Posted in February 2007

Fighting the Fear

Source: Lord Manley
Friday 23rd February 2007, 11:33am

Well, the nice people from the RNLI have posted us some training tops and a wall chart, showing our progression towards the half marathon, sponsorship is starting to roll in now and it rather looks as though we are actually going to have to do this.

A quick glance through the training regime tells me that I am somewhere between 'a little behind on my training' and 'completely without a hope'. My personal habits, currently 1 run every fortnight or so, seem to be a little below the 4 runs a week which the RNLI suggests I should be making at this stage.

Added to this is the worry that we have mostly been running on the flat, living as I do, next to the canal, and that dragging my 15 stone carcass up the hills which feature in the actual race route might be a little harder than just plodding along the tow path.

In happier news, we have raised £125 in sponsorship already, to which Gift Aid will add another £35 or so. Not all of our sponsors have been all that polite about our endeavours, but when I compare what you get for a tenner or for £20, it all seems to work out to be fair in the end (I don't even know who sickbunny is!).

[UPDATE: Haha! Clearly sickbunny reads this blog, because his comment has changed since this morning and is now far, far less obscene. Whilst this is good news for the decency of the justgiving page, it does utterly ruin my earlier joke!]

Thank you to all of you who have sponsored us - Keep up the good work!

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Feeling the Effects

Source: Matt
Wednesday 21st February 2007, 9:50pm

I don't know about the others, but I'm beginning to feel both good and bad effects of all this training...

So is all this running making me feel fitter? More energetic? More of a lust for life? Just more tired, maybe?

Very hungry, actually.

After a short run tonight with Manley and our non-running team friend Ben, I've just polished off the monster stir-fry pictured here (ok, no points for presentation but as a single man I find food-preparation for one a bit of a chore - perhaps I should try itsmymarket.com's free dating, if you'll excuse the shameless plug!). And that's not all, I've also had a banana, a clementine, a yoghurt and an extra bowl of pasta. And I didn't skimp on lunch either. How about you other running bloggers - is your body begging for more fuel, or am I just a freak?

I'm glad to say I am also feeling fitter. My training has now progressed to a run every other day, with a two-day rest before a longer run on Saturday, and I'm finding that my recovery after runs is now really quick and all those early aches are gone. I really look forward to my runs. And as an added bonus, I'm even finding it easier to get up in the morning these days.

I wish now I'd carried on with all the running I did while I was at university, and I'm really glad I've got back into it. I'm even starting to think beyond the Great West Run and considering what challenges might lie beyond.

Don't forget to sponsor us, by the way! www.justgiving.com/imm...

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Just Giving!

Source: Lord Manley
Monday 19th February 2007, 3:44pm

Now that we have started training regularly, (as often as once a fortnight in my case,) it's about time that we put our RNLI fund-raising hats on and explain what we are doing this all for. After Saturday's session, I think I need a reminder myself.

Since the Royal National Lifeboat Association was founded in 1824, its lifeboats have saved more than 137,000 lives; last year alone, RNLI lifeboats rescued 8,104 people (that's 22 people per day!) as well as the RNLI lifeguards assisting 9,930.

Crew members come from all walks of life and voluntarily risk their own lives to carry out essential lifesaving tasks and they need our financial support to keep the boats launching.

We all live close to the sea (it's hard not to in the South West Peninsular really!) and the impact which these volunteers have is very familiar to us and, on a personal note, a good friend of Matt's and mine was rescued not so long ago, when he capsized and turned turtle off the North Coast, so we have elected to try and put this run to some use (beyond getting Manley back down under 15 stone) and try to get some sponsorship for the RNLI.

So come on, it's a great cause, we've set up a donation page at www.justgiving.com/imm/ so all we need now is your money!

Donating through justgiving.com is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also an efficient way to sponsor us: the RNLI - Royal National Lifeboat Institution will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

So please sponsor the www.itsmymarket.com running team now! It'll make the pain seem worthwhile!

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Improved Blog Discussion

Source: Pops
Thursday 15th February 2007, 3:09pm

We've been busy little bees this morning! Matt had a flash of inspiration on his way to work, and you can now all reap the rewards. itsmymarket.com blogs and forum had a baby, and we call it "Improved Blog Commenting". Catchy huh?

The blog section of the site seems to be quite popular. Please let me take this opportunity to thank those of you taking the time to post your thoughts to the site. I must admit, occasionally I have to check the blog section functionality, but invariably get sucked into reading your blogs... and before I know it it's lunchtime!

Anyway, we felt that the commenting system was a little lacking in functionality, and was not giving our users the ability to express themselves fully.

So, Matt had the genius idea of using the forum to allow itsmymarket.com users to discuss a blog post. This gives you far better tools to format your response, and a better arena for open discussion.

