Running SARD
This weekend Team SARD will be running the Great South Run in aid of Mind in Croydon. As our company is part owned by a mental health trust, we wanted to do something to raise awareness of mental health issues as well as give back to our community. We found out that the mental health charity Mind is a franchise charity and our local branch, Croydon, is in charge of both a charity shop that tries to integrate service users as well as provide services for those in need. We therefore felt strongly that Mind would be the best charity for us to support by giving back to the community and raising awareness of mental health.
When we planned this, I happily signed up, as it’s an organisation I’m passionate about and I had just started running already, so I figured October was so far in the future, that it’d be easy to get in shape before that time.
And now we’re only a couple of days away from the race, which is held in Portsmouth. The team changed around due to injuries and running this Sunday the 26th of October are Kevin, Alex, Barbara, friend of the company Dom and myself. But I’m still not sure if all the training I did was sufficient. We all had our own training schedules and every one of us has had a different experience. In the last few months you could’ve spotted all of the members of the SARD team running around the South London area in different states of exhaustion. To prepare for the race I joined a gym and ran around parks. From not being able to run for 5 minutes without wanting to curse the world, I can now run 7.5 miles on a treadmill without stopping (much) or complaining (much). So progress was definitely made. And that counts for all of us, we’re all in better shape and although the race still seems intimidating, we’re all confident we’ll make it over the finish line. But all the hard work is worth it, when we can raise funds for such a brilliant charity as Mind.
To sponsor us, please go to: https://www.justgiving.com/runningsard/
For more information on Mind in Croydon and the services they provide: http://www.mindincroydon.org.uk/
