grumpyf1

Matt Campbell at the 2017 ASICS Windermere Marathon This Sunday will mark two weeks since Matt Campbell died whilst running the London Marathon. The talented Masterchef star was fundraising for Brathay Trust. When I wrote the piece about him last week, the incredible figure donated to his JustGiving page was £165,000. By Saturday, it has soared to £250,000, and on Sunday it passed £300,000. Remarkably, as I write this on Wednesday evening, the total looks set to exceed £350,000. With my colleagues from Brathay I did what so many others have done recently, and went out on Tuesday and completed 3.7 miles – the distance Matt was from the end of the London Marathon. Well over 30,000 people have donated, with many of them doing the same distance, running or walking – whichever they could manage. It has been a truly remarkable outpouring of love and generosity that, at times, has even had thick-skinned old me in tears, as I’ve monitored and responded to the thousands of social me...

Matt Campbell set out on the 26.2 mile course of the London Marathon last weekend, but he didn’t make it back. After collapsing less than four miles from the finishing line, Matt tragically died. The 29 year-old Cumbrian was a star of Masterchef, and also a committed supporter of the charity I work for, Brathay Trust. Matt’s family had already had to deal with the early death of his father, Martin, in 2016, who had also championed the charity. His ever-cheery support of our 10in10 (ten marathons in ten days) challenge saw him live and breathe the event from start to end, filming, editing and documenting the runners’ daily battles with the groundhog-day effects of running the same course and battling their increasing tiredness and injuries, to raise vital funds. Befriending all who took part, ‘Camera Dude’ was a big, and important, part of the event for the runners, and he left a huge void when he died. After his untimely death, Matt picked up that support of Brathay, running in...

Lovely day in Cumbria... To make optimal use of the word ‘understatement’ - it’s been an interesting couple of weeks weather-wise, hasn’t it? Last week featured rain that would have seen Noah reaching for his saw and nails, whilst glancing nervously at the sky and wondering what the giraffes were up to. Where I work, on the edge of Ambleside, the river Brathay filled up rapidly enough that it was actually higher than the road. Unfortunately, this being Cumbria, it was being held back by a dry stone wall, so the river was squirting out through the gaps between the stones and filling up the road. True, it wasn’t all bad. Someone in a ’17-plate Mercedes obviously presumed their car must be amphibious, and had attempted to drive through the deepening flood. When you pay that much for a car, I guess you just expect it to come with an automatic ‘boat’ mode. Still, I’m sure their carpets will dry out eventually. And their shoes and trousers. My journey home (as I’m sure many of your...

Andy Warhol said that “Everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”. He was almost right. It’s a nice quote. And, in my case, he was bang on. If you replace “world” with “North West of England”. And change “famous” to “briefly recognisable”. And swap “15 minutes” for “7 seconds”. Yes, my shot at the big time occurred last week, when I popped up on BBC North West tonight, just before 7pm, and probably put many viewers off their dinner. Whilst I had hoped to come across as intelligent and a bit dashing, I actually managed to pull off the far trickier ‘dishevelled and incoherent’. Result! My brief moment in the limelight came about courtesy of my employer, Brathay Trust, who have their HQ in Ambleside. This is where I hang around during the week, pretending I know something about marketing, and generally making the place look untidy whilst drinking cappuccinos. Brathay’s marvellous octogenarian archivist, Maurice Dybeck, showed us an amazing film from 1953, featuring young me...

Imagine you’ve just run 13 miles. What are you feeling as you cross the line? I think I’m closer to understanding than I’ve ever been. Last Sunday was a very busy one if you work for Brathay Trust, the Ambleside-based charity that works to inspire children and young people to make positive choices that will last a lifetime. Their biggest fundraising event of the year took place – The Brathay Windermere Marathon. This year was the first event to also feature a Half Marathon and, relieved of my usual duties of wandering around with a camera and trying to look busy on social media, I got to hand medals to the finishers of the 13.1mile race. Poised with an arm-full of medals, I got to place the prize over the heads of the runners who wanted it, or hand it over to those who didn’t fancy me getting too up close and personal. I’m sure it would have been easy to lapse into a conveyor-belt routine of: Say “well done”; place medal; point to water; Next! But I couldn’t do that. All t...

Right now, 15 people are having a little run round a pond. Well, maybe not a pond – Windermere. And not so little – a marathon distance. 10 times in 10 days. I’m pretty impressed with my motivational levels if I manage to resist eating a whole packet of chocolate HobNobs in one sitting. In the very distant past, I ran a half marathon (although ‘run’ probably isn’t the correct terminology if you walk some of it). I was so shattered, I was barely able to drink three pints in the pub afterwards, and had to turn down the offer of celebratory pork scratchings too. I’m not convinced I could even walk 26.2 miles, let alone run that distance. And yet, by the time you read this, 15 people of varying ages and abilities will have completed their 8th marathon in as many days, with the prospect of 2 more still to go. Their final ‘lap’ around England’s largest lake will be celebratory in a great variety of ways, and they will have the support of a huge number of people, as their last c...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (well, Oxfordshire, actually) I ran a half marathon. I say “run”. I walked a bit. Oh, OK a lot. Nearly all of it, yes. It was hideous. Within the last 2 miles you had to pass a pub, where all the people who were actually quite good at running, and had therefore already finished, had assembled to drink to their extreme nippiness, and cheer on the slow-coaches. Smashing. Advancing years, and a pathological fear of exercise, mean my running days are limited to a dash for a train. Even then I need oxygen and a muscle rub. The ticket inspectors say that isn’t their job, but they need to consider their customer’s needs, before calling the police. I am therefore flabbergasted that anyone can run a whole marathon, especially since they got renamed to “Snickers”. (Actually, now I come to think of it, that may have something to do with those athletes that had already completed the half-marathon back in the mists of time, watching me wheeze my...

Good luck to everyone running the Brathay Winderemere Marathon this coming Sunday 16th of May. You are all quite, quite mad, but I wish you every success and hope you have a great day. If you're swinging by to register on Friday or Saturday, remember to say hello to the bloke with the goatee, won't you... Instead of watching the Monaco Grand Prix, I will be in a minibus, following the last runner around the course. If you see anyone wearing "10 in 10" gear, show them a shed-load of respect - they're running the course 10 days in a row, culminating in the 10th "lap" on the main Marathon day. The event raises money for Brathay, a charity for disadvantaged young people in communities around the UK. Go to www.brathay.org.uk and see what they do... (Ah, David Bowie's 80's hits. Currently it's "Ashes To Ashes". Funk to Flunky, we know Major Tom's A Junkie...)