Not only can you respond to the blog post, but using the standard forum functions you can also quote other users who have commented. We hope that this will promote discussion even further, and allow our users to communicate more effectively.

Goodness, you can even have pink text and format your whole post in Comic Sans if you must!

Why not test the new functionality by commenting on this post?

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Valentines Day!

Source: Tomo
Monday 12th February 2007, 8:31pm

The day of romance is almost upon us!

I think the topic of conversation is much the same in all offices around the country: Valentines Day!

In the itsmymarket.com office the girls are getting all excited about what their partners have bought them or where they're going for dinner, us guys however are not so excited! (possibly because we'll be spending the money!!)

I for one will be doing some very last minute shopping in a bid to show my undying love for my partner and i expect that there are a number of guys in the same boat!

So, to help you we've put together a little list of some ideas and places to go for those last minute deals. Girls allowed too by-the-way, you never know, a breed of disorganised female may have been born somewhere!

Check it out here.

Hope you have a great day!

Tom

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Sitting Pretty

Source: Matt
Monday 12th February 2007, 10:43am

Ta da! Presenting itsmymarket.com's nice, shiny new design!

itsmymarket.com has been around for more than half a year now, that's quite a long time in Internet years, so we decided it needed some new clothes. A hunt around our classifieds ads sadly found no website outfitters so we turned to the incredibly talented Jenny Law, and just look at the results. We think the new look is fab, and we're sure you will too.

We're always interested in your opinions, so if you want to drop us a line about our new look please feel free to add a comment on this post or fill out our contact form.

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Late Night Training

Source: Matt
Thursday 8th February 2007, 12:00am

Amazingly, we are keeping up the training. More so than the blogging, in fact...

Just got back from a spontaneous late night run. I dropped in to Manley's on the way home, stayed for some dinner, then was sitting around strumming the guitar in a beautiful and melodic way (to my ears at least) when the subject of running came up.

Driving Mr Manley

Now I've not been slack myself, but I'm afraid Manley needs motivating. I really don't know where he'd be without me. I do it all without complaining, or mentioning it, of course.

The forecast snow hasn't made it to Exeter yet, and tonight it's about 2 degrees above freezing here, blowing a gale and drizzling in a nasty, persistent way. So we set out for a short run, not really wanting to be out in it all that much.

The thing about Manley though is that while he is reluctant to get going, once he's started up he finds it hard to stop. I put it down to that whopping great belly and all the resulting momentum. So after a mile and a bit, he starts suggesting going a bit further. And before I know it, we're on the other side of Exeter. We were out for just over an hour in the end, and I think I'm going to sleep well tonight!

Getting All Official

Just a quick note on more serious matters: We've officially entered the race now. Actually, that nice Tom fellow took care of it all for us - he's now the official itsmymarket.com team manager. I'm expecting my own dressing room, and I want Pepsi - not Coca Cola - served just below room temperature and with two green and white straws and a cocktail umbrella.

More to come soon, including a blog entry about our choice of charity, our justgiving.com page (come on, you knew the begging was going to start sooner or later) and maybe even a sneak preview of our official team t-shirts.

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Classified Ads Now Submitted to Google Base

Source: Pops
Thursday 1st February 2007, 5:09pm

We're constantly making updates to the site, and recently I improved the classified ads section, so that your ads are also submitted to Google Base, for a little added exposure.

Ooh, my first blog post! You may have noticed that I am conspicuous in my absence of the itsmymarket.com running team. It's not that I'm lazy... hang on, yes, it is because I am lazy. That's exactly the reason.

I am keeping myself busy though, and this week completed some more additions to the site. If you now submit a classified advert in our "Buy and Sell" section your ad details will also be submitted to Google Base.

What does that mean? I'm so glad you asked...

I'm sure that most of you are familiar with, or have at least heard of, the Google search engine. Google attempts to catalogue all of the web pages on the World Wide Web, using the text it finds within the page. Now, Google does a pretty mean job of this, and it often finds a relevant match for most searches I have performed; however it is difficult for it to understand the context of the information it finds.

The concept of Google Base, which is currently in beta (early development), is to allow people to actually submit information to be searched, and while doing so specifying what that information pertains to. This allows Google to provide a search system which can be more specific in its approach. If you're looking for a car you can specify the make model, price, and importantly, the location. All items which were submitted specifying the attributes that you have searched for will be returned, and only those items.

In essence, this means more exposure for you. As Google Base becomes more popular, more and more users will begin to use it, to ensure more specific returns to their search. And when they do, we've ensured that your ad will be there to find.

By the way, the standard Google search engine already indexes the itsmymarket.com site, so you're covered there as well.

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