonymous sponsor, but using my not too sophisticated detective skills I managed to work out who this person was (it followed shortly after an email conversation about London, how beautiful the picture of Evie on my sponsorship page is, and the marathon). So thank you for your kind generosity from 6,000 miles away. Maybe I’ll reveal who this anonymous donor is one day...

Moving away from sponsorship for a moment, there were two other acts of kindness / services rendered that deserve a special mention in the Hall of Fame this month.  

Adriana Lobo, Sophie Eke and Sarika Mehta (and the undersigned who contributed)
I am very fortunate in that I have a cracking team at work. Not only are they the best marketing team around (winners of the Best Marketing Team in the Conference Industry the past two years running I’ll have you know) but they make it a pleasure to come into work each day. And when they do things like they did for me this past week, it reminds me just how lucky I am to work with them.

Not only did they take the time to write an entry for me as Manager of The Year at the Incisive Media Awards, it goes without saying that they did such a great job of it that I won. I was truly touched by that, so thank you for taking the time to enter me and also to the people not mentioned (you know who you are) who contributed some kind quotes too.   

Marketing Team of the Year - for the 2nd year running!

Caroline Wilson at Think Physio, Hitchin

In my last article, I mentioned that my knee was giving me a huge amount of gip. Having left it to get better on its own accord for a few days, I tried it out again on Wednesday and Thursday last week. And whilst it didn’t hurt hurt, it was pretty obvious that something was wrong with it. So for once in my life, I listened to Clare’s sound advice and booked an appointment at Think Physio in Hitchin to try and get it sorted out.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, primarily because I couldn’t really describe what was wrong with my knee. However, after half an hour of questioning and testing, Caroline got to the root of the problem extremely quickly. Apparently my right leg is a bit of a weakling compared to my left leg. And whilst the pain is surfacing in my knee, it isn’t actually my knee that’s the problem.

After my jaunt in the Cotswolds at Christmas, my right calf hasn’t properly recovered and that, combined with a weak glute at the top of my leg, is making my knee unstable. After the prognosis, Caroline worked on my calf for 15 minutes and gave me a series of exercises to do to strengthen and loosen up the muscles.

Whilst my calf was hurting from the 15 minute battering it received, I couldn’t quite believe how much better my leg felt when I woke up on Sunday morning. I can only liken it to going to bed with a Morris Minor parked outside and waking up with a Merc in its place. There’s still a bit of soreness in the joint and I need to rest it, but I’m convinced it’s on the mend.  So it stands to reason that the last thing I should do is to say thank you to Caroline at Think Physio for providing an extremely professional service, and one which I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to others.

Update: The good news is that I managed to do 5 miles of relatively pain-free running on Wednesday morning. Whilst it was slow, the main thing was getting through it unscathed. If there’s no reaction in the morning, hopefully that will be the end of it and I can get back on track with a couple of weeks of slow runs before starting to train properly again.

And I’m telling you this because…
I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF).

If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2