Mutterings for the Minority

Tomorrow is a big day for a certain Daniel Bennett as it’s his stag do. Fair play, the lad’s got sense making sure he has his ‘blow out’ well before he gets married to Laura on September 3rd

Our Dan is an avid Swansea City fan (like myself) and is a season ticket holder in the affectionately known ‘ASBO stand’ (AKA Tesco stand) at the Liberty Stadium. Thinking about it, I suspect that given the Con-Dems decision earlier this week to abolish the ASBO (in its current guise at least) then the stand will have to be re-named… hmmmm… answers on the back of a banning order please. Anyway, I digress.

He shares a passion for disliking Cardiff (anything and everything), football officials and his 5 year old nephew beating him at penalties. He also had a tendency to get rather irate at the football – usually at Gorka Pintado’s striking ability or the officials. Personally, I think the constant sucking on Trebor’s extra strong mints has something to do with it, but he denies this vehemently.

So there’s your background on the stag and an insight into some of the likely banter for the day.

Talking of banter – the whole reason for this blog post – is that I’ve been assigned the task of media correspondent for the day, which will involve providing online updates of the day’s events… from a sensible start to a messy finish no doubt – and the obligatory (censored) epilogue afterwards of course.

I’m hopeful of many a tweet, twitpic or twitvid – so if you fancy a gander then simply follow me. I’m also going to try and start trending the #dansstag hash tag on twitter – but I suspect I won’t get far with that unless my followers/blog readership help out… HINT HINT

In all seriousness though, I hope it’ll make interesting reading as part of the day will involve doing a tour of the Gower and it’s numerous country pubs – cue some culinary, historical and beer related info, or at least that’s my plan. You never know on trips like this if you’re going to unearth some real gems (in terms of food/beer).

All sounds a bit sensible for a stag do – well yes it probably is, but part of the reason for this (from my perspective at least) is that I really can’t drink very much alcohol (i.e. > 3 pints) without sounding like a complete bumbling f*ckwit! Some people might say I sound like that anyway, but that’s a different story.

The fun kick’s off at Sam’s Cafe on St. Helen’s Road at 10:30, am before our official transport arrives at the Wig and Pen at 11:45. This is when I suspect the majority of the party of 25 plus – myself included – will arrive. I had hoped to disclose a picture of our t-shirt attire for the day on this very blog, but alas for reasons of secrecy I am unable to do so. I’ll be sure to post a picture tomorrow though!

Our first scheduled stop is the Royal Oak in Penclawdd before embarking on our own ‘Tour De Gower’. For those left standing/walking/talking it’ll then be onto Wind Street by approximately 8pm – which is when I’m sure we’ll really have the urine extracted out of us due to the t-shirts.

And there you have it, the prologue to what we all hope will be an epic day for Dan the Stag.

The ever popular Cancer Research ‘Race for Life’ came to Swansea once again today and it marked the very first “organised” 5k run that my Mrs had ever taken part in.

Several months ago – well May to be precise – Mrs DDWT had mentioned how much she’d like to get into running – especially seeing as I’d caught the ‘running’ bug. So we sat down and thought of a way forward…

That’s where the ‘Race for Life’ came in and what better way to start running than to support a charity for something which was close to our hearts.

Cancer had claimed the life of my Dad and no doubt countless members of other families across the length and breadth of the UK and indeed the world.

So the goal was set – to run the Swansea Race for Life. This meant that not only would Mrs. DDWT get fit but as we had personal reasons for supporting a charity, it would also give her all the more drive and determination to achieve her goal.

Given her lack of running, she’d also set herself – what I’d call an extremely modest – target of £75 in sponsorship money. And here’s a shameless plug for anyone who’d like to donate online – even if it’s only a £1!

As you can imagine, our two little ‘uns and I were immensely proud to see Mrs DDWT on the starting line today. The stunningly pink site of thousands of women doing their bit for such a wonderful charity was fantastic and spurred everyone on I’ve no doubt (aided by some tub thumping music!).

Here’s a short video clip I took when the “race” started (see if you can spot yourself ladies) ….

Some 37 minutes or so after the start we were cheering Mrs DDWT over the finishing line in a time well under her target of 40 minutes!

At the end of the day though, as she rightly said, it wasn’t about her time – it was about the taking part and feeling part of such a great and touching occasion.

The personal messages that adourned the back of every participant was testament to how much cancer has touched so many lives and for this reason alone it was wonderful to see so many women of all ages, shapes and sizes taking part.

So well done Mrs DDWT and ALL of the other women who took part, you should be extremely proud of yourselves.

Having been on what I’d call a 3 discipline fitness routine – running/cycling/weight training – since May, I thought it was high time to actually set myself a more challenging target than I had originally.

The original target was to train at least 5 times a week, running at least 20 miles, cycling at least 20 miles and doing 3 weight training sessions (of at least 1 hour in duration). This meant that I’d also have to discipline myself to get up at 6am most mornings to fit it all in or face it during my lunch break! It was a tall order but I was up for the challenge.

Looking back since I started, I’ve had some good and some bad days – not feeling 100%, work or home life impacting on scheduled training days, lack of motivation, etc – but all in all it’s gone fantastically well. Better in fact than I’d ever imagined.

But here I am some 10 weeks into my fitness ‘regime’ and I feel it’s time to focus on my next challenge as the existing one is starting to get repetitive – despite feeling and seeing the benefits of my hard work!!

So during my al-desko lunch break today I took the plunge and entered myself for the Cardiff Half-Marathon on Sunday, October 17th 2010. This will be without doubt my biggest running challenge EVER – as I have never run 13 miles in a race environment in my life. Please note that I’m not what you’d call a “proper” runner anyway!

The time between now and October will give me enough time to tweak my current training methods to focus more on longer distance running – something which I will have to do at the expense of (probably) the cycling – otherwise I am going to suffer big style come race day.

I’ve also decided to use the Swansea Bay 10K on September 26th, as a kind of benchmark of my progress (in terms of race time) and as part of my training.

Why do I do it? Well I suppose the main reason is that I’m a very competitive person and I always try and push the boundaries of what I can achieve, firmly believing that you can always squeeze that little bit extra out – be it running 2 seconds faster or lifting 5 kgs more. I think I’m pretty much like that with everything in life and I know my wife would agree with that statement!

Hopefully this half-marathon will give me the satisfaction of achieving another goal in my life and subsequently will no doubt drive me onto my next challenge – whatever that may be.